Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
Lecture 2: Knowledge from Confused to Distinct: Aristotle's Epistemology

Transcript
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Or Don Giovanni at the ballroom scene, you've got three different kinds of dances, right? And all of a sudden we'll just combine them without any conflict. It's kind of an amazing thing, right? So when I hear these things, what am I hearing? I'm hearing it indistinctly at first, aren't I? I'm not distinguishing the various instruments of the various things that are being combined together. You see that? Okay. Now the same thing is true for the eyes, isn't it? You know, you go into the museum there and you see this beautiful painting on the wall. You stand back, you know, come in, you see the whole painting at once. But do you notice all the details at first? No. And remember I had a painting when I first came to Whistler. Just got down for a dollar on these prints, you know, of a canal scene, right? And I used to, you know, get dressed in this one side of the room, you know, and I kind of looked at the picture and looking down the canal. One day in the other side of the room, you know, I'd look at the thing. I'm still looking down like an L. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just seems to follow you, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are paintings where the eyes of the painting seem to follow you as you move along. You think the painting is almost alive. But I remember when I was a freshman in college, you know, in kind of an English class, and one day the professor came in and he had a reproduction of a famous painting, huh? And I'm just a blessed virgin, but anyway, he put it on the easel where I could, on the blackboard in front of the class. He says, okay, take out a piece of paper. You've got 50 minutes to describe that painting. Saw the blue, right? Oh, some guy said, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Now the second kind of example he takes is also a composed whole, but, as Thomas says, an understandable composed whole, and he's thinking now of the definition of a thing, right? The definition is something that reason or the understanding knows, huh? The senses don't define things, huh? And he's comparing the knowledge we have when we can name something to the knowledge we have when we can, what? Define it, right? He takes the example there of the circle, right? Okay? And, you know, when someone can identify it as a circle, like the clock is circular, the child might say, right? But the child would not be able to, what? Define the circle as a plain figure contained by one line, every point in which it's a bit distant, point in the interior, called the center, okay? Now, my children, when they went to grade school, they all came back one day with a piece of paper that had a circle on it, and a triangle on it, and a square, and oblong, and so on. And they said, Daddy, Mama, that's a circle, that's a triangle, that's a square, I don't know that, right? But after you ask them, what does a circle take? That's a circle. That's a circle. You know? They don't come out with a definition, do they? You see? And it would take some time before one could actually, what? Spell it out with a definition. That's square. But they don't come out, you know, and say, what's a square? That's square. They don't come out and say, what? Playing, you know, quadrilateral, quadrilateral, right-angled, quadrilateral? No. You see? So the child, in some confused way, knows what a circle is, in a triangle, in a square, because you can identify these, right? They can't spell it out the way a definition does, huh? And we read 150 shapes, there's sonnets, right? These are sonnets, but it takes a while to think about the definition of sonnet, huh? It's a likeness of thought and feeling, right? In 14 lines of dynamic metameter, divided into three quatrains with alternate rhyming, and completed by rhyming couple. That's what it is. But you can read, you know, on 50 stars without being able to define it, right? Recognize it. If you ask your little child, what is a nose? He says, that's a nose, that's a nose. You point it, right? You won't say, you know, it's an organ, you know, with two nostrils and all this, right? And also, as a child, you went to your father and mother, and you ran across a word you didn't understand. And maybe your mother and father used that word correctly, so they have some understanding of it. When you're asked to define it, your father or mother has to kind of, what, scratch their head, right? In the love and friendship course, I asked in the beginning, what is love? Someone says, it's a feeling. Well, so is anger, so is fear. But even a chair, you know, what is a chair? What is a chair? You know, something to sit on? Yeah, but not everything to sit on is a chair. Not everything is made to sit on is a chair. So you have to stop and think out carefully what a definition of a chair is, huh? There's a bench or a sofa. It's not a chair, but it's something to sit on, right? Yeah. So notice, huh, we have the