Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
37. Metaphysics II, Reading 4: Why There Must Be a First End and a First Form
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[0:00] distinct. If we say they're in Him, we have to understand this by analogy, and the thing in Him, in Him, it's they're the same. The justice and mercy, for instance, are the same thing in Him,

[0:18] not the same in creation. So we have to church. The Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illuminate our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:57] We're in the what fourth reading of the second book of wisdom, and in the fourth reading, Aristotle is going to be talking about there being a first cause in end and in what form, okay? And you could say that his consideration of these two is more developed and more

[1:28] complete, and that's perhaps because these two causes are the most important causes for the wise man. Perhaps also there's a special opposition between end and something being endless. and between form, which is or definition, which is to happen with form, which also comes from the idea of end or limit. But perhaps more importantly, the first thing I said that the end and the form are the most important causes for the wise man, and the end we've mentioned before is the cause of all the other causes being causes, and that's one reason why the end is most of all appropriate to the first what cause, the cause of the causality of all the other causes.

[2:32] You might look also at the end of the second lectio in the first book. If you have your Greek here or some other thing, when Aristotle is giving the six attributes of the wise man or the six attributes of wisdom, and at the end of the second lectio, the second reading, and he's giving the six attributes of the wise man, which is that he commands and orders everybody else around, and he does so when orders other things around because one knows the end of the purpose to which they are to be directed, and the wise man knows the end of the good of the whole universe.

[3:20] So this is at 982b. If you have the numbers there. And about line four, there 982b4 architectonikotate. It's the most what? Architect too, architect. The most, you know how they speak of the architect. Actually, comes an idea of chief art, the one that commands the other ones, right? Well, this is the most chief art, right? Because it demands, it directs all the other ones. So it's the architectonikotate of all the what episteme, all the rational knowledge, and it's more principal than the one obeying.

[4:17] That is more principle or more ruling. archikoteron for ruling too huh for ruling too, huh? Than the one obeying. The one that is gnorizousa, the one that is knowing, tinos heneka. Well, that's the definition of what? End right. tinos heneka That for the sake of which ought to be done prakteon hekaston each thing ought to be done, right? And this is the good of each, right? Of course, Aristotle will be talking about the connection between end and good again in the fourth ek of the second book, huh?

[4:53] But holos, the best, huh? In te fusei passei, meaning the whole of reality, huh? Just like Thomas sometimes uses in rerum natura, in reality, you might say, huh? Well, Aristotle has that way of speaking too, huh? So that's the sixth attribute and kind of the crowning attribute of the wise man. I was mentioning how Thomas recalls that Aristotle says here in the beginning of his commentary, his proemium to the Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, and he gives us the reason why the wise man most of all orders is because he's wisdom is the highest perfection of reason, and it's proper to reason as Shakespeare teaches us to look before and after, and therefore the wise man most of all sees the before and after.

[5:46] He most of all is able to order. But here Thomas ties it up with the idea that the order of things among themselves is for the sake of their order to the end. So he's got to know the last end. Of course, you know God is to ariston en te physei pasei huh. He's the best. Sumum bonum is he's called in the Summa Contra Gentiles. So that's just another confirmation there of the importance of the end for the what wise men.

[6:21] Now the importance of the end is entwined up now with the fact the wise man is knowing the first cause, and consequently. he's ordering others and so on. The importance of the form, you see, because the subject of wisdom is being as being, or the subject of science is mainly what substance, right? And one meaning of substance is what it is, which is tied up with the form.

[6:48] But also, form is that through which something has being in some way. So form is the beginning of being. So through my substantial form, my soul, I am. And through the form of geometry, I am a geometer. So I have being, right, through some form. And that's why the separated substances have what being even more so, right? Because I have being through part of me, through my form, right?

[7:20] But the separated substances have being through themselves because they're just a forma. So the form is extremely important for wisdom because the subject of wisdom is being, and the connection between being and what form, huh? What does Boethius say? Divina Substantia Forma Est. So this is very important for wisdom. And when Aristotle begins the seventh book of wisdom, he begins the study of substance, the chief subject of wisdom.

[8:00] He investigates substance through definition and through what it is. And there you see the importance again of form. So these two are the most important causes. After them comes the mover, because we do talk about the mover. But the matter is least appropriate to wisdom, although insofar as wisdom is about being as being, and that includes ability as well as act, you can go all the way down and say something about matter.

