Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
46. From Experience to Art and Science: Knowing Why, Architectonic Arts, and the Aim of Wisdom (Metaphysics I, 1)
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[0:00] Talk about it doesn't go to natural understanding that's not really necessary for his purposes, and it's hard to see natural understanding. It's kind of obscure. He's going to go though further along the road from experience to what he calls art or science, episteme or techne, and he's going to bring out. We'll see that episteme or techne, art or science, is about the universal, and everything up to this point that he's talked about is about the singular or or the singulers in the case of memory.

[0:43] I mean, of experience, but he's not going to say so readily that art or science is more like wisdom than experience. In fact, he's going to say before he tries to show that that in some ways experience is superior to art or science. He's using art or science here, kind of interchangeably for knowledge of the universal, not so much in distinction as you know we do in Nicomachean Ethics, which he refers you to here.

[1:21] In fact, for a more distinct knowledge of their difference. What he's going to show is that in some way art or science, that is to say, knowledge of the of the universal, arises from experience.

[1:38] And so he's going to bring out that first difference between art or science and everything that's gone before, the difference between the knowledge of the singular or singulars and a knowledge of the universal, and he's going to also point out that that knowledge of the universal seems to arise from experience. It's not until you've seen many singulers of the same sort and you remember many singulers of the same sort and you've brought these many memories together that you single out what they have in common, and your singling out of what they have in common is the beginning of art or science, which is a knowledge of the universal.

[2:21] So he takes an example there from the medical art, right? I might give this to you and you feel better, and I give it to you and you feel better, and I give it to you and I remember this, you know, and then I, you know, separate out what you had in common, maybe your your discomfort or disease or where it was, and then what I used and so on.

[2:42] Now I've got a kind of a general rule about you know this for for that disease, right? And I have a kind of beginning of art or science.

[2:54] But the first thing he points out there seems to be something similar about episteme and. Or art, and what experience, and then one can do something, maybe the same thing sometimes, by experience as well as by art or what science.

[3:25] And he goes on to say then, episteme and techne, art and science, comes to men through experience, and he quotes Polus there in the Platonic dialogue there, the Gorgias, I believe, Polus, the character there, that experience makes what art or science. Okay, inexperience luck. See,

[3:58] well said, right? Speak of beginner's luck sometimes, right? But they don't have the experience, right? The beginner, huh? But he does it right, beginner's luck. Okay, but the more important point here is that experience seems to make what at least the beginning of art or science, because after we've seen many things of the same kind and remember those many things and we retain those many memories and bring them together, then we compare them and then we start to separate out what they have in common, and that's something universal now, isn't it?

[4:36] Okay, so experience comes before knowledge of the universal. Okay, and that's what he says in the next line there. The Greek word for the universal there is the katholou, right?

[4:57] And he gives an example from the medical art there. But when you separate out what something common to the ailments of these people, right, and something common to what healed them or something like that, you all guys had a headache, and the aspirin relieved him, and the aspirin relieved him, and the aspirin relieved him, but now we get something universal, right? Aspirin relieves headaches or something, right?

[5:23] Okay, and that's clear enough. This is sort of a tangential question, and it may not, and it may not be worth addressing. But to what extent is this failure in the person who has theory and the success of the person who has experience related to the cognitive power, the ability to unite the universal to the particular? Well, you didn't think you had the game because we haven't discussed yet, right?

[6:02] But Aristotle is going to say right after. Manifesting that art or science comes to be in men from experience. Okay, now he's going to at line twelve there compare experience and art or science, and as regards which is what better, right? Huh? And he's going to first say that as far as doing is concerned, experience the man of experience sometimes succeeds better than the man of art or science.

[6:41] Huh? And he's going to give a reason for that in terms of the difference that we've seen so far between the two: that one is a knowledge of the universal art or science, and the other is a knowledge of the singular, and that in doing you are always doing something singular, so that the man of experience might be closer to what you are doing, and therefore succeed better in doing than the man of what Art or science?

[7:13] Huh? Now sometimes you might do this the same thing by experience and by art or science. Huh? One thing I've noticed myself: take a simple example of the art of grammar. I am a pretty well-read man, okay, and so I have a long experience of words. So I've got a student paper to correct there, and he's misspelling, right? Okay, and the most common misspelling is the one involving I and E.

[7:52] Same, because sometimes the I comes before and sometimes the E comes before the I. That's the most common spelling mistake the students make, and I recognize in this word from my experience that they misspelled it, right? Well, so common, I said to Rosalie, who used to teach, you know, English and history and so on. Rosalie, isn't there a rule for that? Oh yeah, I before E except after.

[8:22] Was it C? C. Yeah, I mean, sounded like E as a neighboring way. Okay, so Rosalie is the person of what Art of science? She knows the universal rule, but I can correct these papers, and I succeed in doing so because of my experience of words, and I recognize that word is what misspelled, right? Okay.

