Prima Pars
Lecture 25: The Transcendentals: Being, One, True, and Good

Transcript
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But as I put them together, I have many texts of Thomas and Ian Bale with the Great, right? Where he says that one means, what? Undivided in yourself, right? And distinct from all other things, huh? Okay? So sometimes I put these two together, like number five. I think that number five, okay? But these two have in common that they add a negation, right? One negation of division in oneself, and the other negation from not doing anything else, huh? Okay? Now, there's still two more Hermos Universals to come. And Thomas says, well, there's another way that you can add some meaning without contracting it. But you can't add something real, right? It could be something of reason. But what is there of reason besides negation? Well, there are some relations that are reason only, right? Okay? And he says, there's got to be something that in some ways is all things. Aha! The third book about the soul. And Aristotle gets through talking about the senses and reason. He says the soul is in some way, what? All things, right? Okay? And you see this, especially in our reason, and in our, what? Will. Okay? Okay? So things are noble, can be true, right? Everything. And good. True and good, right? Okay? So, adds this relation to reason, right? That's not a real relation. And good, this relation to the will, right? The good is what all desire, what all want. That's the first definition of it, huh? Okay? That's the way you get the six transcendentals, they call it, right? Because they transcend the ten categories they've found in all of them, right? But as I say, sometimes I think, even Aristotle talks about the one he has in mind, both being undivided in itself and being distinct from other things. And many times you'll find Thomas and Albert using the one in that sense, right? But that doesn't really change what we're saying here, right? Okay? And these two both, you know, involve adding the indication to the other things. So you've got to hear a little bit about this, when we talk about the good now, right, in the general chapter. You'll find out some things about the one. He comes to talk about that, right? So you get little bits of this teaching, right? But this is, in a rough way, the distinction of the most universals from each other, right? And somewhere in your education, somewhere along the line, you'll be talking about the distinction of these from their opposites, right? Now the opposite of being is what? Non-being, right? And what kind of opposition is it that you have between being and non-being, huh? Non-being, to be or not to be, that is the question. That's the opposition that in the categories is called contradiction. Now, what's the opposite of thing? And perhaps it might be easier if you said something instead of thing. What's the opposite of something? Nothing. Yeah. Now, these are very close, huh? Okay? The opposition of being and non-being and something and nothing seem to be almost the same, don't they? Okay? Shows kind of, you know, the affinity of those two, huh? And if I remember correctly, I have to read again to make sure I'm not engaging in false imagination. But the Greeks say you can't get something from nothing, right? Mm-hmm. And Parmenides says you can't get being and non-being, right? It's kind of the same thought, in a way, isn't it? It can be the same thing. Is the opposition of something and nothing the opposition of contradiction? Contradiction? Well, you see, commentaries are not as opposed as contradictories, right? Mm-hmm. In commentaries, you have a common subject and a common genus, right? Mm-hmm. So virtue and vice are in the same thing, right? Mm-hmm. So courage, say, and cowardliness are both in the erasional appetite, right? Temperance and intemperance are in the good appetite, right? Mm-hmm. But they have the same genus, which is habit or quality, right? Now, privation or lack and having are in between contraries and contradictories. Because there you have a common subject, right? Say blind, blindness and sight are, in a sense, the same thing, right? Mm-hmm. Same subject. But they're under the same common genus, right? Okay? But privation or lack is a non-being of something you're able to have, and it's the non-being of that and a subject able to have, right? Okay? But the negativeness, but the convictory, you know, you can say not see even as something that is not able to see, right? You can say the chair doesn't see, right? But strictly speaking, the chair is not blind. Only a man or an animal can be blind from this aptly nature to have it. So, quite the opposition of contradictories, be is nothing, right? Okay? And that's why they say with contradictories, it's one another, to be or not to be. Okay? You either are a man or you're not a man. You're either a monkey or you're not a monkey. You're either red or you're not red, huh? There's no alternative. But you either have sight or you're blind. You either have virtue or vice. Well, that chair doesn't have either virtue or vice, right? Okay? You either sick or healthy. There's a point, sick or healthy. You know? That's it? But Shakespeare says, to be or not to be, that is a question. I often say to students, it's a question because you can't both be and not be, and because you must either be or not be, right then? Okay? Well, the opposition of something and nothing seems to me to be like contradiction, right? Because there's nothing that they have together, right? A common subject, right? Or a common genus, something and nothing, right? Now, what's the opposite of one? Yeah. Yeah. Now, that's going to be a different kind of