Logic (2016)
Lecture 56: Fallacies: The Accident and Simplicity versus Particularity

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Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, their enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, o'er and loom in our bridges, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. It's kind of a conclusion here to our study of logic there, right, huh? We're talking about the fallacies, right, huh? Well, go back to something here, which is kind of interesting. You know what the seven wise men of Greece put up? The words, Gnothi Sautan, know thyself, right? Now, I often ask students, to whom is that addressed, know thyself? Yeah, it's not addressed to God, because God knows himself, naturally, and by knowing himself, he knows other things. It's not addressed to the angels, because they naturally know themselves first, right? It's not addressed to the dog or the cat, because they can't really know themselves, and so on. So, it's addressed to man, right, huh? But now, more precisely, right, to what part of man is that addressed, huh? Can my eye know what an eye is? Can my hand know what a hand is? Was there any part of me that can know itself? Yeah. So, reason knows not only many other things, right? But it knows what? Itself. Itself, right? Now, that is reflected in an interesting way in logic and sciences of that sort, right? Because, when you study things in logic like, say, definition, right? Well, there's not only a definition of square, and a definition of the soul, and a definition of tragedy, and there's even a definition of definition, right? And that's kind of reflecting the fact that reason knows itself, right? We saw, you know, Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? So, reason knows not only what a square is, and what tragedy is, and so on, but it knows what reason is, right? Okay. And there is even a, what, division of division, right? So, sometimes we say division is the distinction of the parts of some whole. So, we divide division into division of a, what, composed whole, right? And then division of a universal whole. So, that's the division of division, right, huh? But now, more generally, then, division definition is distinction, right? So, I ask you in some times, what's the distinction of distinction? Now, I'm kind of led by the hand there by Thomas Aquinas, huh? Because when Thomas is considering the Trinity, right, huh? He wants to understand the distinction of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By what are they distinguished, right? And he proceeds in a very logical way, right, huh? With the distinction of distinction. And the basic distinction of distinction is a distinction into, what? Material distinction, as it's called, which is the distinction from the division of the continuous, right? So, if we have an apple pie here, and we cut it into, you know, six slices, right? That's the material distinction, right? And the division of the, what, the continuous, where you divide a circle in half, right, huh? Well, you've got two semicircles now, right? So, material division, right? Okay? And then there's the division that's called the formal distinction, which is distinction by opposites, huh? Okay? Now, Thomas, proceeding in a logical way, says, there can't be a material distinction of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because there's nothing continuous in God, huh? There's not a body, right? There's nothing continuous. He's measured not by time, but by eternity, right? So, but yet there's got to be some distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because it would be a radical to say that these are merely different names in the same person, or different things he does, huh? I could say this philosopher, this grandfather, right? Okay, but there are different things I've done in one or the other. So, it must be by formal distinction that the Father and the Son are distinct, right? Well, now you go back to the categories in Aristotle, where the second post-predicament is what? Yeah, yeah. And you read a lot in commentaries like Albert the Great, say, or Cajetan or something. When they divide the categories of Aristotle, and they use the word, what, predicament for the word category, they talk about the ante-predicaments, right, which are pseudonym distinctions that are necessary to understand the distinction of the ten-genera, right? And then you have the ten-genera themselves, but mainly substance, quantity, quality, and relation are taken up. And then you have the post-predicaments, right? And there's six of them, and they're very well-ordered, as you might expect. But the first three are, what, opposites, and then before, and then ama, together, right? Okay? Okay? There's three more, right? Okay? But anyway, Thomas goes to the first one, the first post-predicament, which is by opposites. And he says, well, there's four kinds of opposites, as Aristotle pointed out. But it can't be a distinction of being and non-being, because God is I and who am, right? One of them can't be being and one being. Non-being, that can't be the basic distinction. It can't be privation and lack, let's say, and having, because that's the kind of non-being, lack. It can't even be, what, contraries, because that involves some kind of lack of one in comparison to the other, but also a difference in form, which would give you two different gods, right? So it must be by the remaining one. Yeah. And maybe father and son suggest that, too, right? So, you can see how ordered this Thomas is, right? So I ask people, what is the distinction of distinction? What's in material and formal distinction, right? And material distinction is touched upon, of course, in the chapter on quantity, right? And