[8:50] When I was a student in Quebec, some of the students were some of the American students were kind of indigent, right? And one job that they could get was teaching conversational English. To secretaries usually because they have to know some English right in order to do their secretarial duties because there's correspondence with English-speaking people and now conversational English course is not so formal course and so it's not too hard to conduct I guess the conversational English from your long experience of English right but talking to my American friends I didn't have to do this myself but even in a conversational English course sometimes the student would ask what the rule was and then you realize that you don't know the rule even though you speak

[9:52] perfectly correct English so you're speaking out of correctly out of experience and not out of art or science because the rule is something universal and so you can't tell this the the person the rule and sometimes a foreigner knows the rule before but the foreigner will not succeed as Aristotle will point out here in speaking as well maybe as a native person right because he lacks the experience so Aristotle is more nuanced you know he has no doubt that it's fairly easy to see that the animal that has memory in addition to sensing has gone further in knowing and the man who has experience has gone further than the man of one memory and knowing but is the man of art or science superior to

[10:53] the man of experience well actually in terms of his first difference he argues that the man of experience might be what superior and you can see that in this example right I might speak better English than the man who knows the rules but doesn't have the long experience of English that I have and I know sometimes occasionally you know I talk to the Greek professor at school who suddenly knows Greek a hundred times better than I do and knows the rules and so on right but I remark about something in the Greek text of Aristotle kind of you know a little surprise you know that and so I might be able to what you know get the sense of a text of Aristotle quicker than

[11:46] he even though he knows Greek much better than I in the rules but I have this long experience of the text or long experience and he has of the text of Aristotle. Taking another example here of how the man of experience, let's read Aristotle first, and I'll give another example.

[12:14] So around line twelve, he says, "pros men oun to prattein." Towards, he says, "Doing," experience seems not to differ at all from art or science. But even more, we see the men who are experienced hitting upon what they should than those what having the logon, the universal, the reason, but without experience. And he gives the reason for that from the very difference he's pointed out between the two.

[12:49] aitia, the cause is that experience is a knowledge of the kath' hekasta. That's the Greek way of saying the particulars, the individuals. But art or science is of the universal, but actions and generations all are about the singular. And he gives the example from medical art. For one does not cure a man. That's the universal. Unless you want to speak kata sumbebēkos by accident, what you're really curing is Callias or Socrates or some other one, some other individual man, right?

[13:29] So if one has the reason, the universal, but without experience and knows the universal, but doesn't know what's in the singular, many times he what fails in his therapy because one heals the what singular, right? Okay, I'll stop there for a moment. So Aristotle is nuanced here, right? He's not saying, okay, just as memory is an advance beyond sensing and experience beyond memory, right? Clearly, art or science is an advance beyond.

[14:08] In fact, he's pointing out that hey, the man of experience in doing at least, right, might succeed better than the man of art or science. Now, taking examples here, the medical art there.

[14:25] When my wife gave birth to the first baby, and there's discomfort afterwards, they give them a dose of Demerol. huh? And they give the same dose to everybody. Well, that's something universal, right? So the nurse comes in with the dose of Demerol, and my wife took that that dose and started giving her headaches and so on. So it wasn't making her feel more comfortable. Is it? It's making her, right?

[14:53] But you see, the nurse has got something universal, right? You give this dose to everybody. Okay. Well, next time Rose had a baby, and they come in the Demerol. I'll just take half of that," she says, and that relieved her what, suffering, right, or her pain, or what it was,

[15:10] and didn't give her any headaches, right? So she was a better what, cure, you might say, right, or helper, of herself medically, than was the what, the nurse, the doctor, because they're using something universal, and it doesn't fit every case exactly, and she knows herself what, better, huh? I said, when I was a freshman in college, I'd take some general requirements, and I was end up in some psychology course among other things, and psychologist worked in the local

[15:47] mental home we're called, mental hospital there, and he'd sometimes bring into class, you know, examples, you know, from his work there, and something's pretty honest about what goes on and and so on, but what, so I stuck in my mind, he says, there aren't enough psychologists on the staff, huh, to get to know the patients individually really well, and so he says what happens is, when a patient comes in, they have a board meeting, and they classify his ailment, and then there's a prescribed treatment for that ailment, and he says I think it often, sometimes, many times, makes them worse, I think that's the sign of what Aristotle is saying here, right?

[16:34] Because when you classify the incoming patient by the kind of ailment he has, you're going to universal, right? And then that universal has a universal prescribed treatment, huh? And because it's not really adapted to the individual, then you what, could make him worse, right? And you know if you take more simple psychological things, huh?

[17:06] If your if your friend is down the dumps, right, or your spouse is down the dumps, or your little boy or girl is down the dumps, you might know what would get your friend or your spouse or your little child out of the the dumps better than a what, psychologist would, huh? He's got all these universals up in his head, right? All the different ailments there are, and and and and maybe something about treating these different ailments and so on, but you know your friend very well, right?

[17:37] And your child or it is, and you know what you could suggest to get them out, right? So breakfast in the dumps, and you say, well, how about a bottle of wine and some Mozart? Oh yeah, yeah, and all of a sudden breakfast is out, you see, and someone else might know that, might know that, huh? Might not know, but would would do that right away, huh?

[18:03] I know sometimes you know little illness like nausea and so on. Well, I might try ginger ale or some popcorn. You know, oh, that would make me worse. You know, and but you know yourself and what works with you, right? And how to relieve some ailment, right? And so, because of your experience of yourself, you are better, right? Than would be the medical doctor, maybe, who has more universal knowledge, huh?

[18:36] So, or I sometimes you know compare the political scientist at school, the guy who's been down in Congress for twenty, thirty years, you know, and the political scientist knows the difference between different kinds of government and the difference between the British system and the American system. He's got these universals down and so on. If you want to get a piece of legislation through the U. S. Congress or something like that, the man who's been there twenty years will be the one to see, not the political scientist, huh?

[19:06] Because he knows what you are not trying to get a piece of legislation through the legislature in general, right? And through the American legislature and the 60th Congress or the 80th Congress, whatever it is. And these people got needs, and this guy's district has got this problem, and and I know how to push the buttons, and and so I'm going to succeed in getting the piece of legislation through much better than any political scientist you're going to bring down to Washington D.

