Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
22. Denominative Speech, Nature's Steps, and the Order of the Acts of Reason
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/022-denominative-speech-natures-steps-and-the-order-of-the-acts/

[0:00] So now he's going to. He's kind of repeating himself here, but he's still making the basic point. Going back again to the example of the seed, but must be in something else, and it must be changed, and so on.

[0:27] He takes example of the statue there, right? I guess I don't know if he's talking about chalkos is what bronze there. Chalkos comes from earth, right? So the statue made of bronze is the earth able to be the statue? No, it's got to be turned into bronze, and then it can be made into. the statue. Okay. Now he's going to start to talk about. Xylinon huh? Which is kind of idiomatic in Greek, there, right?

[0:57] When you say something denominatively, it's said what. Xylinon okay. So something like a box or something or a chair or a table is not said to be earthy. Nor to be earth, but to be what? Wooden, right? So you you you caught denominatively by the matter that is what. Proximate to it, huh? Okay.

[1:25] You see that? Just take one step. Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't say, somebody said that the the box of what you know is it box, um, is earthy, though, see, because that is the remote matter, okay. Okay. So he's saying, in the way of speaking denominatively, we correspond with what he said about what's really able to be it. It's the proximate matter that is said of it, huh?

[1:58] Okay. So I mean, you guys maybe you know what wood is made out of, but maybe goes back to some kind of what. Elements, right? But you don't say the table is denominated from those elements, is it? Because they're the remote and not able to be, in the strict sense, the table. But the wood is able to be, a table. Do you follow me? Okay. Um. Okay.

[2:27] And so each each thing that comes to be from some matter is denominated from the immediate matter that it comes to be from. Okay.

[2:47] I couldn't find the word xylinon in my lexicon. Yeah, as Thomas says, it's kind of idiomatic to the Greek. It's a kind of way of speaking of this thing here, but being named denominatively. So, don't worry about it.

[3:06] Now he says, if you get to some matter that is not denominated from previous matter, you come to the what? First matter, right? And of course, he takes the example there from Heraclitus, where Heraclitus thought that fire was the first matter, right? So, if earth comes to be from water, and water from air, and air from fire, but fire not from something else, then fire is the first matter, and it's not said to be wooden or airy or earthy or anything like that because nothing comes to be from right.

[3:40] So, interesting. that he should speak of this, but it's also very important this way of speaking in the categories. You may recall in the first chapter of the categories that Aristotle talks about this way of naming things denominatively. And then when he comes to enumerate the ten categories the first time, he says substance, and then he says

[4:09] posas, how much, and then poyas, how. Right. He doesn't say quantity, quality. he. Doesn't use the abstract words, right? He uses the denominative, right? Okay. Now, why does he do that? You know, I mean, sometimes in translations, you might have people don't know what they're doing, and they'll put down quantity, quality, right? And we could speak that way sometimes. Aristotle does when he gets into talking about them in particular.

[4:40] But why, when he first enumerates the categories, does he say quantus rather than quantity, qualis rather than qualitas, poias rather than poiotes? Why does he do that? That's how they exist in us. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's because they are said as substance, what Denominatively, right? And they're all going to be distinguished by how they're said as substance. How they're said of individual substances, right? If they set of individual substances, signifying what they are, then they belong to ousia substance, right?

[5:22] But if they set of individual substances not by reason of what they are, but by reason of something in them, then it's how much they are, or how they are, or towards what they are, right? Or if they set as substance by reason of something outside of it, then they're where or when and so on. And so,

[5:41] it's very important that you understand denominative speaking there, right? Okay. Now later on, when Aristotle takes up how much in particular or how, then he may use the word quantity, the word quality, right? And speak of quantity being divided into discrete and continuous and Quality being divided into disposition and ability and the sense qualities and form and figure and so on, right? Because there you can use the abstract and it wouldn't make any difference which you did.

[6:12] Whether you said virtue of courage or virtuous of courageous would make any difference, right? You have the same relation, right? But if you're looking towards substance, you would want to say virtuous courageous, right? You would want to say virtue or courage of Socrates if he's virtue or courageous if you wanted to speak figuratively or something, right? But you have to say he's virtuous, he's courageous, man. So Aristotle here is pointing out how the thing that comes to be from matter, but from its proximate matter, right?

[6:53] The matter that's one step away, the matter that's really able to be it, right? Is denominated from that matter, huh? Okay. But if there's a matter that's not denominated from something before it, that would be the first matter, the prote hyle Okay, and because he says we want to distinguish here between that which is the subject underlying all change and the universal, which is also not what named or defined with something before it.

[7:30] That's what the kath holou and hypokeimenon are talking about. The one is a to de ti, and so on. But then in line 29 he makes reference to what we've been talking about here in regard to substance and accident. How, likewise, when we say something of man or the body or the soul, we say the denominative, We don't say he's what musike, he's not the art of music, but he's musikon, right?

[8:00] We don't say that man is whiteness leukotes, but he's what white, huh? Okay. We don't say Socrates is wisdom. We say Socrates is wise, right? Okay.

[8:14] Nor do we say he's he's he's motion, but he's what moving and so on, right? Which is that we're speaking ikinina, huh? Okay. And then the last part of this little reading, he. Points out that maybe it's appropriate that both matter and accidents are said denominatively because they both have something undetermined about them, and the accidents have to be in substance, right? They can't be by themselves, right?