opposition, right? Okay? Now, that gets very complicated when they get into that, right? Because both Plato and Ava sent it to the greatest minds of all time, right? They both got mixed up between the one that's the beginning of number and the one that's one of the most universals. And the one that's the beginning of number is the, what? Measure of a number, huh? So, a number is a multitude measured by one. So, there's kind of a relative opposition there, right? But here, it's going to be a different kind of opposition. It's going to be, what? Undivided being and divided being. It's a little bit more like, what? Lack. Okay? And this is lacking the division that the many had, son. Okay? And it's kind of curious, huh? Because Aristotle says, in one sense, the many is before the one in our understanding. Just like we were saying before about the simple. You know, the point is defined, which has no parts. We define the simple by the negation of the composed, right? So, in a way, we define one by the negation of division. Well, negation is posterior, in understanding, right? To what's being negated. And when it's divided, you have many. Okay? Unite we stand, divided we fall, right? Okay? But then Thomas, you know, says, but Aristotle is not speaking as, what, nuanced as he could here, right? Because, although you're negating the division that's in the many, right? Yet, the idea of many is many ones. Okay? So this is very tricky, right? First you understand division, then you understand the undivided, then you understand the one, then you understand the many as a whole, right? Because it's many ones. Okay? So it turns out that this opposition here is different from the one up here. Here it's more contradictory, right? And here it's what? Yeah, more like lack, right? It's a very subtle thing, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a Latin word for lack. But if you're thinking of the one that's the beginning of the number, then it's kind of a relative thing. And it's amazing, these two great minds, Avicenna and Plato, they're both a little mixed up, right? And so the one that's the beginning of the number adds something real, and therefore it's not a most universal thing anymore. And Avicenna gets mixed up and thinks the one here adds something real too. And he's in trouble, right? And then Plato thinks that this one, in a sense, is the one getting a number, and therefore everything is numbers, right? Okay? So that's a very subtle thing, right? Okay. Now, what's the opposite of the true? False. Yeah, yeah. Now how are the true and the false supposed? Maybe confidence? I think so, yeah. Yeah. See, if I think that two is half of four, and you think that two is not half of four, right? That's not simply a negation of thinking that two is half of four, right? Because if you're somebody ignorant that two is half of four, you're not mistaken, are you? And I'm false. But if you think that two is not half of four, then you're thinking contrarily. You're actually thinking something, right? So you have thinking divided into thinking true and false, isn't it, right? So they're like two forms of thinking, right? Okay? But now good is supposed to be what? Bad. What kind of opposition is that? What? The lack. Yeah, yeah. Basically, the basic meaning of bad is the lack of something you are able to have and should have, right? Okay? The other sense is the bad, but that's the fundamental meaning of bad. So bad seems to be opposed to good as a lack of vibration in the same way that the one is opposed to many, right? So it is very subtle to see the opposites, right? And you have, perhaps, in the opposites of being and thing, if they're somewhat the same, right? There's no question about the being and being is actually a contradiction. But something and nothing seems to be like that, huh? They seem to have no common subject, no common genus, right? Something and nothing. The one and the many and the good and the bad are both different ways, right? Because the good is the positive one and the bad involves, what? The lack of that. But the one, the many, the one being defined as undivided being, has the lack of the division of many, but that's not a lack that makes it, what? Bad, right? And when Thomas gets into this, he's very, very, very subtle, you know? And it's almost like, you know, I say about the trees in the Trinity, you don't talk about the Trinity without having the actual words of Thomas in front of you, on your mind, right? You know? It's easy to go astray there, you know? But Aristotle would distinguish a whole number of different senses of lack, right? Okay? And it's only in the, what, earlier senses of lack that lack is something bad, right? In the last senses, it isn't. It's very subtle. And you have to see the text in the fifth book again of wisdom, right? So, the kind of lack that is bad and the kind of lack that is in the definition of one, is quite different, the sense of lack, right? So, you've got to know the fifth book of wisdom there. And Thomas pulls it out. That's actually, that's incredibly easy. He doesn't, you know, I don't even do what Thomas does, except Aristotle himself, you know? So, that's the second kind of distinction, right? Now, if you look here, excuse me, you'll see like in the fifth, but perhaps most of all in the sixth article there, where the good is divided into honestum, utile, and delictabile, right? But that might be, to some extent, one of the first distinctions of the good, right? Into something less universal than good, right? But, notice, in the first article, whether good and being are the same secundum rem, right, huh? Where the distinction, in other words, between good and being, and I tell you, you can ask the same question