then that's by the division of the continuous, right? So even number rises from the division of the continuous. And so you and I are distinct because of the division of the continuous, right? So there's enough flesh to go around, no? To make up six bodies, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. But then there's, what, formal distinction, right? So you go into rigorous science, like with Medicaid, right? And you have the distinction of odd and even, right? And that's by, what, contradictories, right? The even number is divided and divisible into two equal parts, right? Yeah. Or you have this other distinction of prime and composite, right? A composite number is measured by another number. Every number is measured by one, which is not really a number. But a composite number is also measured by some other number. And a prime number is not measured by any other number. It's measured only by one. So, you see that, huh? Or in the first Conti predicament science, you had the famous distinction between universal substance and singular accident and universal accident and singular substance. And that's by two contradictories, right? Set of another, not set of another. Exist in another is in the subject. Not exist in another is in the subject, right? So I found it very useful. And Thomas did to go back to the post predicaments, right? So when I was trying to understand Shakespeare's definition of reason, right, huh? I was, what, going back to the second post predicament, which is the distinction of before, right? Okay? But anyway, I've given you a little bit of a distinction of distinction, right, huh? But now, there's a kind of connection between the different kinds of opposites, so you might say, and distinction, huh? Because corresponding to maybe each. kind of opposition or each kind of mistake there's a kind of distinction right so for example the most common mistake is what mixing up the senses of words right and what corresponds to this a distinction of the senses of a word right makes sense right i was trying with the idea you know of uh do we need words equivocal by reason i'm sure if thomas and aristotle had officially you know disputed this question right huh they would have begun you know with probably the observation aristotle but the most common mistake in thinking is mixing up the senses of a word and when the word is equivocal by reason you're apt to mix them up then it's equivocal by what yeah i have the student comes to my house on wednesday night richard and my brother i have a brother named richard and there was this king richard the first richard the third richard the second and so on right but i don't have any problems mixing those guys up right richard nixon right you know mix them up with my student or with my brother my brother with his student but names equivocal by reason there's a connection among the meetings and similarity between them sometimes and so on right i say well gee whiz that's the real problem right do we need that kind of a kind of words right and so that's probably the objection that we don't need it they're the cause of the most common mistake in our thinking oh my god you get rid of those words right let's have only univocal words right yeah you gotta have equivocal words just equivocal by chance but suddenly none of the words you go out and you purposely make the words equivocal by reason so you can deceive more people right and make the help make them make mistakes right so that would be the you know counter right but if we go back to shakespeare's definition of reason that's ability for discourse right we tend to what there's a natural road in our knowledge the road from the senses into reason right and so we naturally name first things that can be what sensed right and as you get further away from the senses then the more difficult it is to name things and to think about them and talk about them right so unless we have some way of bringing you over from the words that name things that you can sense right the things you cannot sense we ain't going to know none of those things right that's shows the necessity right of names equivocal by reason right when thomas is explaining you know why is the first meaning of in or to be in right is to be in this room right why is that you know to have the senses right aristotle says the first meaning of act is is motion well shakespeare reminds us things in motion sooner catch the end but not stirs that's the first sense of that right but there'll be other kinds of act like form and so on that are less sensible right and we have to what run from the one that is most sensible to the one that is less sensible to one that's not sensible at all right yes sense of the word sensible right yeah but our mind naturally dances right i always tell my my mother when i was a little boy you know my mother would say i see said the blind man but he couldn't see at all she thought it was very clever right my mother never went to college she said that was very clever she used to say that i don't know why but she heard somewhere or something i don't know but we naturally you know uh carry words over right by a certain connection between them right and so it's according to the nature of our reason right it's kind of going from the more known to the what less known right and it's natural for our reason to what that's what discourse means most of all right to come to know what you don't know which you do know or coming to know what's less known to by what is more known right and so we really need these kind of words right now in shakespeare's definition of of reason there's basically five words and they're all equivocal by reason you can't avoid this right it's natural it's good to be going into nature and your ability