Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
Lecture 43: Matter, Form, and Privation: Distinguishing Three Principles of Change

Transcript
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understand what the universal is, and therefore they try to turn it into something you can imagine, right? Which is a class of people, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, you said Heisenberg sees the distinction that every element isn't in every other element. Some of the other moderns don't see that? Well, I'm saying their common way of speaking, you know, among the elementary students, students of elementary particles, I just decided, was that every elementary particle is composed to all the rest, right? See? And by that, do they mean potentially? Well, I know what you say composed of, you're making it actual. Maybe pin them down, you know, well, maybe it's not exactly that way, but, you know, they'd see the difficulty, I think, sooner or later, right? But it'd be the same difficulty that Hank Segrist is in. It's like when I was a child, you know, you get these birthday cards, and the picture on the birthday card is a picture of a postman coming with a birthday card. You know what he's bringing to the house? There's a picture of a post, you remember those ones? Yeah. Well, you know, if you went on doing that, right, you'd be getting postman and, what, cards smaller and smaller and smaller, right? Yeah. You know, eventually they think I see, technically, they break down, right? They don't go on, they get forever on the Christmas or birthday card, they say, she'll be better. It'd be okay if electrons or protons could come in just any size, right? But experimentally, right, all protons are the same in size and per mass or charge and so on. It's 2,000 times the size of an electron. Like that, yeah. But the point here is that they have a definite size, right? Yeah. That was really, really struck me today, that, just thinking of that. Yeah. The atomic weights are based on the number of protons, right? The atomic number. I think it is. Yeah. That was good, too, and the cause of difficulty. If it's easier for me to do it, it may not be less meritorious. That was good. Yeah. We can do things for God. I love God. That's easy for us. Yeah. More meritorious. Because we're seeing for more love than God, right? Yeah. If this is easier for me to do than for you to do it, it's not to say less meritorious. If it's easier for me to do it because I love God more, then it's better. Yeah. Just thinking of the way I love God. I mean, I can see the truth about it. You can see real easy, but I just never thought that through. I guess. Once again, the difficulty came up in the morning, you know? Getting dressed and so on. You know, they put your pants in a way, you can jump on the bed and shoot it in the pants. Oh, that's a silly thing, you know? I mean, some of you find little things very difficult to do. But if I get you breakfast, that's not as meritorious as laying down my life for you, or difficult to lay down your life, right? Right, okay. But if the man who lays down his life for you, it's easier for him to lay down his life for you than for someone else to get you breakfast. Does the man who gets you breakfast get more merit, see? No, because the man who lays down his life finds it easier than the man because he loves you more, right? I mean, with these babies around, you know, I mean, my wife is often helping out changing diapers, but I try to avoid it as much as possible. I mean, you're back in the groove, you know, and the kids are, the nine-round kids, I mean, you know, but now there's enough around. I get to get my daughter or my wife or my son-in-law to change the diaper or my son Marcus or something. I babysat for the neighbors for years, and that's going on, I always say. Son, Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, help us to understand you. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Just a footnote about what we were talking about last time, Heisenberg, right? Now, in the very beginning here, he says, This solution of the problem of the smallest units of matter is somewhat surprising and paradoxical. It leads to another question which needs careful consideration. In earlier times, the atoms of the chemists or the atomic nuclei were pictured as compound systems, consisting of many elementary particles, while the electron or the proton are taken as indivisible units, and therefore elementary. In the present situation on the study of elementary particles, such a distinction would be artificial. It would, in fact, scarcely be possible to find any good definition which could distinguish an elementary particle from a compound system. Now, he gives some extrusive examples here. A pion, in case you don't know what a pion is, for example, could be considered as a system consisting of one or several pairs of nucleon and antinucleon. The nucleon could be built from the lambda hyperon and the kappa nisan. The photon from the muon and the antinuon, etc. The well-known formula, he says, and he's got in quotes, Every elementary particle consists of all other elementary particles. End of quote. Seems to be a good description, right? Of the paradoxical situation with which we are confronting the experiments. Just like Yannick Segui is speaking, right? And he comes back again, you know, the place in the book here, like he's talking about the mathematical difficulties. The mathematical difficulties which one encounters in the attempt to find solutions of a problem in quantum field theory are very much greater than in quantum mechanics. They arise primarily from the degree of complication, which is an immediate consequence of the experimental fact that, using the well-known paradoxical phrase, again, he has in quotes, every elementary particle