Prima Pars
Lecture 79: Falsity in Understanding and the Kinds of Opposition

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In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, original luminaries, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us. And help us to understand all that you've written. So I hope none of you will be like Ajax, and your guardian angel will come down and say, Go to someone else, I don't need you, I can take these things on myself. They give these descriptions of Thomas, he was in difficulty, you know, he'd be down on the ground praying, you know, and then all of a sudden he'd get up and all be clear. So I guess we're up to Article 3 of Question 17, where the falsehood is in the understanding, right? To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that falsehood is not in the understanding. For Augustine says in the book of the 83 questions, that everyone who is deceived, right, and that which is deceived does not, what, understand. But the false is said to be in some knowledge, according as we are, what, deceived. Therefore, in the understanding there's no falsehood, huh? Moreover, the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, that the understanding is always, what, correct. Therefore, in the understanding there's no falsehood. And you've got to realize that the word intellectus in Latin, in Thomas, like the Greek word nous, right, sometimes intellectus is used for reason, for the ability to understand. Sometimes it's used for one of the habits, right? And the same way in Greek, the word nous, son, can mean the faculty, the power to understand, or it can mean that understanding that is almost natural, right? Which I sometimes call natural understanding, as opposed to reasoned out understanding. And so I was actually talking about that particular passage, as Thomas would explain. So there's an equivocation there in the two meanings of the word understand. But against this is what is said in the third book about the soul. That where there is a putting together of things understood, like an affirmation or negation, a statement, there true and false is, right? But the putting together of things understood is something that takes place in the understanding. Therefore, true and false are in the, what, understanding. So Thomas is going to make a number of distinctions here, huh? I answer it should be said, that just as things have being or existence through, or just as a thing has its existence through its own form, so a knowing power has to know through the likeness of the thing known. Now do you see that likeness there, huh? When I receive my soul, which is my form, I begin to be a man. Okay? And when the understanding or the knowing power besieves the form of the thing known, the likeness of it, it begins to what? To know. To know. Yeah. Whence, just as a natural thing, does not fall away from its existence that belongs to it according to its form, but it can, what, fall away from some, what, things that happen to it, right? Or that fall upon its form. Just as man, from this that he has two feet, huh? And as you can see, he has two feet, he has a foot. My sister-in-law says, how's your foot? Watch, I cut it off yesterday. Not hover from this that he is a, what, man, right? So the knowing power does not fall away in knowing with respect to that of which it has a, what, likeness, right? With respect to that, the likeness of which it is informed, right? But it can fall away about what follows upon us, right? Or that happens to it. Just as it has been said before in the, I think, in the previous article, that the sight is not deceived about its own, what, sensible, but about the common sensibles, right? We're talking about the optical illusions, right? Okay. Which, consequentary, in a consequential way, I don't know if we fall on the planet, have themselves to that, right? And also about the, what, sensible procedents, huh? When I was a little boy, you know, we used to have, what, ink bottles, you know, and you'd have your ink pen, you know? It's like these things that get spilled, as kids do, you know? So they used to have, you know, like a little piece of metal that looked like a little lake of ink. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'd go to your mother's white tablecloth like that and put it there. Oh, Mama! Ah! So is she being deceived by the color of that thing? She's seeing a color that isn't there? No. She's being deceived about the actual sensible. It's not ink, but it's, what, metal. Yeah. Okay. But also, in the optical illusions, you're deceived about the common sensibles, the quantity of things. Okay, now, just as the sense is informed directly by the likeness of its own sensibles, its private sensibles, so the understanding is informed by the likeness of what it is of the thing. That's a horrible Latin word, quiditas. But it comes from the word quid meaning what, right? So it's informed by the likeness of the whatness of the thing, right? So the first thing you might say that reason knows is the most proper object is what it is or something. Aristotle, of course, is more precise there in the third book about the soul where he says that our reason's own object is that what it is is something sensed or imagined, right? And that's why when we talk about God, we have those problems we talked about before. We have abstract and concrete, what, names, even though there's no distinction there in God between his being good and his goodness, right? Well, in you and I, there's a real distinction between you and me and our justice