second kind of example, but it's less known to us than the first kind, huh? The first kind is the whole consensus, huh, right? The second kind is the kind that only reason knows, huh? Okay? But notice, it's similar in that it's composed of parts, right? It's put together from its parts, huh? So you can multiply these examples, huh? I'll take a circle like Aristotle does, or a square, or a nose, or a chair, or anything, right? Okay? So, we name things, as we said in logic, usually before we, what, can define them. Okay? And when we ask the definition, we use the name, so we have some understanding, but not the distinct understanding we seek through the definition. Now, the third kind of example is the one which is most like, in some ways, what he wants to show here, that we know the general before in particular. There's something like that in the, what, senses, huh? At times we'll call it the more universal sensible, or the more general sensible, huh? And in the commentary, he'll say, you can take this in place, or in distance, and in time. And Aristotle gives an example, in time, huh? Let's take the example in place, huh? You're with Christopher Columbus, right? And you're sitting in the ocean, right? And you're looking for, what, land, right? And Columbus had actually a reward for the first man to see land, right? So everybody is what? You know, apart from the reward, they're very anxious to find land, right? And you see something off of their eyes, and someone says, land! And it turned out to be what? A whale. A cloud coming up, right? Okay? Or sometimes there's vegetation floating in the surface of the water, right? But not solid land, right? Okay? What are you seeing at first then, right? Are you seeing an island? Are you seeing a cloud? Are you seeing something floating in the water? What is it? It's not distinct, is it? Or in the old days, you know, you've probably seen this in the old movies there. You're out at sea and you see a ship, something on the horizon, right? It's a ship. Now is it a friendly ship or a pirate ship, right? And if the flag goes up, you know, the cross balloons and so on, the flag goes up at the end of the country or something, right? What are you seeing? Are you seeing a pirate ship at first? Or is it a friendly ship or an enemy ship, right? You're seeing something on the horizon, right? And this is a bit like going from each other in particular. There's something on the horizon. It's a ship. It's a pirate ship. It's Captain Kiddenship, right? Do you see that? Or I see it way out there in the, you know, in the western movies there. You know, you see something on the hill, on the cliff over there, right? There's something up there, yeah. Yeah, it seems to be moving, yeah. Yeah. It's a dog, yeah. Oh, it's Joe's dog. Or Joe's horse or whatever it is, right? There's something. Yeah, something moving. It's a dog, right? It's Joe's dog. It's very much like going from the general to particular, isn't it? Do you see that? Okay. Now, Aristotle takes the example here, which might be even more clear in his, in the Greek household. In the Greek household, there are many men, right? In the nobility, right? And many women, right? And the man or the woman that attends to you might not even be your what? Your father, right? Or your what? Mother, right? So the children call all men father, right? And all women mother, but afterwards, what? Separate each of these, huh? Okay. I was first teaching this at St. Mary's College there in California. Went to the supermarket in the afternoon, right? And this mother comes by with her little kid in the grocery cart. They have a little seat there, you know, in the grocery cart. And then she goes by and the little kid says, Daddy! So I started laughing, and the mother started laughing a little bit. So she says something about my resemblance to the father, right? But that kid was confused, right? I don't want this in a courtroom or something. Or a fraternity suit, see? But she says that a kid rumped you in a crowd, right? And they're frightened, they're looking for the mother or father, you know, and they rumped you like they're a daddy, right? See? So temporarily, right? They think they're a daddy, and they're, what? A state guy, right? You can see this with twins. When I was in grade school, we had two girls who were twins, Judy and Mary Jane Van Valkenburgh. And those of us who were, say, in the first grade with Judy and Mary Jane could easily tell them apart, right? You know, it's like Judy likes better looking than Mary Jane. But when we got into the next grade, the sister, teacher, could not tell Judy and Mary Jane apart. See? And so she'd have a seating chart, and you were assigned a seat, and you had always sit on the same seat. And so she put Judy over here and Mary Jane over here, and Judy and Mary Jane would, what? We thought we were, oh boy, we're putting something off on the sisters of St. Joseph. But you see, those of us who had been that year before, right, could easily tell the two apart, right? But the new teacher could not tell them apart. See? What does that