Wisdom (Metaphysics 2016)
1. Metaphysics Proemium I: All Men Desire to Know — Sense, Memory, Experience and Art
Class of 2016-05-19
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7c-wisdom-2016/001-metaphysics-proemium-i-all-men-desire-to-know-sense-memory/

[0:00] Father and the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Help us, God, to know and love you. Guardian angels, strengthen the light of the mind, ordain the luminary images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Help us to understand all the truth.

[0:26] Okay. Aristotle didn't actually refer to this book as the Metaphysics, right? But his editor called it the Metaphysics, and the Metaphysics comes from two words, Meta ta physika or three words if you want to put the article in there, Meta ta physika. And the editor realized that it comes after the books in Natural Philosophy and the order of learning, so Meta ta physika And because he was the editor, that title is kind of struck.

[0:57] But Aristotle doesn't refer to it ever, to my knowledge, as the Metaphysics, right? He refers to it as First Philosophy. And first, in what sense of first?

[1:12] Fourth sense, yeah. It's most of all is the character wisdom, right, of all the parts of philosophy. He also calls it wisdom sometimes, right? But of course, he's going to say that God is more wise than we are, so wisdom doesn't name it as well as First Philosophy, right? Okay.

[1:33] So this is Aristotle's premium now. What does that word premium mean in Greek? I notice that they borrowed that at the beginning of they've had it in two there, right, in the beginning of the De Verbum proemium. They have two O's in there, I think. Sometimes they, you know, but I kind of shortened the shorter version premium. But how would you translate the word premium?

[2:01] Well, you could, but usually the way we translate it is paving the way, huh? Okay. And showing what you're aiming at, and maybe why it's desirable, and so on, right? And almost every book of Aristotle's got a premium, huh? And Thomas will he divides he divides into two, you know, the premium and then the tractatus, the drawing out of it, right? The premium is very short compared to it.

[2:27] So it's analogous to the prologue, right, huh? I used to bring in the prologue, there to Roman Juliet, and say, Well, what's the prologue doing, right? " And I always say to them, you know, the book is divided like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. What's the division of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? Well, there's the prologue and then the play, and the prologue is much shorter than the play, right?

[2:52] In fact, it's what 14 lines, I guess, right? It's got the structure of a grammatical structure, I mean, the rhyming that you have in a Shakespearean sonnet, right? Got three quatrains, you know. And

[3:12] kid down the block there was was playing in a Romeo and Juliet play, right? And so I started to recite that thing for the best I could get at my my learning, you know. He's a nice kid.

[3:26] Okay. So what's going to talk about in the premium? Well, there's an epilogue that tells you what he does. Thomas often points to the epilogue.

[3:45] Look at the end of page five there, the last sentence. What is the nature of the knowledge sought? Then has been said, right? And what is the goal of the investigation, right? And the whole knowledge over a road, I translated very literally. Must what reach? Now you'll see that Aristotle talks about the goal first, right? And then the nature of the knowledge, right? So he's recalling the last thing he just did, and the first thing he did, right?

[4:28] Okay. But a lot of times, Aristotle, if it's a very important premium, you'll have an epilogue to recall what he did in the premium, right? And so

[4:43] let's see here in the Dianna here. Got all the strands here. Well, not enough stuff today, but anyway, I've seen this another once, huh? And we see in the premium to the Nicomachean Ethics and so on. It's an epilogue, right? And so, okay. Now, Aristotle begins with the statement: All men by nature desire to what? To know. Usually translated to know, right? But the actual Greek word there is eidenai, which means to what?

[5:27] To see, and therefore applied to the mind, it has the sense of to understand, right? So we tend to borrow the word what? See, and apply it to what? Understanding, right? Okay. So the beatific vision, we say, you know, is to see God as he is, huh? To see him face to face, huh? As it says in these Psalms.

[5:52] So he says, all men by nature desire to know, to understand, huh? Now, why does he begin with that statement? See, well, maybe he wants to point out that it's good to know.

[6:24] Now, what's the first definition of of good? Yeah, the goods we all want, right? So that all men desire to know would be a sign that to know is something good, right? But why does he add by nature, apart from the fact that it's true that all men by nature desire to know? But in terms of pointing out that the goodness of it, right? Why does he add that to the desire to know?

[7:08] What does he show about the desire? It's for a a good, what is truly a good, right? Because by nature we desire to know, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. He didn't say all men by custom desire to know or desire to understand, but all men by what? Nature, right? It's a natural good for man, right?

[7:38] Okay. Then Aristotle gives a sign, right? Says a sign of this. Now, what is a sign? That's Augustine's famous definition of a sign. Sensible thing that point is something beyond itself. Okay, yeah, that which strikes the senses and brings to mind something other than itself, right? So when I drive up here, there's a stop, you know. Gets in my eye, you know. Strikes the senses, right? Huh?

[8:14] And it's a I better stop, right? Or look at these to see if I have to stop. So he says a sign of this is the love of the senses. Now, why does he go back to senses? Because it's more obvious, right? But a sign in the first sense is is something what sensible, right? The old definition of of sacrament used to say what an outward sign.

[8:45] But outward kind of means what sensible sign, right? But to be sensible is in the first meaning of sign. If there's any sign that's not sensible, it's a kind of an extension of the word, right?