[8:48] And the matter has to be formed into something, huh? So it's kind of interesting that he points out a a way of speaking denominatively about being, say, secundum quid being in some respect,

[9:02] and how the substance is named denominatively from the accident, and the thing that comes to be from matter is named denominatively from its what proximate huh or next, the matter that's next to it, huh?

[9:20] I think Aristotle would say the same thing about numbers, right? Is two able to be four? See, strictly speaking, two is able to be what? Three. Yeah, and then three is able to be four, right? And four is able to be five. You see?

[9:44] But because you really, when you've got three, you're only one step away from four. You have four, you're only one step away from five, right? Okay.

[9:54] Like we're saying before, with the geometry theorems, there Aristotle says in the first book of the De Anima that the thoughts are like numbers. Okay, there's always a next number and there's a next thought, right? And the next thought is the one that you're able.

[10:15] And you have everything you need to know the next thought, right? Right. You have the major premise and the minor premise, right? Well, what's next to them is the conclusion, right? You know every B is A. You know every C is B. Now you're able to know what? You know every B is A. You know every C is B. Now you're able to know what? Every C is A.

[10:38] Yeah. If you don't know yet that every B is A, you gotta prove that first, right? You're not yet able to know every B, every C is A, right? You gotta do something before you do that, huh? Okay. So you you've used examples from making an argument. So could you just review the examples that you've given for this? Well, I mean, you can take any art you wanted to.

[11:03] You can take the art of cooking, right? Because sometimes when you're going to make us make something, or you're going to bake something, I don't bake, but my wife bakes. But you got to do this first, you know, and then you got to do that, and then you can what? Bake the thing into what you're going to bake it into, huh? So so there's something that has to be transformed or changed, or you know, maybe you've got to grind this up first, right?

[11:27] Okay. Yeah. You got to grind this up first, and then you got to take these two things and stir them together, right? And then you got to heat this a little bit, you know. And then you, you know. And when are you able to actually make the the

[11:42] Marchand de Vin de vin sauce, huh? You know, one time I got a recipe for Marchand de Vin sauce, and there's three of us in the kitchen there, my sister in law Dolores, my my mother, and myself, and my sister in law and myself, we made the Marchand de Vin sauce, and my mother did everything else. They made the potatoes or whatever vegetables, huh? But you had to go through many steps, right?

[12:07] You say. So when are you finally able to make a Marchand de Vin sauce? You're next to it, right? You know, You've done all the preparatory things, and now you're one step away from Marchand de Vin sauce. Now you're capable of it. Delicious. Delicious. Are we having that this Sunday? I I have to have recipe to follow. I have to follow all the steps, you know. But the fact that recipe shows shows it shows it, you know, that many steps to go through, and it's not until you get to the last, the approximate step, right, the next step, you're one step away from it that you're capable of that.

[12:48] It seems to me this sort of inquiry, yeah, is is how biologists, current biologists, have made progress. I mean, if they see everything exactly that's able for you know for generation of the organ or for reproduction or whatever, they they see it all the way down. What exactly the next step is? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good thing Yeah. Yeah. You know how when they start with one cell, I guess you know, and then you have to what divide, and you have to so many divisions before you can start to have a next stage of the organization.

[13:27] Okay. And this has to develop before that is able to develop. So it's always the the next step. In regards of you know, big minds know exactly what is the the approximate step. You can see the the point he's making here, right? You have to be one step away before you're really, in the strictest sense, capable of that. Okay. To see what's in the strictest sense capable.

[13:53] Yeah, I think that's a good thing to say because you know the you know the Monsignor Dionne just said you want to see the confusion of the modern mind. Just look at any college catalog, he says. They didn't mean you know TAC catalog, but you know, but it's like you know they think that that we're like the center of a circle. We can go off any direction and know just anything we want to know, right?

[14:13] And no, no, no, we're not capable of knowing this without knowing that, and you know, and and that's that's the hard luck of you know God, but that's that's a condition of us, right? See, we're not really capable of this without that. And this is what he's talking about. I mean, that's one example. But this one that's relevant to us is teachers and students that we have to know this before we can know that.

[14:43] And so, if we don't know this, we're not able to know that. I mean, it's obvious point in some sense, but it's being neglected all the time. So, you're looking at how we can know I was thinking about how we know? Well, you know, you know, when when when there were more say requirements say, and everybody would have this course and this course and this course. Well, then when you taught this course, you could kind of suppose that every student in your class has had this and that, and maybe they were hazy about it, but but I mean they they met it in some way.

[15:13] But now you get you know people coming from you know anywhere, and so what can you be supposed? You you know you you know are they capable that much?

[15:33] Okay. Substantial forms. There has to be the matter has to be more than just first matter. Yeah, yeah. So you got to be careful about that, because some people, you know, think that you can get any substantial form to prime matter and just in any what. Yeah, yeah, but there's been a certain order there, right? So, first matter is able to receive the human soul when it's been what gone through these various levels of organization, and then under this level of organization is capable of the next higher right level of organization, and then under that level of organization capable of the next highest one, right?

[16:29] I think there's a first and then a downward direction. First in what? First substantial substantial form. Yeah, for for the ancients, it would be the earth, air, fire, and water, right? The the elements. I mean, Heisenberg said, you know, he never thought this would go on forever, right? See, and he had some people think that, but doesn't really make sense. But because you know we've always for years we've been finding one level below another level, and so on.

[16:59] This goes on forever, right? But that this has to be—I never could believe that. It doesn't make sense, and nothing would ever come to be if it had come to be from infinity of levels.

[17:16] Then you might think the subject substantial form is something that already has a substantial form. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like you know accretion there as well as the generation of a new form. But you have to lose the old form otherwise, what comes would be accidental, as you say.