[8:32] But matter is what really is appropriate in natural philosophy. If you look at the end of the first book of of natural hearing, the first book of the physics, so called, Aristotle will clear up some difficulties about matter there and the confusion of matter and lack of form in Plato. But then he kind of reserves to first philosophy. He says there some questions you might have about forma.

[9:04] Again, a sign of the importance of form, why the problems about matter are more willingly taken up there in natural philosophy, because as De Koninck would always say, following Thomas, what doesn't matter is mobile, right? And that's what that's what natural philosophy is about: mobile things. Let's look at what the philosopher has to say here about. First, the end, and then about the. What form?

[9:37] And notice how Thomas when he lays out this, he lays out about four reasons why Aristotle says that there is a first end, or four difficulties if you don't admit this, and then likewise four he lays out for the

[10:00] form. The you know we call this sometimes Thomas's commentary, right? But probably a better word to use is what expositio, and I know sometimes you have the Latin there, the exposition. Exposition means what? Laying out, I think would be the most appropriate English translation, and that's a much more precise meaning than to say commentary. You know, I'm commenting on the book, you know, even the the moderns comment on Aristotle, but you know what?

[10:38] But it's worth, right? But Thomas lays it out. He gives you the order of the thing, right? And he he he he spreads out the arguments, and I think that's a good way of speaking. He's laying out the book. Okay.

[10:54] A little bit like Shakespeare says sometimes when characters unfold yourself, right? And sometimes everyone in class they can't even say the students unfold yourself, but you know when you when you unfold a a handkerchief or something, you know, and spread it out, you know, then you see the whole pattern and so on, and that's what Thomas does. He's laying out the thing. So I don't know what is that's an English translation there, but what is was that called?

[11:21] Is it called commentary or exposition? The the main title of the book. In the Latin. Exposition. Exposition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're we're accustomed to call it commentary, and they all say it's wrong. But I mean, I think exposition has a has a a a a fuller meaning to what Thomas is doing, right? He really is laying out the text for us.

[11:46] Okay. Layout. Started out. Okay, let's look at now the beginning of the fourth reading here, where he starts about form. Since the Since the, that for the sake of which is the end, right? And this is what is not for the sake of something else, but other things for the sake of it.

[12:23] So if there will be such a thing at last, right? It will not be infinite. If there is nothing such, there will not be a that for the sake of which. What's he saying here, huh? An end is by definition that for the sake of which something is or is done, right? And while means is that which is for the sake of a what, of another, right?

[12:53] Not that for the sake of which. So, if everything was for the sake of something else, all you'd have would be means, and then you wouldn't have any end. Do you see? So, if if

[13:14] here comes the bread man. Bad news about the bread. They ran out of the stuff you guys liked. We'll have to eat the stuff we don't like then. I got some extra Thank you.

[13:34] So, if everything was desired for the sake of something else, everything would be desired as a means, and nothing would be desired as an end. So, if you're always desiring this for the sake of that, a for the sake of b, and b for the sake of c, and so on forever, you're never really desiring anything as the what end. And so, if you make it endless, you have no end.

[13:59] It's kind of obvious, huh? Okay. Now, sometimes we talk about this in ethics and so on, and we can kind of develop this a little bit. This first reason, say a little bit differently. If I desire a for the sake of b, and I desire b for the sake of c, can I desire a before I desire b?

[14:32] No, not if I'm desiring a for the sake of b. I have to desire b before I can desire a. And if I'm desiring b in turn for the sake of c, I have to desire c before I could desire either b or a. Now, do you see a little problem? If c is being desired now for the sake of something else, and so on, there's always something you must desire before you could desire anything else.

[15:05] So, how could you begin to desire? Because anything you you say is the beginning of your desire. Since it's being desired for the sake of something else, it can't be the beginning of your desire. So, how could you even begin to desire? Could you?

[15:27] No. Now it's interesting, huh? Um, when Sr. Dionne was saying, explaining that text to Albert, how experience is necessary for wisdom, huh? And experience means, you know, many particulars, huh? But Dionne said it doesn't mean many particulars now in the sense of many singulars. That's what you have in the experience behind natural philosophy or ethics or something like that. But the many particulars are the particular kinds of reasoned out knowledge.