for discourse so if you see people making the mistake of mixing up senses of words right that makes you aware of the importance of what the distinguishing the senses of a word right and vice versa understanding the distinction of the sense of the word will help you understand understand this kind of what mistake right okay now i'm going to pick out one of the mistakes not from words but from what things right and this one is called in latina the mistake of mixing up the simplici theory right couldn't do quit you find times referring to this a lot right distinction between simplici theory and say couldn't quit now what the hell does that mean right well i was playing around with translating this and say you can say simply okay capital sin in greek i guess it is simply and what somewhat okay and something is said simply and something was said only somewhat in some what incomplete or imperfect way right okay i know a young lady who was named what not ann but annette and as she got older she felt kind of what compromise that name and that because it means little and the addition there is a diminutive right okay and she wanted to be called and so we all started calling your hand rather than annette so very often we add something right now i'm going to go through some examples here from the different parts of philosophy and so on where if you understand this distinction you can understand the mistake that is made when you mix up the two right and vice versa when you see how people make this mistake of mixing up those two and how serious it can be then you can see the importance of that distinction let's take an example here from logic in logic aristotle distinguishes basically he says there's two kinds of argument and they are what syllogism and induction right now induction is an argument from many what singulars to the universal right syllogism is an argument in which some statements laid down another falls necessarily because of those what lay down now in the case of the induction does the conclusion follow necessarily does it follow at all yeah so it follows somewhat doesn't it yeah but doesn't follow necessarily does it follow necessarily does it say now i like cats a lot but every cat i've seen is four-legged unless he's been injured right so does it follow necessarily because every cat i've seen is four-legged that all cats are four-legged follows doesn't it does it fall necessarily if i was a little black boy born in darkest africa every man i had seen in my life was what black i would conclude that all men are what black right and now using my mother's authority here she always tells me the story is The mother came down to a little boy from the little town of Watertown, Minnesota, which apparently there's no blacks in town. And he was walking down the sidewalk with his mummy. And then along comes up the other way, the little black boy. And he says, go home and wash your face. And this guy's very funny, right? But why was the little boy saying that? He wasn't racist or something, right? He'd never seen a black boy, right? He'd never seen a black man. So he had concluded, right? Something that wasn't necessarily so, and in fact, it's not necessarily so, right? So you could say that in a sojism, the conclusion follows necessarily, right? And in that way, it's what? Necessary, right? Indections that follow, well, more or less, but, you know, a little bit of caution there, a little bit of, you know? I always like to say, you know, how many instances do you have to give for it so to conclude, right? Well, you know, I maintain that every number is odd, right? Three is odd. Five is odd. Seven is odd. Nine is odd. Eleven. I can go on. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty impressive. You know? That's a large discourse, right? A large induction, as they would say. It's very different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And still, it doesn't follow, does it? But all numbers are odd, right? So here you have the distinction, it seems to me, between simply and what? Somewhat, right? It doesn't mean induction is a bad argument, right? But it kind of inclines the mind the more you have of these, right? Without any section, but it's still a little distinction there, right? Well, then when Aristotle gets into rhetoric, on rhetoric, he says, this is the art of, what? Persuasion, huh? And tradition says that Plato said, you know, Aristotle, you do some work here on the nature of rhetoric, right? So Aristotle was obeying his master, huh? And so he came to realize that rhetoric is the art of persuasion. And then he thought out a distinction, right, that there were three means of, what, persuasion. One is the image you project of yourself, what's the guy who knows what he's talking about, huh? And then the second way of persuasion is the way he moves your emotions and your prejudices and so on, right? And then the third and least important is the arguments or apparent arguments that he gives. But now the rhetorician, Aristotle says, has got two kinds of arguments, huh? And they're called enthymeme and what? Example, right? The example, now, is a word equivocal by reason, right? It doesn't mean example of a singular to illustrate the universal, but it means, what? An argument from one singular to another singular of the same kind. Aristotle said, well, basically an argument is either syllogism or induction, so what are these? Well, the enthymeme is sort of like a syllogism, right? And there, for example, right, is like an induction, right? But he calls the enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism. And the example argument, right, a rhetorical induction, right? And that's a diminutive, right, huh? Okay. So I guess when Napoleon was going, when Hitler was going to