[17:36] Of course, Thomas spends a lot of time in the Summa Contra Gentiles arguing against the people who I think there is a series of substantial forms. But if you had the first substantial form, would be the only one that is a substantial form in that case, and all the later ones would be accidental. Of course, it wouldn't be the unity for you either if you had many substantial forms.

[17:58] I'd be I'd be I'd be a tree and a dog and a man. If the former substantial form corrupts, why isn't it substantial form that comes after is not directly forming prime matter itself? Well, no, the later form is giving everything that the previous form gives plus something more.

[18:38] So it takes it takes on the role you might say of all the lower ones, but something, but more. Doesn't doesn't St. Thomas compare it to geometrical figures? Yeah, yeah, or even the number, you compare it that way? You know, in a way, three contains two and one, right? And four contains three and two and one, right? But not as if they were actually distinct, right? Because then four would be three plus two plus one, be six, right?

[19:08] Say, but some way contains, you know, the actuality of three and two and one, but in a higher thing is that plus something more, right?

[19:19] Then why couldn't it? Why isn't it able to give all those to prime matter directly? If it has all those forms in it in some way. Well, you have to start, I suppose, first just from experience. That's the way it is.

[19:44] Okay, I agree. That's the way it is. Yeah. Yeah. Could maybe the the form that's there right is making them exist, and then it can't continue once certain accidental changes happen. That causes its corruption too. That just common nature that it proceeds by step by step.

[20:07] Doesn't have have enough part to do it all at once. In some way, the accidental change causes the substantial change. That's kind of starting point in actual philosophy, right? That nature does things step by step, and that's why art is said to imitate nature in part, because it goes step by step.

[20:34] But but part of the fact is that matter is not really capable. And except to the next step, it probably goes back to this in a way. It's not capable. I tell you, you have the other. On some examples, it's like like saying, you know, why can't I have a proof of the Pythagorean theorem that supplies all the previous demonstrations? You know, no, not capable of the Pythagorean theorem until you have the the actuality of the previous theorems, right?

[21:07] Not not identical obviously, but but in that case, you retain the actuality. I know, I know, I know, I know. Do we know some examples of that in biology?

[21:23] If you have to have the full, I will always know these from the next. Yeah, yeah, but part of it, you know, part of it is something to do with the fact that you are not really capable until you have the you one step away, right?

[21:36] That's something we know from from experience in nature. Yeah, but it would make you think that maybe. I mean, it's like acting. You know, why can't someone come out of his mother's womb? You know, knowing you know, being a fully formed man, right?

[21:59] Right. Or I can't out of an oak tree come you know fully formed oak tree, right? That's kind of something we start knowing about nature at first, right? The the has to produce things going through steps. So

[22:19] why that is so? Something to do, I suppose, with the kind of power that nature has. But it's something to do with not what he's saying here, but the fact that that the agent is proportioned to a definite what potency or ability.

[22:46] Yeah, it just seems to be make I guess a possible objection to the teaching that substantial form is in the substance is directly forming

[23:05] prime matter itself, not a subject. Yeah, well, I just say that this is developed more in the Summa Theologiae, the most you know. Other places, Thomas does it too, but I know it's very explicit in there. He talks about the soul and goes to all these opinions of people who are denying the unity of the substantial form in man and so on. But that's not really something to get into, you know.

[23:29] But there are all kinds of difficulties to get into, right? You know, to can't explain the unity of man via many substantial forms, or else some of this just so called substantial forms end up to be accidental. You know, can't have your cake and eat it. If you have any substantial forms, you don't really have one thing, right? Or if you have one substantial form, then the rest are accidental.

[23:51] Maybe a little bit like number. If all you can do is add one, you have two. You can only get three from that, not four. But when you get the three, you don't really have the two anymore, except inside it, right? Because it's one number, not two numbers. And so you just keep adding, you get more and more. But each time you have a new one, you only have one.

[24:31] I say, part of it has to do on the side of the subject, right? That you're not really capable of this until you are one step away. Okay, and the other is on the side of the agent that is proportioned to a definite

[24:53] ability. So just as it is not capable of this, everything is not capable of turning it into the identity at that stage. You want to bring God or something into this? Who doesn't, you know, who doesn't presuppose those things? Because in each substantial change, there's something that acts on the previous substance to make it into the new one.

[25:26] Yeah, yeah. You know, if we go back, I know it's not the same thing exactly. But go back to teaching, right? You know, a student is not capable on the one hand of knowing this unless he knows these other things, right? And as a teacher, I'm not capable of bringing him to this other level. Like, say, he saw geometry until he has plane geometry, right? I'm not able to show him the later theorem until he's seen the earlier theorem, right?

[25:57] You see, so my ability is proportioned to his ability, huh? Their correlative, so to speak, okay. So just as he's not capable of this theorem until he knows this, so I'm not capable of bringing him to seeing this until he's he's that, right? Because my ability is proportioned to where he is. Because because I I don't you know take knowledge out of my mind and and put it into his head, right?

[26:32] I bring him from what he knows already to see something he doesn't see, right? And so he's got to have everything. Necessary to see this before I can do it, right? And I'm, and I'm relative to his, his mind, right?

[26:49] I rest my case. The time being, anyway. Yeah, just to me, it seems, as far as I understand it, that the order, this order and abilities that there steps, seems to depend on there being subjects to remain in each step. If you take away a subject and don't, that's a thing. Then I don't see why you need that order and ability anymore. Yeah, but then, then essentially denying what he's putting out here, that that one is is capable when he's, you know, three or four steps away, right?