about all these universals. Is that a real distinction? Or a distinction in, what? Reason. In reason, right? Right, huh? Okay. And of course, you'll see what Thomas says. I won't. But you might suspect that they're not going to be really different secundum rem, right? Okay. And it's like the question we ask you about these five attributes of God, right? And all the things about God, huh? Is the knowledge of God and the love of God the same secundum rem? Yeah. Because if they weren't the same secundum rem, then God would really be composed, right? Okay. Now, second one, you kind of guess what the answer was in the first one. Supposito, suppose that they differ in definition only, right? Okay. Which is before secundum rationum, huh? Whether good or being, right, huh? Okay. It's a question you'd ask about these things, huh? There's no order about them, right? Okay. And different places that Thomas will talk about the order of these, right? Which is before, one or two. But here he's asking in particular between being and one, right? I mean, excuse me, being and good, huh? Okay. And you can kind of guess the answer to number two from what he says in three, right? Supposing now that being is before, right? Whether every being is what? Good. This is convertible really with being as universal as that, right? And you may see, gradually, that maybe this is as universal as being, but, you know, differing in ratio and being posterior in ratio. And then, to what cause the ratio of good is reduced, right? And of course, you've been told before about the connection your style to solve first between the good and the end, right? Plato's still kind of thinking of the good itself, but it's a kind of separated form. And I said, well, it's more in than form, right? The form has something to do with the good too, right? And then, these two ways of what? Dividing it, right? Right, huh? Okay? Now, I don't know if he, you know, explicitly he talks about the opposition of good and bad, but it'll probably come in when he talks about whether every being is good, because sometimes you say, hey, not every being is good. There are bad things in the world out there. More bad things than good things. And so on. So it may go up there a little bit, right? But you're going to be getting a little bit of the, what, distinction, and you could add a distinction now in the order of this, right? Distinction and the order, at least of good from being, right? And the order of these, right? In our thinking. And then something of the first distinction of the good, right? Into its particular kinds. Okay? Now, if you have to understand the more universal before you can understand the less universal, as Aristotle argues in the beginning of the physics, right? But then you've got to understand the most universal before you can understand anything. Right? And the most universal are extremely hard to understand. And as they say, Aristotle and Thomas are probably the only guys who understand the most universals, so they're the only guys who understand anything, right? Yeah, I'm kind of a little playful, you know. I tell the students in philosophy of nature, if they don't understand change, they don't understand changing things. If they don't understand changing things, they don't understand unchanging things, because as the word unchanging suggests, they're known by the negation. Now, if you don't understand changing things or unchanging things, you don't understand anything. So from first to last, you don't understand change, you don't understand anything, right? And now you're saying you don't understand the most universals, you don't understand anything. But there's some truth to that, right? There are a lot of truth to that, right? You see? If you don't know what a quadrilateral is, can you understand what it is to be four-sided? Can you understand what it is to be a square? If you don't understand what it is to be a number, can you understand what it is to be a prime number or a composite number? Well, you can know what a number is without knowing what a prime number is. But you can't know what a prime number is without knowing. So it seems you have to understand the more universals before you understand the less universals. And therefore, you must understand the most universals before you can understand anything. Yet, the most universals are very difficult for us to understand, right? And 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1 The only Greeks, you know? Not to mention Lycerlites. You don't understand these things, huh? Consciadanta Rationis. What? Consciadanta Rationis. Reasons are conceded. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Amen for us. And help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. So we're going to start with the fifth question today, if I remember rightly. I think, and Thomas is kind of stopping and doing what, in a way, belongs to wisdom or metaphysics, right? First philosophy, but for the benefit of the student and so on. He's going to talk about good in general, before he talks in particular in the next question on the goodness of what? God, right? To make sure that you have seen these things before, right? Okay? All right. Okay. So, this is attached to the, what? Attribute of the perfection of God, right? Okay. So about the first four things are sad. Question. First, whether good and being are the same, secundum realm, right? Okay. Whether they are really the same thing, right? It's kind of interesting, our word really. Is that really so? I think really comes from what? Really so. Yeah. I've seen it in the Greek, you know, the Greek kind of equivalent, is atos, which is from being. Gary said it in English, right? But instead of saying, is