Prima Pars
Lecture 72: Truth in the Mind and Things

Transcript
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saying it, but Shakespeare a number of times will speak as someone is saying more than the truth or less than the truth, right? Even this great comic character Falstaff says, you know, if they say more than the truth or less than the truth, they are villains of the son's apartments, right? Okay? That's interesting. You can speak of more than the truth or less than the truth. There's two ways of departing the truth. Now, Shakespeare says another way Kent in the King's letter says, all my reports go with the modest truth, nor more nor clipped but so, right? Okay? And this actually comes in, in a way, in the courtroom swearing in, right? You say, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Okay? Now, most people don't know what that means. And it might seem to the average person that the last two phrases are just reiterating what you said, huh? Now, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It's kind of saying the same thing three times, right? But, to say the whole truth is against what? Saying less than the truth, right? And nothing but the truth is saying more than the truth, right? That's what you're actually saying. Now, actually to say the truth is to say that what is, is, and what is not, is not. Okay? So, saying the truth is saying that what is, is, and what is not, is not. But, false, right? Would be the opposite of either one of these, huh? Saying what is, is not, and saying what is not, is would be false, right? So, if I say you are sitting, I'm saying what is, is, right? And therefore, I'm speaking truly. If I say you are not standing, I'm saying what is true. If I'm saying what is not, is not. But, if I say you are standing, now I'm saying something false, because I'm saying what is not, in your standing, is. Or, if I say you are not sitting, I'm false, right? Because I'm saying what is, is not, right? Okay? So, to say what is, is not, is to say less than the truth. To say what is not, is, is to say more than the truth. Now, sometimes I make that more concrete with it. So, for example, suppose I'm the bartender, and they want me to testify as to who is at the bar between 9 and 10. And let's say, Tom and Bill were there, right? Nobody else is at the bar, right? I'd be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, if I said Tom and Bill were there, right? If I said, just Tom was there, I wouldn't be telling the whole truth, would I? I'd be saying less than the truth, right? Because, in a way, I'm saying that Bill, who was there, was not. But if I said Tom and Bill, or customers, I won't get them in trouble, and Harry were there, right? Then I'd also be deprived of the truth, right? Because only Tom and Bill were there. And now I'm saying what? More than the truth, I'm saying what is not, namely Harry, right? Harry was not there. I'm saying he was there, right? So, in a sense that I'm swore him to, to tell the truth, which is this here, right? The whole truth, which would be opposed to giving this kind of testimony, and nothing but the truth, which would be opposed to this. So, when I'm saying more than the truth, sometimes we say other less than the truth, right? So, truth is, what, either more nor less, which means it's equal, right? That what the mind is saying is, is either more nor less than what is out there. And therefore, it's, what? It's the adiquatio, the Latin word says there, right? Kind of the equality of the mind and things, huh? But notice Thomas is maintaining in this article, the truth is chiefly in the mind, as the philosopher himself teaches in the sixth book of, what? Wisdom, right? And that's why, as they say, if you dig in the earth, or you fish in the ocean, or you walk through the air, or fly through the air, and so on, you just get back in the airplane. But you see truth coming by, you know, and, you know, there's truth up in the clouds or someplace, right? There's no truth out there, right? It's really chiefly in the mind, and as we'll find out, maybe, mainly in the mind, making a, what? A statement, right? Most explicitly. Now, the first objection was quoting Augustine, right? Or he reproves the notification of the truth as the true is that which is seen, okay? Or the true is that which seems so to the knower, if he wants to and is able to know, right? So he says, So the first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine speaks about the truth of the thing, and he excludes from the notion of this truth a comparison to our understanding, right? For that which is paracidens is excluded from the definition of each thing, right? Did you put green in the definition of circle? Well, I mean, circle could happen to be green, couldn't it? But it doesn't belong to the, what? Circle as circle, right? Now, sometimes people have to stop and get used to these phrases, you see. Per se, which is a Latin translation for what the Greeks said, Plato and Aristotle, they used the expression kathalto, right? But in English, per se can be translated as to itself. It's a more literal translation, right? But a lot of times we use the term as