[27:26] Strictly speaking, he's not capable. It'd be like being without a three to three. Nature can't do it. Has to add one to three, and then add one to four, and then one to five.

[27:40] Yeah. But in in nature, it makes sense to me if if you have a subject that's going through these steps and that's underlying that something. But if you say there's nothing, it's just prime matter, which isn't anything, and that's the subject. Well, then it seems you don't need. Is there something underlying? Is when I do the adding, what's underlying? I'm not sure.

[28:14] In the numbers. I mean, I see what you're saying, but. Insofar as the number is one, right? Then you have something that changes from being one thing to another by the addition of something.

[28:29] Anyway that's kind of you know something in addition to what he's saying here, because you know he's talking about when something is an ability to something, right? And as a matter of experience, right, we see that matter is not inability, except in a certain order, right? And so that's what he's saying, right? And he's not

[28:56] trying to unfold why nature has this limitation, going to call limitation, but taking into account that limitation as a matter of experience, then he's explaining what it is, strictly speaking, that something is capable or able to be something. It seems to me that that's not exactly one of the things he's talking. About, but it's valuable to apply that to to teaching ah into learning ah, and that there are in fact things you have to know before you can do other things, and most people don't take into account that condition of our mind enough, so they end up teaching anything, any time, anybody, in which case you're it's a charade.

[29:48] It's hard enough if if someone knows what he needs to know to learn some of these things, right? But it's impossible, really, to learn them if you don't have if you don't know what you need to know. in order to know this? Okay.

[30:08] I mean, I guess you could look at like a wet log; it won't burn. But if you dry it off, then suddenly it will burn. De Koninck when he teaches the course on time, you know, you get through with the definition of time and more or less the consideration of time in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, kind of as a footnote, he'd talk about Boethius's definition of eternity, and he kind of show you how you really need to know what time is and what the now of time is in order to understand the definition of eternity, which involves as many as four negations of what you know about the time and about the now of time, right?

[30:51] And so, you know, because he did that, right? Because now you're seeing that for knowing this about God, so far as we can know about God's eternity, you're not able to know that until you know what time, right? And the same thing, you know, for many other things, of course, in philosophy and nature. But I kind of remark sometimes upon the divine providence that Thomas apparently was in the only place in Europe there down Naples, wasn't where you could get actually get the physics at that time in Europe, where it's available in some fashion.

[31:27] And if Thomas hadn't got in the eight books of Natural Hearing into his head at a fairly early age, he could never have written, you know, the Summa Theologiae as we now know it, right? And

[31:40] you know how how how in seminary education now they're supposed to be a certain number of years of philosophy before theology, but those years of philosophy, apart from the maybe the defects of the teachers too, are maybe not enough really to you know know enough to do theology, right? But I mean, you have to really know time to know eternity. You have to know motion, a lot of things about motion before you can you know know the unchangeableness of God and so on.

[32:14] So that's pretty well neglected, it seems to me today. Men don't realize how. All they have to know in order to know something. When they don't even study the right stuff. Yeah, yeah, they spend their time on the wrong. Yeah, no, yeah, they, they, they.

[32:38] I was listening to some of the talk from people who went down to study the Boston Theological Consortium, and so on. You know, they're saying, "We can't really teach the sacraments now because we don't know what philosophy to use." You know,

[32:58] they're really, pretty, pretty hopeless. Huh? Now, should we just anticipate the book? The second, third part, or shall we? A little bit of time here,

[33:14] or we can just have a little philosophical excursion and leave this afternoon, at, the beginning of the seventh lectio Okay. I was thinking about what you were saying about generation. One thing is added to another, and in the generation of living things, there seems to be growth, but you still want to say there is some point at which it's now the thing, right? Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of strange.

[33:46] That's not really a topic here, you know, to go into the generation of them, but that's because you see in the growth the adding of the things the whole time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though at some point you say that the substance is there, not all of its properties are fully there. Yeah, yeah, but there is a quantum leap they'd say today. It's funny, Uh let's. Let's talk a little bit here, just a philosophical excursion here.

[34:20] The lunches are right around noontime, is it? Or what? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's take a little bit here. What's the before and after? You guys are all looking before and after. What's the before and after in the acts of reason?

[34:41] Especially the acts of reason that are relevant to looking reason, right? I'll talk about practical reason now, but looking reason. What's the before and after in the acts of reason? Is there more than one before and after to be considered in the acts of reason, and which one should you begin with to understand?

[35:06] There is more than one. Okay. But which one should you see first? You can't see some of them till you see others, so they can't exist without the others. So the first act is that way, right? You have to see what something is before you can make a statement. Well, in the in the in the proemium to the Posterior Analytics by Thomas Aquinas, which is really as Monsignor Dion would point out, the proemium to the whole logic, Thomas distinguishes three acts of reason.

[35:40] He calls them the first, the second, the third because he sees an order among them, in the same way in his proemium to the Peri Hermeneias. Now, what are those three acts of reason? What's their order?

[35:55] You grasp what something is. Yeah. Grasping what something is, or understanding what something is. However, imperfect that may be, and that's presupposed to what's the second act. Making a statement. Yeah, he calls that composition or division, right? So I have to understand in some way what a man is, say, what an animal is, before I can understand that man is an animal, right? And I have to understand in some way what a man is and what a stone is before I can understand that man is not a stone, huh?