show? See? You know them in a confused way at first, right? Maybe the family resemblance, but not the other, right? And sometimes, you know, I've complimented one sister on what the other sister's performance was, because they look so much alike, and I just don't know them very well. So that was a wonderful performance, you know. That was my sister. Kind of embarrassed, you know, because of this, huh? But you can't tell them what? The part, huh? Sometimes sisters who look alike very much when they're having their first couple of dates with a couple of guys, they sometimes switch dates if they don't want to do that, right? And the guys don't know it, right, huh? Say, I'll take your boyfriend tonight, and you take mine. Now, I assume at a time that they know these girls well enough to get married, they can tell them apart. But when they first go out, they can't, but tell them apart. When I was a little boy there, we had a neighborhood grocery store. It had been started by a man from France, actually. And when he died, his two daughters took over the store and ran it. And my mother was always sending me down to get a quart of milk or something. And suddenly she'd call up, you know, and talk to one of the sisters and tell her what to give me when I get to the store, right? And so she'd say, now when you go to the store, you know, go to Jermaine and she'll have it, right? Well, I couldn't tell the two apart. But my mother could, see, because she had been doing business with these two sisters for some time, right? So what am I seeing when I see these two sisters, huh? What was the teacher seeing when she saw Judy or Mary Jane? Something in a way more general, right? You know, Van Valkenburg girl, let's say, right? But not Judy or Mary Jane, right, in particular. You know, one couple we know in the parish, they have twin boys, you know, and I can't tell them apart. One day after Mass, my wife grabbed the two of them and said, okay, you're a stamp. And she studied them, right? So she could, well, you have to study them, right, to see, so you can tell them apart these two. But their parents have no difficulty in telling them apart, huh? But to me, it's a pretty mystery. Who's who, right? See, I have to really study them, right? You see that? So, my brother Mark was a student in Quebec, huh? He did one time with a French family, a family actually from Martin Paris. That the old man introduced him to Charlie, right? You know, Charlie. Anyway, they had a little boy. One time there, there was a little boy looking in a magazine there on the sofa, and the little boy's kind of sitting next to him looking on it. And finally, they come to a picture of Andre Hepburn. Here at Prime, my brother Mark says, who's that? He says, Mama. See? Well, my brother and sister, you know, not to mention it, right? The little boy says, Mama. What is he saying? He's confused, right? He's something like the reason knowing the general, right? He's very much like what the reason does, huh? So, going back to the first kind of example Aristotle gives there, right? Aristotle shows you two ways of proceeding from this. The fact that the whole is more known by sense than the parts exemplifies that we know things in a confused way before distinctly, right? And that's going to be the reason why we should go from the general to the particular, right? Okay? But then he makes a direct comparison between the two in the second sentence, right? And the general is a kind of whole, since the general takes in many things as parts. And that's what he's doing there. He's using this not only to exemplify the general proposition that the confused is more known to us than distinct, which would be the reason for saying that we should know something in general or do know each other for a particular. But he'll say that the general is to the particulars, something like a whole is to, like, parts, huh? Okay? And sometimes they call the general the universal whole as opposed to the composed whole, right? But notice how the word particular is taken from the word, what, part? That's kind of a sign, just like parts, right? Okay? And in Greek, the Greek word for general here is kathalou. We get the word kathalou, by the way. Okay? But kathalou is writing together two words in Greek, kata and holos, according to the whole, right? So the Greek word for general is taken from the Greek word for whole, just like the English word particular is taken from the English word for part, right? So we call this sometimes the universal whole. The universal whole is set of its parts, but not put together from them. The composed whole is put together from its parts, but not set of them, right? But the general is to the particulars, something like the whole is to the parts, right? So if we know the whole before we distinguish the parts, then we would know the general before we distinguish the, what, particulars, huh? Okay? So... He shows you two ways to proceed from a sensible composed whole to this thing we want to reason out, right? That the general is before the particular. One is by this comparison that we just explained to