[19:33] C. So this is what Aristotle is pointing out, huh? That you can't simply say that in every way art or science represents an advance over experience. In fact, as far as doing concern, it might very well be the reverse, huh? The man of experience might succeed better, huh?

[19:58] But then, Aristotle goes on to a second and a second difference, right, between art or science and experience. And as he had argued from the first difference that experience may succeed better because what you do is a singular, right? Now, in terms of the second difference, he's going to reason though that the man of art or science is more what knowing and wiser, okay? And we'll see the reason he gives here.

[20:46] So we're now on line 24, there he says, but nevertheless, understanding, right, huh? We think belongs more to art or science than experience, huh? And that the men of art or science—he's using these—you know—converbatively, he just says art here—are wiser than the men of experience,

[21:14] so that to know follows more what to be wise. And now, what's the reason for saying that? Well, when art or science is perfected, it knows the what cause why it is so, but experience knows merely that it is so,

[21:36] and this is because these know the cause, meaning the men of art or science; those, meaning the men of experience, do not. For the men of experience know to hoti that it is so, right? But the dioti, on account of what? Why they do not know, right?

[21:59] But these, the men of art or science, know the dioti, the why and the cause, which answers the question. That, huh? Okay? Well stop there. for a moment. On the surface, right?

[22:18] The second difference, huh? That art or science, when it's perfected, knows why. And experience merely tells you that something is so. Now, if you ask even, you know, ordinary students,

[22:33] who's wiser and more knowing, the man that knows that something is so, but doesn't know why it is so, or the man who knows why it is so, and invariably the answer, the man who knows why it is so, right? Okay. The man who knows, therefore, the cause, huh, is wiser than the man who merely knows that it is so. But this is going to be a very important point, huh?

[22:58] To see, in order to realize that wisdom is a knowledge of causes, right? And that wisdom is more like art or science, or that's more like wisdom than experience is, because it knows the why. So Aristotle is going to stop here now, and manifest, huh, by three kinds of examples, or in three ways at least, right? That in fact what you first thought is indeed true, right?

[23:26] He wants to confirm. Yes, indeed, the man who knows why, the man who knows cause, is wiser than the other man, huh? And you can see the very care with which he proceeds, huh, in the step from experience to art or science, and to show that the man of art or science is wiser, even though he may not succeed in doing so much, right?

[23:52] Now, the first kind of example he takes is from the what distinction that you make even at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics between the architectonic art, right? Which means literally the chief artist, huh? Like the Indian chief, the chief artist. We find in order among the artists, huh, that one man commands the man of another art, huh? And Aristotle is taking what you will find in experience that we think the man who commands others is what wiser.

[24:33] Should be wiser, right? Okay. And you can take many examples of that, but one example you could take would be the art of the pharmacist and the art of the medical doctor, right? And which art commands which art, or which artist commands the other one? Well, as you know, you get a prescription, right, from the doctor, and you bring it to the pharmacist, and the pharmacist is supposed to follow the prescription of the doctor, right?

[25:06] Now, does the pharmacist, as such, have to know why you need this medicine? No, as pharmacist, all he needs to do is to give you the right medicine that the doctor has told him in the prescription, not in intelligible writing, right? To to to prepare and get and give you, right? Okay. Now, what would the man? What do we think in general? Even who's wiser, the medical doctor or the what pharmacist?

[25:41] We all think the medical doctor is what wiser, but he's wiser because he knows why you need this medicine, huh? The pharmacist, as such, doesn't know why, right?

[25:58] If you didn't know why, you'd be something other doctor, right? But I'm taking just a pure pharmacist, right? Okay. Or suppose you know I'm the grand chef, and you're the guy that underneath me, right? And I tell you I want the potatoes cut this way tonight, or I want this done this way, and you just carry out my orders. So who seems wiser, me, the grand chef, or you, who's following my orders, huh?

[26:26] Because I know why the potatoes should be cut differently tonight than they were last night, huh? Why it should be done this way rather than that. Um, when I was my children were in grade school one time, went over there and my sister who taught the first grade, which is extremely important grade, right? You know, you're learning how to write and all these things, and sometimes a a grade school teacher there who's teaching children how to write and print and so on.

[26:57] Sometimes if they have a too large class, huh? They will get a what an assistant, right? And maybe somebody who comes in a part time job, or maybe a parent who volunteers, but it's someone who's less wise than the teacher who's showing them how to write, huh? And she can't be watching every student, you know, to see these doing it correctly, and so she'll tell the assistant what to look for, right?

[27:25] Now the assistant, as such, all they have to know is what they should look for and correct the child who does the wrong thing. And the example she's giving was when you make a the letter C, you see, and you you print before you you you write, huh? Now when you make the letter C, um, she tells the assistant to make sure when they write the letter C or print the letter C that they start at the top and go like this, see?

[27:51] But you will find some children will do like this, you see? Okay. And all the assistant knows is make sure they do this rather than this, but the assistant as such doesn't know why that is, right? Okay. But the teacher knows why it's important to do this rather than this, because you're going to go on from printing to what they call cursive writing, huh? And If you're writing, let's say the word cat, you start up here.

[28:19] You can go. You see, but if you start here, now you're broken, right? So there's a reason why, but she knows the reason why you should start up here. But it might seem arbitrary. So if you want to do it this way, and we're a democracy after all. Probably do it this way, you know? but no, you start here and go that way. You see, and so who's wiser?

[28:47] The teacher, you see, she's the architectonic art, and the other one is your what, assistant, huh? We take the military one, huh? And I'm Napoleon, so I'm the chief artist, huh? And you're the head of the cavalry, huh? But you're under orders not to charge until you get the trumpet blast from me or something. And now you have to know how to lead a cavalry charge, right?