[36:29] And then what's the third act? Putting two statements together to get a third. Yeah, so I have to have some statements, right? Understand some statements before I can start to reason from statements, because you need at least two statements, right, to reason to a third one, huh? So that that's a very fundamental

[36:48] order among the acts of reason, three different acts of reason, huh? And the first is presupposed, the second, the second to the third, right? And that's the way you break this presupposed to the wall way, yeah, but now you take Euclid's Elements, right, and you see what comes first in Book One, say, is the definitions, right? And this, to some extent, corresponds to understanding what something is, right?

[37:17] And then you have the postulates, which are really statements, right, like all right angles are equal, for example, and this kind of presupposes that you understand what a right angle is as well as what equal is and so on. And likewise, you have the the axioms, but even the axioms presuppose understanding what their parts are. Like if the whole is more than the part, that you understand what a whole is, what a part is.

[37:44] So, same order, and then only after that you start the reasoning where he starts to go through the theorems, and then you have the act. So that order of acts is very important to understand what Euclid is what doing, huh? And of course, that same order will be found in every part of philosophy, but

[38:08] not as as easy to see as it is in Euclid there, huh? Not quite laid out so nicely for you, um. I mean, I have to know what a what a genus is and what a species is before I can know that a genus can be a species and a species a genus, right? And then have to know this before I can know whether there's a genus that is not a species.

[38:34] I have to do some reasoning for that, right? So you have those same three acts, okay? Now, if you don't see that, you don't can look before and after very much, right? Okay. But now, is there any other before and after in the acts of reason? I'm thinking looking reason now.

[38:56] Besides this, that that's worth. Seeing necessary to see in fact. You mentioned earlier today the need of time to understand some things Okay, but that's that's comes under reasoning in a way, right? Because in reasoning, you know, you're doing one thing before another, right? Okay. Although it also, I suppose, you could say it comes into defining too when you're doing what something is, right? You're doing one thing to another, right?

[39:30] But. Did you say? That's not that's not distinguishing two acts of reason, right? You see, understanding what something is is not the same thing as understanding

[39:45] the true and the false, right? And understanding the true and the false is not the same thing as reasoning, right? Okay. Well, is there some other distinction among the acts and and also an order among those acts, right? That that we have to that's important to see.

[40:02] This one seems to you know help help to understand what Euclid is doing, but I mean maybe it's not enough to see just that order. It's what you're doing here. Some dialectic before you. Okay. Under the common notions. Okay. Now, the way I usually stake that is to say, reason guesses before it knows,

[40:25] and it seems to me even where it's easiest for reason to know, like say in geometry, reason guesses that something is so before it knows it. And I take this old example, you know, of a isosceles triangle, where you would probably guess, right, that these angles would be equal before you found the proof that it must be so. And in fact, you would not maybe look for the proof that it must be so,

[40:59] unless you had guessed that it was so. You see, so even in geometry where it's easiest to know, we guess before we what know. In a fortiori, right? In natural philosophy, or in ethics, or even in wisdom, men guess before they know, but you can go and say that unlike geometry they don't even guess the same thing, right? Most men or geometers probably all guess that those angles would be equal, right?

[41:34] But and, we know from experience, in fact, that in natural philosophy and in ethics and even in wisdom, men make opposite guesses and even contradictory guesses. Some things, all things are possible. Some say there's no possibility at all, or anything. and.

[42:01] So men even guess opposite things before they know, okay? And this gives rise then to to dialectic, right? Where you proceed from guesses, huh? But from probable guesses or probable opinions, right? Reasonable guesses. So if you are saying, why does book three of wisdom, which is the book that's all dialectical, right? Why does book three come before books four through fourteen?

[42:37] Does that correspond to some distinction and order in the acts of our reason? Well, in a rough way, it corresponds to the distinction between guessing and knowing, and the order that we tend to guess before we know. Now we can go into the details of that, right? That we guess opposite things and we try to untie these contradictions and all the thing about dialectic, but that's that's an elaboration starting from the original insight that we guess before we know.

[43:12] And in the more difficult sciences, we even guess opposite things, right? And even contradictory things, right? Okay. So someone said to me, you know, explain to me why the the definitions of triangle and so on come before the postulates, why the postulates come before the theorems. I go back to the first distinction of the acts, right? When somebody asks me why does book three of wisdom come before books four through fourteen, I would tend to go to, well, we guess before we know, and in these difficult things, you know, then I go and elaborate upon that, right?

[43:53] Okay. Is that a distinction of acts, guessing before knowing? Yeah, guessing is is not knowing, see. And and in the great dialogue with Meno, Socrates is in a way distinguishing between guessing and and knowing, right? And because he thinks we can't know whether virtue can be taught before we know what virtue is, and neither he nor me do apparently know what it is, nor is neither willing to guess here, We can only guess, right?

[44:24] Whether virtue can be, at least at first, all we can do is guess, right? And he guesses that it can be taught, and then he guesses it cannot be taught. But in both cases, they are reasonable guesses because he has a reason for thinking that, right? It's a beautiful introduction to this thing. But but after after Socrates has has reasoned that virtue can be taught and virtue cannot be taught, he can't rest in that contradiction, and so he tries to untie it by coming back upon the arguments and looking for the weak point, and he thinks he finds it in the backup of the argument that virtue can be taught.

[45:04] Because the basic syllogism there was that virtue is knowledge, knowledge can be taught, therefore virtue can be taught. But the backup for virtue is knowledge was that virtue directs us to the good. What directs us to the good is knowledge, as knowledge directs us to the good, and so therefore virtue must be knowledge, right? Socrates says, "Well, maybe, maybe you can be directed to the good by right opinion.