you, right? The reasons directly you might say from the whole being known before the parts to the general being known before the particulars, right? That's an element, right? Or he uses this to manifest to confuse is before the distinct, right? Which is the general reason for the gentleman for the particular, right? So, you see that? So it's very concrete, this example that Aristotle was giving, right? An example of the circle. I mean, I always think of my children coming home from the kindergarten with that circle and a piece of paper, right? And they tell you this is a circle. They recognize it, huh? But they can't define it. You see? That's common, huh? There used to be an old saying there that every Chinaman looks the same. But vice versa, we look all the same to them, right? You know? So you don't know a particular race of people very much. They all look the same, more or less, and you can't tell them about it, right? But they are as distinct to each other as we are to each other, right? Maybe Father Francis will tell. He can tell the difference between the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, probably the slant in their eyes. Yeah. And I am completely lost. To me, they are all the Orioles look like. Yeah. Yeah. I'll see somebody in a church on Sunday with a little girl, a very cute little girl. She's a little... I know if she's Chinese or Japanese, you know. If she's adopted, I can tell that. You know, her mother is not Oriental, but I don't know if she's Chinese or Japanese or Korean or what she is, you know. Sweet, lovely. Okay. So you see the three kinds of examples then, right? So on the exam, I tell the students, I might ask you, what are the three kinds of examples that he uses to show this? You've got to identify the kind of example, but also be able to give examples underneath that kind, right? Okay. But again, Aristotle is very briefly here. You could go on getting as many examples as you want to get under each kind, right? Any questions then about that? Now, what's India needs to point out, he begins with the sensible whole because that's where our knowledge begins with the senses. Then he goes to the understandable, right? Composed whole, which is less known to us. He ends up with this more general sensible, because that's very much like what he's ultimately interested in. He's leading up to the idea, we should therefore know natural things in general before in particular, right? You ever hear this? It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Superman! You ever hear that? See? Now, no, when the person says, it's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's Superman. What are they seeing? Are they seeing Superman at first? No. They're seeing something flying or going through the sky, but whether it's a bird or an airplane, their hesitation there shows that they don't yet know distinctly what it is going through the sky. Can you see that? Yeah, and that's an example of the more general sensible in distance or in place, right? As opposed to in time, but it's similar. Would that be sensible, but it's really something in your imagination that is being developed? Well, I mean, we're talking about the senses there, we're talking about when I see it up in the sky going through, you know, sometimes I'm pretty sure it's up there in the sky sometimes, you know? Mm-hmm. You know, is it an airplane or something else, right? Yeah. You know, sometimes you kind of, you know, what is up there, right? See? So you're seeing it in a confused way, you know? You're not seeing it distinctly as a satellite or a plane or something else. I was thinking of examples like the sisters or something. My eyes are... Yeah, but again, I don't see the distinction, you know, between the two sisters, huh? Okay? I just see the family resemblance there. I don't know. So I'm not really seeing Judy Van Valkenburg, I'm seeing the Van Valkenburg maybe family in some way, but not her, indistinctly. I say that new teacher couldn't tell them apart, the poor woman. So they could switch, see? Or like the girls, they say, you know, switching their dates or something like that, right? If I had one or two dates with these girls, they can't tell them apart. See? Eventually they would be able to, right? But it takes time before they have that distinct knowledge, huh? Okay? Are you puzzling by that? I'm just trying to figure out what, it seems that it's not your eyes, really, that is getting anything more. It's more something in your... Well, no, I have to use my eyes to kind of study their faces more, see? Like I said, my wife, she grabs those two twins after Master, you know, stand her down, you know. You know, what's your name, what's your name? You know, and then, you know, you notice little things on their face that are different, right? You see? No marking, there's something that's a little different you'll see, right? But you would notice that I can't tell the part, I even, you know, grab them like that if you're first. You know? Yeah. You know, but they had, you know, different semesters, you know, I didn't really, you know, you know, you know, you don't have to know them that distinctly, so, you know. I know it's one of the two, but which one it is, I don't know. 