[29:15] But you don't know, as such, why you're not charging until the moment I blast the trumpet, huh? But I, Napoleon, I got a plan to win that battle, huh? And I know why it's best to win the battle that you don't charge until the time I tell you to, right? And so you read some of the descriptions of these battles; it depends very much upon when they charge and so on.

[29:39] So who seems wiser, Napoleon or the head of the cavalry? and of course sometimes we coach, you know, the the when I was little, we still use the Charge of the Light Brigade and the poem of Tennyson. What does it say about them? There is not to question why. There's but to do and die, huh? Apparently there's been some mistake in this case, right? But those are very famous lines, though, stuck in our minds.

[30:08] There is not to question why. There's but to do and die, huh? Well, that's the subordinate artist, huh? In the military schema. But the upper officer should know why you're doing this, huh? And so for marriage, my brother Mark and I, that working in my father's factory, my brother Mark being the older brother, we always had the sacred older-brother rules, all the the older rules. And sometimes he'd be in charge of me and tell me to do something, you know.

[30:35] And I'd say, you know, well, why? I mean, why do you want me to do it this way, you know? And Marcus says, you know, I'm paid to thing, just paid to do something. You know, there's not to question why. You're just to do, yeah. So I was obviously the subordinate artist, right? And I didn't know why I was I was doing it the way you told me to do it, you know.

[30:52] But that that's become a joke, you know. Mark has got a good have a dry sense of humor, but it's very good, you know. And it does illustrate this here, you see. It does illustrate this point that Aristotle's making, huh? That we think the chief artist, in this case, my brother Mark, is wiser because he knows why it should be done this way, and I don't know that, huh?

[31:14] I suppose you have a good wine wine thing, and you got a man who knows something about these things, and he tells the clerks or he tells the customer, "and now you know store your bottles laying down on the side, right? Don't leave them standing up." Well, someone could you know do that with the bottles, put them all laying down, without knowing why, right? Why do you do that?

[31:40] Well, you see, if the it stands up with the ordinary dull cork, in time it will dry out the cork, and then air can get in and spoil the wine. Wine is put on its side; the wine gets into the cork, the cork swells up, and you get an airtight bottle. You see, so I'm wiser than you, aren't I? Huh? So you're just putting them on the side, you know, and laying them on the side because I told you to do so, right?

[32:06] You're not to question why; You're just to lay them on the side. But don't I seem wiser because I know why? Huh? So you can multiply these examples, huh? Or take a different drink here from wine, take a tea. Now I know from experience that if you leave the tea leaves, I use you know real tea leaves at home, in contact, say, with the water, say, ten minutes, you're going to get a bad tasting what cup of tea, huh?

[32:38] So I know from experience that it'll be bad, huh? And therefore I you know I separate them, you know, usually after about three, four minutes, huh? It was a very rare tea, you know, that you go as far as five, eight minutes, you know, but okay, and but why do you have a bad cup of tea if you leave them say for ten minutes rather than five minutes?

[33:04] Why? Because I put too much stuff in the tea. Yeah, you see, I'm kind of a dummy, you know, and I we dummies think you know well it gets too strong or something, right? Well, then a chemist explained to me the facts of life and said that there are different chemicals in the tea leaves, and there's a different time at which these chemicals are released, and the ones that are desirable in a cup of tea are released in the first three or four minutes, and after say seven or eight or ten minutes, whatever it is, the tea, kind of tea, other chemicals are being released.

[33:40] You're actually getting a a bad tasting cup of tea. That's why, because it was just it was stronger. You could you know pour more hot water in there, and you'd be all set, right? You see, so he seems wiser than me because he knows why this is so.

[33:58] One more example: When I was a freshman, my my brother Richard, you know, decided that I needed the guidance of Doctor Kasurik, okay, and so

[34:12] I can remember one example at the beginning and one example at the end of my four years at. College Saint Thomas, University Saint Thomas. Now I guess they call it. But anyway, I came down with my list of courses I was going to enroll in for my first semester at the

[34:32] College Saint Thomas. And Kasurik looked over and he said, "Duane, where's your Greek? " I said, "My Greek? I'm not very good at languages, huh? " He said, "My Greek? Yeah, where's your Greek? Why aren't you taking Greek? " And I said, "Well, there are other things I'd rather take. " He said, "That's not a reason. " He says, "You're going to study philosophy, you take Greek.

[35:00] " Now he knew why it would be good for me to take Greek, huh? Did I know at that time? I didn't want to take Greek. Wasn't very good at Greek, right? But because he twisted my arm, right? I learned some Greek, huh? Enough to stumble my way a little bit through Aristotle and Plato and so on. And it's been invaluable, right? Especially given the lousy translations that even have Oxford stamped on them, right?

[35:29] And but wasn't Kasurik far wiser than me, right? I'm very thankful that he did this at that time. The sooner I got it into me, the better, right? But he was wiser because he knew why Greek was going to be so important for me as a philosopher, and I was too dumb to know why, right? You see. So that's an example, you know, the idea of one man directing another, right?

[36:00] And he's if he's really able to direct the other, it's because he knows why, huh? When I got graduated from college, Kasurik said to me, "Duane, go get Euclid's Elements, read them. " And I said, "Why? Go get them and read them, " he said. And now I realize, you know, all the mileage I've gotten, and all the wonderful things, you know, but you know, I didn't know why, you see.