[16:03] And you can see that here in the second book of wisdom, because as you know, in the last books of the actual hearing, we reason to there being a first mover, an unmoved mover. In logic, we reason to definitions not going on forever and so on. There being a beginning in defining and reasoning, and then in ethics, we reason that there is an end that's not desired in the sake of something else.

[16:29] So we see something particular in each of the lower sciences, the more particular sciences, but here it's seen in a completely what universal way, huh? Which you have to be kind of led up to that, huh? So if you've seen when you study ethics some of the truth of what Aristotle is saying that there has to be something that's desired for its own sake and not for sake of something else, namely happiness, and Plato had said this already in the in the Symposium, right?

[17:00] About happiness. Then you've got a more a less universal statement from which you can rise to the more universal consideration here in the second book. Otherwise, you could get maybe indigestion with this all at one place, right? Okay.

[17:22] So that's the main argument Aristotle is giving here. If nothing, if everything is desired for the sake of something else, then really nothing is desired as an end, and everything is desired only as a what means, huh? And so you're doing away then with that kind of cause. So if that kind of cause exists, something must be desired as an end, and therefore the series is not endless, huh?

[17:49] Okay. And I was trying to say another way of showing this, huh, is by showing the impossibility, and we do it in ethics sometimes, of desiring everything for the sake of something else, because you'd always have to desire something else before you could desire anything, and then you couldn't even begin desiring anything, because whatever you see as the first desire I had was for something that I couldn't desire without desiring something else, so I couldn't begin to desire.

[18:22] Okay. Now the brevity of wisdom, Aristotle goes on here. Now to the second difficulty, which is that if you do away with the end, he says those he says laying down the infinite, it's hidden from them, right? That they're taking away the nature of the good. Well, the the good and the end are almost the same thing. We sometimes say the means is good, in some secondary way, but the means is good because it leads to the end.

[19:01] So chiefly the good is the end. Now the definition of good and the end are not the same. The definition of end is that for the sake of which, and sometimes we say that for the sake of which something is or is done, right? But the first definition of the good is what all want. But if you examine even those two definitions, you can see the connection, right?

[19:29] Because what all want is that for the sake of which they will do what they do, right? And if people are doing what they do for the sake of something, it must be because they think that is good, right? So even although the definitions are different, you can see a connection, right? But better if you see the fact that end and means are both good or can both be good, right?

[19:58] But the means for the sake of the what end, and so the end is chiefly the good. So Aristotle is showing how serious is the denial of end, right? And it's kind of an extra absurdity, if you want to call it,

[20:20] from denying that there's an end, which the first one is saying you would do. If you say everything is desired for sake of something else, you're denying the cause called end. Okay, and then an additional result of you denying end is you're denying the good. And he says hidden to people, right? When they deny the end, they they are denying the good. And maybe you could say that about the moderns who don't like end as a cause, right?

[20:50] They don't want to consider it to be a cause. They want to do away with the end, especially in actual things. They want to do away with it. It's hidden from them that they're doing away with the good.

[21:03] What's the good of doing away with the end? It does away with the good. Is that so? It was the brevity of Aristotle, huh? You know, when I when I explain lead up to the saying that brevity is the soul of wit, huh? Wit there is all the commentators say. Shakespeare means wisdom there. It doesn't mean wit in the sense of telling a joke, although it's true.

[21:29] I suppose if you have to explain the joke, you kill it. But you're saying that shortness is the soul of wisdom, and I say to the students, well, how can brevity or shortness be the soul of wisdom? Doesn't the wise man have more? Does he know more than everybody else? Shouldn't length be? And sometimes I go back to that delicious theorem there, number five in book two of Euclid.

[21:58] But I say it with a certain, tragedy, as Aristotle says, and Zeno, some of his arguments, you know, are substantially the same. But he says it was a certain tragedy, you know, to to rouse wonder. Well, you know, the fifth theorem says if you cut a straight line into equal and unequal segments, the rectangle contained by the unequal segments plus the square on the line between the points of section will equal the square on the half.

[22:29] But in order to arouse a certain wonder, I point out that if you think of the length of the line as the perimeter of a rectangle, and

[22:44] you compare the square, right, or the rectangle, if you want to say it, contained by the equal segments, and the rectangle contained by the unequal segments, they have exactly the same perimeter, but the one contained by the the square is going to be greater than the one contained by the unequal ones, the oblong, by that square between the two of them, right? Once you see that, then you realize that of all rectangles with the same perimeter, the square contains more area, the square always than the oblong, and the oblong that's closer to being a square will contain more area too, for that matter.