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Imperfect in the way of knowing, huh? Now, what does this mean? Now the other side of the coin is that what is more known is less known to us, and that what is more known to us is less known. Now what does that mean? Well, let's give me a glass of red wine here, okay? And you say, no. Smell, purpose, taste it, okay. What do you have here, huh? Dry red wine. What kind? What grape? What grape? Carboné Sauvignon, huh? That's what you're sure about. It's a carboné Sauvignon, right? As I am, that's a dry red wine, right? One north or south of the bay? The more precise and distinct I try to be, right? The less sure I am, huh? It's more known to me that this is a dry red wine than it's a Carbonet Sauvignon. And it's more known to me that it's a Carbonet Sauvignon, if it's known at all, than that it's one from Napa Valley or something in California, right? Okay. But is the beverage there in the glass more known when it's known to be a dry red wine or when it's known to be Carbonet Sauvignon? Well, it's more fully or perfectly known when it's known to be Carbonet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, from the Sauvignon and so on, right? But it's less known to me. You see the idea? See? That's what he's saying here, right? Now, I guess I'm going to apply that then to Confused and Distinct, right? But in the Nicomachean Ethics, he applies it to our knowledge of cause and effect, right? Okay. Which is more known to us, huh? Day and night or the cause of day and night? Yeah. And we agree with the ancients that there's day and night. We agree about the effect, but we disagree about the cause, maybe, huh? We think that the Earth turns on its axis, and they may have thought that the sun goes around the Earth, right? Okay. Historians might agree that the French Revolution took place, right? But disagree as to the cause of it, right? So the effect is more known to us than the cause, and a sign of that is a disagreement more about the cause than about the effect, right? Okay. But when is an effect fully or completely known? When is an effect completely or fully understood? When the cause is known. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But we know more, right, the effect by itself than we know the effect in the light of its cause. There's all kinds of things that we don't know the cause at all, right? Okay. So we know the effect more by itself than in the light of its cause. But where is it fully known? Only in the light of its cause. Do you see that? So, if you see by induction, like from these three kinds of examples, that we in fact know things more in a confused way than distinctly, right? Or you see by induction that we know usually the effect before the cause and often earlier than the cause, right? You can see kind of inductively there the truth of what Aristotle is saying here, right? Because obviously the effect is fully known, completely known, perfectly known, right? You see, more fully known or more perfectly known. The effect is more fully known when it's known in the light of its cause, right? But we know the effect more by itself, right? And we're often uncertain and disagreeing about the cause, you see? Or something is known fully and completely, perfectly, when it's known distinctly, right? But we know it more in a what? Confused way, right? So what is more known to us? What we're more sure about? I'm more sure I'm drinking dry red wine than I'm drinking carbonate sauvignon, right? I'm more sure I'm drinking carbonate sauvignon that it's from Napa the Allian. Okay? Do you see that? So what is more known to me, and therefore more certain, right, is actually what is less known to me. Okay? To know something in a confused way is to still be somewhat in the dark, isn't it? As you go from the confused towards the distinct, it's like going from darkness towards light, huh? In the same way you go from the effect to the cause, you're being illuminated, right? But we know things in a dark way, right? More than clearly in the light, huh? Okay? You see a little bit of what he's saying there, huh? Now, what is the basic reason why you can go back and do a reason for this too, right? Okay? And Thomas touches upon the reason, just how it is in the Ninth Book of Wisdom, huh? It goes back to the very nature of our life. Our senses and our reason, that they are, our senses and our reason are able to know before they actually know, right? So you go from being able to know to actually knowing something. You go from ignorance to complete or perfect knowledge all at once, or you go to the intermediary step where something is incompletely, imperfectly known. Our style compares the human mind in the beginning to a piece of paper which nothing is written. And you start to take notes or something, the paper doesn't fill up all at once, but gradually, right? Okay? If you're filling your glass with beer or something, right? You don't go from