[8:58] So he says, a sign is the love of the senses. Now, of course, we use the senses not just to know, right? We use the senses to do all kinds of things, right? But he says, apart from their usefulness, they are loved for themselves, right?

[9:24] Ron MacArthur and his wife bought their new house, had a beautiful view, you know. He said, "Let's look at that view." you know. Proud. But I mean, w w you know, it's it's it's you're gonna do something like a stop sign, or you know, or or direction. You know, you're trying to find something, and it says, you know, where this place is. You know, the sign pointing to it, right?

[9:44] No, not just to see. Yeah, they are loved for themselves, and especially among the others, that through the eyes, because they, what? Yeah, because they seem to what give us. even. More knowledge than the other senses, right? So the sun, the moon, and the stars would all be hidden to us. You can't hear them. You can't hear the the uh supposed to be music making up there, but but you can't hear it.

[10:15] And you can't what taste it or smell it, right? Can't feel the things. How very limited you'd be without the eyes, right? For we choose to see before all the others, right? So I used to say in class, I'd say, "I

[10:32] wouldn't want to be blind or deaf, but which would be worse?" Yeah, most people. I said one young lady. She's rather be blind than deaf because she was a musician, right? She was the she. I picked up my universal sense, right? Okay.

[10:57] She plays organ in one of the parish churches now. Yeah, it's very good. She pressed Father Lamont very much, you know, because taught music. Some she's taught music because she was using learning more Bach than anybody he'd ever known, you know, her determination.

[11:14] Okay, but she's not an exception. I add to that. Yeah. But you know, as we want all the senses, right? I wouldn't want to go deaf myself either, you know. And why do you listen to Mozart, right? Well, because just to hear what it sounds like. It sounds wonderful. Didn't didn't Bob go deaf Beethoven, Beethoven. Beethoven ba Beethoven, yeah, yeah, yeah. The tower Beethoven is going to conduct, you know, is under that final condition, you know.

[11:45] And they said, "Well, we'll just play along and pretend we're following him." But but you know, they could play the orchestra even without conductor, you know, because he was just this terrible thing, though, right? He's like a painter, you know, his eyes. For we choose to see before all the others, the exception of this girl, not only in order we might do something, right? Huh? But also when not aiming to do anything, right?

[12:15] I'm going to introduce you to my fiancee, and is she beautiful? Oh boy, you know, I want to see this. I want to see this.

[12:28] Not only in order we may do something, but also in not aiming to do anything, right? And the cause is that this one among the senses especially makes us know something, huh? And shows many differences, huh? What does the sense of sight know in a sense more than the other senses, besides color?

[12:54] Shape, yeah, yeah, yeah. And how do you know this is a chair and this is a man and this is a? Cup and so on, right? Shape, yeah, yeah. Now, sense of touch, you know, can know shape too, but not as what clearly or quickly, right?

[13:15] But sight and touch are both important, right? For knowing, huh? De Connick used to talk about how the basic thoughts are tied up with the sense of touch, right? Yeah. Okay.

[13:32] Now, why do you think Aristotle begins with this first paragraph here? We've already said so, right? You know It's universal good it's natural good Yeah, that's a real good, right? To know, right? Okay. And wisdom is going to go all the way, right? But now he's got to look before and after, right, to see the order, right, in our knowledge, right? Because he wants to see what wisdom is about, right?

[14:09] What wisdom is aiming at, and wisdom is going to be naming the highest thing in our knowledge, huh? And you've got to see how our knowledge develops, right? Huh? Now he begins with what we have in common with animals, huh? Now animals are born having sensation by nature, huh?

[14:34] And that's the starting of knowledge in us as well as in the other animals, right? Now, from this, from sensing, memory does not arise in some of them. What does arise in what others, huh? Others, the ones that don't have memory, seem to act just with regard to what is what present, right? They don't seem to remember anything, right? Okay.

[15:05] But the cat and the dog that know where their bowl is, right? They remember where their bowl is, right? And you let them in, and they go right, right to the place where the bowl is, right? They go in there and trouble by the tone of your voice

[15:21] And because of this, huh? These are more what prudent, right? Puts them on a higher level of knowledge, right? That they have memory. And I told you about the cat we had there, and the woman next door. They were on very good terms with, but she was a bird lover, right? So my mother said, Duane, don't let the cat go catching birds, right? Because we don't want to make the woman next door feel things.

[15:50] So I would discourage the cat from chasing birds. One day we're having chicken, right? There's some chicken left over, so I gave the cat a piece of chicken, and she ran into the what bushes, right, to eat the chicken, right? Because like that was a forbidden food, right? It's like like like Eve, you know, at the the tree, yeah.

[16:14] Yeah, but that's that's bird meat, right? You know, you know, and she she'd been you know disciplined for having a bird before, but she got.

[16:24] I told you told you what happened finally, didn't I? One time I was in biology class at school, and we had to do some kind of project. It was kind of a course for pre med students, right? Somebody told me to breakfast, don't take another course. Take this course. This is the one. So I had to do some little project. So I decided to do comparative anatomy, and so I could get a frog skeleton with no problem in the in the lab, right?

[16:50] Warren Murray had a a bat skeleton, so and and then I wanted to get a bird skeleton, a bigger bird skeleton, and the kid next door was shooting birds, so he shot a bird for me. I said, shoot a bird for me, and then I said to my mother, I got to get the the skin off the bones, right, so I can put them in in my display of the different things, and she said, we'll put it in a pot and and we'll boil it off, yeah.