or you and I and our geometry, right? So just as the sense is informed directly by the likeness of the private sensibles, so the understanding is informed by the likeness of the what it is of the thing. Whence about the what it is, the understanding is not deceived, just as neither the sense about the private sensibles. Now, Thomas is going to later on kind of qualify what he just said, right? But in putting together or dividing, now he's thinking about a statement, right? Where you put together an affirmative statement or you divide in a, what, negative statement, right? So sometimes Thomas will call the second act of reason the, what, composition and division, right? Kind of found the way Aristotle speaks there in the third book about the soul where you put together or what, separate, right, these things you've understood by the first act. So I understand what a man is, I understand what a dog is, and then I, what, later on divide and say man is not a dog. Or I understand what a man is and I understand what an animal is and put them together and say man is an animal, right? When you start doing that, you can get into trouble. Okay. But in putting together or dividing, it is able to be deceived. When it attributes to the thing who is what it is, it understands, right? Something that does not fall upon it or even something that is, what, opposed to it. For in these things, right, the understanding has itself to judging, right, as a sense to judging about the common sense of all or my mother about the accidental sense of all. But there's also this difference to be observed, right, which was said above about truth, that falsity can be in the understanding not only because the knowledge of the understanding is false, right, but also because the understanding knows it. This is a knows truth, right? So I know it's true that two is half of four and I know it's It's false that two is half of three. But in a sense, falsity is not as something known, right? But now, a little thing, right? More trouble than you might have thought. Because the falsity of the understanding, per se, is only in the putting together things in the understanding. Grotty ends, right? Also, in the operation of the understanding, by which it knows what it is, there can be falsity. Insofar as there's some putting together, mixed in there. Which can be in two ways. In one way, according as the understanding, attributes the definition of one thing to another, right? So if I attribute the definition of circle to man, right? I'm not going to understand what a circle is, but I'm making a mistake, if I'm not saying. Whence the definition of one thing is false about another thing. In another way, according as the parts of the definition put together, what? To each other. When you put together things that can't, what? Go together, yeah. Not be associated together. For thus, the definition is not only false with respect to something, but it's false in itself, right? If one should form such a definition as a four-footed rational animal. Even with the old paradox, what is it that begins life on four, and then later on life on two, and finally on three at the end? As if it forms, for example, such a definition, a four-footed rational animal, the understanding is false in defining, on account of it being false in forming this composition, that some rational animal is, what? Four-footed, huh? So they say the plants, you know, the plants have their mouth in the ground, and they take the movement through the soil, and then the animals are, what, a little bit above the ground, but man should be looking up to the stars. An account of this, in knowing simple what it is, huh? Like, if I really knew what my angel was, I wouldn't be mistaken, because no putting together there, knowing a simple thing. There cannot be a false understanding, but it's either true, or one understands nothing at all. So either you know what God is, or you don't know what God is. You don't, you don't know what God is, or you don't know what God is. So, let's look at the first objections taken from Augustine, right? That everyone who is deceived is deceived, and that which is deceived does not understand, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said, that because the what it is of a thing is the proper object of the understanding, on account of that, then we are properly said to understand something, when reducing it to the what it is, right? We then judge about it, just as happens in demonstrations, huh? In which there's no falsity. So, in a true demonstration, huh? Which is a syllogism making us know the cause, and that which is a cause, cannot be otherwise. It's based upon a true definition, right? So you really understand what the thing is. And in this way is to be understood the word of Augustine, that everyone who is deceived does not understand that which is deceived. Not, however, that in no operation of the understanding, someone is, what? Deceived. Now, some days I kind of give a little sophisticated argument here about this kind of thing. Show also the truth in what Augustine is saying. Let's say, now, it's impossible for you to make a mistake. When you're making a mistake, if you are, which is a possible course, you're thinking something is something other than what it is. Like you're thinking, for example, that a dog is a cat. Okay? Or taking a more clear number, if you say an odd number is an even number. That's what you do when you make a mistake, right? Now, could someone make the mistake of thinking a dog is a cat? Or make the mistake of thinking an odd