empty to full at once, right? But to partially full, right? Before it's really full, right? So for man, in both his senses and his reason, you go from ignorance to imperfect knowledge towards perfect knowledge, right? So imperfect knowledge naturally comes for us before, what? Perfect knowledge. And what corresponds to imperfect knowledge is the imperfectly known. What corresponds to perfect knowledge is what is completely or fully or perfectly known. Okay? You see that? Now, to some extent, that's true of every kind of education. Something analogous or proportional to that. Because in any kind of education, you are developing something, right? And therefore, you're going from the imperfect towards the perfect, right? So in any kind of education, what is imperfect comes before what is what? Perfect. Take, for example, physical education, right? When I was in Canada, we used to get the 5BX plan, Royal Canadian Air Force, huh? A little exercise book, right? Now, what you see in these books is you have a, what, series of, what, exercises and they're gradated, right? Okay? Now, the exercises that you can perform at first, are they as productive of strength as when you perform later on? No. Maybe at the beginning, you're doing 5 push-ups, right? Okay? Maybe at the top of the chart, you're doing 50 push-ups, right? Okay? Now, is doing 5 push-ups as productive of strength as doing 50? No. But for me, in the beginning, to do 50 would be, what, impossible, right? I might even physically, what, harm myself, right? See? I have to build up to that, gradually, right? So, doing 5 push-ups is more productive of strength for me than doing 50, right? But doing 50 push-ups is more productive of strength than doing 5. You see? So, what is more productive of strength for me is less productive of strength, right? Because I'm starting out with something perfect and building up to something more perfect, right? Do you see how it's analogous to this? In the same way, in the education of taste, which is going to strike the imagination of the child more? Little Red Riding Hood or King Lear by William Shakespeare? Yeah. The fairy tale is going to strike his imagination, right? But is there as much for the imagination in the fairy tale as he is in Shakespeare? Well, eventually, you exhaust, right? The fairy tale, right? But people are never, what, exhaust Shakespeare as far as imagination is concerned. Okay? So, Shakespeare's plays are more imaginable than the fairy tale. But the fairy tale in the beginning is more imaginable for us. You see? Because your imagination has to, what, develop, right? The child might appreciate, what, the plain food, the hot dog or something, right? More than that Marchandre wine sauce, right? But there's more to taste than that, right? When I was a little boy, I thought my father was a very foolish man. He did not fill the refrigerator with soda pop, huh? You know? Now, with his money, he could have orange and grape and root beer and all the rest of it. Soda pops. And he could drink soda pop all day long. And, you know? But now, the first time somebody tries to... The dry red wine, they probably go, ugh, this is bitter, you know? That's what they call dry rather than bitter. But is there as much to taste in that soda pop as using the dry red wine and the Cabernet? You know, the dry red wine, you want, you know, to be refrigerated, huh? Because you won't be able to taste it, right? But if you let Coke come down to more like room temperature or solid temperature, well, you spit it out, there's no taste to it, right? You see? So notice the sense of taste there. What is more tasty, more tasteable, is less tasteable by us at first, huh? What is more tasty is less tasty to us, right? It's only graduate the child's sense of taste develops, huh? Now, it's the same thing true about music, huh? When I was a little boy, I was always trying to find a march on the air, radio. Turned the dial to find a march. We grew up against the 36th, the Second World War, huh? Because I want to hear a march, huh? I still like marches, but I don't think there's as much to hear in a march as there is in a Mozart symphony or a Mozart, what? The Magic Flute or something, right? Okay? There's more in the air, more to be heard, you see? But it's less heard by me, right? Everybody loves a parade, right? Yeah. Now everybody loves opera, or musa opera. As Virginia Woolf said there about seeing performance of, hearing performance of, I don't know if you figure out, it's a vindication of opera. Well, sorry. But, I remember my brothers bringing home the Magic Flute, you know, and I was, I'm a docile person, you know, and I listened to the whole Magic Flute, but I don't even think I heard anything. But as I kept hearing Mozart more, I realized more and more I'm to be heard here, right? That's very interesting, huh? Now I play Mozart almost exclusively, you know? There's much to be heard in Mozart. But at first I couldn't hear it, do you see? So the education of taste, the child might like the little drawing in his little book, you know, more than the great painting in the