[17:19] So I put in the pot and boil it, and who knows, but the woman next door comes over to visit my mother, and they sit down. I'm in the other room. I can see them, hear their conversation. What are you cooking? Oh, and Wayne is. But she she she but she was she was a crazy a crazy lover of of birds, yeah.

[17:52] We're discovering that all men by nature desire to know, huh? That knowledge is something what good, right? The sign of this is that it's desired, right? Because the good is what all desire, right? And but Aristotle points out that it's by nature that they desire to know, so it's a natural good for man, right? And then he gives a sign from the senses, the first paragraph here in the page here, that we use our senses not just to what do something, right?

[18:28] Okay, so you see a beautiful oh look at that sunset, you know, oh isn't that beautiful, you know? I was down in Virginia with my wife one time. We were eating kind of out eating out outdoors in a kind of restaurant there, and and the the sky, you know, it's like folds of red all the way up from the ground. I said to the waitress, I said, do you have this thing?

[18:51] And she looked like I was kind of crazy. I mean, I didn't say that it's so tremendous, you know, huh? I get the impression, you know, for the south, they get more tremendous. You know, the Spanish Maine You just get the great, you know, sunsets in the movies. You know, Spanish Maine, huh? We see these beautiful rainbows. You know, remember walking on the boardwalk there in Quebec.

[19:13] There, you know, it's so open there with the river, and so on. Huge rainbow after a rain, something like that. Why are you looking at that? You gonna, you know, go and find gold at the end of the rainbow or something? No, no. Just it's a beautiful thing to see right now. Okay. And that's where to listen to to beautiful music right huh? I mentioned uh, Benedict's birthday.

[19:38] you heard about that. This year. Yeah. Oh. I know we knew his birthday. You know what he did on his birthday? Yep, he went to listen to three of Mozart's Haydn quartets. Huh? Those are, you know, what, 23 Mozart quartets, right? But the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, right? They're probably the greatest of them, right? So we listened to three of those. eh And mentioned in the article, you know, that Mozart is a favorite composer, so it's good, right?

[20:07] So he's going to do something with the music. Learn how to repair a car from listening to music, or learn how to cook a steak or something.

[20:19] Yeah. So we have a natural desire to know, right? Huh? We like to smell the the rose, don't we? Huh? I've seen, you know, two or three references to the rose being the what? Queen of flowers, huh? And I've mentioned Pius XII's, you know, address to the rose growers of Rome. You know, we've spontaneously, you know, attributed the most beautiful flowers to the Blessed Virgin, right? And she's surrounded with the roses, huh?

[20:51] And but Shakespeare ends a sonnet, you know, from fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauties rose might never die, but as the riper should by time decease, his tender, heir might bear his memory. Okay. Now, in the second paragraph, he's beginning to talk about the order in knowledge, huh? And it's going to be ascending gradually to what wisdom, right? Huh? But he begins at the beginning of our knowledge, which is shared with the animals, huh?

[21:26] The other animals. All animals are born having sense by what nature, right? Or sensing, huh? It's better than sensation, I think. Okay. This is what distinguishes an animal from what a plant, huh? Plant has can feed itself in a way, right? Can grow, can reproduce itself, right? But it doesn't sense, huh? So when you cut off a limb of a tree there, that's in the wrong place, you don't feel like you would be cutting off a a leg or an arm of a of a dog or a cat, right, or something, right?

[22:08] Huh? Okay. But now what comes after sensing, right? Where he says, from this memory does not arise in some of them, what does arise in others, right? Okay. So memory is what retaining what you've what sensed in some way, right? Um.

[22:35] I mean, some sensations you remember more than other ones, right? Huh? Okay. And because of this, those who have memory, these are more what prudent, right? So Cicero says, first thing you got to do is remember the past, right? Huh? These are more prudent, and that's a little bit like wisdom is that to be prudent, okay? And they are easily taught than those unable to what remember.

[23:09] Those unable to hear sounds are more prudent without what learning, because sense of hearing is a sense of what learning, as the bees, right? And whatever other kind of animals such.

[23:27] Whatever has this sense in addition to memory is able to what to learn. Okay. Now what comes after memory? He's going to touch upon that now in the next sentence, in the next paragraph, big paragraph. The other animals live by images and what memories, but they share little in what experience. The race of men, however, lives by art and what reasonings. Now, what's the difference between art and reasonings?

[24:12] Art is that practical How is it doing how reasoning is more of a? Yeah, art is more the name of a habit too, right?

[24:25] A virtue maybe can be the practical art, but even the art of logic is a is a habit, right? And reasoning is the yeah, it's the discourse most of all. It's called reasoning, right? No. What? And they depend in certain ways on experience as well? Yeah, yeah, but he's going to bring out this thing about experience now in the next paragraph to come here, right? But reasoning is the discourse which is most characteristic of reason, right?

[24:56] And therefore, its name from reason itself, reasoning. He says, experience comes to be from memory in men. For many memories of the same thing perfect the power of one experience. So the man of experience is a man who's brought together in his mind many what memories, right? Okay. Used to say in class, I'd say now, if you had one date with one girl in your life, you'd probably remember it.

[25:33] But you are a man of experience with women. No, no, no. But if you had many dates with many different women, right? Huh? Your life, huh? And you recall these memories and you put them together, you are a man of experience, right? If you had one glass of wine in your life, right? You might remember that glass. You know, say that was interesting. But are you really a man of experience with wine?