that being so or something like that, he says, is that really so, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thomas used sometimes the phrase, you know, in the rare of the Torah, I mean, it's in reality, let's say. It's a little more concrete. So that's the first article. Whether good and being are the same thing, secundum realm, huh? And, or do they just, you know, are they synonyms, right? You know? Or do they differ, what? In notion or thought, but they're the same, what? Think really, you know? Like it's three feet and 36 inches. Same length, right? But it's not described exactly the same way, is it, huh? Okay. So are good at being like that, or, you know? Same in things, but not the same in meaning, huh? Slightly different in perspective. How do they differ in their meaning if they do, right, huh? Okay. That probably come out in that first article. Now the second article, then. Supposing that they differ in ratione, huh? In meaning or in definition only, right? Which is before? By reason. Whether good or being is before, right? Okay. And then, supposing what we show in the second article, that being is before, huh? Whether every being is good, huh? And you could ask through yours, huh? Whether everything good is a being, right? Whether they are, what? Convertible in the logical sense. What does convertible mean in the logical sense? Doesn't mean the same thing in logic and in cars, right? They're almost all not identical. Does that even mean anything? No. We say that A and B are convertible. Well, if every A is a B and every B is an A, right? Yes. Okay. So, two, let's say, and half of four are convertible, right? Because every two is half of four. And everything half of four is two, right? And so, when we talk about, that's a property, half of four. But, I mean, in the strict sense, huh? But if you have a definition of a thing, that should be, what? Speech convertible to a thing being defined, huh? Mm-hmm. So, if a square is correctly defined as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, right? Then every square should be an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. And every equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral should be a square, right? Mm-hmm. And so, you'll see Socrates sometimes, you know, tuning around, huh? The speech that someone gives as an attempt to define something. You'd say, Berkowitz, what is a dog? And they say, well, a dog is a four-footed animal. And Socrates might say, well, it's true that every dog is a four-footed animal, but is every four-footed animal a dog? Okay? Well, if you can't turn it around, it's not yet a definition, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So, that's one thing that is necessary, right? Okay? Which doesn't mean that every convertible of speech is a definition, but that's one of the requirements of a definition, huh? Okay? It's got to also bring out the nature of what the thing is. Okay? So, in a way, the third article there, where every being is good, and maybe the reverse will come in, too, you know, he's talking about their convertibility, in a way. Good. Now, the fourth article. To which cause is the ratio of good reduced, huh? Mm-hmm. Can you guess which cause it's going to be? Good. Yeah, the end, yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, we remember in ethics, there, we first define the good. The good is what all want, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then we ask the Socratic question, is it good because you want it? Or do you want it because it is good, right? Mm-hmm. An example I always use, in fact, most successful in my classes, you know, is the last drink at the party, right? Mm-hmm. Do you want another drink? And you say, yes. And you take it, and then you realize this is not good for you, right? So if wanting made something good for you, that last drink would have to be good for you, right? Mm-hmm. Or the kid who drives his car 100 miles an hour down this road, right? You want him to do that, but after he smashes up and he's in the hospital, his car is ruined, he might, you know, even to himself admit it wasn't good for him to drive his car. But he wanted to do it, right? Okay? So eventually you arrive at the thought that something is not good because you want it, but you want it because it is, what? Good. And then you see the good as a cause of wanting, but there are four kinds of cause, matter, form, over, and end. And it turns out to be the cause called, what? End, huh? Okay? So Aristotle, when he talks about the fourth kind of cause, he'll often say it's the same thing as the good, basically. Not that the means can't be called good in a secondary sense, but primarily it's the, what? The end, yeah, yeah. That's interesting, right? It's a connection between God being the end of everything and being, what? Being good, yeah, yeah. Now the fifth article, whether the ratio definition of good or the notion of good consists in mode, species, and order, right? And this goes back to the statement of Augustine in the, in the Turaboni, like it is, huh? Where he says it consists in these three things, huh? Thomas has some very subtle explanations of how that's so. So, um, and, you know, they'll tie it up with that text in scripture, too, you know, that God made everything in number and order and so on, um, measure, uh, using some different words. And then the sixth one, where there, um, the good is divided into the honestum, huh? The honorable, the noble good, the useful, and the, what? What is it, right? Now, um, what's the difference in five and six, huh? The difference in those two, um, divisions, in a way, right? Of the good, right? Is one, uh, is it, is it, the sixth one in relation to other