Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
23. Metaphysics IX, Lectio Seven: Actuality is Prior to Potency in Definition, Time, and Substance
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/023-metaphysics-ix-lectio-seven-actuality-is-prior-to-potency/

[0:00] mentioning? In addition to the three we've mentioned so far. Are they ready for us? They're all for the drums. They're ready, huh? I don't have a schedule. I think. Check them. Yeah, we should really check it out. The Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, ordain and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor.

[0:34] Pray for us. Help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Getting more authoritative. Well, thank you, thank you, Father. I don't know if my nose is getting less authoritative.

[1:00] I noticed going going to the the lodge this morning. You know how how they bend over when they sing, and then they start to drip down. I look up, you know, holy, they like did towards the ceiling. You know, my nose is not dripping, but every time we depart, I get my handkerchief out again, and so I was saying, stop bending over, but they won't because I'm never never making it.

[1:25] The choir, you know, I mean, first time I was like, "God, it was a perfect blow to his nose all the time. " Every time we bend over, he starts blowing his nose, just like.

[1:37] Okay, what is the editorial and reference division of the third part of the ninth book of wisdom? Well, it's into five what lexios or five readings, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. So it's division to five, but what is the logical and understandable division? Is it into two or three in this case?

[2:12] No, it's into three. Okay. And the first part is about the order of the whole thing is about the comparison of act and ability, but the first part is very explicitly about the the order, right? The before and after of act and ability. And that takes up what seven, I guess, and eight and nine. Those three lexios, and then the second part is in regard to goodness, and that takes up only the first half, you might say, or part of the tenth reading.

[2:54] And then the third part, which is the second half of the tenth reading, in the eleventh reading, is about this in terms of knowing the true and false, and so on. Okay, in terms of the nobility or the. thing.

[3:13] He begins the seventh reading with a little premium, where he's going to. Note that what he's going to be talking about in this first part of the three parts,

[3:25] and of course he recalls that before has been divided before in the fifth book and how many ways it's said and so on. And you may know that there's a difference in the way he he distinguishes the senses of before in the fifth book of wisdom and the way he did so in the categories. In the categories, he does it just with the word before itself. In the fifth book of wisdom, he begins from the common notion that he gives of beginning in the first word of book five, which is what is first in being or becoming or knowing and so on, and then uses that right because the connection between beginning and before and after, and it's sort of appropriate for the wise man

[4:18] to look at before and after in light of the senses of what beginning, right? Because it belongs to the wise man more than anybody else to see everything in terms of its beginnings. But that makes the categories the one to begin with, I think, because it's you don't have to go with another word to get there, and so there are some distinctions in one and the other, but we don't need to be too concerned about the differences right here.

[4:50] But he's saying it's clear that before is said in many ways, and so it may be that one of these is before the other in more than one sense of before, and that's what he says. It's clear that act is before ability. He's taking ability now to include many different kinds of abilities. He goes on to say there, not just the very first one we talked about.

[5:20] Now around line ten there, he's going to in this premium again, you might say, say that there are three befores he's going to be considering here,

[5:35] and he's saying act is before ability, all such ability, in logo which means what in definition, in knowledge in general, and in what substance. Again, you need Thomas to explain what Aristotle's weird use of words there are, because he's identified substance with form to some extent or emphasized that, and therefore with perfection so on. He could have said more clearly, perhaps, to us, and in what perfection?

[6:20] And then the third, in time, he's going to say there's a distinction there, right? In one way it's before in time, and another way what? Not before in time, huh? So in one way, act is before ability in time, another way ability is before act in time, huh? But as far as perfection, it doesn't make any what? Give any distinction there, right? It's before in perfection, and it's before in

[6:58] definition, huh? Now he mentioned last in time because there's a little complication there, but when he actually takes them up, he will first talk about before in reason or in definition, right, in knowledge, and then he'll talk about how act is before ability in time, although in some way ability is before. And then he'll do both of those in the seventh reading, by the way, and then in the eighth and ninth readings he will be showing that act is before ability in substance or in perfection, huh?