number is a, what? Even number. Well, if I understand what a dog is, and understand what a cat is, then I would understand the difference between a dog and a cat. Because, if, in understanding a dog, I didn't understand the difference between a dog and a cat, what I'd be understanding is not dog and cat, but something more universal, like animal. Right? So if by the word dog, I'm understanding not dog, in particular, but animal, and by the word cat, I'm understanding not cat in particular, but animal, right? Then there's no falsehood. I'm saying an animal is an animal. On the other hand, to make the mistake, that's no mistake. See? Mistake would have to be after you understand what a dog and a cat is. But then you'd have to understand their difference. So if you really understand what a dog and a cat is, you can't make a mistake about thinking your dog is a cat. You see? The same way down here, maybe in the book, for example. Can a man really make the mistake of thinking an odd number is even? But what does he understand by odd number, or what does he understand by even number? If he understands only what they have in common, then he says an odd number is an even number. All he's saying is that a number is a number. And that's, nothing more true than that, as the great Boethius says. But if he understands not just number, but odd number, he must understand that it's a number that is not divisible into two equal parts. And if he really understands even number, not just number, he must know that it's a number divisible into two equal parts. So if he understands that one is, and the other is not divisible into equal parts, how can he make a mistake if any one is the other? It's only if he doesn't understand that, right? Now if I understood, say, by even number, just what a number is, it would be false to say that a number is a number, right? Or if I just understand a number by both of them. So, what you understand you can't even mistake it. So, witches say, fair is foul, and foul is fair. How can make a mistake? How can he deceive men into thinking good is bad and bad is good? Sometimes I use the word machine for just about any kind of thing I can't. If I call it car, machine, I call it computer, machine. Well, I'm not a car, I'm not a computer, but machine is a machine. You're not mistaken, though, see? You see? Now, could I make the mistake, say, of thinking that carbonate sauvignon is be no more? I probably could. You know, very good. But do I really understand what I'm drinking then? Because I'm drinking carbonate sauvignon and I think it's Pinot Noir. Do I really understand what I'm drinking? You can see the truth of what it has to be saying, right? But going back to the witches there, and they say, fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filth the air. So they touch upon the two causes of deception there, right? Fog, the mind being confused, right? or the appetite being corrupted, the filthy air, right? They're thinking more in the context of human action, right? You're deceived because you're in the fog, or because you're filthy in your life and habits, right? Either one of them or both can deceive you, huh? But whenever the mind is deceived, you can say there's some failure to understand, something you don't understand. Now the second one is, as I mentioned before, the word understanding, huh? In Greek you have the word nous, huh? And in Latin they translate nous by intellectism. But as I say, both of these words are used to name the ability to understand, okay? That's one meaning. And then the fundamental habit of the mind, right? Which I like to call natural understanding, huh? But which Aristotle and Thomas just call nous, or in Latin they like to say. Now, sometimes I go back to the proportion of weightiness. You've heard me use that before. The more important portion of weightiness is this. Reasoning is to understand it, as motion is to, what? Rest, huh? Now when you're reasoning, your mind is the words in motion, going from one thing to another, right? That's why Shakespeare's the word discourse in defining reasoning. But as the word understanding ethyologically shows you, the mind is what? Standing still. Now, most of the time we have to reason out something, or think out something, before we understand it, right? But, as you know, there can be rest before or after emotion. So now I'm at rest, right? And this is before the emotion you're about to see. Okay? And now, there's a second rest, right? But it's after emotion, right? Now, is that true about reasoning and understanding? Is there both an understanding before reasoning, just as there's an understanding after? But it's not the same. Yeah. But we forget to go back to these words. A lot of times I say, no, you have to think about something before you understand it. And sometimes you think about something and you still don't understand it. So it's not so much a question about there being some understanding after thinking about something, or reasoning, right? But there's some understanding after the emotion of reason, right? Now, that understanding after the emotion of reason, Plato and Aristotle have a beautiful word for it. And the Greek word is episteme, which comes in the Greek word for coming to a halt or a stop. So episteme names an understanding after reasoning, huh? After thinking, right? Now, we don't have any word in English. The Latins would translate episteme by shentia, but it doesn't have that etymology, huh? Okay? Now, because of the lack of a single word in English, huh? I translate episteme by reasoned out