[36:23] And that's why I say my my political friend, you know, was you know sneering at me, you know, back in high school, you know, like back in high school or something, doing geometry in high school six years ago or seven years ago, whatever it was, and he didn't he didn't learn geometry very well in high school. But you know, he's wiser, right? That he can command the man the architectonic art because he knows why.

[36:44] But everybody would think he's wiser, wouldn't we? In these cases, the one who commands another, he's wiser. So that's the first kind of example, but under that you can do like I'm doing here. You can multiply forever examples to illustrate this. The fact that the doctors say has got more prestige, maybe than a pharmacist, and is a reflection of that, even in the common man's way of of thinking, huh?

[37:19] But you have it in a way in any teaching when you when the the teacher knows. The student's got to know this before he knows that, and the student can't really see that, right? And so you're learning the first theorems in in the first book of the Elements. You don't know why these are necessary to know to say the Pythagorean theorem, but the professor knows why and he's wiser, and therefore he can direct you and tell you you better learn that if you want to the Pythagorean theorem, and not know it any anyway without doing that.

[37:48] Okay, that's the first kind of example he gives. It's the first one. On account of which we think the what chief artists, those who command others, are more honorable, right? Like we're saying about the doctor, and they more make to know, right? Than those who work by their hands, and we think they're wiser than them because they know the causes of the things done, huh? But these are like what inanimate things almost, right?

[38:21] They make not knowing, you know, what they do, right? Like the fire that burns in the sense, huh? There's not the question why; there's just the do and die,

[38:34] ah. And he says the inanimate things do this by their nature, and the the handicraftsmen by what custom, right? Okay. So that it is not according to being practical that men are wiser, but according to their having a reason, right? And their knowing the what causes, right? Okay, that's the end of the first kind of example, right? I say under that kind of example, you can give as many examples as you want to, huh?

[39:14] In my father's factory, there was a guy who was very adept, you know, and he would jump from there are different shops down there, you know, he would jump from shop to shop and show how to do it, and but he knew why it should be done this way, right? And then he'd get them and show how to do it, have them do it a few times, and then jump on and go on the next one, you know.

[39:33] So my father obviously had to pay this man more than other people because he was wiser than than the other ones. Okay. Now around line seven there, he says holos, right? A sign of the one knowing,

[40:03] and the one who does not know is the ability to what teach, right? And an account of this, we think art is more what than experience knowledge, huh? For these are able to teach, and these are not, huh? Well, experience is something you can't really teach, because experience takes a long time, and

[40:37] part of the reason why the man of experience can't teach, he can merely say to you, you know, when you get to be my age, you'll see that it is so, right? And maybe you should believe him, but believing is not being taught in the full sense. By any means, it's just the beginning. But the

[40:56] the man of art or science knows why, he can tell you why it should be done this way, so he's more able to what? To teach you, okay? I was when I was teaching at Saint Mary's College, I had a student who was kind of a little disordered life, I would say, and the priests would what? Tell him he shouldn't do this or he should do that, but they couldn't really explain why you should do this or shouldn't do this, right?

[41:29] And so he'd come to me as the man who could tell him why he shouldn't do that, and I would tell him why he shouldn't do that. So I seem to him wiser than the priests, right? Who can merely tell him that they shouldn't be done or this should be done, but they couldn't really teach him, right, in the full sense, because they could believe him the priest or not, but they couldn't give the reason why.

[41:53] They couldn't teach him as fully as I could teach him. So you see that sometimes among teachers too, sometimes the teacher kind of knows from experience that this is so or it should be done this way, but he can't really explain why it should be done that way. And he say, well, after you've done this, why you'll see this is the way to do it, and that's not really teaching in the full sense, but then the wiser teacher can explain why it should be done, right?

[42:22] And then he's he seems more knowing than the other man. So he's saying, we all think the teacher, the one who can teach, is wiser than the one who cannot teach, but you could say a man can't teach fully if he doesn't know why, and and that's a sign then that the man who knows why, the man who knows the cause, as he said before, is wiser and more knowing than the man who doesn't know the cause, and that's you know the second way he tries to confirm that the man of art or science is wiser and more knowing than the man of experience, because the man who knows the cause is wiser than the man who merely knows that it is so.

[43:09] And it's sort of a beautiful understanding of of teaching too, right? That that the perfection of teaching and being able to teach is to give the reason why, the cause, huh?

[43:26] Now the third way Aristotle shows this is different, and it's kind of reduction to the absurd or the laughable, to the impossible, reduction to the absurd, and he could state it in this way: Does wisdom consist more in knowing the singular and that it is so, right?

[43:57] Or does wisdom consist more in knowing the universal and why it is so, right? Okay, an either-or here, right? Okay, and then like Euclid there in the sixth theorem, right? He doesn't show directly that wisdom consists here more in knowing the universal and why it is so, but he eliminates the other possibility that it consists more in what knowing the singular and that it is so, right?

[44:32] It's like Euclid in the sixth theorem says if straight, you know, the angles of the base of the triangle equal, the opposite sides will be equal, right? He doesn't show directly that they will be equal. He shows that they can't be unequal, right? Well, since they've got to be either equal or unequal, and they can't be unequal, then they must be what equal, right? That's the way Aristotle proceeds here in the syllogism, in the form of the not the syllogism but the compound syllogism, the either-or, what some people call the disjunctive syllogism.

[45:06] You want a big word to impress your friends with. Now, the way that proceeds is to say reduction to the absurd. You have another kind of syllogism, right? That if this is so, then that will be so, but that is, what? obviously wrong, you know. Therefore, this can't be so. So he's saying if wisdom consists chiefly in knowing the singular and that is so, then Aristotle argues then sensing would be wisdom, because nothing is more authoritative about the singular and that it is so than sensing.