such, right? Now, what does it mean to say that a circle as such is not green? Yeah. It's kind of said it, right? The circle as circle is not green, right? A circle might happen to be green, right? But it doesn't belong to circle as circle to be green, right? And it could also say it doesn't belong to the circle through itself to be green. That sounds a little funny way of speaking. But if you restate a little bit and say, a circle through being a circle is not green, right? How does it happen to be green? You see the difference there, right? But a circle as circle has a point in the interior equidistant from all the points in the circumference, right? Any other things you would say about the circle, right? The circle as circle is a plain figure, right? The circle through itself is a plain figure, right? Through being a circle, right? Is man as such white? Well, you're white. See? But you'd say man as such is an animal, right? Or man per se, man through being a man, right, is an animal, right? Of course, you can see a connection here between the through itself or the as such and necessity. Two as such is half of four, right? Necessarily, then, it's going to be half of four. But the circle as such is not greed. And therefore, although it could happen to be green, it certainly is not necessary that a circle be green, right? Or an animal that has reason as such doesn't have to be white. It could happen to be white, you know, maybe it could happen to be green for all I know. But it doesn't belong to an animal that has reason as such to be white. Maybe an animal that has reason as such is capable of laughter. That's a stock example of the old ages, right? Okay. Now, the great Plato saw that necessary knowledge, right, knowledge in the strict sense, where something is necessarily so, right, was tied up with what is so as such, right? And, of course, Aristotle, being the great pupil for 20 years of Plato, picks up on that and brings that out a lot in the, what, in the posterior analytics, right? Which is about knowing what is necessarily so and knowing that it's necessarily so, right? But eventually, to know something that is necessarily so, and to know it is necessarily so, you have to see that this belongs to that as such, to being itself, right? You see? So, I mentioned before geometry there, you know the parallel theorems. You can always draw a parallel from the vertex, the line parallel to the opposite side here, right? And then you know the alternate angles are equal. And therefore, the three angles are going to add up to, what, 180 degrees or two right angles, huh? So, it belongs to the triangle as such to have interior angles equal to, what, two right angles, right? 180 degrees, you can say nowadays. 180 degrees, but it doesn't belong to the triangle as such to be green or yellow, right? And so, you can't know that it's necessarily true. So, it belongs to the triangle as such to be three-sided, right? It belongs to the triangle as such to be a plain figure, right? It belongs to the triangle as such to have interior angles equal to two right angles. But it doesn't belong to the triangle as such to be green, right? And so, you can't know that necessarily, right? How about the philosopher? I'm a philosopher. A philosopher is a lover of wisdom, huh? Now, does it belong to the lover of wisdom as such to be white? How about Swedish? How about to be grandfathered? Anything belongs to the lover of wisdom as such? Well, one thing would be to be a lover of, what, treason, right? Because wisdom is the, what, highest or greatest perfection of reason, huh? So, how could one love wisdom without loving, what, reason, right? And, would you be a philosopher without being a lover of order? If reason is the ability for large discourse, looking before and after. So, you can only know that something is necessarily so, if you have something that belongs to something as such, or to itself, per se. So, he says, that which, in the reply to his objection, for that which is perjudence, through happening or by happening, is excluded from each, what, definition, huh? So, does the teacher learn something when he teaches? If you talk to teachers, right, you know, especially teachers, you know, who are not, who are in college, let's say, at a higher level. They'll say that they learn something every time they teach a course, right? Okay. So, Charles DeConnick and I knew him in the late 50s, 60s. He's been teaching the eight books of natural hearing, the physics, since the 1930s. They said he still saw something new every time he went through them, right? And, so every teacher will tell you that, right? But, does it belong to the teacher as such to be learning what he's teaching? It might happen very much so, right? But, does the man teach insofar as he doesn't know what he's teaching? I heard, you know, stories, you know, professors say at the end of a course, if I knew as much now as I know, if I knew at the beginning as much as I know now, I would have taught this differently, right? Which is, as I'm admitting, he's not being a teacher fully, right? You see? And, that's kind of a subtle thing, right? Yeah. And, you know, same thing in