understanding. Okay? I use a speech rather than a name, right? Which I think captures what it is. Okay? Because I don't have one word for it. Now, but is there an understanding before reasoning, right? Well, I argue that there must be for the following reason. If reason understood nothing before it began to reason, there was nothing to reason from. Right. So there must be an understanding before reasoning. Now, what shall I call that understanding? You see? Well, Plato and Aristotle, Plato and Aristotle, just calls it noose, right? And Thomas just calls it thelectus, because it doesn't involve any reasoning really, to speak of. But because I call it episteme, I don't have a word for it, I call it a reasoned out understanding, then I call this natural understanding. So natural understanding is what we come to understand naturally, rather than having to think it out, reason it out. And there must be something that was kind of hidden to us at first, right? And people are more aware of the process of thinking out something and coming gradually to understand it. So they're more aware of this understanding that comes after thinking out something and reasoning it out. And it kind of is out of this part of it. And that's why the great philosopher Aristotle, when he takes up the virtues of reason in the sixth book of Nicomachian Ethics, he takes up episteme, and art in the sense of right reason about making, which everybody knows is cooking, the art of carpentry, and all those other arts. And then, what, foresight, right? And everybody knows that there's someone who got foresight like Winston Churchill, I just read another barber for a little book about him, it was over there in England, he had a man of foresight done, prudence, another word for it. But those are more known, there are those three virtues of reason. Episteme, right? Like geometry, yeah, at least. Foresight or prudence, like the foresight of Churchill or George Washington or somebody, right? And the art of the carpenter and so on, right? And then after that he takes up the two virtues of reason that are about beginnings. Noose, as he calls one of them, right? Which is about the beginnings of our knowledge, right? the axioms and their parts, and then wisdom, which is about the beginnings of what? All things. Or the beginning of all things, huh? You see? But noose and Sophia, Greek, are not as well known to us as episteme and art and foresight. You see that? So, I use two words, but as they say in Aristotle's text here in the third book of the soul and in the Latin translation use the word intellectus to name that natural understanding, right? So it's not the understanding in the sense of the ability to understand, right? To the second, it should be said, explaining Aristotle's text there, that the understanding is always correct according to the understanding of the beginnings, right? About which one's not deceived from the same reason which one's not deceived about the what it is. For the beginnings, meaning the axioms, are known to themselves at once when their parts are known, from the fact that the predicate is positive in the definition of the subject. So once you know what a whole is or what a part is, it's kind of obvious that the whole is more than a part, right? Once you know what the before and after is, it's kind of obvious that nothing is before itself or after itself, right? Once you know what a beginning is, then nothing is the beginning of itself, right? There's always some distinction between the beginning and that of which it is the beginning, right? Such an aristocracy frame to there. Do good and avoid evil, he's talking about there. Everybody knows that. In fact, even says in the ethics, you know, if a guy doesn't think you should honor your father and mother, he doesn't need an argument, he says. He needs punishment. He's talking about what he's talking about, what he's talking about, what he's talking about, what he's talking about, what he's talking about, That's kind of the foundation of ethics, but also of episteme, right? Okay, now we've come to Article 4. This is about the opposition of true and false. Now you may recall when we talked about God being one, Thomas had some general articles on one and many and so on, and he asked whether one and many are, what, opposed in some way, right? And do you recall in what way one and many are opposed? Well, if you go back to God being I am, who am, right? You can talk about the opposition between being and what? None being, right? Now, it's a very important thing in philosophy, in our thinking, to know about opposition, right? That means something. There are two places where Astao talks very explicitly about the kinds of opposites, and one is in the category of some, right before he talks about before and after. And the second place is in the fifth book of wisdom, the fifth book of metaphysics, where again he talks about opposites right before he talks about before and after. Now, the juxtaposition there of those two is not by, what, chance, huh? And later on, Thomas will talk about the distinction of things, right? Sometimes he'll speak of formal distinction and material distinction, huh? Now what the hell does that mean, huh? Well, material distinction is based upon the, what, continuance. Now, a continuous quantity, at least the fundamental kind, it's not time, but, you know, line and so on, it is part outside of part, right? And one part is here and one part is there and so on. So, if I talk, let's say, about the beginning and the end of this line, those two points, they're