[23:29] Once you see that, then knowing the divisibility, the continuous, we can arouse wonder even more. Do you know that I, with a what, a square, I can contain more area with less perimeter?

[23:47] So a square, I say, five by five has got a perimeter of 20, but an area of what, twenty five. But a rectangle two by ten has got a perimeter of what, twenty four, more more perimeter, but an area of only what, twenty. So this is an amazing thing,

[24:08] that you can have a rectangle with less perimeter and more area. I use less fence in my rectangle than you did in yours, but I what fenced in more what? Land, huh? Well, then I use a proportion. How words are to what you say, as the perimeter is to the area. And just as it's possible to contain more area with less perimeter, so it's possible to say more with less words.

[24:43] And that's behind the words of Shakespeare: "Brevity is the soul of wit." The wise man will say more with less words. The fool says less with more words. And so it says in the book of Is it Proverbs: "The fool multiplieth his words, huh?" And but that at first sight seems impossible, right? That a man could say more with less words. But in something more known to us, rectangles and so on, you see that amazing, wonderful thing that a man can say, can can fence in in less area with more fence, and another guy fences in more area with less fence.

[25:28] It's pretty smart, right? And they say that the ancient what, perimeter geometers sometimes would buy and sell land by perimeter. So I'm giving you a good deal, right? I'm giving you land with must be more. It takes longer to walk around your land, this land, than that land. You're actually getting less area. So I mean, that just a more more money making part of your student thing.

[25:52] You can point that out. I think make money by knowing these wonderful things, huh? And then you can you can apply that when you talk to talk about the physical sciences, huh? Because the the father of modern physics, there, Max Planck, said that when he discovered the quantum, he believed and he still believes that the more universal a theory is in physics, the simpler is its what form.

[26:23] So the more area it covers, the simpler it is. And then you could you know go and talk about God, huh? He's the simplest thing there is, but he's the cause of everything. Or you could go talk about you know up in the scale of the angels, you have fewer and fewer thoughts expressing more and more until you get to God, where there's only one thought. Guys, guys, there's only one thought, right?

[26:50] But it expresses everything, yeah. And you heard my little poem, which I always recite, huh? God, the Father said it all in one word. No wonder when that word became a man, he spoke in words so few and said so much. He was the brevity and soul of wit. Okay, so I mean,

[27:15] you see some of the brevity of wisdom here in what Aristotle's speaking, right? Remember how we said back in Book Nine, these guys who have been saying nothing is possible or able except what is actual—they're doing away with ability, huh? They're doing away with motion and becoming. Really, it's no little thing they're doing, Aristotle says. He could have said that here, right? It's no little thing they're doing, denying the end, they're taking away the good.

[27:43] The brevity—you just have to stop and kind of savour this and say, "My goodness, huh?" Then the third thing he says, huh? And no one or nothing would try to do anything, not being able to reach an end.

[28:01] You know, sometimes as a kid you get with numbers. You know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You know, if you count to ten, so you can count to twenty and so on forever. Does anybody really try to do that? anybody try to count when there's no end? What are you counting to? I'm counting to the, you know, yeah, yeah. But there is no end, right?

[28:23] No one would try to do that. Not even what nature, as Thomas says in the in the commentary, huh? So you're taking away, in a sense, all effort to achieve anything.

[28:37] Okay. And no little thing you're doing then, ready? And then the the fourth thing, huh? Since the mind does what it does, always with something in mind, some goal or end or goal that it can reach, you're doing away with the mind as a cause of things, huh? Again, no little illumination, right? So notice how brief this text is, but how much there is in there. You realize how how horrendous it is when you say that everything is desired for the sake of something else.

[29:16] What is it that they ask you, the king? What's this good for, huh? And you have something from over and give him a coin every time he gets the theorem down, right? If you must, you know, have it for the sake of something else. But sometimes you get people in conversation. They think, well, something isn't good. It isn't good for something, right? So everything must be good for something other than itself, huh?

[29:44] But what's hidden to them is that then nothing would be good if everything had to be good for something else. He's doing away with the end, and therefore you're really doing away with the good.