museum. But the great painting in the museum, you can go back and look at it again and again and again, right? See more in it, huh? So the education of taste, whether it be the tongue and food or the eye in painting or the ear in music, what is more tasteable is less tasteable to us in the beginning, right? Now it's the same thing true about the education of love. What is more love by us in the beginning, huh? Well, it's a sensible good, right? Rather than the understandable good, right? Spiritual good, huh? Which is more love by us in the beginning? Private good or the common good, huh? See? Well, in the beginning, the private good is more lovable by us than the common good. The sensible good, right, is more lovable by us than the understandable or spiritual good, huh? And so the education consists of leaving people from those things, right, which are more lovable to them to the things which are more lovable, the things which are better, more good, huh? Well, after the Second World War, when Eisenhower was still in Berlin, he'd have meetings with the Russian General Zhukov, right? And they'd talk about the American way of life and the Russian, you know? And Zhukov would say to Eisenhower, you know, Ah, you guys, you know, you work for your own profit, you know, huh? Over in Russia, we expect people to work for the common good of the economic good of the country. Isn't it much more noble than working for your own profit? Eisenhower said he didn't know how to answer that exactly. Well, you can't answer it by saying that the private good is better than the common good. Obviously, the economic common good of the country is a greater thing than the private good that you're profit, right? But the point is you have to be led from what is more, what? Loved by you, maybe the private good, to the common good, right? When you come back, the Russians were doing that too, right? Because they were giving the award of Lenin, you know, people who produced a lot, and people who squandered things, they were punishing by death and so on. So, in fact, they were appealing to the private good and the private evil people to get them to pursue the economic good. common good, but we just do it better. The profit is better than this way that they have them doing it, you see. I mean, so propriety would have been not to say that, or to deny that the common economic good of the country is a greater good than the profit of this man, right? But you've got to be led from your private good to the common good, huh? See the connection between the two, huh? I see that sometimes in businessmen, right, my businessman might go and become, you know, remember the Chamber of Commerce, right? And he might do things for the business community as a whole, or even things for the good of the city, right? And this makes him, what, more known in the city, right? He helps his own company and business, right? And becomes a respected businessman, right? But after a while, you see these men, they get to get a certain love of, what, the good of the city apart from their own benefit, right? And even after they're retired sometimes in their company and they're not, you know, directly related to that at all, they still try to do things to the city, right? So they've been educated, right? They've been led from the private good to the common good, huh? In the form of, you know, the act of contrition tonight, when I was a child, right? I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because of the family by God. It goes from your private good, right? Private evil, to what? The common good, which is God himself, right? See? But you have to be led from what is more lovable to us in the beginning to what is really more, what? Lovable, right? You heard the, the, like there, St. Rose of Lima, right? Young man came interested in her, because she's a looking woman, apparently, St. Rose of Lima, right? But it was dangerous to tell her, she's good looking, because she'd go up and just figure herself, you know? But anyway, the young man was attracted first, you might say, to the outside of St. Rose of Lima, right? Okay. Is this what was most lovable? Huh? In St. Rose of Lima? No. It's the inward things that are more lovable in her. But the outward things are more lovable by us in the beginning, right? But then as he got to know Rose of Lima, he became like, you know, his spiritual director in a sense, right? His spiritual guide, right? So he became holy, right? In his own right, huh? But he was first attracted to the, what? The outward beauty of St. Rose of Lima, huh? I think you find that sometimes, huh? You know, they always, of course, remark about Socrates, right? Socrates has a reputation of being the ugliest man in Athens. And you read the symposium there, you know, and they'll survive these prisons, right? On the outside, he's an ugly man, right? On the inside, there's this, you know, virtue and wisdom and so on, right? So he's kind of transformed into the handsomest man in Athens, huh? But the outside is nothing, right? But I think some of these stories, like Beauty and the Beast and so