things, and five is in each other? Something like that. But, but I think that the fifth one is more like the, what, uh, integral or composing parts, huh? Okay? That everything good, at least in creatures, not, it's not about the goodness of God, but the goodness of the creature involves those three things, right? Okay? But the sixth one is more like the division of a universal whole, huh? into things that are less universal. It's like if I was to talk about the sonnet, right? And if I were to ask, you know, whether the sonnet consists of 14 lines, right? Or whether the sonnet is divided into 14 lines? And the answer would be yes. But every sonnet is composed of 14 lines. And then I might go on in the next article and say, now, whether the sonnet is divided into the English sonnet and the Italian sonnet, right? And then I'd be looking at it as a universal whole being divided into its parts, right? If I was talking about plot in poetics, and I said, whether every plot consists of a beginning, middle, and end, or whether every plot consists of tying the knot or knots and untying the knot or knots, right? Then I'd be looking at kind of the, what? Something like the integral parts, the composing parts, right? Because every plot would have a beginning, middle, and end, or a tying of the knot and the end, and then I might say, whether plot can be divided into comic plot and tragic plot or something like that, right? And then I'd be dividing it like a universal whole one. And which of those would you do first? Which would be naturally to first? The first one, because you're looking into the nature. Yeah, yeah. And you can understand better the basis for the other division, maybe, in most cases, huh? Okay? You want to know, first of all, that the sonnet has 14 lines, and then when you come to consider the particular kinds of sonnet, how those 14 lines are, what? Divided, right? Because in the English sonnet, it's divided into three quatrains and a couplet, and then the Italian into an octet and a sextet, right? So it's kind of a different way that they're divided, huh? Once in a while, Shakespeare, you know, hints a little bit, you know, makes it eight and six. See, he's a kind of crafty fellow, you know? But for the most part, that's the way it goes, huh? Okay. So this is quite a little treatise on the good, huh? And you'll notice if you have the edition, the Marietta edition, you know, they give some of the parallel references, you know, it's kind of a nice little thing. But the question 21, actually, in the De Veritate, huh, is the question that corresponds to this question here. It's got almost the same articles in it, right? But sometimes you bring out something in one, it doesn't bring out one in the other, and so on. That's what I like to call those things, the question is disputate, De Veritate, et bonitate, right? Because the first question is about truth, and then you have all these questions about, what, God's knowledge or the angel's knowledge or our knowledge of various kinds, all the way down to you get to, what, to the 20th question, right? And the 21st question is about the good. And then the remaining seven questions are all about, you know, the desire for the good, and talks about grace and so on and that sort of thing. And so it should really be called De Veritate, et what? Bonitate, right? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, it's among us. Those are not how to name things, right? Yeah, I've been fun of it. I've adopted this way of speaking, you know, kind of making fun of myself, but Shakespeare, when he takes off in the Loves of Labor is Lost, huh? He has these pseudo-savisticates, right? Who like to use big words and so on. And one of them says to the other guy, let us meet in the postures of the day, which is almost obscene, right? Let us meet in the postures of the day, which the rude multitude call the, what? Afternoon. Afternoon, yeah, yeah. And of course, it's very funny. You know, afternoon, but I like to say, you know, the eight books of natural hearing, which the rude multitude call the physics, or the 14 books of wisdom, which the rude multitude call the, I just kind of reverse it, Shakespeare's sense of humor, you know, but don't want to be too serious, because they'll put Thomas the Christ on the rude multitude, right? But he knows what he's saying. So let's look at the first article. Whether good differs secundum rem from being, right? But it's really the same thing or not, right? And of course, he objects to what he wants to say first, right? The first thus one proceeds. I don't know anybody else who does that. He always objects to what he's going to say, assert. I never think he does that. It seems that the good differs secundum rem from being, as a thing, as a thing. For as Boethius says, that's the great Boethius, in the book de Hebdomadibus, I see that in things, other is it that they are good, other that they are, right? So this is the great authority of Boethius, huh? And I think I mentioned before how I think the two greatest minds in the church are Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, huh? But between those two guys, I think, and Boethius is the greatest, huh? In between those two, anyway. Time. So he's a very important thinker. Moreover, nothing is, what, informed, and look at the etymology of informed, right? By itself, huh? But good is said by informing being, as is had in the commentary of the book de Cosis, huh? And I think when Thomas was, in his earlier works, he was still kind of following the common opinion that the Libre de Cosis was by Aristotle himself. And it would be, you know, kind of the post-physics, right? Where he talked about the first causes, the immaterial