[29:55] I never thought of that. But don't you find people in conversation who think everything must be? What? What they want is the ultimate explanation. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, my father's company there. My brothers and I used to work down there in the summer, and sometimes we work in the factory, all different shops down there, and then Sundays we work in the office there, you know, seeing, you know, working all those schedules and things.

[30:24] But anyway, the only really kind of educated man around there was my father's engineer, right? And so Sundays talked to us, the boys, and what are we studying and so on, and we're studying philosophy, and oh, what are you studying that for? And of course he'd say for itself.

[30:43] he couldn't just accept that answer. And then maybe a few weeks later, conversation. No, what are you doing? You know, you study philosophy. Why do you study that? For its own sake. He just he just couldn't accept the answer that we were giving him, right? So finally, you know, he had to satisfy his own thinking, supply an answer to himself, and and he said to us one day, you know, I know why you're studying it.

[31:10] It's brain food. Get your brain really working, you know, really really worked up. Now you go out and really do something, you know, practical or something. You want some minders?

[31:23] You know, you know. Sometimes you know we justify liberal education that you can after liberal education you can go out and do something else and probably do it better than these other people, you know. So you got this brain food, right? That's that's the only possible explanation of why we were studying studying philosophy. We used to go to a little little store run by a Chinese woman there to buy some nice little dishes or something for my mother for Christmas, you know, and and she was really a nice woman, but she'd ask us, you know, what we're studying in philosophy, and of course she didn't see any purpose to it, of course, besides herself.

[31:59] If you didn't see that, it's obviously justifying it, right? So she just you know just nice woman. She found it so funny that we were doing this, you know, because obviously didn't serve any purpose, right?

[32:12] So Aristotle is not reasoning against notions that some people don't seem to have, and they can't see their way out of it, and they can't box their way out of it.

[32:27] So the mind always what acts for the sake of something, and this is the end, and the end is a what limit. Actually, peras can mean what you know, end or limit in Greek. And that's Aristotle. I think that's the word he takes in the in the fifth book of wisdom, where he has the many senses of limit. But it's almost a synonym for for end in the broader sense.

[32:59] You know, I was giving you the sophistical argument there that the happiness is the end of human life. The end of human life is death. Therefore, happiness is death. Well, you're kind of mixing up the first sense of end or limit peras with the third sense, but the fourth sense is the one that's involved in definition, define. That comes from finis there. So

[33:34] you always find yourself in class, you know, you say end, they're going to fall back on the first sense. So you always find you say the same end or purpose, right? Well, I suppose peras and telos in Greek would be a little bit like that. Telos would be a little more particular, right? Like purpose seems to be more. More particular, the end. End can be purpose, but it can mean death.

[33:58] It can be, you know, beginning or end of the magnitude, right? End of the table. That's not the purpose of the table, right? But you can speak of the end of the table. But sometimes you have to end our purpose, you know, with them because they use the wrong sense of the word. But you're in the life? Well, death, I guess. It could fall back upon me for a sense.

[34:32] No, around lines. Sixteen, he goes to the other cause, which is the what form. And Aristotle always ties up this kind of cause with definition. In fact, when he defines form there in the second book of Natural Hearing or the fifth book of Wisdom, it's a definition, the logos, of what was to be, and it's because the definition of the species is completed by the what form, or what it is, completed by the form.

[35:10] That's like Boethius's definition there of nature, unum quodque unum quodque informans specifica differentia. You see the connection there between the nature of what it is and form, each thing informing specific difference. So Aristotle, in order to show that form is not endless, is going to show that definition is not what endless, right?

[35:41] Okay. So, but neither is it what possible to lead back the what was to be in another definition, pleonazonta to logo, that is not more full, as Thomas explains, but that is what more universal, set of more, right? Okay.

[36:15] Now, as you go, say, from the definition, let's say of square, in the definition of square is quadrilateral, right? But quadrilateral has a definition, right? And but that's pleonazonta, that's extending to more things, the definition of what quadrilateral than the definition of what square, right? And then in the definition of quadrilateral is rectilineal plane figure, right? And there's a definition of rectilineal plane figure before that, right?

[36:51] And that's pleonazonta, that's extending to even more things, right, and being set of even more things than quadrilateral, right? Does this go on forever? Well, before rectilineal plane figure is, or in the definition of it is plane figure, and there's a definition of plane figure, right? And in the definition of plane figure is figure, and definition is a figure, right? So you keep on getting a definition this way that is set of more, extends to more things, and so on.