distinguished by their, what, place in the continuance, right? They're not really different, those two points, are they? Kind, right? They're not different in kind, but they differ in their position, the continuous. And likewise, they differ from the point right there in the middle, right? Okay? And that's kind of the distinction between all of us who are on the keyboard. I want the distinction between these chairs, right? Because wood is continuous, it's going to be cut up and so on. You have many chairs of exactly the same kind. But now, formal distinction is based upon what? Opposites. Okay? And it's more a difference in kind, huh? Okay? Based on opposition. This becomes very important to understand these things when you get to eternity, right? Because we believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are really distinct. But is it by material distinction or formal distinction? Yeah. Because there's no body, nothing continuous in kind. It's altogether simple. Okay? But after formal distinction, what kind of opposites are there? Now, it's amazing that when Aristotle distinguishes the kinds of opposites, it distinguishes four kinds. Contradiction, right? Lack and having. Contraries. And then relatives. And when Thomas is exploring the basis of the distinction between the Father and the Son, for example, it shows they can't be distinguished by the opposition of contradiction or lack in heaven or by contrariety. You have a reason for each one of those. And so, by way of elimination, they must be distinguished by relative. Now, when Aristotle talked about relatives, there's a chapter on relatives in the categories, huh? He doesn't use the word relative or relation, huh? The Greek is prosti, right? Prost, which in Latin is translated very little bit as unaliquid, towards something, right? I am a teacher towards you, right? You are towards me a student, huh? Or I am towards you shorter or taller or something, right? Okay? You get in the reverse. Now, if you looked at the text of St. John's Gospel, he says, In the beginning was the word, and so on. Okay. And the word was what? Towards God, right? He uses the very word that he tells, right? St. John, huh? That the distinction between the Father and the Son, or between the Logos, as he calls them there, and the Father, is that the Logos is towards the Father, right? So, that's a confirmation of this. But Thomas arises by either argument, right? If they're really distinct, it's by material or form of distinction. It can't be by material distinction, because God is altogether as simple. He's not a body, and so on, right? And then, the form of distinction can be of four kinds, right? Now, he's going to eliminate three of those four, right? But now, the greatest opposition is that of contradiction. And this is the opposition between being and, well, unbeing. Okay? And there's two very famous axioms that are based upon the supposition, that something cannot both be and not be. It's impossible to be and not be. And sometimes, they make it more precise and say, it's impossible to be and not be at the same time, the same way, right? But basically, it's impossible to be and not be. And the second axiom is that you must either be or not be. So, sometimes, I'd, you know, play Hamlet's, come on the stage, and I'd say, to be or not to be? That is the question. And then, kind of paraphrasing it, a little different, it's a question because you can't both be and not be, and because you must be one or the other. See? If I said, you know, to eat or to breathe, that is the question. Well, it is. Because you can both eat and breathe, and you better do both, right? Okay? So, contradiction is the greatest option of being and not being, right? And if you take contradictory, strictly speaking, everything must be one or the other, right? Either you see or you don't see. Either you're a chair or you're not a chair. Any other possibility? Either you're a dog or you're not a dog. Either you're a god or you're not a god. Okay? Either you're a sinner or you're not a sinner. No, that's not. You know what you want. Okay. So, that's a very interesting opposition, right? Now, the next kind of opposition, in Latin, I call it privation, right? But in English, the word is lack, right? Lack and then the having. Now, lack and having are not as much opposed as being a nun being, because they share a common, what? Subject, right? So, to not see could be said of the chair there. But the lack would imply, what? That you don't see, although you're the kind of thing by nature that is able to see and should see, right? So, like the opposition between blind and sight, let's say, right? Okay? Now, strictly speaking, there's acceptance, right? Not everything has either sight or is blind. That's only man and those animals that are apt to have sight, right? That's only man and those animals that are apt to have sight, right? That's only man and those animals that are apt to have sight, right? That's only man and those animals that are apt to have sight, right? That's only man and those animals that are apt to have sight, right? That's only man and those animals that are apt to have sight, right? That's only man and those animals that are apt to have sight, right? By nature you should have sight, and then you have sight or they're blind, right? Strictly speaking, the chair is what? Not blind, right? Although you can say the chair does not see. You see, they can't see it sees. And then if you're forced to say it doesn't see, right? I can say it sees, but I don't have to say it's blind. Is