[45:30] Good guess, and that's true, right? You see. And then Meno says, 'Well, is knowledge any better than a right guess? ' You know. And I always take this simple example of a guy coming down and there's a fork in the road, and once he gets to Boston, right? One goes to Boston, one goes to Providence. Now, if he knows this is the road to Boston, he's going to take it, right?

[45:54] And then knowledge will direct him to good. Assuming it's to get to Boston, that's questionable. Assuming the other side, for the sake of argument. But if he doesn't know which is the road to Boston, right? But he thinks that's the road to Boston, he will likewise take that road, and he'll get to Boston, right? So Socrates says, the fact that the great men of Athens who directed, you know, let's just take this for the sake of argument, directed Athens in the right direction, they couldn't pass this on to their sons, they couldn't teach them, right?

[46:25] So they must have had the right what opinion, they must have guessed right. And I take, you know, MacArthur's Inchon landing. He said, did MacArthur know it would succeed? We had a backup plan if it didn't, right? And nothing is going to, you know, avoid a terrible catastrophe except for, you know, people's opinion of his judgment, right? But even if MacArthur didn't know, but he thought this was the thing to do, and he and he and he had the right hunch, right?

[46:57] He'd get there, right? So if you if you have a hunch, you should pay these numbers tonight, and those other numbers come in, you'll get rich without knowing that those numbers are going to come in, right? You see. So Socrates says, well, maybe they directed them by right opinion, or if that's so, or by a hunch or something, right? Then you can't teach it, and you know, okay, okay.

[47:18] But now, is there any other? We've got two examples. I mean, two two distinctions of acts of reason in in the in looking. Reason right, and they're different, aren't they? Right? They're the same, although you could say this one has something to do with maybe reasoning, you know, dialectical reasoning, you know. But it's a little different thing being brought out there,

[47:43] and you can immediately apply that to the order of Book Three, which is all dialectical, before Books what four through fourteen. In Books four through fourteen, Aristotle is knowing what? What's what? But in Book Three, he's not knowing, but he's guessing, pro and con, and so on, right? And and and he gives reasons why this guessing might eventually lead to knowing, even though John Stuart Mill doesn't think guessing can ever.

[48:13] Or Descartes, you know, Descartes thinks guessing is useless. You never get to knowing from guessing. But kind of forget it, even in mathematics he guess first, right? So now, is any other distinction in order of the acts of reason besides the two that we have we have spoken of here?

[48:35] You mean in a different sense of before? No, no. These this is all before in the disc the third sense of before, right? But you know, distinction comes before seeing that you got to see that two things are distinct before before you can say one is before the other, right? You got to see that guessing is not knowing. It's beautiful in the dialogue, do you know? Because Socrates is saying there's a difference between guessing and knowing, and I'm not guessing when I say this.

[49:08] And so unusual that Socrates says that, because he rarely claims to know anything, huh? See, but here he does, right? And if someone comes along and says, "Well, Socrates, you don't really know that knowing and guessing are different. You're just guessing, right? " Well, then you're making the distinction yourself, right? Is it? And so Socrates sees that when you when you know in the strict sense, you're sure what you're saying.

[49:36] You're guessing. You're not sure, and something can't both be sure and not sure, right? You see, but anybody who says Socrates is just guessing doesn't know is is admitting the distinction already, is it? Because he's saying that Socrates is not sure, and and the distinction between being sure and not being sure that's Socrates is saying. So it's beautiful, right? He sees this. So he sees the distinction so well, but then he also sees the what?

[50:04] The order, right? That presupposes seeing that distinction. Okay. Now, is there another distinction in the acts of reason that's worth mentioning besides these? These two, these they're very important, it seems to me, huh? And and almost every time when Thomas is commenting on a book of Aristotle. You'll say, you know, first you proceed, you know, dialectically or something like that, and then determining determining the truth, right?

[50:29] I say the only difference here is that that in in in wisdom, to some extent, the whole of the dialectic, you know, almost is in one whole book, namely Book Three, and then you have these books determining the truth there. I know there's some dialectic maybe in them too, but

[50:49] but in in other books, say like the the books of Natural Hearing, you have a particular dialectic about place, and then determining the truth about place, and then dialecting about time, and determining, you know. But as you said, order or again again, right? But there's that difference for the reason we mentioned before: the affinity of wisdom and dialectic, as Plato and Averroes and Thomas equated as Aristotle himself saw.

[51:14] But now there's another distinction of the acts of reason and and an order following to be seen after that distinction that's really very important for seeing what you're doing in philosophy here.

[51:47] Well, that's yeah, but what's the distinction of acts we're talking about here? Because looking for an order in the acts of reason, right? And the reason is a difference: guessing and knowing are both acts of reason, at least a reasonable guess is. Yeah, they're not a wild guess that's an act of reason, but but I always distinguish between a reasonable guess and a and a and a wild guess, educated guess opposed to uneducated guess.

[52:15] The real difference between that and knowing, though, nevertheless, and then you can see a certain order among the two. Well, if you have a teacher, this faith. Yeah. Okay. This might be too simple, but I mean every syllogism leads to a statement. Okay, but this this is this is part of what reasoning is, right? Inclusion of one reasoning is being the next reasoning, right? So I mean it's important to see that, and the way I usually speak about that is is to say that geometry is a result of continuous reasoning, continuous defining, right?