[37:23] But does this go on forever? That's the question, right? Okay. And you never come to a first thing that has no definition before it. Well, if you recall, in the ninth book of Wisdom, we met something called act, right? Which is not what led back to a more universal definition, is it?

[37:50] Anyways, Aristotle is is saying that this is not true, but now he's going to try to show us, right? For always the what one before is more, but the after is not, of which there is nothing first, nor would there be anything after it, huh? What is he saying, huh? He's saying that

[38:24] if every definition had a definition before it, right, huh? Then there'd be nothing first, right? And everything would be in the middle, but they can't have the middle without the what first, huh? Kind of goes back to the first argument we saw, huh? Okay.

[38:46] Now, this is something we first see in logic when when we've learned the Isagoge of Porphyry, where he's brought together definitions, huh? I think I mentioned before how Porphyry is a kind of model for us. And there's some usefulness in Porphyry having brought those together. And as I was mentioning, Thomas makes use of that in his either-or syllogism in the Summa Contra Gentiles when he's showing that no name is said univocally of God and creatures.

[39:32] And he says every name said univocally of many is either a genus or a difference or a species or a property or an accident. And then he goes through and eliminates one by one all five of those. So you couldn't have made that kind of a argument if you had not brought together them in this kind of complete way. So there's something to be gained that Thomas is gaining, right?

[39:59] You might say, from Porphyry bringing those together in a kind of universal way. And I've mentioned how Dionne sometimes brought things together, right? And that's why who was it? Was it Brother Edmund there? A nice young Brother Edmund there that Brother Edmund said, you know, Dion was kind of the most I don't know honest teacher. What did he say? Something like that? Because he never just said what was in the text, right?

[40:27] But but he casts some light upon it, right? And but Porphyry is kind of a model for us in this respect, you know, because that's the first book we read, really, at the beginning of logic, the Isagoge. When I first went to Laval, that's the first course I had, you know, in logic. There it was really actually Albert the Great, but Albert the Great is is paraphrasing Porphyry's Isagoge.

[40:56] So when we learn from Porphyry what a genus is and what a species is, and difference and so on, and how a species is defined through genus and difference, and then we learn that a genus can also be a species, and therefore it could have a definition itself as a species by its own genus and what difference, right? Well, then begins the interesting question. Given that a genus can be a species and a species can be a genus, you have two questions.

[41:37] Is every species a genus, or is there a lowest species? And then the question is more relevant to this: Is every genus a species, or is there a highest genus, a genus that is not a what species? Because if there is, then there's an end to what defining, huh?

[42:03] And this is a question now that presupposes the teaching of Porphyry there, but is presupposed in a way to the teaching of the categories, because the categories is about the ten genera that are not what species. Well, how do you know that there is a genus that is not a what a species? How do you know that?

[42:35] You can't define anything. Yeah, that would be one difficulty. You'd never be able to define anything. There'd always be a definition before you could define anything. You had to define something else, and that's directly proportional, right? In Euclid's sense, to

[42:56] not every statement is a what, and not every premise is a conclusion, right? You see, and seeing in in the logic of reasoning that the same statement can be a premise and a conclusion, right? A conclusion of one argument and a premise in the next one, like you see again and again in Euclid. But then you ask the question, yeah, but is every premise a conclusion, or is there a premise that is not a conclusion?

[43:27] And of course, if every premise was a conclusion, you could never even begin to reason like I was saying. You could never begin to desire there before, right? Because any premise I would begin to use to to reason out something, people would say, "Before you use that, you got to prove that, right? " And whatever premise you wanted to prove that by, before you use that, you must prove them.

[43:52] So there is no premise you could begin with, right? And so you could never reason anything out, right? And so you might say, "Well, so what? That's the way life is. You can't. " But you know from experience, your experience of Euclid, the Elements, that you did come to know something by definition, right? You did make known, right? And you would have made known nothing by definitions if there had been what an infinity of definitions presupposed, right?

[44:25] And you know, you actually made was made known to you probably before you got to Euclid what an odd number was, an even number is, but maybe in reading Euclid, it was made known to you what a perfect number is, huh? When I yeah, is that what we see that that that error in the modern insistence on a proof for the fifth postulate? Yeah, yeah. Now the fifth postulate, as my brother Marcus taught us, is obvious, but less obvious than the other ones, right?