consists of all, what? Other elementary particles, huh? Okay. Well, in the Gifford lectures there, he's talking about the experiments of the high-energy particles, right? At that time, he's writing here, of course, it's changed since then, but there are 25 different new elementary particles, right? Okay. These results seem at first sight to lead away from the idea of the unity of matter, because you have all these multiplications of elementary particles. since the number of fundamental units of matter seems to have again increased to values comparable to the number of different chemical elements. But this would not be a proper interpretation. The experiments have at the same time shown that the particles can be created from other particles, or simply from the kinetic energy of such particles. And they can, again, disintegrate into other particles. Actually, the experiments have shown the complete mutability of matter. What does that mean? There's no form of matter that is, what? Unchangeable. Yeah. All the elementary particles can, at sufficiently high energies, right, be transmuted into other particles. Or they can simply be created from kinetic energy and can be annihilated into energy. Therefore, we have here actually the final proof of the unity of matter. All the elementary particles are made of the same substance, which we may call energy or universal matter. They're just different forms of which matter can, what, appear. If we compare the situation with the Aristotelian concepts of matter and form, we can see that the matter of Aristotle, which is mere potencia, right, should be compared to our concept of energy, which gets into actuality by means of the form. When the elementary product was created. I think you've got to be careful about that comparison between energy and Aristotle's matter, because, as he says in the lecture on the First Philosophers, our energy is like, what, the fire of Heraclitus, which is both the mover and the matter, right? So, I mean, you have that double aspect there, right? And, of course, secondly, because it's the mathematical science of nature, and in mathematics there's no matter, and therefore no motion, in a way you're just shattering these things, right? So you've got to be very careful about that comparison, right? But, in terms of what he says there, right? Now, in his lecture on the Language and Reality, he's talking about the tips of Weizsacher, you know, to have a new logic, you know, where you give up the pencil of contradictions, and so on, but he doesn't really go along with that himself, huh? He's talking about the definition of state there. One sees at once that this use of the word state, especially the term co-existent state, is so different from the usual materialistic ontology that one may doubt whether one is using a convenient terminology. On the other hand, if one considers the word state as describing some potentiality, right, rather than a reality, meaning an actuality, right, one may even simply replace the term state by the term potentiality. Then the concept of co-existent potentialities is quite plausible, right, since one potentiality may involve or overlap other potentialities. So, a lot of interesting things that Heisenberg has to say, huh? Okay? Now, in every change, in every becoming, three things are found, huh? Matter, form, and what? Lack of form, right? So, in order to understand change or becoming distinctly, we have to distinguish those three. And that means to distinguish each one from the other, what? Two. Now, the distinction, though, of matter and, excuse me, of form and lack of form is altogether, what? Evident, yeah. Because the basis of distinction is really, what? Opposition, right? And so, obviously, form and the lack of form are not the same thing. But sometimes people confuse matter with what form, right? Act with what? Ability, huh? And that's why I looked at the position of Anaxagris on matter in detail, right? Because it helps us to distinguish between matter and form and, in a way, between ability and act. And Anaxagris gets into difficulties because he falsely imagines, right, everything that is in the potentiality of matter to be actually in there, right? As I was saying with this well-known formula, it's just kind of natural for a man to want to speak that way or try to speak that way, right? To think that what comes out of something must be actually in there. But it may only be in there in some cases, many cases, most cases, only in what? Ability, huh? And potentiality. Okay, now we want to look at the distinction, though, between matter and what? Lack of form, right? Which the Platonists and others tend to, what? Confuse, huh? This is very important for many other reasons, too, as we'll see as we start to go through the 15th reading here in the first book. Okay, let's look at the text here now, if you have it in front of you. 15th reading. Parmenides, some others, he doesn't mention the Platonists by name, but as he has a mind. Some others have touched upon the same, meaning upon matter and so on, but not sufficiently. For they agree that something comes to be simply from what is not, insofar as they think you might say that Parmenides spoke rightly. Okay, now, let's go back to Parmenides, huh? Parmenides said that if what is comes to be, right, must come to be from what is or from what is not. Okay? If what is, huh? Comes to be or what is did come to be or had come to be. It would have to come to be from what is or what is not. That seems reasonable. Okay. Okay? Now, he says, how can what is come to be from what is? It would be before it came to be. Which is laughable, right? Okay? And how can you get what is and what is not? Because then you'd be getting something out of what? Nothing. So what is does not what? Come to be, right? Okay? But we know that things do come