on, right, where you have to, in a sense, you know, put it in Italy before you can know them. They're outward beauty, right? Kind of lesson there, right? See? Because we're normally attracted to the outside at first, right? And then when you graduate, you see something else that's more lovable. And Belmont is a lady, richly left, right? No, she's talking about her, she's wealthy, right? And she is fair. And fairer than that fair of wondrous virtue, right? See? Was she most lovable for her wealth? No, we mentioned that first, right? Then her, what, bodily beauty, right? And then last, her virtue, right? No. And Belmont is a lady, richly left. And she is fair. And fairer than that fair of wondrous virtue, right? But notice that it's built up there, right? But fairer than that fair, right? The beauty of the soul is more than the beauty of the body, right? But the beauty of the body is loved by us before, right? So in the symposium, the ascent, you know, in beauty starts out from what? The love of a beautiful body, right? To the love of all beautiful bodies, right? Then you get up to the love of the, what? A virtue in the soul and so on, right? I'll get to that. The beauty of itself is God. Okay? So what is more loved by us, at first, is less lovable. What's more lovable to us, is less lovable. And what is more lovable, is less lovable to us, in the beginning of these, right? Okay? So you have an education of love, an education of the heart, and an education of taste. And what is more lovable to us, is more lovable to us. And what is more lovable to us, is more lovable to us. And what is more lovable to us, is more lovable to us. And what is more lovable to us, is more lovable to us. right? And in the education of taste, in all the senses of taste, in the education of the body, physical education, in all of these you're going from the imperfect towards perfect, right? So what comes before for us is always something imperfect, huh? Okay? So what is more knowable to us is less knowable. God is the most knowable thing there is. He's the most actual thing there is. But he's least knowable to us, right? So this is the reason then that Aristotle gives why we know things in a confused way before we know them distinctly. Because what is more known to us is less, what? Known. And what is less known to us is the more known, right? Or you could stay with the other word, knowable. What is more knowable by us is less knowable. And what is less knowable by us is more knowable. See what people write on the doctoral thesis on that, right? Well, it's a very, very profound thing that he has there. The first sentence already says that the road is inborn. Yeah, it's a natural road, huh? Natural, yeah. We've talked in here before about the natural first road, right? I'm going to give you, I think of it next time, kind of a summary of the natural road, huh? Because this idea of the confused before the distinct is one aspect of the natural road, right? And the one he's emphasizing right here. But kind of give you kind of a complete picture of the natural road, huh? I'll give you something next time. Okay. Now, at this point, huh? I'm going to give you something here. I'm confused and distinct here. Got some more time here. Let's pass these around here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't need no one of these two didn't you know from last time you said? You need ten copies, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Now, we're going to make kind of an excursion here, right? Okay. Aristotle comes at the end of the so-called golden age of Greek philosophy. And the golden age of Greek philosophy begins around 600 B.C. And it comes to an end with the death of Aristotle in 322 B.C. Okay? And you see what he said here about the confused and the distinct, right? That the confused is more known to us and therefore we're more sure or more certain about it, huh? Now, Descartes, who is sometimes called the father of modern philosophy, Descartes' dates are roughly, what, 1596 to 1650, right? So roughly the first half of the 17th century. But Descartes is often called the father of modern philosophy. And in his, one of the most famous works, The Discourse of Method, he seems to be saying just the opposite of what Aristotle said. Okay? And this is a very striking dichotomy, right? And in this Discourse of Method, Descartes gives a number of rules. He's going to forget about logic and that's too messy, you know? But he's going to go down to four little rules that he gives there. And he says, the first of these was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so. That is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation, prejudice, and judgments. And to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it, huh? Okay? Well, there Descartes seems to be saying that the distinct is more, what? More known to us, right? We're more sure of that, right? So Descartes, in a way, is identifying certitude with clarity and distinction. And Aristotle is doing just reverse, right? He's identifying certitude more with the confused or indistinguished.