invade Russia, we shared his generals and other people, and Hitler must have known about Napoleon, right? You better watch what you're doing here, right? Now, an enthymeme is defined as an argument from, what, likelihood, or from what signs, huh? But likelihood is a statement of what is true for the most part of human affairs. Boys will be boys, right? But sometimes a boy surprises you and does what you'd expect from a man, right? And most signs are not, what, necessary. And so my wife works with brain-injected people, right? And some of these guys, they walk around like they were drunk, you know, but they're not drunk, right? But sometimes a place will get the wrong idea as to what their condition is, right? So if someone comes, you know, staggering out of the bar, you might think he's, what, drunk, right? That's a sign that he's had too much, you know, that he's not walking too steadily. But it might be because of old age, it might be because of some kind of illness, right? And so these signs are not, what, necessary, right? So, the, but nevertheless, the enthymeme is more like a syllogism, right, than an induction, because you're dealing with something that is, what's called likelihood, right? Something that's true for the most part, right? The man who's stubborn, you know, is maybe drinking, right, for the most part. So, here you have that distinction between what is simply a syllogism and what is somewhat a syllogism, right? Something like a syllogism, but something lacking in the full strength, right? And this is an induction and then the rhetorical induction, rhetorical example. Or this thing here we're saying about the distinction between syllogism and induction, right? In an argument, something's got to follow, right? Well, is anything to follow a deduction? Yeah. But, not necessarily, I don't think of the necessary, right? You know? This little boy, you know, that said, go and wash your face to the little black boy. He had not, did it follow that all men are white from what he had seen? One would be inclined to think so, right? That's because, for sure, he used to give us this example of a class, as I could say. If a man goes up to the moon or some planet and he says, hey, you know, the snow up there is green, you know? You'd be surprised, wouldn't you? Would you say that's impossible? I don't know why snow couldn't be green, do you? If he went up there and said, you know, part of his stone is as big as a whole stone, you've been influenced by it, by it. Antigramity or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, space travel and all. Also oasis between here and the moon or something. Now, let's take a little more difficult example here. This logic, from general, in the beginning of the physics of Aristotle, right, in his brain, he points out a distinction between what is more known, simply, or by nature, as he says, and what is more known, what? Plus, yeah. It's actually a diminution, more known, right? But what kind of distinction is that in these two? He also calls it what is more known by nature, right? He thinks of that, maybe not as a word hapless there, right? Well, let's read a little question here, right? Is a thing more known when it's known in a confused way or when it's known distinctly? Yeah. Now, if you give me a glass of dry red wine, don't show me the bottle, I'll just give you the glass and let me taste and so on, he'll say, what is that, Mr. Berkwist? I said, that's a dry red wine. I said, if you're the more precise, Mr. Berkwist, is this a Carboné Sauvignon or a Pinot Noir? You know? They say in these best of the competitions here in California, I don't think it has to pass, and they test, right? If I don't know I'm picking Carboné Sauvignon rather than Pinot Noir or whatever it might be, am I really in a position to be judging? Thank you. which is the best of the pure noirs, you know, submitted this year. Not yet. You know, so you might not have passed that test, right? You can't be a judge this year. Yeah, they should. It's a taste and smell, huh? Okay. So now my brother Marcus, you can't fool that guy right down. Not anymore. I told you the famous time of Ron MacArthur Day, the president of TAC, had a dinner for a faculty and he put a different wine in bottles that he had saved, right, and so on. And no one knew that this was so acceptable. My brother Marcus said, that's not, that's not. And so Ron, he's the only guy that wasn't deceived, right, huh? Okay. But which is more known to us? Do we think, know things more that this is a dry red wine? Carboné, so we know. Yeah, yeah. So what is more known to us is less known simply or less known by nature. Because it's not fully known when it's known in a indistinct way, right? When it's known distinctly, it's more known what? Simply, yeah. Yeah. But not to us. So I always get the example of this famous tasting of Carboné Sauvignon Jones in Cambridge, Massachusetts, among very distinguished professors, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And they were tasting Carboné Sauvignon all evening, right? And finally, at the end of the evening, they had the, what, hidden bottle, right? It's covered up there and so on. And everybody's given, you know, a taste of this last Carboné Sauvignon of the evening. And they're asked to compare it with other ones and so on. Some liked it very much and so on. And then they revealed it. It was dried blueberry wine. It tasted a bit. Yeah. And this dried blueberry wine is pretty good. I mean, even Warren Murray, I mean, the great wine conserved. He likes dried blueberry wine. But here, people have been tasting Carboné Sauvignon all evening and they don't realize… Giving him ideas. Yeah. And so, what's more known to that, right? So, now who's deceived about these