to be, right? So the Platonist says, well, it's got to be one of these two, right? And obviously it can't come to be from what is, so it's got to come to be from what is or is not, right? Okay? There's some truth to that, right? What is a sphere comes to be from what is not a sphere, right? Okay? But the artist, I'll say, there's a distinction there between that non-being and that, what? Matter which is able to become something, huh? Okay? Then it seems to be the same to them that if something is one in number, it is also only one in ability. We'll go back to our simple example, right? The soft butter is put in the refrigerator, and so the butter becomes hard, right? And the soft becomes hard, right? But is the soft really able to be hard? No. It's the butter that's able to be hard, right? So even though we're not talking about two different things becoming hard, the butter and the soft, right? Yet the ability of butter and the soft is not the same thing, is it? Okay? Now, in the second paragraph, Aristotle is pointing out how different is his own thinking from this. But this differs much, he says, huh? For we, and now this is the editorial way, huh? For we, Aristotle, right, say that matter and lack, meaning lack of form, are other, right? We say you should distinguish between the matter and the lack of the form, huh? And now he points out two differences, huh? And one of these is none being by happening, the matter, but the lack to itself, or the lack as such. What does that mean? The matter happens to be not hard. But the soft is itself not hard, right? Well, the lack of hardness, right? Is as such, right? To itself, you can use either phrase in English, right? To itself, or as such. The lack of, what? Hardness, as such is none being of hardness, right? But the butter, let's say, right, is not as such the lack of hardness, is it? Although it could happen to lack hardness, right? Just like if I said, you know, ignorance as such is the, what, non-being of knowledge, right? Is the mind as such the non-being of knowledge? Although the mind could happen not to know something, right? In fact, very often our mind happens not to know something, right? But to be a mind is that, as such, to not know something? But to not know is something that happens to the mind before it learns, right? But ignorance as such is what? Without knowledge, right? Do you see that? Ignorance through itself, what does that mean? Ignorance through being ignorance is an un-being of knowledge, right? But the mind as such, the mind as mind, the mind through itself, the mind through being a mind, does it not have knowledge? Through being a mind? To be a mind as such is to not have knowledge? Do you see the difference? To be empty as such is not to be what? Oh, yeah, yeah. Now, my glass could happen to be empty, right? But is my glass as such empty? No. That's something that happens to it, right? Okay. So to be a glass, it could be empty. Are they the same thing? No. You see? Okay. Now, notice here, you're touching upon the distinction between the as such, right? And the accidental, right? Which touches upon also the first kind of fallacy outside of language, huh? The fallacy of the accidental, which is the first fallacy Aristotle takes up outside of language, and which he says is so difficult that it deceives even the, what? Wise, huh? Okay. Now, he puts out a second difference. And the one is near, and a substance in some way, the matter. You see, the matter in some way is substance. It is a substance in ability, right? So in that sense, it's near, right? But the other is in no way, what? A substance, huh? Okay. Just like if I was to say, you know, the mind is near to knowing. The mind in some way is knowing, huh? The mind is knowing at least in ability, right? The mind is able to know. But ignorance is in no way, what? Knowing, right? Huh? It's not close to knowing. Okay? Do you see the two differences he points out then? Huh? He's saying lack of form as such, or through itself, right, is a, what? Non-being, right? The non-being of something. But matter as such, or through being matter, is not the non-being of something. Although it could happen to not have some form, right? Okay? Although you have this, he has a sentence, and one of these is non-being by happening, the matter, meaning... Yeah, the matter, it could happen to matter not to have a form, right? All right, so that non-being there refers to a form, but... Yeah, yeah, but it's by happening that it's not this, right? All right, so in the instance of the butter being hard, I think, so... That matter has a non-being in regards to that hardness, which is a... Yeah, yeah, it could happen to butter to lack hardness, right? Right? To not have hardness, right? But is butter as such lacking in hardness? No. No. Is butter, through being butter, lacking in hardness? No. No. But the lack of hardness as such is the non-existence of hardness, right? Okay? Because that, in another way, you're saying that, then, would be that it's a separation of that matter from its accident there. Something accidental to it, yeah. Right. Yeah. So it can happen to matter, but it doesn't belong to matter as matter, right? It doesn't belong to matter through being matter, right? Okay? Now, I think I need a little comparison there to help you there. With the mind, right? I would say the mind can happen to not have some, what? Knowledge, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? There can not be knowledge of the mind, right? Mm-hmm. But is the mind as such, to being a mind, not knowing? No. No. And the second thing we would say, the mind, in a way, is near to knowing, isn't it? Mm-hmm. See? If you have a mind, you are at least able to know, right? Yeah. Okay? You don't necessarily know, but you don't necessarily know, but, okay? So in some way, to have a