making, you know, do we learn to make something by making it, right? And, how is a cook or a baker or somebody or a carpenter for that matter, right? Don't they learn how to make houses and pies and meals and so on by making them? But, does it belong to the maker of houses as such to be learning how to make a house? Because, insofar as he's learning how to make a house, he doesn't know how to make a house. And, to that extent, he's not yet a house builder, right? You know? Even though it's very common. I mean, you hear carpenters say, you know, they get on a more interesting job, you know, and they say, you know, they like this job because they're learning something, right? Yeah. So, that's a little more difficult to see that it doesn't belong to you as such, though, right? As a teacher, you'll be learning what you're teaching. Even though it might be true, huh? Okay. Now, the second objection, huh? Look back a second. Isn't this to fall into the old mistake of the ancient philosophers, as he said? That whatever is seen, seems to be so, is true, huh? Okay. In a position that both Plato and Aristotle tack. To the second, it should be said that the ancient philosophers, now these are the guys before Plato and Aristotle and Socrates, that the ancient philosophers did not say that the species of natural things proceed from some understanding, right? But that they come about by chance, huh? That's also the opinion of modern biologists a lot, right? Modern scientists, huh? These things are not a, what, effect of some mind, huh? But they just happen by random selection and so on, right? Common thing. And because they considered, though, that the true implies a comparison to an understanding, right? They were forced, in this way, to constitute the truth of things in order to our understanding, right? Because they didn't know about any other understanding, huh? Okay. From which the inconveniences, right? The things that don't fit together, follow, which the philosopher, meaning Aristotle, pursues in the fourth book after the books in natural philosophy. Okay? The fourth book of wisdom. Which inconveniences, which inconveniences, which things that don't come together, don't fit, do not happen if we lay down that the truth of things consists in a comparison to the, what? Divine understanding, right? That's a problem that the ancient philosophers got into because they didn't know about, what? That's a problem that they didn't know about, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, Divine understanding, right? And so they made the truth even of natural things consist and present to our mind. And so it seems to me to be this way and it seems to you to be that way and so on. And then truth would involve contradictory things, right? I think it's kind of cold today. And you think, no, I'm not cold today, you know? People will say that, right? And so it both is and is not cold, right? Because it seems so to me, one, and the other to you, right? So you get into all these difficulties that Aristotle points out with these, going into the people who deny the axioms about contradiction, right? Same thing, cannot both be and not be. Can't both be cold and not be cold, right? Now the third objection, that on account of which each thing more so, right? To the third it should be said that although the truth of our understanding is caused from the thing, nevertheless it is not necessary that in the thing be found before the notion of truth. Just as neither in medicine before is found the notion of health than in the, what? Animal, right? For the power of the medicine, not its health causes health, right? Since it is not a, what? Univocal agent, an agent that shares in exactly the same thing that it causes. And likewise, the being of the thing, not its truth, causes the truth of the, what? Understanding, right? So it's your being seated that makes it true that when I say you're sitting, I'm speaking truly, right? It's not the truth of your sitting, but your, what? Your being seated is a cause of my statement, you are sitting being true, huh? And so the being of the thing, not its truth, causes the truth of the understanding. Whence the philosopher says that opinion and speech is true from the fact that the thing is, not from the fact that the thing is, what? True. Okay? You follow that? Well, if I say, if I say that it's true to say now that you are sitting, right? Now, if you were to stand up, it would become false, right? Then if you sat down again, it would become true, right? So your sitting is a cause of my statement being true, right? Okay? So it's your being seated that is a cause of my statement being true. It's not the truth of your sitting that is what? The cause of the truth of my statement. So your sitting in itself wouldn't speak of as being true except in comparison to my statement, right? But nevertheless, the being, your being in the chair in this way, is a cause of the truth of my statement. Okay? And he compares it to that thing about medicine, right? You know? Is the medicine more healthy than your body? No. Because healthy would not be said of your body and the medicine with the same meaning, would it? We