causes in more detail. But then Thomas realized it was not by Aristotle, right? But it's a very important book, nevertheless. And Thomas is a commenter on the Libre de Cosis. Therefore, good differs secundum rem from being, huh? Moreover, being receives, what, more or less, huh? So more or less good. But to be does not receive more or less, right? Okay? You guys might be better than me, right? But are you more than I am? I don't think so, see? Okay? Am I less today, huh? I might be better or worse today, but am I less? Okay. How's your diet? How's your diet going? Up on the way, I'm in Florence. Okay. But that's... Okay, but against this is what Augustine says in the book on Christian doctrine or teaching. That insofar as we are, we are what? Good, huh? Okay? So Thomas says, I answer, it should be said, that good and being are the same secundum rem. That's a thing, right? They really, in English, it's even more colloquial to say they are the same thing, really. Kind of interesting, huh? And that's what a fundamental question it is, though, whether good and being are the same thing or not. Who would ask that? Except Aristotle and Thomas, huh? Yeah, or in Augustine, maybe. But they differ in definition only, you might say, or in meaning only, right? Okay? Which can be made clear thus, huh? Just thus clear. Here, the notion of good consists in this, that something is, what? Desirable, huh? Okay? Our word appetite comes from the Latin word for desire, right? Whence the philosopher, and that's the guy named Aristotle, right? In the first book of the Nicomaritan Ethics, says that the good is what all want. The good is what all desire, right? You might remember the beginning of the Nicomaritan Ethics there. He has a little induction there. Every art and every science and every action, so any choice, aids with some good, right? But it is manifest, however, that each thing is desirable according as it is, what? Perfect, huh? For all things want their own, what? Perfection, their own completion. But now, in so far, far as what? But to that extent, you might say something is what? Perfect insofar as it is what? In act, huh? Okay. Whence it is manifest that to that extent something is good insofar as it is what? A being. Because to be is the actuality of everything, as is clear from what has been said above. Whence it is manifest that good and what? Being are the same things, but good adds, you might say, huh? The notion of what? Desirable, which is not said by the word what? Being, huh? Okay. It's as if what? Good means a desirable thing. A desirable being, right? Okay. So what's his middle term then, right? He goes from what? The good being what is desired. What is desired is perfection of a thing. Perfection of a thing is its actuality. The actuality of the thing is its what? Being in a full sense, right? And therefore they're really the same thing, right? Okay. And you also see the reason why good is attached to perfect here, huh? Okay. Do you see the argument then? Yeah. He's saying that the good is what is desirable, right? Right. What is desired is perfection of a thing. Perfection of a thing is not its ability but its actuality, its actuality, right? Its actuality is being in the full sense, therefore the good from the first to the last, the good is what? The same as being, right? Okay. Now sometimes Thomas will say that everything wants to be, right? To be as such is good. Okay. But this is the way he shows it here. Okay. Now we saw it also in the ninth book of wisdom, huh? Because there in the ninth book of wisdom we saw that being is sometimes divided into ability and act, right? And ability is for the sake of act, right? So act is the end. And it's also the perfection of the ability, right? The ability is actualized, huh? So being in the full sense is actuality, but that's also the good of the thing, huh? But the ability, being in ability is good in a secondary sense, right? Because it's able to be formed, to be actualized, right? It's for the sake of that. So even being in a lesser sense is in some way, what? Good, right? In a lesser sense, huh? Okay? Now, as you apply here now to the first objection, which is taken from Boethius' De Hebdomaribus, where Boethius seems to be saying that other is it that things are good and other that they are, right? Here he seems to be saying just the opposite, right? Well, in this, Thomas is going to point out one of the four or five most common kinds of distinction, right? And I've spoken before. Let's come back a little bit to this, though, because it's an important thing to say. That there's four or five kinds of distinction that are used over and over again in philosophy, right? You're going to see them over and over and over again, right? And four of these five kinds of distinction correspond, as I said before, to four kinds of mistakes that Aristotle talks about, huh? So the first two kinds of distinction are the distinction of the, what? Senses of a word, right? Distinction of the meanings of a word. This gets difficult when you get a word that's equivocal by reason, right? There's some connection connection among the meanings. And then like that is the distinction of the meanings of a, what? Speech, huh? Okay? And these correspond to the first two kinds of mistakes from words. The mistake from mixing up the senses of a word, right? And the mistake from mixing up the senses of a speech, right? Okay? And Aristotle says the mistake from mixing up the senses of a word is the most common mistake in our thinking. And I had fun with the students today in class there, you know, I was talking about, um, um, which is better, huh? You know, philosophizing or breathing. You remember that example? Mm-hmm. And they all