[26:00] Huh? You have to have had what? Drunk many glasses, sniffed them, tasted them, right, swallowed them, and remembered them, right, and then you have somewhat experience, right? Okay.

[26:15] For many memories of the same thing or same kind of thing, perfect the power of one experience, huh? And experience seems to be very much like science and art,

[26:30] but are they the same thing? See, see, experience is more a what? Collection of many what? Singulars, right? Remembered, huh? Why art and science involve what? Yeah, something common to many, right? But your mind separates out what's common to these many, right? And that's the beginning of a knowledge of the what? Universal, right? Okay.

[27:03] But he says experience seems to be very much like science and art, huh? For science and art come to men through experience. For experience makes art, as Polus says. Now, who the hell is Polus? Well, he's a character in one of Plato's dialogues, right? Now, I think he said these things, right?

[27:35] For experience makes art, as Polus says, speaking rightly, but in experience, chance, huh? Beginner's luck, we say, right? Okay. And I cook a lot of steaks whenever I can. So, but the idea of the steak is to get it nice and pink, you know. Don't overdo it and lose the flavor, right? So I'm more, you know, experienced now in these matters, huh? Yes. How long to leave it on?

[28:09] Just got to cut a little bit to see what's going on. Really, it's the only way to be to that new. Make sure I have a thermometer. Do all that nonsense.

[28:21] Okay. Now, Aristotle was the son of a what? Excellent medical doctor for those days, right? And his father was became the court physician, right? And that's how the family became known to the Philip, right? And that's why Aristotle ended up being the teacher of what? Alexander Alexander the Great, right? And in Aristotle's books, you know, on on poetry, right? We only have the Poetics, right? Which is we have most of the Poetics, though the part on comedy, the detailed part is lost, right?

[28:59] But then he wrote a dialogue on poetry, poets, which has been lost entirely, I guess. And then he wrote a special work on Homer for what Alexander, right? So Alexander, when he conquered the the East, there, right, he had Homer by his bedside, right, for relaxation. The evening, you know, and there's everything. A special book on on Homer, right? Huh? And Homer was called by Aristotle, the poet.

[29:28] antonomasia huh Right into an odd example of antonomasia there, you know, where the Gospel of Saint John there, where infidelity, right, is called, you know, sin by antonomasia, right, because it kind of destroys everything, right? And Thomas says Antona Masice it's kind of interesting. Got in that part of the of John now, where he's he's narrating how Christ is preparing the apostles for his departure, for his passion, and but they're going to suffer later on with themselves, you know.

[30:19] But it's beautiful in chapters what is it, thirteen through seventeen, right? And Thomas divides into three things that he does. And I always take this an example of what a father has to do, right? Because in chapter thirteen, he

[30:38] gives them example in fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. He instructs them with his words, and then seventeen he prays. I say that's what a father has to do, right? Or a parent, huh? He has to first give good example to his children, right? Then he has to instruct them by words, and then he has to what pray that they will profit from his example and from his words. It's a beautiful division into three, right?

[31:08] And that's exactly what Christ does. He gets into the the seventeenth chapter, of course, that's divided into three too. And he first prays for himself, then he prays for the apostles, and then he prays for all those who are going to be converted by the apostles. That's actually beautiful the way it's explained, you know, just magnificent, magnificent.

[31:38] Okay. Now he gives an example here, huh? As I said, Aristotle's father was a medical doctor, right? Now I get onto Alexander there with that. That's how he became known, onto the family. I mean, to the royalty there. So Aristotle often gives examples from what? Medical art, right? It's like in the ethics, you may recall when Aristotle says, "Who is a useless hearer of ethics, right? What's a man who doesn't, you know, aim to act by by reason, right?

[32:10] " And he compares it to a useless hearer of medical advice, because you must have heard this from his doctor, right? And you know, the doctor says you should stop doing this. You should stop eating so much candy, or you should stop drinking so much, or yeah, yeah. And if you are not going to act upon this, then you are a useless hearer of medical what, advice, right?

[32:39] Now, my doctor's always saying, "I could lose a couple pounds, " you know. He doesn't. He doesn't think he's going to succeed in getting into, to yeah, my student. It comes on Tuesday. There, he he he was getting some weight there. He's going to go back to exercising, you know. I gotta get up at four o'clock tomorrow. So to exercise before he goes to work. So I'll see what happens.

[33:04] when I see him next time. He got his exercise right? Yeah, but now what he's pointing out here is that art or a knowledge of the universal, right, comes to be whenever one universal understanding about like things, right, comes to be from the many things kept in the mind by what experience. So experience is the bringing together, really, right, of many what memories of the same kind of thing, and then when you compare these things, you can separate out what they have in common, right, and then you what?

[33:51] That's the beginning of art or science, which is a knowledge of the what universal, right? Okay. So you see a guy being honored for what? In battle, right? Huh? He did this, he did that, and he gets this medal right now because he was really brave man, saved people's lives and so on, huh? And then you read about a fireman being honored, right? Huh? The building was burning and and things were collapsing in the building and so on, and there was a little child in there, and he rushed in and he got the child out He got singed, but he saved the child's life, right?