wouldn't speak of the medicine as being healthy except insofar as it's what? Productive of health, right? But not because it has that healthy, because it's healthy in the same sense which the body is healthy. Do you see the idea? In that principle, you're thinking of, you know, sweet is said of sugar and sweet is said of my coffee. And sweet means the same thing when you're said of sugar instead of the coffee, right? But since the sugar, the coffee is sweet because of the sugar, right? Then the sugar is sweeter than the coffee, right? But then you have the sugar and the coffee being what? Sweet in the same meaning of the word sweet, huh? But one is more so than the other, right? So you're sitting. It's not as if truth is said you're sitting and my statement that you're sitting, right? Truth is really found in my statement that you're sitting, right? And you're sitting is merely what? The cause of my statement being true, right? In the same way that medicine might be the cause of your health or something, right? Not because it's more healthy than your body. So is this final statement here is this his conclusion to the question? To the objection there, yeah. In the body of the article he's answering the question, right? And he's saying but he's doing two things there. He's saying chiefly that truth is in the mind, right? Okay? He's making the great contrast that the philosopher had done in the sixth book of wisdom that truth is primarily in the mind and good is primarily in things, right? And you can kind of develop that, huh? One time I gave a whole talk on that and another kind of contrary to that. But to connect you with that is the other thing that he points out that knowing is perfected by getting the known into your what? Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I was pointing out, you know, the fact that we tend to use the word grasp, right? To understand them, okay? Like get a hold of this. We will say something like that to teach you, right? You know? And to get a hold of something you get to grasp of it. Even we take the word take sometimes, right? Okay? You know, if you want to define something you've got to take its genus and take its differences and what? Put them together in your mind, right? Like a square, let's say, is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, right? In general, what a square is is a four-sided figure, right? And quadrilateral is that, the genus of square. And then you add equilateral and right-angled and you've got the whole definition, right? So I've got to take the genus and take the differences and put them together, right? But notice the word take is like the word grasp, right? But is that the words we use to describe love? Is love basically taking and grasping? No. With love, we tend to use the word, what? To give, right? Okay? So, love is more going out to the thing, right? It's more, so we said to give your heart, right? Okay? As I mentioned before, we even speak of losing our heart, right? But as I say in that song, I left my heart in San Francisco, right? Or Romeo will say, you know, can I go when my heart is still here, right? You know? Your heart is, your heart is said to be in what you, what? Love, right? And that's why we can, by the saints, huh? Can more perfectly love God in this life than they can, what? Know him, right? Because in knowing, they're trying to get God into their mind, then. And their mind is not able to get God entirely into it, right? But by love, they, in a sense, go into God, right? Okay? And so I make kind of a little metaphorical comparison there, you know. It's easier to jump into the ocean, like people swimming, than it is to get the ocean inside of you. And so in love, in a sense, you go into God, right? By knowing, you're trying to get God into you. So, so our will is more adequate to God in this life than our reason, right? You know, a little different there when you see God as he is, right? But that's Christ, the light of glory, and so on. So, or I was pointing out, why is it always bad in the sense to lose your mind, but not necessarily bad to lose your heart? You see? Depends upon to whom or to what you lose your heart, right? So that's a fundamental to do. distinction that Aristotle first saw, that the good is chiefly in things, and your desire is good because you want the good that's in things, right? But the known is primarily in the knower. Knowing takes place because you can get the thing in you, right? So, you know, Shakespeare says, you know, my heart is, my mind is played the painter, right? It's like I made a little painting of you inside my head, right? But if I don't have a painting of you in my head, and that way, if I can't get you into my head that way, I can't really know you, right? If I can't remember your color and your shape and so on, I can't remember you, right? So I've got to get your color and shape somehow into me, and that's the way knowing takes place. So in a way, they work in just kind of contrary ways. Now, another very important example or way of showing this is the thing that Plato and Aristotle show a lot, and that is that there is the same knowledge of opposites. So, by the same