said, of course, you know, how many think breathing? Because everybody raised their hand, right? Nobody says philosophy. I said, how many say philosophizing? Nobody raised their hands. I raised my hand. Oh, they all raised their hand for who? No, no, no, no, no. For breathing. For breathing. Yeah. And then I said, how many, you know, you know, I could see it as unanimous. And then I said, how many think that philosophizing is better than breathing? And nobody raised their hand except I raised my hand. Okay? And then I said, now, I asked the guy in the front there, and I said, why is, what's your reason for saying breathing is better than philosophizing? Of course, the reason is, if you're not breathing, he said, you won't be doing anything else, right? And he says, well, that's what you've shown me, huh? Maybe that seemed to be the reason you all had in mind. That breathing is before philosophizing in the second sense of before. I can breathe without philosophizing, but I can't philosophize without breathing. But you're saying, because breathing is before philosophizing in the second sense of before, that therefore it's before it in the fourth sense. I said, that'd be like saying, you know, that because Chaucer is before Shakespeare in the first sense of before, it comes before him in time, therefore he's better than Shakespeare. It's obviously, you know, bad reasoning, right? I said, I told you you'd mix up those senses after I, you know? I told him, you know, when we learned earlier in the course, the four senses of before and time and being and knowledge, right? And then in goodness, that you would mix these up and now you just did exactly what I predicted. And so those two kinds of distinction, but especially the distinction of the sense of the word is extremely common in philosophy, huh? And, but they do correspond to those two kinds of mistakes. And then there are two other kinds of distinctions that are very, very common that correspond to the first distinction, the first two kinds of mistakes outside of words, right? And the first one is the mistake for mixing up what is so, what? Through itself and what is so through happening. Or you could also state that what is so as such and what is so by what? By happening, right? And so that's the distinction of between the through itself and the through happening or distinction between the as such and the by happening. And then the second one is the distinction between what is so simply and what is not so simply but in some qualified and perfect way, huh? Okay? And I was just, you know, I had people at my house last night that were looking at the definition of nature, right? And you may recall the definition of nature there in philosophy of nature as the beginning and cause, right? Right? Of motion and rest and that in which it is first as such and not by happening, right? Yeah. So even that distinction is the very definition, right? That kind of distinction is involved in the definition of nature because Aristotle is distinguishing between nature and the art of a doctor who cures not another person who comes to him but himself. And, but he says it's not as such. It's not as being diseased that he has the art of medicine, right? It's just by happening that he happens to have the art whereby that disease can be cured, right? So I mean, it comes back from the very beginning, right? And then I went on and we were talking about the difference between mathematics and natural philosophy, huh? And I didn't bring it out with them but I was thinking about it a little bit afterwards and I was saying, Now someone asked me, what is the subject of Rhythm Tech, huh? What would you say? It's maybe K. Well, it's about numbers, right? About numbers as numbers. And what's natural philosophy about? Well, I'd say it's about natural things, right? Okay. Now someone came back and said, well, does the natural philosopher talk about numbers at all? Well, he does talk about numbers. of legs that you have, right? Numbers of, what? Arms you have, number of fingers you have, number of chambers in your heart, right? Okay? I certainly wouldn't describe natural philosophy as being about numbers. But you could say that natural philosophy, at least in part, is about the numbers of natural things. The number of fingers you have, the number of teeth you have, the number of eyes you have, the number of ears you have, and so on, right? You see? So, what is the difference between natural philosophy, when it talks about numbers, and arithmetic, huh? Why it's arithmetic is about numbers, period. Simply. About qualification, right? I wouldn't say natural philosophy is about numbers. Simply, without qualification. It's about the numbers of natural bodies, right? Of natural things, right? That have to qualify, right? See? So it's kind of funny, huh? You know, I think there's two fundamental readings, huh? From Thomas there, Aristotle, the first and the third one in the second book. And the first one involves the distinction between simply, I mean, between the as such and the by happening, and the second one, in a way, between what? Simply and... but not something, yeah. Now, I said four or five because sometimes you make a distinction a little different from the distinction between the through itself and the through happening, the distinction between the through itself and through another. It's a little different, but there's some similarity there, right? We had the famous axiom, I think, huh? That the through itself is before the through another, right? Or before the through another if there's a through itself. Okay? So, not every statement can be known to other statements. There must be some statements known to themselves. Not every mover can