[34:40] He was very brave, right? Huh? And then I remember reading about a girl there. She was out swimming in the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean with a boy, and and he got attacked by the shark, right? And she went on and dragged him in away from the sharks and baptized him on the shore. Oh my goodness. See, what do these have in common, right?

[35:06] They did something. What? They wanted to get something, you know? Yeah, it might be a bullet can kill you, fire can kill you, shark can kill you, right? But they did so for a good reason to rescue the boy, to rescue his comrades, or to rescue their boyfriend, where he was. And so I'm separating out what these have in common, right? That woman was brave. That soldier was brave.

[35:31] That fireman was brave, right? Huh? You know. But what do they have in common? See, that makes them brave, and you know, they they what go against the danger when it's reasonable to do so, right? For a good reason, right? Because that's involved, huh? And so I separate out what's common. I start to understand the courage in what is something universal, right? Okay.

[36:01] I drink wine, but I don't drink too much. You drink beer, but you don't drink too much. He drinks whiskey, but doesn't drink too much. What do we have in common? You know. Not too much. Yeah. Nothing too much. Yeah. That's something universal, right? Nothing too much. The great wise man of Greece said, "Huh.

[36:24] For to have in mind that this benefited, Callias huh, when suffering this disease, right, he took this and it, you know, you had a headache and I said, 'Well, take some aspirin. ' Ah, it relieved your headache, right? Then Socrates had headache and I gave him some aspirin. He felt better. And in each case, thus too many belongs to experience, right? Aspirin helped Callias in this situation, right, with the headache.

[36:52] It helped Socrates, right. It helped Plato, helped Aristotle. And that belongs to experience, right? Many singular things. But that benefits all such as are marked by one condition and suffer this disease, such as the phlegmatic or the choleric suffering the burning fever, whatever that is, belongs to art, right? Okay.

[37:19] But notice a man might know from experience what helps him, right? Huh. What's the what's the cure for being nauseated? Right. When I was a kid, I found that the ginger ale would help you. Did you find that? No, I know it now. Yeah. Ginger, even ginger, candy ginger. People who are carsick, they eat candy ginger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you remember these things, right? And then this is experience, right?

[37:48] But this gives rise to something universal, right? Okay. Now he's going to compare experience and art, right? He's using art now, kind of in a what? Loose sense, right? For a knowledge of the universal, right? Not just for the ability to make things, right? But the the knowledge of the universal, art or science.

[38:20] Now he says, as far as doing is concerned, huh? Experience does not seem to differ at all from what art. But we see the experience succeeding more than those having reason without experience, huh? Okay.

[38:43] I notice that's interestingly he's pointing out here, right? Huh? In terms of doing something, knowledge of the universal, art or science is not what. Necessarily better than experience. In fact, experience, for the reasons going to give, might succeed, but better, right? Huh?

[39:08] So, if your little boy or girl is what depressed, right? Huh? Or your friend is depressed, right? You might know what to do to get him or her out of their mood or depression better than a psychologist who knows the what universal kinds of what afflictions and so on, right? Because you know this what little person, right? Huh? Okay. Through reverse practice. Yeah. Is breakfast depressed? Huh?

[39:42] Put some Mozart on. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. He feels much better now. Cut a mistake. And let him do the ride. Yeah. Yeah. I teach a cicer. There he knows this. And Mozart says, "Do you find that helps you control your emotions better now? "

[39:59] Um. So you might know that, if you get to know each what child, right? My my daughter and my my daughter-in-law, they both what homeschool, right? So one's got nine, the other's got ten children, right? And they get to know each child in the way that it may be a what school teacher wouldn't, who's had all these courses at the state university, but they realize that the difficulties that one child has in learning is different than the difficulties another one has, right?

[40:30] And and they can adapt themselves, maybe be a better teacher than someone who knows universals but doesn't know her thirty students what as intimately as a as a mother would know her nine or ten self-taught kids, right? One of our brothers is having trouble with his eyes and with his eyeglasses. Yeah. So he goes to the I guess the doctor to examine his eyes, and she prescribes something, and he goes to the guy the guy that makes the glasses, and and he talks to both of them, and it turns out the gal can't quite get it right because she's not long out of school.

[41:09] Yeah. This guy's been making glasses for thirty years, and he says she needs to do this and this and this and this because he knows better about making mess for this condition. than she does. Example I used to use in class is that you know, when trying to get a bill through the U. S. Senate or the U. S. House, you know, if you've been in the House or the Senate for ten years or something like that, you can succeed better, right?

[41:30] You know how to push this guy, or how to encourage this guy, or how to flatter this guy, or how to bribe this guy, or how to you know, you know. And he's going to succeed better than a professor of politics or political science man, right? Who knows universals, right? Knows the difference between the American form of government, the British form of government, you know, and and Brazilian form of government, and knows all universals, right?

[41:54] But he's not going to get a piece of legislation do as well as LBJ would in the old days. He's been LBJ all the time, and he's you know how to run the thing, you know, and how to get people to go along, you know, what is what's going on there? Yeah, yeah. My friend Raymond Early worked in the Minnesota State House, and they worked in Minnesota Senate.

[42:18] You know, page boy, you know, got to know the way these things are done down there. So he says, as far as doing is concerned, experience does not seem to differ at all from art, but we see the experience succeeding more than those having reason without experience.