matters, huh? What's the famous modern philosopher, huh? Yeah. And he's often given the title of the Father of Modern Philosophy, right, huh? I guess there's a joke about that. He doesn't have any sons because they all disagree with each other as modern philosophers. But in some ways, he started things going, right, huh? Okay. But when you read Descartes in the Discourse of Method, right, huh? He's talking about only accepting those things that are so distinct, right, that he can't doubt them, right? So, he's saying that the distinct is more, what? Certain, right? For us, right? For him, right? Descartes, yeah? Well, he's mixing up the two, isn't he? See? The distinct is more known, simply, than the confused, right? But the confused is more known to us, right? I am more sure that I'm drinking dry red wine than that I'm drinking Carbonet Sauvignon. And I was drinking Carbonet Sauvignon with my brother Marcus in California there. I guess I could tell them to do some one north and south of the bay, right? You know? I don't think they can do that anymore. And, yeah, I was joking there, because one of the wines out there, they use the term private selection, right? You know? It's not expensive wine, you know, but it's private selection, you know? Yeah. I like to tell people, this is reading something good. This is private selection. This is what he uses for his friends, you know? And so on. But the confused is more known to me, right? And Aristotle is concluding from this that we have to consider things in natural philosophy in general before in what? Particular, right? So in natural philosophy or natural science for Aristotle, the first book is what we call the physics today, but the Greek title is natural hearing, right? And it's talking about motion and change and natural things in general, right? And then there are thousands of books on change of place in particular, the book on the universe, and then change of quality leading to substantial change. In the book, I remember this, I mean, on coming to be a passing away, and then the ones dealing with what growth and what's found living things, right? But he argues that we should start from what is more known to us. What is more known to us is the, what? Indistinct and the distinct, and the general is not as distinct as the, what, particular. So we should consider these things in general first. And Descartes doesn't do that. It jumps into the particular right away, right? That's a big mistake, right? Order? Order is a sign of intelligence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The order makes sense. Mm-hmm. But it's a mistake of what? Simply and somewhat. Okay? Do you see that? And so the whole order in which you study these things is, you might say, right? That's a tremendous mistake, right? But now you realize the importance of that kind of distinction, right? By the danger of this kind of mistake, right? But understanding that kind of distinction is, what? Helps you to understand this kind of mistake, right? Okay? You see that? That's what you see. It's just one of these. When do you know an effect fully? When is an effect most fully known? Yeah. In the light of its cause, right? Now, is an effect most known to us in the light of its cause? Because every time we ask, why is this so? I mean, why was there that eclipse of the sun? It's a sign. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if I used to come in, I'd say, you know, which is more known to us? That there is day and night, huh, on this earth? Or that day and night is an effect of the earth turning on its axis? I thought it was because the sun was going around the earth, right? And I said, you know, what's this nonsense about the earth turning on its axis, I'd say, to my students? You know, if you take a clump of earth and make a ball of it, does it start rotating like that? Why would the earth be, you know, doing like that? The earth doesn't do that, huh? You know, you need to go up a clump of the earth and go straight in a straight line. It doesn't start rotating, you know? You know, it's a lot of nonsense, right? And they can't defend, you know, the idea that the earth is turning its axis. And it should be so a regular thing. We set our clocks by it, and our clocks are based upon how long it takes for the earth to rotate, you know? So, is day and night fully known without knowing its cause? It's more fully known when you know it in the light of its cause. Why there's day and night on this earth, right? But which is more known to us? That there is day and night? Or that there's day and night because the earth is turning on its axis, as somebody says? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. it's kind of amusing you know with hegel right because hegel and his system as they call uh what is he where does he begin well he begins with what is said of all right being right and then he tries to generate the whole universe out of what the most vague notion that we have most general notion we have right the most confused or indistinct notion we have that's going the other direction right as if what is more known to us is more known simply right explains everything else hegel of course also gets involved in the fallacy that there's also the disease even the wise the fallacy of the what accidental right i was saying to joshua last night you know only the ignorant can can what learn and of course hegel talks about the tremendous power of the negative ignorance is a kind of non-being isn't it it's not knowing right and only the ignorant can learn even god himself cannot learn right then yeah yeah i see yeah so tremendous power only the ignorant can learn what mistake is that yeah yeah yeah your ignorance is not your ability to learn right if i'm ignorant of the