[52:52] And I'm imitating you know the geometry or the arithmetician when he speaks of a continuous proportion, where the end of one is the beginning of the next one, right? Four is a six, a six is a nine is continuous. Well, when the conclusion of one syllogism is the premise of the next syllogism, I call those two syllogisms continuous by this kind of likeness to the continuous whose parts have a common boundary.

[53:17] and when what's defined, you know, by one is then you could have the use of definitions where he defines quadrilateral and then uses quadrilateral to define square. So those definitions are what continuous, right? But that that's that's kind of an elucidation, a further elucidation of of defining and reasoning, right? You know the the acts we've talked about already. But is there another way of another distinction to see?

[53:47] Not entirely different, but meanings of words. Yeah, that's in a sense true. In the first chapter of the physics Aristotle talks about going from the confused to the distinct and the universal to the special. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[54:12] The one that occurs to me is this: Is there a distinction between thinking about something and understanding it? Have you ever thought about something, you know, without understanding it? See, so you all see a distinction between thinking about and understanding. And how does our reason go from thinking about something to understanding it?

[54:48] What's the name of the act whereby you go from thinking about something to understanding it? Well, it's something more general than I'm looking for. That's that's involved in it, yeah. Thinking out. Yeah, thinking out. Yeah, you see. And I think I mentioned, you know, when I was first teaching logic, an assumption there, and I got thinking about thinking out, and I thought it was kind of a good phrase.

[55:17] And being that Canon had drummed into my head the eight senses of in and out, I could use them right to distinguish a number of senses of thinking out.

[55:30] So thinking out a definition, and thinking out a division, and thinking out a conclusion, right? The thinking out a conclusion correspondent to the seventh sense of in and out, right? Thinking out a definition correspondent to the third sense of in and out, right? Thinking out the division of a genus into species correspondent to the fourth sense of in and out, right? Thinking out the composing parts of a whole, right, correspondent to the second sense of in and out.

[56:03] Thinking out the order of things correspondent to the fifth sense, and so on. So I thought it was pretty bright of me, you know. But I think I check with Dion just see what he thinks about this, you know, Monsieur Dion. And most of the time, you know, I looked with Dion to see what he said, and thought what I thought first. And most of the time, he'd agree with what I said, and but some once in a while, you know, he'd he'd check something I said, and then I go back and.

[56:30] Realize that I had not thought it out thoroughly, but he liked this way of thinking, this way of speaking, thinking out. I think I mentioned you know that he, but he said he can't speak that way in French, and then he remarked again upon the superiority of English to French, which is kind of interesting that he would come back to that idea more than once. So, is this a little bit different from the other two orders we saw, the other two distinctions, distinction between thinking about something before you understand it, and thinking out in more than one sense, right?

[57:13] Because there's you know understanding what a thing is, understanding the cause and so on, right? So you can you can go and elaborate on that, right? I'm not trying to elaborate it all here today, but is that worth mentioning that order in the acts of reason? I mean, it it is it's has some similarity to guessing before knowing, right? But something brought out by the distinction between thinking about something and understanding it, and the the various senses of thinking out, that isn't brought out so much by guessing and knowing, as is worth mentioning, you know.

[57:52] Is it a universal importance? In guessing, you you're mostly dealing with statements, right? You guess at a statement, or maybe you could guess at a definition. Well, see, that's important to see because when Aristotle teaches us about defining there in the book about places, he says people don't arrive at a definition at once, right? But they guess maybe some part of the definition, and then they follow the various places in dialectic, and they say, well, this is not sufficient yet, right?

[58:30] And then maybe they they guess some other part, right? And they gradually put together the definition, and then they you know again use the dialectical places to check you know whether this definition is sufficient and so on. So it's kind of a gradual process there, but there's guessing you know before knowing there, okay? But you can also say that when you're trying to define something, you're trying to think it out, okay?

[58:57] Now, what is Aristotle doing in the fifth book of Wisdom? Thinking out the meanings of the words. Yeah, he's thinking out the meanings of the words, but because the words are equivocal by reason, he has to think out what. Not only the meanings of the words, but he has to think out their what. Order. Order, yeah, yeah. And those two are distinct, you know. It was very much brought home to me.

[59:27] Dicconic was rather fond. I remember I was teaching the course on place and the eight senses of in and out, huh? But in the particular text that we have, Aristotle distinguishes eight senses of in and out, but he doesn't give the order of them, which is not to say that he didn't know it, but he just didn't give the order there, the text. So Thomas Aquinas, learning the eight senses of in and out from the philosopher, now says he's going to think out the order of them.

[1:00:02] And of course, he's learned by imitation, so he's going to imitate what Aristotle does in the fifth book of wisdom. He's going to think out the eight senses of in and out. Think out the order of them, right? And that's a different sense of thinking out, right?

[1:00:21] Because I'm I'm a little hesitant as to, as to which sense of in and out is involved in thinking out the senses of a word, which one would reduce it to because they neatly fit like most the other ones. But it's only a different sense of thinking out to think out the senses of a word, and then to think out their what, order, right? Okay, because the order is like a form and matter, right?

[1:00:44] So it's like the the fifth sense, I guess it is, of in and out, right? When you think out the senses, you're exhausting, right? So it's those things outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, there's a. You can see that these are two different kinds of thinking out, and that Aristotle, for us, in what we have in the written word, has has done one thinking out, and we don't have his.

[1:01:16] Yeah, he probably did, but but Thomas thinks out the order, right? And I'm convinced, when I know about people and their minds, that no one could think out the order of in and out, like Thomas did, you know, take Thomas, and you know, the more I consider the order, the more I was amazed at what he had done, huh? And

[1:01:43] unless you think out the senses of a word equivocal by reason, unless you think out the order of those senses, you're very apt to get into the most common mistake of all, which proceeds from mixing up the senses of a what, of a of a word, yeah, yeah.