[42:44] The cause is that experience is knowledge of singulars, while art is a knowledge of universals. He's using art in that broad sense, right? But all doings and makings are about singulars, for the doctor does not cure man. Except accidentally, right? But he's curing this individual man, Calius, or Socrates, or someone of the others so named, who happens to be a man, right?

[43:15] Okay. If someone has reason without experience and knows universal, but does not know the singularity, he many times makes a mistake in medical treatment. For it is more the singular that is what treated, huh?

[43:38] I know my grandmother goes into the hospital there at the end of her life there, and she had slipped, you know, and she's fragile bones, and you have a break there and so on. And so they have to do an operation, right? But the the anesthetist comes in there and he says, "I give her the the regular anesthesia; she won't pull out." But she was so confused, they just gave her local anesthesia, you know.

[44:07] See, but if you just said, you know, well, this is you know, put put her under, and then she would put under under the ground, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[44:27] I'd work down my father's off me factory sometimes, and they're going to make a wagon or something like that, and we go out to get the wood and so on. I'm trying to load. Not that word. I'm just funny. But these guys have made wagons. You know how many wagons? Not that word. Well, I've made would have made a mistake, right? Huh? Wouldn't be making the best wagons that were made, the Green King wagons, right?

[44:52] You know. For it's more the singular that is what treated, right? Okay. So you can see that with your friends, and right? Huh? You know how to treat different friends different ways, right? You know,

[45:17] get them to change their mood, or not get some other person to change their mood, right? Okay. So that's in terms of doing, right? But in terms of knowing, which is what superior. What? The universal. Yeah, but he's going to bring out something else that there's an art of science that there's not in experience, and that is experience really tells you that it is so, right? But it doesn't tell you why it is so, and therefore it doesn't seem to be as wise, huh, as a man who can tell you why it's so, right?

[45:58] Nevertheless, he says, "We think, huh?" That knowing and understanding belong more to art, meaning knowledge is universal, than experience. And we hold that the artists are wiser than the experience, so that wisdom follows knowledge and all. Not wisdom is not primarily about doing something, but about what knowing. And so the man of experience might succeed in doing something better than the man of knowledge of art or science, but the man of art or science can be considered wiser, as if wisdom is more a knowledge for its own sake, right?

[46:40] He says this is because they know the cause, while the others what do not. The experience know that it is so, but do not know why it is so. But these know why it is so, and the what cause. So he's hinting at the fact then that the man who knows the cause is going to be what wiser than the man who just knows that something is so, right?

[47:12] I used to take the example in class sometimes of I'm a man of experience in making tea, you know. And if you say leave the hot water with the tea leaves for ten minutes, you're not going to get a good tasting tea. So I know that you know more than three or four minutes, you can start getting a bad taste, right? So as far as making a good cup of tea, I don't have to know why this is so, right?

[47:44] But then a chemist was explaining to me that different what chemicals are released at different what times, right? And the things that make a good cup of tea are released in time before the things that make a bad cup of tea, right? And so he knows why it's not just stronger; it was just stronger for being in there ten minutes, right, than four minutes, let's say. And then you could dilute it, you know, with some water, wouldn't be a problem, right?

[48:13] But you've actually made a bad tasting tea, right, as opposed to a good tasting tea, right? And so he knows; he seems wiser than me, doesn't he, right? He knows why, right?

[48:30] Now I used to take the example too of corking a bottle, right, wine bottle, right, now. But what's good about the cork is that it what? Why do you lay the bottle on its side? Is that a and just looks nicer that way?

[48:51] You see, if you leave if you store your bottles with the with the cork up in the air like this, right, then the cork dries out. And then this awful thing called air gets in there, right, and starts to affect the what quality of the tea, right? I mean, the wine. But if you lay it down like this, then the wine goes into the what cork, and it swells up, and it's an airtight thing, and protects it, right?

[49:17] See, I notice if I'm instructing Joe Blow there in in the store, you know what to do. You know, keep those wines. You know, lay them down. Why? Why set them up? It's easier to. I said, just lay them down. Okay, okay. So he's he's like he doesn't know why, right? It's not the question why is, but to do and die, as they say, right? You know, but the man who knows why should be laid down, right?

[49:48] Doesn't he seem wiser, right? Okay. A lot of times, husbands learn how to treat their wives, and they don't get upset about something, right? I don't know why women does this, right? But they, but they know that you just you don't do that, and then you're gonna be in trouble doing that. Teacher, you

[50:18] said you're so like my friend Eddie, 'cause he's got a lot of good sense in there, you know, about the difference between men and women, right? Huh? Would you be annoyed if I forgot your birthday? Of course not. What the hell do I care?

[50:33] So, so things you learn that they're so, but maybe without, you know, something to explain why. I told you I used to give this lecture on differences between men and women. I tell you about that a little bit. And

[50:55] so, I point out one difference here, you know. Well, first of all, my experience. So, who's more apt to disown a child, the father or the mother? Yeah. See. And who's more apt to make the mistake of trying to force the offspring into his own line of work or whatever it is? Father, right? See. Now, why is this what? So, right? See. Well, the reason I would give is that the father sees the offspring as a continuation of himself.

[51:37] See that with Henry VIII, right? He wants a son, right? And I always tell the story of we were expecting our second child, right? And I was in the hospital there, kind of waiting there, waiting for the call. And there was the guy there who was obviously kind of nervous. And this is his first child on the way, right? And so he said to me, "You've been through this before?"