theorem and geometry i have to learn from the statements that are what per se known right or the theories have been proved through them already i got to use these to come to know some theorem i don't know right eventually the pythagorean theorem which is the end of the first book of euclid you say well ignorance is is accidental to my learning right even though it's necessarily there right i think something that's accidental is necessarily there before i learn is more apt to deceive one than something that uh you can learn it for a black man but you don't have to be a black man to learn right but you've got a big one to learn if you know everything if you know it all you can't do anything in the beginning of the dianima there aristotle wants to put our knowledge or what our desire to know about the soul and so he begins by pointing out that all knowledge is such is what good but one knowledge is better than another because it's what yeah or because it's more what certain right then he goes on to say that in both ways a knowledge of the soul seems to be better than most other knowledges because the soul is better than anything else in the material world that we're familiar with huh and in some way we're very sure about it having a soul because we know our individual experience of being alive but now in another place in the beginning of the parts of animals there in the premium aristotle comes back to these two criteria right and it's possible right let's say that my knowledge of geometry is more certain than my knowledge of the soul but knowledge of the soul is a better knowledge of a better thing than knowledge of the triangle and square right so which is better than geometry or the knowledge of the soul yeah aristotle says it's better to know a better thing even if it's imperfectly known right and to know a lesser thing right yeah i can know the number of chairs in this room you know counting them with more certitude that i can know what the soul is maybe right but it's better to know the soul it is perfectly and to know exactly how many chairs are in this room right that's no big deal right so aristotle has a beautiful example for there you know he says as a glimpse of someone we love right means more to us than what yeah what yeah yeah yeah you turn my example i used to give you know you see the boss all day long you know but some of you might see every day like your neighbor walking out of his house something like that you know he's got a picture a new picture of one of the grandchildren is like that no a glimpse of this right uh so there's a distinction in knowledge between what you know and how you know right and which is more essential what you know right than how you know it right now so the criterion that uh and now it's a better thing is greater than yeah yeah yeah i always say i used to use example you know that i'd rather hear mozart on an even imperfect recording machine right there's some of this junk you you know you know on the most perfect instrument right now because uh you'd rather hear something better than hearing it better hearing something better it's kind of equivocation right hearing something better now down for the um what is it it goes down in washington there because the seaton school right they had the graduation year down there and your old alma mater i guess right is that what they do it yeah yeah yeah because they had well you know think about that school too but anyway um talking in a very catholic audience down there right or talking to people you know so and people studying in kind of you know more public university or secondary university right they the people got the idea you know that mathematics is everything right well maybe they have more certitude in mathematics than any other knowledge right therefore this is the best knowledge right is that true because that's taking the criterion of how you know it rather than what you what you know right so they'd rather study mathematics and study psychology or study the soul or something like that because they don't have the same certitude maybe they study the soul or god or something that's right right or ethics even right huh you know and so they want to do something that is what better to study mathematics yeah but in a sense they're making a fallacy right it's better to study mathematics than to state the soul that they're concluding right to make this kind of mistake right mixing up what is better in some way with what is better simply so in some way mathematics is better than mathematics is better than the knowledge of the soul or certain but simply speaking now to the soul is better than what mathematics so your whole course of study what you want to study what you want to pursue right you might be uh officiated right by by this kind of a what mistake right you find this kind of in the moderns right where the mathematics has 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what you want to study what you want to study what you want to study what you want to study what flawless, except for one mistake in the beginning. And so he just made his whole case brilliant, wonderful, and then his opponent made his small mistake in the beginning. Yeah, I know that. That's why I was saying he was a lawyer before he was converted. I know, so that might determine your whole course of study. But now I'm going into an even more serious mistake. Aristotle has the ninth book of wisdom, right? And most of these people you know will say it's a book about act and potency, right? And I like to say act in ability, right? Because potency in English, right, you take it over from Latin, and the word potent, you know, the word, seems to be somewhat like the word power in English, right? It seems to be, what, stuck on the active