[45:50] You see, and if I look at you and I see you're sitting, right? I close my eyes and I remember you're sitting. Okay, Matt or Max is sitting, huh? Okay. Well, I don't know what he might have done, right? When I just remember him, right? He might have changed. When I see him sitting, I follow my what

[46:12] senses, right? They're more authoritative, right? So experience depends upon memory and. Presupposes memory, right? So memory, in some sense, is more authoritative. If I don't remember things, right? And, but memory is not as authoritative about the singular over here. Is this man sitting or not, huh? So if wisdom consisted chiefly in knowing authoritatively the singular that is so, then sensing would be wisdom. But nobody thinks sensing is wisdom.

[46:45] That's the beginning of our knowledge, huh? Not the end, huh? You see that? So it's beautiful the way Aristotle shows it. It shows the great care that he constructs the proemium here, right? That there is not, you know, much doubt about or much ambiguity about experience being beyond memory, right? And that the man of experience is wiser than the man of one memory, but when you go from experience to art of science, he's very nuanced, and he points out from the first difference between them that, as far as doing is concerned, the man of experience might be better, right?

[47:28] It's interesting to note he doesn't argue that art of science is superior as far as knowing and wisdom is concerned because it knows universal, does he?

[47:42] You might be able to argue to some extent that to know the universal right is more comprehensive than to know the singular or something like that. But the superiority is not as obvious there if there is any superiority in knowing, as it is with the knowing the what cause, and that's very important for it comes later to see the way Aristotle proceeds there, huh? So he doesn't argue at all from from art of science being about the universal to an experience being about the singular to the superiority of it.

[48:17] In fact, from that difference, he reasons that in some way experience is superior, right? And it's only from the second difference that the one knows the cause, and the other knows only that it is so that he reasons that as far as knowing and being wise, that wisdom is what I mean that art of science is superior. And you begin to see too a little bit there that wisdom is going to be consist more knowing than in doing, huh?

[48:54] Okay. Now at line thirteen there. Now he's going to speak a little bit about the differences among the arts, huh? And he says the first one, likely the first one, it says, the first one, finding any art whatsoever, right, was admired, right? The man finding any art beyond the common sensations was admired, right, by men. And admired, he says, not only because of it being useful, but because of what?

[49:36] Yeah, but kind of smarter and wiser, right, and different from others, right? Okay. But then he's going to start to talk now about there being what many arts, huh? And

[49:54] he says many arts have been found, and some of these towards the necessities of life, huh? Okay. And some were found for what? Diagoge, right? And diagoge is more for what? Leisure activity, right? Always, these were thought to be what wiser, right?

[50:20] Than those on account of their not being what for the sake of what use or doing, huh? Now is that so or not? Say.

[50:36] If you look at the Greeks there, who would they consider wiser, Homer, or the great cook, or carpenter, or something of that sort, huh? Yeah. And so the poetic art was found to to please men, right, huh? And kind of for its own sake, huh? Where the carpenter and the cook, you know, are making things you want to use, huh? You don't seem to be as wise as as the poet, huh?

[51:10] So again, he's hinting at the idea that this wisdom is more like what the poetic art, let's say, right, than like the art of the carpenter, the art of the cook, or the art of the metal worker, and so on, huh?

[51:27] So he says whence, huh? And now he's going to speak of a third thing. Whence being found, all the things that are what these are being found, then a third group, those not towards pleasure, right, like the the poetic art or music or something like that, or those towards necessity, like food and clothing and shelter and so on, chairs. Okay. These kind of sciences begin to be found that seem to be sought for their own sake.

[52:00] And first in those places where men had what leisure, right? And then he says, down in Egypt, right, the mathematical arts first begin to be constituted, right? For there there was leisure for the what priestly class, huh? Now

[52:25] we mentioned before in the division of world history how the first period of world history is a period of Middle Eastern dominance. We speak of civilization beginning maybe in the Euphrates Valley or something like that, and then spread into Egypt. But it was tied up with these irrigation things, and this irrigation required, for one thing, a kind of complexity of society that you didn't have elsewhere, but also an increase in productivity, and this eventually freed some men from the daily rat race of trying to get food and clothing and so on.

[53:06] And so these men then begin to what pursue knowledge, right, more for its own sake. So you know the great saga of the warriors—they fight all day or something like that, and then they come home and they have the big meal. Now what do you do? Well, Demodocus or somebody comes out there and plucks the harp and sings the fall of Troy or sings of Aphrodite or something.

[53:37] As Demodocus does there, and Hephaestus and so on, and people laugh and so on. And these are the arts for pleasure, right? I get to have somebody play some music or tell a story or sing an epic or something. But when men have have got the arts for the necessities of life, food and clothing and these sort of things, and then they have these arts to you know relax and have a little bit of pleasure after your labors and so on, and when these things are assured, then men begin to what pursue knowledge a bit for its own sake, and then you have the development of a bit of the mathematical sciences there in Egypt, right?

[54:18] Now you got to be careful now because we talked about the customs of the democratic age, customs of the scientific technological age and so on, and it's not maybe as clear, right, as I was saying here as it was in the Greek context. But you know how Time Magazine had Einstein there, not just man of the year, man of the century, wasn't it? You know that was that was the vote, right?

[54:48] Now, but did Einstein get all this admiration and all this honor and praise, right? Because what he did, or because of what he understood.

[55:04] Einstein didn't make the atom bomb, right? Einstein didn't what. Make a lot of things that, may have been made possible by some of his theories or something, you know. But Einstein seems to be what.