[52:06] And I said, "Yeah, this is my second one." I said. And he says, "Oh yeah, what was your first one?" I said, "A boy." He said, "You got what you wanted." Then I said, "Yeah."

[52:18] I know, and you can see what he said right there, you know, huh? See. But but a man's apt to make that mistake of wanting a a boy, right, rather than a than a woman, right? Why a woman would thinks that it'd be a healthy baby. That's the first, one, right? But the woman sees the baby more as a what, fulfillment of herself as a woman, right?

[52:38] Perfection of herself. While the man sees the child more as continuation of himself. So if the kid doesn't live up to his expectations, right, then he kind of disowns him in some sense, right? While the woman to disown the child would be like deny her own perfection, her own fulfillment, right? So you kind of see that there's a reason why these things are so, right? And the man who can give something of the reason why, you know, is seems to be wiser than the man who just knows these things from what experience.

[53:09] So, I used to give this lecture, and then, you know, some should. I first started teaching; it's all boys still, right? And then when the girls are going to be admitted, you're having maybe two or three girls from high schools coming to sit in the class, right? He said, "Oh no, he's not going to talk about those terms." He's

[53:33] getting very nervous. So this is because they know the cause here, right? While the others do not, right? That's why they seem to be wiser. The experienced know that it is so, but to not know why it is so. But these know why it is so, and the cause. The cause is answering the question why, right? You may recall from the from the logic there, right? That Aristotle distinguishes those four questions: Does it exist?

[54:21] And then, what is it? And is it so? Is this that? And then, why is this that? Right? And to know that it is is not as advanced a knowledge as to know what it is, right? And to know that it is so is not as advanced a knowledge as to know why it is so, right? The man who knows why it is so knows that it's so too, right?

[54:46] But he knows the cause now, right? He's much wiser than the man who just merely knows that it is so, right? Huh? Who was the most beautiful woman at the party last night? Why you, my dear, of course.

[55:18] So that's the first way he's kind of showing that, right? But now he gives a second sign here. Whence also we think that the chief artists about each thing are more honorable and know more and are wiser than the handicraftsmen, because they know the causes of the things what made, huh?

[55:41] Let's take the example there, you know, the great chef, you know, and then you got the subordinate guy who just peels the potatoes, right, and cuts them, you know. And I want them cut this way tonight, right? I'm, you know, cut this way tomorrow night, you know. Why? Just cut them this way, and tomorrow cut them this way, okay? Who seems wiser anymore? No, see, because he doesn't know why they should be cut this way, right?

[56:07] I'm making French fries, that's why. See, I know what the ultimate thing is. So the chief artist, right, commands the lower man, right? Okay. So the general knows why these people should go here. Why? You know, he's got he sees the whole picture, right? He sees the reason why you have to do this in particular. But you don't know why in particular you have to do that, right?

[56:33] No, no. Here's not the question why. Here's what to do. And see. Whence, we also think that the chief artists about each thing are more honorable and know more and are wiser than the handicrafts men, because they know the causes of the things what made, huh?

[57:02] So many things that we use in our house or something or place, and and we don't know why, you know. We just don't do this or do that, you know.

[57:13] For the latter are like inanimate things. Well, put down here. They make, but they do not know what they make. As fire burns, right? Inanimate things make each of these by a certain what nature, while the handicrafts men do so through custom, right? Huh? Hence, the chief artists are wiser not by doing, because he may not be doing much at all, right? He's commanding, but by having a reason and knowing the what causes, huh?

[57:47] So I know our builder Pat Riley. he has a very experienced carpenter. that works with him for 30 plus years. Mike. Mike, he knows how to make stuff. He doesn't always know the reason why. So sometimes he challenges Pat on the way to do something. Yeah. Pat always has to correct him and say no, because. You won't understand necessarily the reason why. And so he just, but he eventually he might see something and then he'll do it the way Pat tells him.

[58:15] He doesn't like it at first. Yeah. But he's but he's got a lot of experience in building. Yeah. I tell all the time the story of of my teacher, Kasurik, there, you know, and he was my advisor. My brother Richard made sure that I had him as my advisor, you know, and so I'm got my selecting my courses and so on. And so he's looking at my course selection.

[58:37] He says, Duane, where's your Greek? I said my Greek. He said, Yeah, why aren't you taking Greek? I said, Well, there are things I'd rather take. He says, That's no reason. He says, If you're going to be a philosopher, he says, you take Greek. Well, now I realize how important it was for me to know some Greek, right? And I'm not particularly good at foreign languages, right?

[59:01] I learned that Greek so that I could read Aristotle's text, you know, and discover things, even the Gospel of St. John the Greek and so on. And but what's the relation there between the two of us? He's like the chief artist there, right now. And he realizes, you know, that the Greek will be important for me down the road, there, right? He knows why I should be forced to take Greek, right?

[59:26] Why he should bully me into taking Greek. So even I with me, right? Even I graduated from college. I told you, and he said, Dwayne, I can go out and get some Euclid. And I said, Why? Go out and get some. Get a copy of Euclid. yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm kind of like a dummy, right? Like a like a firebrand without knowing what why I'm doing it, right?

[59:48] Mine not to question why. Mine is to suffer with anyone as a student in Greek there and Father Rabeter there, you know, two formless hands. irregular. forms, but you

[1:00:06] suffered a little bit, you know. It was worthwhile. You need that though. Need that. So, Kasurik was the chief artist. He was wiser, not by doing, but by having a reason, knowing the causes. Okay.