[7:41] And in a way what comes later on that in the second and third parts of this third part, where he does so in terms of goodness and in terms of nobility and being true and so on, that kind of follows in a way upon its being being being before in what perfection, right? Because both good and true involve some kind of perfection, huh? So there's kind of a in a way the second third parts are connected with the third part of the first part that what's before in perfection, so there's a kind of a continuity there when he goes from act being before ability in perfection to its being before in goodness, you know how the Summa Thomas attaches the consideration of the goodness of

[8:28] God to the perfection of God, huh? And there's that same connection there, but true also or noble has something to do with the perfection of things too, maybe not as as clearly or as closely as good at first, but it does, huh? So you can see a little bit of the order of these parts in the logical and understandable division, and distinguished from the editorial and reference division into five, which doesn't help you to understand anything at all.

[8:59] Okay. Now he's fairly brief about the first one he's going to take up. It's fairly obvious, huh? There's before in definition, huh? And that is that when you try to define an ability, you have to say what it's an ability for, right? You heard my joke the other day about Perkins goes down to the employment agency. He wants to match me with a job. Tell me about yourself, Perkins.

[9:28] Well, you, you know, tell me about your abilities. And say, Well I got ability. I got capacity. You know, well, how many words can you type a minute? You know, or how many hamburgers can you, or how many, pancakes can you flip in a half hour or something? But as you can't really know ability by itself, but only in reference to what it's an ability for. And that's why in the study of the soul and the abilities or the powers of the soul, they're all known through what they're ability for.

[10:06] And so, in that sense, act is before ability in definition, because the act is going to be in the definition of the ability, the ability to see, the ability to hear, the ability to walk, and so on. And if you ask somebody, how do you know? Even if you want to go back to existence, how do you know that I have the ability to walk? Well, you don't see my ability to walk, do you?

[10:32] And if you look at me here, I might be paralyzed for all you know, huh? But you see me walking around, and then you realize I have the ability to what walk. How do you know I have the ability to talk? I may not have it too long here. if this cold keeps up, but it's because you hear me what talking, you know. So you know that I have the ability to the act, and how do you know the ability to walk and the ability to talk are not the same ability?

[11:03] Are they the same ability? Or is it the ability to see and the ability to hear the same? Well, you know that one ability is different from another only because it's an ability for something else, right?

[11:21] So that's not too hard to see, huh? That act is before ability in definition, huh? Notice that is some connection with the last thing he's going to be talking about in the third part of this third part about act and ability in terms of knowability, huh? And if ability is knowable only through act. You can kind of anticipate that act is more knowable than ability. But of course, if if you and I don't know what is most actual, what's most knowable, then that shows a weakness of our what ability to know, huh?

[12:03] That we may not know the things that are most actual at first, but the things that are least actual. We know the things that are least knowable, so we're in the odd position of trying to know the most knowable things by the least knowable things. Shows what a backward creature we are in some ways.

[12:30] And so, if you want to see if somebody's got the ability to do something, you know, we'll see if he can do it. You know, it's the only way you can know this, huh? So, Aristotle's fairly brief, but that's fairly clear, right?

[12:46] So, it's necessary. He says, "then that the definition of the one be before the other, and the knowledge of one before the knowledge of the other." Okay. Now, the rest of this seventh reading. He's going to be taking up the second before, and that is that act is before ability in time.

[13:07] You could say, as Thomas often says, referring back to this passage, so attention, that simply speaking, act is before ability, although in some way ability is before act. And the basic thing is that in the thing that goes from ability to act, that thing is an ability before it is an act. But it goes from ability to act because of something already in act. So simply speaking, looking at the whole picture, you might say, act is before what?