knowledge, or by the medical doctor, let's say, knows what normal blood pressure is, right? He knows maybe that my blood pressure is high or something, right? Okay? So could you know what abnormal or high blood pressure is? I guess it's the opposite too sometimes, right? But could you know what abnormal blood pressure is without knowing what normal blood pressure is? Or somebody would have an overactive or underactive thyroid, you probably know some people like that, you know? I remember someone taking what they call the atomic cocktail, you know, sounds pretty bad, you know, but they've got to overactive, you know, they've got to slow it down, right? But when they take the atomic cocktail, sometimes it slows them down, then they've got to take some remedial thing to get it up again, right? You see? Okay? But could you know what an overactive thyroid is, or an underactive thyroid is, and you know what abnormal it should be? And you know, people are talking all the time about people being overweight, right? Well, unless you know what the correct weight should be for your height and so on, and frame and so on, could you know what overweight would be? And then there's some of these, you know, thin women, you know, they're underweight, really, right? You see? Or people have been in concentration camps, you know, they're underweight, right? And you've got to build them up again, right? And I know this one guy in high school, he'd been in a missionary school, right? And he's going to be a missionary. And they really, you know, prepared you to be a missionary by a very stringent diet and a very rough thing, and he developed a spastic stomach, and they finally threw them out, see? Because, you know, this guy can't take the life of a missionary, right? So, he's quite underweight, right? And so it's his mother and aunt are trying to build them up, you know? And I go to his house, and he says, you like some ice cream? I say, yeah. She brings out a bowl of ice cream like this. I didn't realize what they were doing, you know, because they're trying to build them up, you know? So, anyway, you see the point, huh? There's the same knowledge of opposites, huh? I told you about the student when I was first teaching in California, that said we shouldn't be teaching ethics. I said, why not? He says, well, you learn not only what virtue is, but what vice is, right? And there's not two different ethics, one that you learn about virtue, of advice, huh? You can't know what cowardice is without knowing what courage is, and vice versa. And since many of us aren't trying to be bad, they don't know how to be bad, then you guys. But the students are saying now, it's opposites, right? Okay? And by grammar, I know how to speak correctly, and how to speak, what? Incorrectly, huh? You am my students, and I use your professor, see? How do I know I'm speaking incorrectly when I say that? Because I know how to speak correctly, to some extent. Do you see the point? So it's the same knowledge of opposites, huh? And Socrates is pointing this out at the end of the symposium, right? Where he has the great tragic poet there, Agathon, who's won the prize that year for his tragedy, right? And Aristophanes, the great comic poet, right? And Socrates is making the point, if you guys knew what you were doing, you could write, you, not only tragedies, but also comedies, right? And you knew not only comedies, but also what? Tragedies, right? Okay? And the rhetoric Aristotle shows you how to arouse anger, and how to cool somebody up. It shows you opposites, right? So, there's the same knowledge of opposites, right? There's two medical arts, one about health and one about sickness, right? But it's the same art about both, right? Logic is about correct reasoning and incorrect reasoning. Now, is there the same love of opposites? But there is not the same love of opposites. So if I love health, can I love sickness? You could say the love of one opposite excludes the love of the opposite, huh? So if I love health, I can't love sickness, right? But if I know what health is, I can also know what sickness is, right? And in fact, knowing what health is helps me to know what sickness is, huh? Or if I know what order is, I also know what disorder is, right? So the knowledge of disorder doesn't exclude the knowledge of order, does it? And the knowledge of order doesn't exclude the knowledge of disorder. But the knowledge of one helps you to know the, what? Other, right? But the love of order is opposed to the love of disorder, right? And vice versa. Now, how are things in themselves? In your body, how about health and sickness? Can I have normal blood pressure and high blood pressure at the same time? No. If I have normal blood pressure, then I don't have high blood pressure, right? If I have high blood pressure, then I don't have normal blood pressure, right? If I have an overactive thyroid, I don't have a properly functioning thyroid, right? If I have a properly functioning thyroid, I can't have normal vacuum at the same time, can I? If I have sight, can I be blind at the same time? See? Or if I'm blind and have sight, right? So, love follows the way things