[1:00:32] And now he gives another what sign here, right? On the whole, the sign of knowing is the ability to teach. So now someone can teach, knows something.

[1:00:47] Now can the man of experience really teach? See, he knows you should do it this way, but he doesn't know why. He can't. If someone asks him why, he can't really teach.

[1:01:02] And because of this, we think that art is more reasoned-out knowledge than experience. For the artists are able to teach, while the others are what? Not able.

[1:01:16] Why do you need to know Greek? Huh? Because the translations are so lousy, right? When Plato said until philosophers are kings, or kings are philosophers, you'll have bad government. Well, until translators are philosophers, or philosophers are translators, you can have bad what? Translations. We used to get the the what do you call those little green volumes there? You know, with Greek and Latin. You know. Loebs, yeah, yeah.

[1:01:44] And the translation is so lousy in there. Actually, you know, we've seen some of them where the translator has managed to give exactly the opposite sense, the opposite, say the opposite of what the what the guy's translating is saying, right? Huh? And

[1:02:01] so you can see why it's important to know Greek, right? Huh? So protect yourself, right? Yeah. Protect yourself from these guys. As Father Peter Phelan said on Scripture translations, it's not enough to know how to use a Greek or Hebrew dictionary. Yeah. To translate Scripture, you got to understand Scripture. You got to understand Revelation. Yeah. Yeah. I ran across a strange text at Thomas during the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[1:02:39] You know, when you get into this study of act and ability, right? And what's the kind of the most general distinction that we take up under act, right?

[1:02:54] Well, it's distinction between you know form and motion, right? Huh? Okay. And not too hard to see the distinction between form and motion, right? You take a ball and you roll it. The form and the motion not the same thing, right? But there's a connection between the fact that it rolls and a cube doesn't, right? Because the form is different in a ball and in a cube, right?

[1:03:26] Cube doesn't roll along, right? But the motion's not the same thing as the form, is it? Okay. Now later on you find there's something that is like motion and sometimes called a motion, But it's pretty different from motion in the strict sense, because motion is the act of the imperfect, huh? The act of what is able to be as such. And so if you take an motion like walking home, right?

[1:04:03] When you're walking home, you haven't walked home yet. Um. But now what about something like hearing or seeing or understanding, right? Is that the same thing? When I'm understanding something, have I understood it yet? Yeah. And when I'm seeing you, have I seen you yet? See, I said seeing the girls, you know, and I love you. Have I loved you yet? Oh yes. Um. Well, this is the act of the perfect, right?

[1:04:45] So nice contrast there, right? You want to call understanding a motion? Now this course is more like a motion, right? But understanding, as the name indicates, standing, it's not like a motion, is it? Okay. Now I've seen texts of Thomas where he seems to he wants to give them a name other than motion. He'll call it in Latin operatio. Well, then I got into this interesting text the other day in the

[1:05:19] Summa Contra Gentiles there, where he's talking about three different operations, or three different kinds of operations, right? And one is what? Motion. Being moved by something. Another is moving another.

[1:05:42] And then there is a act which he says is not, which is actual, right? And not like imperfect like motion, and it's not tending towards something else like moving or making another, right? So he says.

[1:06:05] Some things are trying to be like God by moving, and that's trying to become actual in themselves. Others are trying to become like God by moving other things. They're like God, who is a cause, and some things are doing both because they're moved movers.

[1:06:26] So they're becoming like God by being actual in themselves, They're coming to be actual in themselves, and by being a cause. I was kind of struck with the fact that he used the word operation for all three of these, right? Now, Thomas, I know sometimes he speaks of how Plato and even Aristotle sometimes would extend motion to things that are not motion in strict sense. And he comes up when Thomas is describing these wonderful things in Plato, where he says the through itself is before the through another, right?

[1:07:03] And therefore, what is moved by another before is something that moves itself, right? And so God moves other things because he what moves himself? Plato says, huh? Other things. So, well, what does he mean? Well, he means that God knows and loves himself. And by knowing himself as exemplar of all things, and by loving himself, he wants to communicate himself so far as possible. So by moving himself, that is, by knowing and loving himself, he moves other things, right?

[1:07:44] He says Thomas, and sometimes Aristotle, even in the De Anima, he'll speak of understanding and sensing as being kind of motion, right? Okay, so I've seen that kind of extension of emotion, right? But here in this text, he uses the word operation and extends it for all all three, right? So I was talking to my friend Warren Murray on the phone there, and I said, Warren, how would you translate operatio in this text?

[1:08:10] I gave the text right, And he says, you think it would make any sense in English to say operation? See that this thing here that's being moved is operating? That doesn't seem right to me at all, you know. So what would you use to cover those three without forcing, you know, the awkwardness of what operation would be in English right be in English, right?

[1:08:42] Warren says, well, activity. He says, well, I've got another suggestion. Warren I said, how about the word doing? See, now when I'm making apple pie, which I never am, am I doing something? I'm making a chair. which I never do? Am I doing something? I don't find any force there, do, you see. Now somebody calls me on the phone and says, Duane, what are you doing? And I say, Well, I'm listening to Mozart.

[1:09:19] Did you find that Forrest? I'm very mad. We'd find that. even understanding something. Is that doing something? Do you understand? Yeah. Okay.