[55:19] Honored because he has what understanding, right? Is that, you know, he understands the universe. I remember one of the popular little books, you know, that you used to see a lot of times in my early days about Einstein. It was written by Lincoln Barnett, you know. The universe and Dr. Einstein. And this is you know a laudatory thing about Einstein and so on, but Einstein seemed to be the man who what.

[55:49] Understood the universe more than anybody else, huh? Not in terms of something practical, huh? And we tend to give the Nobel Prize to the theoretical physicist more than to the, the empirical physicist or the one who's doing the experiments, huh? Niels Bohr, huh, had a center for the study of theoretical physics there in Copenhagen, huh. I think supported by Carlsberg beer anyway, but anyway, men came from all over the world to study under Bohr, huh?

[56:22] Heisenberg and other people did like that, Oppenheimer from the United States. But they tell these stories about Bohr going down to the lab where they're doing the experiments and so on, and trying to be a little helpful, you know, and then breaking a tube or this or that, and then kind of diplomatically, you know, retreating, you know, and going upstairs or something like that. But

[56:53] Bohr went over to Germany, you know, to give a series of lectures on the atom and atomic physics and so on. And the German physicists were so impressed with his understanding of the atom and the problems about it that they called it the Bohr Festival. Became known as the Bohr Festival, this series of lectures. And Heisenberg was first encountered Bohr during one of these lectures, and Heisenberg was still in school.

[57:25] You might say he was still studying under physicists there. And Bohr presented, you know, his understanding of the atom and so on, and then there was a question period and so on. And Heisenberg, despite being a young scientist, he posed a question to Bohr, right? And Bohr Bohr gave an answer to you know like you do sometimes in public like that. Give an answer to Heisenberg, but then he went on.

[57:55] He kept them looking over again at Bohr, at Heisenberg, you know, and that, and then. And he said he got through with his lecture. He went over to Heisenberg. He said, "Let's go for a walk." He says, and he went up in the the park, whatever it was, and they walked right a real long walk, and to talk just about atomic theory, huh? And Heisenberg said this influenced all his subsequent thinking, huh?

[58:22] You know, but why are they admiring this guy so much? Huh? You see, not for making the atom bomb, huh? But for what? He understood the atom, you see. So even in this very practical age, you know, where the emphasis is upon making and so on, right? He had this Bohr festival, this admiration of Bohr, because he seemed to understand better than anybody in the world the atom.

[58:48] Or in Einstein, he seems to have what understood the universe in some way, huh? And and Einstein said he was interested in understanding the universe, not the details, and are important to me, you know, to see the. But but that's not so practical, right? So it seems like we kind of admire a man for being a wise and knowing, not for having this practical knowledge of how to make dinner or how to make a chair, or even how to entertain us with the plucking the instrument or something.

[59:20] But because he he knows right, you know, something worth knowing apart from the practical, right? So we can see a little bit of of truth there, right? But even before that, I say you would think of maybe the poet as wiser, and Homer. I mean, Plato speaks of or Socrates, even you know, he's a teacher of all the Greeks. Talking the lion. Well, yeah, but if they say Homer is a teacher of all the Greeks, and the teacher seems to be wiser than those he teaches, right?

[59:53] If Homer is a teacher of all the Greeks, he's wise, right? See, but he's not, you know. He seems to have something more speculative, poetry, huh? Something to look at, huh? Then then the what? Carpenter or the and Shakespeare would seem even to to to us maybe huh? In in the now in the twentieth century, even in the nineteenth century, Shakespeare seemed to be wiser than any carpenter or metalworker or something like that, huh?

[1:00:29] That's why it's interesting that Shakespeare's dramas are called what? Plays, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if you've ever seen the De Hebdomadibus there, of Boethius and Thomas's little. Commentary that he had De Mari Bus... he has a little prologue or proemium, right? And he quotes the sapiential books in the Old Testament. It says, "Run into your house and play with your thoughts." And Thomas takes this as you know.

[1:01:03] He often quotes scripture and unfolds it, you know, for his purposes. And he says, "Well, philosophizing is like play in two ways. It's pleasant, and it's for its own sake, you see. And so, in calling Shakespeare's dramas plays, we're showing that Shakespeare's plays are more speculative, if you wish, more for their own sake than what the carpenter does or what the cook does, which is for you and me to sit down or to eat our dinner or something, right?

[1:01:39] You can see some truth to what he's bringing out here, right? Okay. Now, the line twenty-five there, he says, "Now it's been said in the Ethics what is the difference between art and science, but he's not concerned with that right now. He's just taking them kind of interchangeably for the knowledge of the universal that extends even to knowing why." Okay,

[1:02:06] so but then he says around line twenty-seven there, "Hou heneka right? That for the sake of which we have now made this speech or discourse is this that the so-called wisdom right is about what first causes and beginnings, okay, and all would kind of what think this, huh? Now that's kind of going a little bit ahead of the game, right? Okay, but you could say if the man who knows why, the man who knows the cause, is wiser than the man who doesn't know the cause, right?

[1:02:46] Then further, the man who knows the cause of the cause is even wiser, right? Okay, so why is my wife? Why did my wife hit me? Well, the answer is because she's angry with me, right? Okay, so anger is a cause of her hitting me, right? But now, why is she angry? Well, I'd be wiser if I knew why she's angry. Right? Might be able to do something about it.

[1:03:14] So the man who knows the cause of the cause, and some causes like anger do have a cause, right? Is wiser, right? Well, then you could say, well, then the man who knows the first cause must be the wisest of all, right? And therefore, wisdom is knowledge of the first causes. But then Aristotle is going to, we'll see at the end of this first reading, he's going to backtrack, so to speak, and say, well, let's just say he, the wise man, knows causes, right?