are, doesn't it? Because in things, one opposite excludes the other. If I love virtue, can I love vice? No. The love of courage eliminates the love of cowardice, right? The love of justice is incompatible with the love of injustice, right? But the knowledge of justice is compatible with the knowledge of injustice, right? And knowing one helps you know the other, right? So, the two opposites are together in the mind, then. But in things, they can't be together. So, love goes out to the things in themselves, and that's why you can't have the same love of opposites. But knowing you bring it into your mind, and you can have both opposites in the mind, because of the way they are in the mind, huh? Because in the very definition of abnormal is normal, right? So, the knowledge of one involves the knowledge of the other. Overactive thyroid involves the knowledge of what the proper should be, right? Put too much salt in the soup tonight, or food, whatever it was, right? Well, then I know what the knowledge should be, right? I don't love that too much salt in the thing, right? You see the idea? So, there's many ways you can see that love goes out to the things in themselves, right? But in knowing, you bring the thing into your mind, huh? This is a very good way of showing it, huh? That there's the same knowledge of opposites, and the knowledge of one opposite helps you know the other one. But there's not the same love of opposites, and the love of one opposite excludes the love of the other one. But what is the condition in things? It's that one opposite excludes the other, right? If the body is beautiful, it can't be ugly at the same time. At least with the ugliness that's opposed to that beauty, right? But I can know one and the other, right? There's a piece there called The Musical Joke, right? It teaches you how not to write music, huh? There's some obvious mistakes in music, you know, and notes and so on. But they say the more subtle things are there too, if someone understands music, huh? Someone knows how to write well and how to write badly anyway, you know? And I know myself as a logician, you know, if I want to deceive, you know, the students and give an argument that seems good, that I know is bad, I know how to do it. You see? So I know how to make bad arguments, but I know how to make good arguments. You see? But I can't love one opposite by loving the other one. I can't love justice by loving injustice for the facts of reason. So truth is primarily in the mind, right? But yet Thomas is saying there's a secondary way in which we can say that what? Truth is in things, right? Okay? But that's in a secondary way, huh? In comparison to the mind in some way, right? But in the case of love, it's the reverse, huh? Love is said to be good because the thing loved is good, right? So the good is primarily in things. It's because wisdom is good that the love of wisdom is good, right? It's because injustice is bad that the love of injustice is what? Bad, right? So Thomas, in the body of the article, he makes basically the point that truth is chiefly in the mind, right? And that's why he takes it up here when he takes up the mind of God, huh? The knowledge of God, huh? But if you look back, some of you weren't here earlier in the course, but he takes up the goodness of God back in question six. He takes up the goodness of God when he takes up the substance of God. The goodness of God is attached to the consideration of the perfection of the divine substance, huh? And he's not going to take up the will of God until after he gets through with true and falsehood here. And that's going to be question 19 here, right? The will of God. So he takes up the goodness of God before he takes up the will of God, right? But he takes up the knowledge of God before he takes up the what? Truth. You see the order there? Because the good is primarily in things, right? And we find out later on that God primarily loves his own goodness, right? And he's going to try to share that goodness with us, right? So it's very interesting the way he proceeds here, right? The consideration of the goodness of God comes up in the consideration of the divine substance before you go into the divine operations. It's knowledge and will, right? But truth is taken up attached to the consideration of the divine, what? Knowledge, right? Very careful the way Thomas writes, huh? But very illuminating once you start to understand what he's saying, huh? He doesn't explain every reason why he considers things in this order. I mean, he gives some explanation of it. But if you stop and think about this, you can say, yeah. I can see in the body of this first article, right, the reason why he considers good with the substance of God, but not truth with the substance of God, right? Because good is primarily in things, right? And the divine substance is a thing, okay? But truth is primarily the mind. And so he takes it up attached to the consideration of the divine mind, the divine knowledge. Do you see that? A lot, a lot to think about there. Should we take a little break now before we go on to the next article? Because we should give you a little bit of breathing space here.