[13:47] Ability. Aristotle doesn't use the the words of that distinction there, but when Thomas refers to this distinction that's involved in which is before in time, he'll speak of simply in in some way, simply act is before ability, but in some way

[14:12] ability is before act. And of course Aristotle is going to consider it here first of all in these passive things, and then in these active powers where we talked before about how in order to have the ability to play the piano you have to actually play the piano. So in that sense, act comes before ability in a special way in those kinds of abilities. But what he's talking about here first is maybe of more universal importance, and that is if something goes from ability to act, it does so because of something already in what act.

[14:49] And Aristotle has mentioned, has talked about that a bit in back in Book Seven. He referred to it again here in the context it came up in, and so he's maybe a little more brief than he would be otherwise. But if you want to, in a sense, give a kind of a reason, probably the simplest one is to go back to the what a seminarian told me one time.

[15:13] He had a professor who, when he called upon the students to answer a question, if the students couldn't answer the question, he'd say nemo dat quod non habet. huh. No one gives what he doesn't have. It's the way I guess of making that principle very evident, because every time you couldn't answer, you know, you don't have it. No one gives what he doesn't have.

[15:40] So ability in the passive sense doesn't have the act for which it is an ability. So if it gave itself the act that doesn't have, we have real contradiction, right? It'd have to have what it doesn't have to give itself what doesn't have. So something goes from ability to act, from this passive ability to act, it must do so by reason of something already in act. So if you look at the whole picture, then act is simply speaking before ability, although in some way you could say abilities before act, because in the thing itself going from ability to act, that thing is an ability before it's an act.

[16:24] But it goes from one to the other only because of something already in act. So simply speaking, what is an act comes first. And when I compare, you know, this this this sense of before here, although Aristotle, you know, presents it in the form of before in time, right? As you know, the second sense of before is before in being, and to that second sense of before is led back, although it's not the same sense, but it's led back by certain likeness or attached to it, the sense in which the cause is before the effect.

[17:04] And so when you're saying that act is before ability, simply speaking, and you're saying this because something goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act, you're bringing in a kind of beforeness that act has, not only in time, but also in what causality.

[17:31] So let's look at the text of Aristotle, but as I say, I was being a little more explicit there than Aristotle was. Just down at broad line

[17:48] seventeen, huh? In time, it is before. Thus, what in species is the same, right? Acting before, but in number not. What does he mean? What means that something that is able to be a human being, right, becomes actually human being due to the parents who are already actually a what human being? So an individual becoming a human being, or becoming a dog, or becoming a tree, or whatever it might be, or becoming hot, right?

[18:23] The individual there, arithmo. There, that individual is an ability before he's an act, right? But another, the same in kind, right? Something actually hot, right, is going to come before that thing itself will be made hot, huh? or something actually a dog will come before what is able to be a dog becomes actually a dog. So something the same in kind, but not the same in numbers, not the dog that's coming to be that's responsible for it, huh?

[18:56] And this is something that that was kind of brought out in the seventh book of wisdom. So he gives examples here from the man and the grain and seeing and so on.

[19:15] But before all these things in time, there are other beings in act from which these come to be. And then the general principle at twenty four there, for always from what

[19:30] is an ability coming to be in act from something already an act, as man from man, musician from musician, like when one man teaches another one, always back the way to the first mover. For the mover is in act. Yeah. Do what do you say about knowledge? I mean, if you have someone who knows something, when they come to know that in act, does it have to be through some knower who knows that thing?

[20:00] Well, of course, you make a distinction now. The more obvious example, usually when we come to learn something that we're able to learn, it's through someone who already actually knows it. Okay, in that case, it's easy to see how act is before. But if a man should be so bright as to discover it himself, it's from what he already actually knows that he comes to know what he what doesn't know.

[20:26] So it's because I actually know, let's say, the premises that I go from being able to know the conclusion to actually knowing it. So even there, other in a more subtle way, right? I'm actually what actuality is coming before ability. Now, eventually, this goes all the way back in individual men to what we call natural understanding. But even there, you know, you have to actually have natural understanding before you have something to proceed from to acquire a reason out understanding.

[21:01] So act