[1:03:40] Huh? And we'll come back and have another discourse to establish more fully. This ultimate thing you want to say that it's a knowledge of the what first causes, huh? But before he says that, he gives a kind of summary, right? He doesn't go back to the whole thing, but he says the man of experience would seem to be what so photoras wiser than any of those having just what sensation, right?

[1:04:07] And the man of art or science, because he knows why, is wiser than those of experience, right? And the architectonic or the chief artist wiser than the more manual worker, huh? And then something that he touched about the end: the theoretical arts or sciences seem to be more like wisdom than the than the what mechanical arts, huh? The making arts, just as the poet, right, like Shakespeare seems wiser than the carpenter, huh?

[1:04:41] And maybe Einstein, who understands the universe, huh, is wiser than all these guys who are making these inventions and gadgets and so on, right? But because he is what just looking at the universe to understand. But then he kind of backtracks and going so far as to say explicitly yet that wisdom is about the first causes. So it is clear, right, that wisdom is about some beginnings and causes.

[1:05:13] That's an episteme, right, about some kinds of beginnings and what causes. So in kind of a general way, we're seeing that wisdom is about causes. This is going to be the the skopos of the wise man, huh? I mentioned how at the end of the third Lectio, there's a epilogue there where he recalls the two things he does, right? Notice if you look at the last line there in the third reading there, he's recalling secondly the first thing he did.

[1:05:54] Notice what he says there: kai tis ho skopos What skopos is the Greek word for what the target, what you're aiming at, huh? What the guy with the bow and arrow aims at, huh? In Aristotle, you may have seen using that word scopas in the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics when he says, you know, if he knew what the end of life was, what happiness was, we'd have a scopas we could aim at, right?

[1:06:20] And and just as the bow and arrow guy can't hit the target, the scopas without looking at it or knowing it, right, seeing it, so we can't hit at the purpose of life without seeing the what end or purpose of life, the skopos So in Latin is intentio. Intentio libri is the way they translate it. It's kind of a abstract Latin. The Greek word is more is more concrete.

[1:06:45] It means the the goal, the target, you know. The skopas. And uh, Monsignor Dion, um, when talking about a premium, used to say that the scopas is the most essential part, the most necessary part of a what premium, right? Because a premium is a Greek word meaning paving the way, huh? And of course, the first thing you need to pave the way for the student is to let him know what you are aiming at.

[1:07:13] See, but the scopas is of this work, huh? And in terms of that, that he's going to understand everything else about that book, huh? And you can see the modern philosophers don't give you the scopas of their work, huh? Maybe they don't know themselves, right? Maybe they're wandering and they don't know what they're aiming at, huh? And they wander because they have no scopas, huh?

[1:07:40] So, but he's not too yet developing the scopas of the wise man. He just does so in a kind of general way here in the first what reading, huh?

[1:07:54] But sometimes, although I like to to pause at this first part here and say, you can say that he's giving you the scopas, the aim, in general. He's going to be more specific in the second reading, right? But you could also say, to some extent, wisdom is not only about the first causes, but it's about causes in general, because it belongs to the wise man most of all to teach us that there are four kinds of causes, huh?

[1:08:28] And to give the reason for that and confirm that and so on. And Aristotle will be teaching us in the fifth book again, and in the book one after the premium, that there are four kinds of causes, what they are, and confirming that they're just four kinds of causes. And so that's a concern of the wise man, right? But His ultimate concern is to know the very first causes, huh?

[1:08:52] But on the way, he teaches us they're just four kinds of causes, and certain things that follow upon there being four kinds of causes, like there can be many causes as such of the same thing, and two things can be causes of each other, as strange as it may seem, but because they're different kinds of causes, huh? So my exercise can be a cause of my health in one way, and my health can be the reason why I exercise, huh?

[1:09:22] But it's a different kind of cause, huh? So it belongs to the wise man most of all to teach us that there are four kinds of causes and the corollaries that follow upon them, and then there's more detailed

[1:09:42] distinctions about causes that he gives too. But that's not his ultimate goal. His ultimate goal will be to know the first cause, and he's going to bring that out now in the second reading.

[1:09:55] That might be a good place to stop. So we've done the first half of the first half. The first part of the first part of the premium. To speak, speak, accurately. I have a question. What's the Greek around nine twenty? You're addressing a man doesn't know any Greek, but what's the question? But nevertheless, to know and obviare you just translate it as understand. Just one word. Where is that?

[1:10:33] What line is it? Right after he says. Twenty-four. Singulars are what are more curable. Blind. Twenty-four. Yeah, nine eighty what? Eighty-one a. Oh, go back to ninety-one eight a. Nine eighty-one a twenty-four. Yeah. It says art. Pye.

[1:10:59] Are there two words about knowing? Yeah. Yeah, I have to look up the epaiein again. I don't remember exactly. Because I have obviare, which I don't recognize. Well, obviare sometimes has a sense in Latin there of of answering objections, right? Or maybe putting out errors or something, okay? And sometimes they'll say those two things belong to wise men. When Thomas begins a premium to the to the Summa Contra Gentiles, begins with a quote from scripture.

[1:11:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah. My throat meditates wisdom and truth and detests the impious. You know, the impious there, Thomas understands as something opposed the truth about the God, the God, right? So it belongs to the wise men to teach the truth and to refute error. And we see Aristotle doing that in Book Book Nine, right? He tells the truth about act and ability, but he also refuted the errors about act and ability.