sense of ability, right? Okay. By ability can be, you know, in common speech, can be said of the, what, passive as well as the active ability. So you could say, you know, that, um, wood is able to be a chair or a table or a bookcase, right? And, uh, but you wouldn't say this, which is powerful, you know, okay? But you can use the word ability for the active or the passive sense, you know? So the carpenter is able to, to, uh, make a chair or a table or a door out of wood, right? And the wood is able to be formed into a chair or a table or a door, right? Makes sense, right? Okay. So I refer to the ninth book of wisdom as, as about act and ability, right? But a lot of times, you know, if you come from the text of Thomas and so on, you, the word potency, right? Is used maybe more readily in Latin, right? But, you know, what does Thomas do in the ninth book of wisdom, right? Well, I think I've spoken about this before, but he distinguishes before he, what, looks for order, right? So he distinguishes, um, ability and act first, and then he considers the order of ability and act. We've talked about this before, how order presupposes what? Yeah. And I do so by what I call the axiom, right? Or the beginning statement about, um, before and after, that nothing is before or after what itself. So there's always some distinction between what is before and what is after. So before you can see that this is before that, you have to see that this is what is, is not the same as that, right? You couldn't distinguish between today and tomorrow. You wouldn't say that today is before tomorrow, would you? Or today or yesterday, right? Okay. You can't distinguish between the music of Mozart and Beethoven. You couldn't say Mozart's music is better than Beethoven's, right? Now, actually, the ninth books are divided into three parts, right? Because in the first part, Aristotle talks about the act that is called motion, right? And he distinguishes ability for motion. There's many a distinction of what? Ability, but not universally. It's more particular, right? The ability for motion. And so, um, your guy works with wood, don't you, right? So you have the ability to move wood, right? To form wood, right? And the wood that you're working with is able to be formed, right? Okay, I don't think you can do that with air too well, right? Air kind of doesn't lend itself to, you know, It doesn't receive a form, right? Or even water, right? Water. That's much fun I can get with water. Yeah, yeah. Temporarily. So he distinguishes those. And then he goes on and distinguishes, um, between the, uh, natural and the rational ability to make things. Because the natural ability to move things and to form them, it seems to be determined to one, right? So, in reproduction, you know, we always produce, say, what? A man, a human being. Uh, but in making we can do contraries, right? Opposites, huh? Okay? So Aristotle has, in a sense, the same knowledge of how to preserve a government and how to corrupt it. They go together, right? So, now what does he do in the second part of Book Nine? Well, there he makes a universal distinction of the acts, right? Where you have motion and operation and form and so on, right? And being itself. And then you read many other senses of ability, you know, or these other acts, right? But then the third part considers the order of ability and act. And he shows many kinds of orders, as we know from our chapter, many categories, right? Okay? But the one that's most important for our purposes here is he says that in the thing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act, right? But since it goes from ability to act, the reason is something already an act. Talos, or simplicity there, or simply, act is before what? Yeah. And that's the beginning, to begin to anticipate now, that the beginning of all things will be, what? will be pure act. Pure act. Pure act, yeah. Okay? See, in the 16th chapter, the first book of Sumcari Gentiles, right, huh? The last argument for all the reasons. Okay? But in some way, somewhat, abilities before act. If you just consider the thing that goes from ability to act, that thing is an ability before it's spiritual. Because it goes from ability to act, the reason is something already an act, simply speaking, universe, act comes before ability. The beginning of all things in the universe is something that is pure act. Now, what did the moderns say? What did the early Greeks say, right? Well, they saw matter as the beginning of all things, right? And so, you know, the first philosophers said that water is the beginning of all things. And someone else said that air was, right? And before there was even the poets that said that, what? Mother Earth is the beginning of all things, right? And Timid of Athens there, huh? Timid of Athens, Shakespeare's playwright is digging in the earth. They're looking for roots. And he addresses the earth, right? Common mother thou, he says, whose womb immeasurable in infinite breast, teems and feeds all, right? So the mother earth, right? Which is a kind of matter, right? Teems, gives birth to, right? And feeds all, right? So the early Greeks and the poets, huh? They said that what? Matter is the beginning of all things, right? That's a common opinion of the modern scientists, right? Okay. Okay. So they're saying, what? That what is before somewhat, is before what? Great mistake, isn't it? So by this kind of mistake, you end up being a materialist, rather than a, what? Student of God, right? That's kind of important, isn't it? Sort of thing, isn't it? Sort of thing, isn't it? Sort of thing, isn't it? Yeah. I must have these two mistakes here, right? I'm going to study what? Mathematics, right? Because I want certitude, you know? That's a perfection now.