it? Okay. Now, the third kind of opposition is even less, and they are called concurs. Now, concurs are sometimes said to be the forms and species, right? Furthest apart in the same genus. So they're not, one is not just the lack of the other. Although, as Aristotle points out in many places, one of them tends to be kind of lacking in comparison to the other. But it's not simply the lack of the other, right? So if you take something like, let's say, virtue and vice, okay? Now, vice is lacking something it should have. But is vice really the lack of virtue? Vice is something real. So the man who's got the vice has got a real habit, a real inclination to do things he shouldn't do. He doesn't really not have the inclination to do good things. He's got a real inclination to do bad things. And therefore, as I often say to students, to kind of bring this out, it's easier to make a just man out of a boy than to take a criminal from the jail and make him a just man. He's going to resist you more because not only does he lack the virtue of justice, but he has a real inclination to the opposite of this, right? Okay? Or it's easier to bring up a woman to be chaste, let's say. There's no girl. Bring her up right away, me and Jane Austen, so. Then to take the prostitute, right? And make a chaste woman out of her. You know, that's kind of the standard example of the parish prostitutes always falling back into their ways sooner or later, right? Okay? Because they have a real, what? Inclination on you. They've acquired a habit. You see the difference there between those two, right? Yet the vice seems to be something kind of lacking in comparison to virtue. So the contrariety is not as great a, what? Yeah, they're more in common. They're in common only the same subject, right? In other words, the virtue of justice and the vice of injustice are both in the will. Okay? Just as blindness and sight are in the same subject. But they're also in the same genus. They're in the genus here of what? Have it, right? It's a common genus. By blindness and sight only have a common genus. Blindness is really none being in a subject, none being of something in a subject capable, right? A subject of habit. Now, you can see how Thomas wouldn't have too much trouble eliminating these three from being the basis of the formal distinction between the father and the son. Since God is I and who else? And both the father and the son are God. Obviously, the distinction can't be based on being an unbeer. Or upon lack and having, right? Because then one would be... Or even contraries, because one involves a kind of lack, right? Okay? And then they have a difference in form. When you have one and the same nature. You know the famous words there in St. Paul there? He was in the form of God, right? They took on the form of a slave, right? Well, the form refers to the what? Nature of God. So, our style explains. He takes up the word nature. How the word form comes to mean what a thing is, right? And St. Paul uses that same meaning that Aristotle is. So, contrariety is a diversity of form. Okay? Diversity of species, huh? So, obviously, that can't be the basis for the distinction between the father and the son. Then they would be the same nature. Then the same form. So, you can eliminate those three. And then he's left with, what? The relatives, right? The relatives are the least opposed of all. Because they have a common genus. They're relatives, right? But one posits the other. See, with these other ones, you know, someone can be just without someone else being unjust, right? But can someone be a father without someone else being a son? Or vice versa? Okay? So, Thomas says this opposition is different from the other three, right? And sometimes you divide history against that one. It's on the rule of what? Yeah. This guy stand out, right? Aristotle just gives the four, right? In this order, you know. Actually, the category is in this order right here, you know. But Thomas will, you know, Aristotle, students, brevitate, right? Does right away into four, but then he divides it. Thomas does it sometimes, too. Divides right away into four. But then, this is obviously quite different from the other three. So, that's the way it goes. Can you drill it again? You said common genus, but what's in your posi-adus? But also, one posits the other, right? Okay? In other words, if I'm a father, I've got to have a son. Oh, yeah, yeah. And vice versa. Or if I'm double, there's got to be half out there, right? By these, one tends to eliminate each other, right? Like, blindness, liberty, and sight, and so on. It's kind of an interesting corollary that I was mistaken once, and I thought, at least as far as it is. The church has defined something I don't know, but I thought that St. Bonaventure said, in baptism, if you don't follow the order of the Holy Spirit, to say, I baptize you in the name of the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Father, it's invalid. I thought that, but he doesn't say that. And he said, he gives a reason why it wouldn't be invalid. He says, because the names themselves posit the order. So he says, that's why it wouldn't be invalid if you did it, unless the church has decided otherwise. So, it's a little brief thing on the opposites, right? Okay? Now, we mentioned how the most universal things, right? Are things like being, thing or something, one, and true, and also good, right? But each of these most universals has an opposite. So, being and non-being, something and nothing, and one and the many, and true and false, and good and bad. So, if they all have an opposite, what kind of opposite is it? Well, in the case of being and non-being, it should be kind of obvious which opposition it is, right? What about something and nothing? How are they opposed? It seems to me that, I remember a text of Thomas where he talks about that, but it seems to me that something and nothing are more or less like being and non-being. They don't have any common subject, right? I remember as a little boy thinking about nothing, and said, what if there was nothing? Absolutely nothing. Because you don't mean to think this thought, but obviously, you know, there's no something there, right? What? Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be something? Yeah. Okay. Now, in terms of the one and the many, the next one, eh? Which is, what kind of opposition is there between the one and the many? Well, no. What does one add to being or something? Yeah, yeah. But it's not pure negation, right? In a sense, what one means is undivided. So, the opposition is one of what? Yeah, yeah. I just look back for a second just to refresh your mind a bit on that. That was the last thing taken up about God, right? And before he showed that God is one, he took up his thing in general. But it's Article 2 of Question 11, right? So look at the Bible, the article. The answer should be said that one is opposed to the many, but diverse emotive, right? For the one which is the beginning of number, that's not the most universal meaning of one. And it's often confused with that, right? That's behind Plato thinking that all things are numbers. That's a big mistake. But the one which is the beginning of number is opposed to the multitude which is a number as the measure to the measured, right? For the one has the notion of a first measure. A number as a multitude measured by one is the curve in the Tenth Book of Metaphysics. That's not the one I'm asking about. The one that is convertible with being. Now what does convertible mean? What does it mean to say that being and one are convertible? Yeah. It means that every being is one and everything one is a being, right? Okay. The one which is convertible with being is opposed to multitude per modem privationis. Privation is the Latin word for lack. The undivided to the divided, right? This is because we tend to know the simple to the composed and one to the many in a way, right? So, it's interesting, huh? Being and non-being and I think also something or nothing seem to be opposed in the first way. But one and many in the second way. Privation line. Now, what about true and false, huh? Okay. Do they go to bad also? Well, you've got to be careful there, see? Oh. Because the first meaning of bad is a lot. Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, that's why Augustine says sin is nothing and the man who sin becomes nothing. Now, Augustine doesn't speak as precisely as Thomas does, right? Because, strictly speaking, if nothing is like non-being, that's not what the bad is. Yeah. But the bad is not having what you're able to have and should have. That's what the bad is. Okay? That's the first meaning of bad, right? Now, there's the second meaning of bad, the thing that has such a lack, right? And the third meaning of lack, of bad, is what causes such a lack, right? So, it's because blindness is bad, right? That it's bad to be a blind dog or a blind man, right? And because it's bad to be a blind man or a blind dog, it's bad for me to poke your eye or something, right? You see? But the fundamental meaning of bad there is blindness, isn't it, right? And the other senses are said to be bad because of that, right? But what is blindness? It's a lack, a privation, right? Okay? Now, if you talk about a bad human act, what does that mean? Well, a bad human act is not simply a lack, is it? So, that's bad in the second sense. But you have to understand the bad in the second sense by going back to the first sense. What is the lack, which the bad act has, you can speak of having a lack, right? What is the lack that makes the bad human act bad? What is it? Yeah. In other words, a good human act should be a reasonable act, right? So, a bad human act is an unreasonable act, right? It's lacking the order or the measure that reason should give for this, right? Okay? So, if I drink before I operate on you, catch you up, that's a disordered act, right? If I drink before I lecture, you know? Touche. Or if I eat or drink too much, right? You see? Okay? So, the lack of order, right? The lack of measure is the first meaning of bad there, right? Then my act is said to bad because it lacks that measure or order, right? And then you're bad because you led me into that excess or something, right? You see? Or there was an occasion of me to eat or drink too much, right? A big scandal, I guess, in Ireland there, that the Irish drinking more wine. And Guinness is falling off a bit. And this is coming out, you know. Not everybody's drinking their Irish beer for St. Patrick's Day. This is me. I never drunk green beer, have you? And I'd be all, maybe that's what I'm doing, turning them off and drinking beer. But I don't know, there's like something like 10, 20, something, I don't know, a little drop-off of Guinness. I'd say scandalous. I think it's kind of interesting to see, huh? That being and non-being, and perhaps something and nothing, are opposed in one way, right? One and many in another way, and now perhaps we'll find out that true and false are in another way, huh? Want to take a break now? Do you want to take a break before you look at me for it? Sure.