[44:57] And it's more obvious when you when it was actually brought into the text. On the time it's brought in, is more obvious, son. But he examined the arguments of people who tried to prove it, right? And these arguments turned out to be circular. They were assuming the fifth postulate in trying to prove the fifth postulate.

[45:28] But not only does that make the argument bad, but the fact that they assume it without knowing it is a sign they really know it. As my brother Mark said, and

[45:46] it's it's it's like when you talk about someone who denies the the axiom about contradiction, and if they have a reason for denying it, it's because something contradicts it. So they're saying that isn't so because it is so, which makes the argument very defective. But the fact that they don't realize they're assuming it and attacking it is a sign they really do know it, right? If something really does contradict it, it can't be true.

[46:16] Why not? Because you can't really your mind accept a contradiction, huh? Okay. So my brother Mark is pointing out that not only are their arguments, their attempts to prove the fifth postulate, to be rejected as a good argument because they're they're assuming the very thing they're trying to prove, but their assumption of it without realizing it is a sign of how obvious it is. Okay. So anyway,

[46:46] that's one way we we show, right? And of course, as I say, that does involve realizing that we did come to know what something is by definition. Why, if every definition had presupposed another definition, we would never have come to know what a perfect number was. Haven't you come to know that, right? You see, and other things. And some people don't know what a trapezium is or what a rhombus is, right?

[47:16] But these can be made known to us by definition, and they were made known to us by definition, right? But nothing would have been made known to us by definition if every definition we had used had presupposed another definition. Okay. I

[47:35] could also say, this will be similar to one of the arguments you'll give here, that you can't really know what a square is without knowing what a quadrilateral is. You can't really know what a quadrilateral is if you don't know what it is to be contained by straight lines, and you can't really know it is to be contained by straight lines unless you know what it is to be contained, right?

[48:01] And so on, right? So you wouldn't know anything. In this case, right? Because to know anything, you presuppose you know something other than what you're trying to know. You couldn't even begin to know anything, huh?

[48:21] Now another way that I show it is this. If every genus was a species, right? If every genus had a genus above it, apart from the fact that your head would get a little bit top heavy, there would always be a more universal name than any name you give, because a genus is always said of more than the species, right? So if every genus was a species and a genus above it, there'd always be a more universal name.

[48:53] But in that case, there would be no most universal names. But then there are names like being or something, right? That are most universal.

[49:10] Could there be something that doesn't come under something? Could there be something that doesn't come under being? You see. And then you know from that, right, that not every genus is a what species, right? But then the question is whether those most universal names are one genus of everything, or whether those most universal names like being and something are equivocal, right? And then you can show, you want to go to the categories, that those most universal names like being or thing are not equivocal, not said equivocally, and then you realize that there's going to be what more than one highest genus or highest genus.

[50:07] And then you have to find how the highest genera, of which there are many, are to be distinguished, right? And you go to Thomas and the explanation of why there there are ten there in the exposition, in the laying out of the third book of the Natural Hearing, or in the laying out of the fifth book, the Wisdom. Could you define anything if there was only being?

[50:33] If being was univocal in other words? could you? I mean, if being was a genus and had differences, then you could define it seems, right? But being is not a genus. Where would you get the differences? If there was one. Well, that's probably the problem. That's why being isn't a genus, right? I say if being was a genus in the strict sense, it would be difference. It would have differences because that's what genus is.

[51:03] A genus is a name said of many things, right? Other in kind or in species. So the idea that they're different in species is already in the meaning of what a genus is.

[51:20] But but we can show in a number of ways that being or thing. Is not a genus, because this is something that Porphyry could have brought up, but but didn't, huh? But for me, the clue was Thomas's argument there in the Summa Contra Gentiles, that the distinction of those five in the strict sense is a distinction of names said univocally of many things. So the five predicables, as they call them sometimes, genus, difference, species, property, accident, is a complete distinction of names said univocally of many things.

[52:00] So you could say every name, you can make an either or statement. Every name said univocally of many things is either their genus or their difference or their species or their property or their accident, huh?