[1:02:08] Now that's just one example of thinking out. There are two examples of thinking out there in book five, right? Huh? So it's interesting to know that, right? Huh? Okay.

[1:02:21] But what we said was kind of interesting too, was that in thinking out, let's say, the senses of the word cause, Aristotle was also thinking out the kinds of causes there are, right? And thinking out the senses of. Of act, let's say, or the senses of being, just thinking out the kinds of being, the kinds of act, right? Okay, so maybe one thinking out helped the other one, right?

[1:02:49] And, and but in fact, in in the distinction of the kinds of being, according to the figures of predication, as Thomas says, the figures of predication, the ways of being said of, correspond to the ways of being. That's interesting, huh? That they're proportional, and the reason why we can say man of Socrates, but we can't say music of Socrates, that difference in the way of being said of, we can only say that Socrates is a musician, but not music, is because of a distinction there in the way of being that man is and and music is, huh?

[1:03:30] Okay. So, what else is that distinction in order in the acts of reason to explain besides Book Five? Huh? What was he explaining here about about Book Theta here?

[1:03:54] Sorry. what does what mean about book theta? Was he thinking out something in the first part, let's say, of book theta here? The distinction between Yeah, well, he was thinking that out, but he was thinking out the definition of ability, right? Okay, and that's another kind of thinking out from the kind he's doing in Book Five, right? Because there he was thinking out more the senses of the word, right?

[1:04:22] Okay, but here he's thinking out the definition of ability, okay? Okay. And then he's seeing you can't have a definition of act, but he's seeing what it is through proportion. Yeah, yeah, and and he's thinking out the distinction of these things, right? Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The

[1:04:48] distinction of act and ability, you said, right? Okay. What's he going to do in the last part of of the third part here? Of especially here in the in the beginning of this third part, huh? The order. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's going to think. out. So it's a little bit like Book Five because he thought out the distinction of the senses or meanings of the words used, right?

[1:05:13] And then he thought out the order, right? Okay. And I was mentioning example of in and out because there Aristotle in what text we have just has thought out the senses, right? And Thomas had to think out the order. Those two guys are one. Those guys can do, as far as I am concerned. I mean, that's.

[1:05:36] So, but here he's he's going to think out now the order of these things, right? Okay. Does he do any thinking about? Does he just thinking out? Well, he must have thought about these things to thought them out, huh? Right. Where is the? Well, take take take example the word to see, huh? I'm I'm not too bright, but um, um, I tried to think out the senses of the word to see, right?

[1:06:07] Okay. And since I think it's a word equivocal by reason, I tried to think out the order of it, right? Okay. And I'll start with my mother, and her saying, you know, I see," said the blind man, but he couldn't see at all, right? Okay. And this made you aware of the fact that there are at least two meanings of the word to see, right? Now, which of these is the first meaning of to see?

[1:06:34] The senses. Yeah, the senses, right? And that's you know follows because we tend to name things as we know them, and our knowing begins with our sensing, right? Okay. Well, then I say to the students, "What's the second sense of to see?" And they all say to understand, right? I says, "Well, now, let's look before and after. Is there a sense of to see that you're missing it, right?

[1:07:04] That is before understanding, right? But after seeing with your eyes, is there a sense? Now, if you've read Hamlet, right? In the beginning of Hamlet, Horatio has gone to see this report of the ghost of Hamlet's father. He's not going to believe these guys. Is their imagination, right? And without the sensible and true avouch of my own eyes, right? He sees the ghost, huh? So with his own eyes, he sees the ghost, huh?

[1:07:41] But Hamlet's father. and so they're going to come and tell Hamlet, right, about this, because they're friends of Hamlet, and before they have a chance to tell him, Hamlet says, "I can see my father now." Where? You know, and of course he says, "In my mind's eye," right? So he's what? He's imagining, right? He's remembering his father, but gentlemen. well, this is another sense of to see, right?

[1:08:10] It's so clear in the play, right? And now, is that sense of seeing, which is really imagining, is that? Where does that come in the order of the meanings? Huh? Yeah, yeah. Is it closer to seeing with the eye than understanding is? Yeah, so particularly still. Yeah. And the sign that I give that is closer is that in a dream you actually mix up imagining with the with the eyes, and you think you're seeing with the eyes.

[1:08:52] But even in a dream, you don't confuse seeing with the eye with understanding, do you? So it's further away. But some people sometimes mix up imagining with what? Thinking, right? Imagine that so. Think that so, you know. And so it's more like thinking or understanding than seeing with the eye is, right? But more clearly, it's it's it's more like seeing than understanding is like seeing. Now, I tried to think out the meanings of the word to see, and they seem to be these three meanings, right?

[1:09:28] And I tried to think out the order of them, right? And we just gave the order, right? It's like a big, big deal, but I mean but a lot of people, you know, when you ask them in class, right, and you say, "What's the second meaning?" they'll say, "Understanding," right? Well, they do see that it comes afterwards, right? But it's not really second; it's it's maybe third, right?

[1:09:50] And so this is one or a couple kinds of thinking out, right? It's one to think out the senses of seeing, and another thing to think out the order of them, but they're those things are related, huh?

[1:10:05] Um. Now, maybe go and elaborate then, because there's many senses of thinking out. But is there is there another order in the acts of reason worth