be a, what? Moved mover, right? The moved mover is a mover through another. So if all you had was moved movers, you'd have the through another and not the through itself. Doesn't make any sense, does it? Couldn't be anything sweet in this world if nothing was sweet to itself. You always need something else, right? Before getting sweet. You never get any sweetness. Okay? Well, now, as you apply to the first objection, what's very interesting about this is that the kind of distinction involved here is between simply and what? Not simply, right? But in the case of being and good, because they differ in what? Meaning, right? Being simply and being in some way are just the reverse. You know the same thing. That by my being simply, I'm only good in some qualified way. And it's by my being in some way that I'm good simply. Just the reverse. That's a very subtle thing, right? But it shows you how fundamental that distinction is. Okay? Let's see Tom's developers here and see how he says this. To the first, therefore, the objection from the great Boethius. To the first, therefore, it should be said that although good and being are the same thing, right? Secundum rem. Nevertheless, because they differ in what? Meaning or definition. Not in the same way is something said to be being simply and being good simply, right? Okay? For being says something properly to be in act, but act however properly has an order to, what? Potency or ability. Then according to this, simply something is said to be a being according as it is first, what? Distinguished from that which is in potency only. And this is the, what? Substantial being of a thing, huh? Whence through its substantial being something is said to be simply without qualification. but through acts that are added above this, right? Something is said to be, what? Yeah. Secundum quid. That's the Latin word for some way, huh? Not simply. As to be white signifies to be, what? In some way, right? Not for to be white does not take away, what? Potency simply, right? Since it comes to a thing already existing in act, huh? Okay? That sounds, you know, kind of difficult to understand it first, but just take a simple example of that, right? I came to be in this room today, right? Okay? Now, would you say that I came to be when I walked in the room? See, wouldn't say that simply, would you? No. When did I come to be? Why don't I know the war? Yeah, when my parents conceived me, I guess, right? God infused my soul and so on, Then I came to be, right? Okay? When I walked into this room, I didn't come to be, I came to be in this room. You have to qualify, right? That's a diminishing sense, huh? You've probably heard the example I use in class a lot. I'll say, if I say to the student, you know, if you leave this room, you will cease to be. Doesn't that sound like a threat? Well, a little bit threatening, right? Right? And suppose the student brings me to court, you know, for threatening the students and so on. And I say, well, your honor, all I meant was that if she left the room, she would cease to be in the room. Well, Mr. Berkless, no one would understand that for what he said, right? You see? Okay? So, my substantial being is being simply, right? My accidental being is being sequindum quid in some, not simply, but in some limited qualified way, right? Okay? But good, it's going to be just reversed now. Good says the meaning of what? Perfect, right? Okay? Which is desirable. And consequently, it gives the, what? Notion or thought of what is ultimate or last. Once that which is at last perfect is said to be good, what? Simply. What does not have its last perfection, which it ought to have, although it has some perfection so far as it is not, is not nevertheless perfect simply, nor good simply, but secundum quid, right? So this, you know, we'd say, Hitler, you know, was he good? In a certain way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Insofar as he existed, that existence was good, right? But we call him good simply because of that? I don't know. He had to have virtue or something like that, right? Okay? So, in a way, it's just the reverse with being and good, isn't it? Being simply is, what? Being good in some way, and being good simply is being in some way. Yeah. Okay? Thus, therefore, according to the first being, which is substantial, something is said to be being simply but good only, what? Secundum quid, in a qualified way. Insofar as it is a being, right? But according to the, its ultimate act, something is said to be being, secundum quid, and bonum what? Simply, right? Okay? Thus, therefore, what Bwethi said, that in things, other is that they are good, and other that they are, right? It should be understood to refer to what? Being good, and being, what? Simply, right? They're not the same. That's what, that's what the great Bwethi means, right? Actually, you need to ask around to explain what Bwethi means, or what, what Augustine means, even if I know what Aristotle means, so, you know my rule of thumb, Aristotle means what Thomas Sisy means. I was looking at, I think it was the, the, the, the, the Veritate there, the Bonitate, where Thomas says, about Augustine, Augustine tried to follow Plato as much as he could, right? You know, as far as Plato was, was conformable to the faith, right? You know? You know? Thomas seems to be following Aristotle, but, you know, I don't think Augustine really knew Aristotle's works, you know, but he, I don't even know, if he knew Plato, you know, the original, I don't think he did, but, but he said, you know, he was in contact with those who were unfolding Plato's teaching, right? So he was pretty familiar. I don't think he's going to do it. I don't think he's going to do it.