[52:15] So Porphyry doesn't bring that out. He could have done that, huh? But when I saw this thing in Summa Contra Gentiles and I realized it, Thomas's understanding of it, and I said to Monsignor, I said, well, he should have done that then. Monsignor said, yes, you know, so salva reverentia, you know, one could say that

[52:38] our friend Porphyry should have distinguished between a name said of many things univocally and a name said of many things equivocally, and in that book, he's talking really about the distinction, right, of names said univocally of many things. This thing I was giving you the other day, you know, about names said of many things equivocally, that is distinguished into names said of many things equivocally by chance and by reason, and then I gave you the breakdown of by reason, huh?

[53:13] But Porphyry's really giving you the breakdown of names said univocally of many things. So, but Thomas, you know, adds something, right, huh? That is not brought out by Porphyry, but nevertheless, Porphyry's a very great work, there, huh? Very great, great work. There's a little bit there that Thomas, but important little bit, huh?

[53:44] So even though there's one name said of all things, like being or thing or something, it's not one genus because it's not said univocally of all things. But anyway,

[54:03] now the so I say that's the third way I show that there's a highest genus or genus, right? Because if there was not, you would never come to a most universal name, would you? Okay,

[54:22] do you see that? But we do come to such, you know. Therefore, there must be an end. Let's look now at his second argument here, before he anticipated here,

[54:43] and it's a line what twenty, I guess here. Further, to epistasthai. Now we've talked about the word before, right? They would what take away those speaking thus, right?

[55:01] For one is not able to what eidenai to understand, right? Before one comes to the what atoma the indivisibles, right? And I think incidentally that he knows the word eidenai there in the Greek. If you have the Greek text there, if you look at the very first sentence of the Metaphysica, it's usually translated all men by nature desire to know. You probably had that translation. Sometimes we use that translation.

[55:46] Notice what it says in the Greek there: all men fuse by nature orengetai desire to eidenai, right? See, eidenai is more to what understand than simply knowing in the broad sense.

[56:08] So the sign that he takes there, especially from the eyes, that we look at things just to see them sometimes, right? It's really not an example of knowing, as we sometimes, if you know in the broad sense, although I sometimes explain that way because it makes sense that way too. But to understand to see are proportional, right? And just as the eye tries to see in its way sometimes just to see something that is beautiful, so the eye of the soul, the reason sometimes just tries to understand something because it's worth understanding, and for nothing further than just to understand it.

[56:54] To understand that you can have less perimeter and more area, just understand that it's wonderful, right? Don't have to think about making money by selling land. Right, perimeter is different by area. You know,

[57:17] just you know, I I delight in that. Don't think about making money. Just understand that. Of course, in the beginning of the natural hearing, there Aristotle speaks about science having eidenai and epistasthai Right? Eidenai obviously is is not knowing in the broad sense, but the kind you have in that knowing here. So, in the same context here, with epistasthai. Of course, the English word is maybe even better in one way because to understand means that you come to a stand or a halt.

[58:03] But in the Greek word, you have that right. Episteme in Greek means to come to a halt or a what stop. And that's why the books on episteme, like the Prior and Posterior Analytics, are talking about what taking apart all the way down to something what indivisible.

[58:30] And to know would not be what possible, right? For things thus infinite, how would one be able to understand them, right? Now, in the Dianoia, in the first book of the Dianoia, Aristotle compares thoughts to numbers rather than the continuous, because they're not divisible forever.

[58:57] He says, "Not like the line. You couldn't understand the line if you were trying to divide it as much as it's divisible, right? That would go on forever, right? So you have to take it as a whole, right, and not as something divisible forever.

[59:17] You couldn't understand anything if you had to always understand something else before you could understand what you're trying to understand. And notice now that the Greek here is interesting.

[59:34] Talking about the line there, which is divisible forever, hekatastasis diaireseos, which according to the divisions does not what histatai come to a halt or a stop, right? But to understand is not possible, not what standing. Standing, yeah, yeah. See, so excellent English word "understanding" is.

[1:00:00] That's why I use the term, the phrase sometimes "reasoned out understanding" to try to get something of the etymology there of the Greek word episteme, right, coming to a halt or a stop.

[1:00:13] But you can see the problem of Plato there with the influence of his teacher there, Cratylus. How can you understand something that doesn't stand still?

[1:00:26] Something that's always moving doesn't stand still. So how can we understand? How can you understand it, right? And so Plato, in a sense, was looking for something he could understand, and therefore he was open to a standing world, a unchanging world. The

[1:00:53] one could never number all the divisions that are possible for a line, right? Because they go on forever.