mind is to know, to know an ability, right? Yeah. But to be ignorant, but to be ignorant, but to be ignorant, is that in some way to know? No. Because if you know your ignorance, even, that knowing is not an ignorance, is it? But ignorance itself, right? In no way, can be knowing, right? Right. Okay? Ignorance as such, ignorance through being ignorance, is the non-being of knowledge, right? Mm-hmm. The mind as such, as mind, or through being of mind, is not the non-existence of knowledge, is it? No. In some way, it almost is knowing, right? It's knowing an ability. It's close to it, right? In some way, it is, right? So you're making that same distinction in regard to matter and lack of form, right? Talking about the first matter again, right? That the first matter, as such, is not the non-being of form, see? So that's why Aristotle says you should identify matter with lack of form. The one, as such, is a non-being, right? The other, as such, is not a non-being, it's being in potency, being in ability. And the one is, what, almost a substance, in some way it is, right? Substance and ability, but the other is in no way a substance. Okay? And I can say something similar there, as I said, about the mind, right? I can say you shouldn't identify the mind with its ignorance. Although to the ignorant, to not know can happen to the mind, right? It doesn't belong to the mind as such to not know. You'd be in a bad shape if that were so, right? To have a mind as such as to not know. As long as I have a mind, I never know. Right? See? So it's something that happens to my mind to not know, right? But does it happen to ignorance that it lacks knowledge? It doesn't have knowledge? No. That's what it is, as such, right? So in a way, if you confuse the two, you're making the fallacy of the accidental, aren't you? Now, yeah. Could we backtrack to the first paragraph again, would you mind? The first one or the... First paragraph? Yeah. It says, now, permitting his basic thing ended up to be no change, because he couldn't, he couldn't... You have the two options, but then both of them were absurd, right? Yeah. Now, what does it mean here when it says, it seems like he says in the second sentence that the second one is okay. It says, for they agree that something comes to be simply from what is not, which would be the second, which would contradict Parmenides, right? Yeah. In other words, Plato, like Schock Holmes, right? Schock Holmes says, when all the possibilities but one have been eliminated, the one that remains, however strange it is, must be the one, right? See? Well, in a sense, to him, it looks more absurd to say that what is comes to be for what is, because then he would already, what? Be. Be, right? Right. And it makes more sense to say, sphere comes to be from what is not a sphere. Okay. It's really a change there, right? Uh-huh. But how could sphere come to be from sphere? How could Dwayne Berkowitz come to be from Dwayne Berkowitz? Yeah. So he would be before he came to be, right? Mm-hmm. So this seems to be the worst alternative, in a sense. Okay. More absurd, right? So this is what he takes... He being Plato. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What does he say in as much as Parmenides spoke rightly? Well, he thinks that Parmenides is speaking rightly, right? In giving this alternative, right? And actually Parmenides is leaving out the third possibility, right? That it comes to be from what is only and what? Because Parmenides is directed both, right? Yeah. So Plato would disagree with them by accepting... He's kind of taking the either or, though. It's got to be one or the other, right? So if you say that we know that things do come to be, right, then it's got to be one of these two. Yeah. And this is more reasonable than that, right? Okay. Therefore. And Aristotle is saying, well, you know, if we discuss this Parmenides, you point out, there's something besides these two, right? Okay. Doesn't the first one violate the principle of contradiction and the second one doesn't? Is that true? What is cannot be from what is? Well, yeah. The theory here is that if what is came to be from what is, then you would be what? Contradict. Then you say that something would already be before it came to be, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So it makes more sense to say that before something comes to be, it isn't, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. But the fact that it isn't, huh, is not what enables it to come to be. But there's something which is, what? Able to be, right? It comes to be, right? It's made actual. But what is not, the non-being is not made actual. See? Just like my mind. My mind comes to know something, right? Before it comes to know, it's able to know, right? But ignorance, right? Even though I'm ignorant before I come to know, is ignorance able to know? Like Shakespeare says, dull, barren, unfeeling ignorance. But he calls ignorance barren, right? It doesn't have any ability to produce anything, right? Mm-hmm. If I know the length and the width of this table, but I haven't multiplied them yet, right? I don't actually know the table, do I, right? The area of the table. But I'm able to know it, right? Now, I'm ignorant of the area before I multiply those two. But do I come to know the area of the table through my ignorance of it? See? Come to know it through my knowledge of the length and the width, right? Okay? Likewise, my mind is ignorant of something before it comes to know it, right? Does it come to know it through its ignorance? No. Well, it through its ability to know, right? Right. Yeah. But if you can't distinguish from ability and act, then you're going to try to end up, what? Infusing, right? Yeah. Ability with non-being, huh? Okay? In his last sentence in the paragraph, then it seems to be the same, that if something is one in number, it is also only one in ability. Yeah. So when I say that the... When I put the soft butter in the refrigerator, right? And I speak about what takes place. The soft becomes hard. Or I might say the butter becomes hard. I can say either one, right? Yeah. Am I talking about two things becoming hard? No. It's one in the same thing. So it's one in number, right? Oh, okay. See? Uh-huh, uh-huh. And then only one. But yet, to be soft and to be butter are not the same in what? Ability, right? Because butter is able to be hard. And soft, as such, right? Mm-hmm. Is not able to be hard, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah? So there's a real difference there between the two, huh? Yeah. Okay? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Good. Now, in that third paragraph, Plato sometimes would speak of these three things. He'd speak of form, and then on the side of matter, he would speak of the large and the small. Okay? So he had three things here, right? Just like Aristotelus three things, huh? Because Aristotelus has form, and then he has, what? Matter and lack of form. But are these three things the same as those three things? No. Because one of these is not matter and the other, what? Lack of form, right? So Aristotelus just pointing out that what Plato distinguishes these three is not making the same distinction that we made them. But Plato sees quantity on the side of matter, which makes no sense, though. It's kind of strange that Plato speaks there, because large and small are really, what? Galatians. They should make Galatians. The substance of something, huh? Okay? So some likewise make none being the large and the small, either together or each apart. So this kind of triad, this kind of three, is wholly other than that, huh? For they got this far that some nature should underlie. In other words, they see the distinction, in a way, between matter and, what, form, right? Okay? But they make this one, huh? And even if someone makes it dwelt, they're calling it the large and the small, nevertheless he does the same. For he overlooks the other. He doesn't really distinguish between matter and, what? Lack of form, huh? Okay? Now, Aristotelus is going to say Plato should distinguish between these two, or the Platonus should, huh? I see, this confusion runs down to the Platonus. If you look at Plotinus, say, right, but he's centuries later, right, he's got that same confusion, right? Okay? Of matter and lack. And lack of form, yeah. Yeah. Now, at this point, Aristotelus is going to start to force Plato and the Platonus to distinguish between matter and lack of form. But again, he's going to follow, in a way, the principle of Heraclitus, right? But those who speak with understanding must be, what? Strong in what is common to all, right? And therefore, we have to follow what is common and so on, huh? Aristotelus is going to take a common basis, shared by himself in Plato, a common basis, a common understanding of, what? Form. And it's extremely profound, this common understanding of form, huh? So, Plato and Aristotle, their common understanding of form. Now, what is this common understanding they have of form? Form is something godlike, good, and what? Desirable, right? Form is godlike, good, and desirable. Now, you see this, towards the end of this fourth paragraph. For there being something divine, meaning not of a divine nature, but godlike, that's what I translated a little differently there. Divine and good and desirable. That's meaning, reference to what? Form, right? So, Aristotelus is going to reason from this common understanding of form that he and Plato share, to say you must distinguish, then, between what? Matter and lack of form. From this he's going to reason, right? That matter and lack of form must be, what? Distinct, right? Okay? Let's look at this common basis, because it shows something very profound, and it's very good in Plato and Aristotle's understanding. Now, why would Plato and Aristotle think that form is something godlike, or why would this be reasonable to think of it as being godlike, huh? Since I could create form. Well, if we go back to the contrast, then. That we had in the previous reading, between form and matter, right? The act. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you study god and theology, you'll find out that god is pure act, okay? That's one of the main things we learn about god, that god is pure act. So form is a what? An act, right? Therefore it is what? Like God, who is pure act. Rather than matter, which at first sight doesn't seem to be like God, right? Because it's only, what? Able to be actual, right? But by itself it's not actual, right? So it doesn't seem to be like God, who is what? Pure act, right? Okay? That's a very profound thing there, right? That form is God-like. Now, why good and desirable, right? Well, one little term you could use there is you could see that the act of the thing is its, what? Perfection or its, what? Completion, right? The thing is actualized. And the perfection of a thing is its, what? Good and therefore, what? Desirable form. Okay? So form is something God-like, good, and, what? Desirable, right? It's God-like because it's an act, and God is pure act. So in some ways it's like God, and because act is the, what? Completion and the perfection of something. An ability is not, what? Completed or perfect until it's been actualized. And perfection of a thing is the good of that thing, right? Form is also something good. And if it's good, it's therefore something, what? Desirable. Now, if you compare matter now and lack of form to form as thus understood, in common, matter would seem to, what? Desire form, as he says, huh? Meaning that matter is, what? Order to form is its perfection. Just as ability is for the sake of, what? Some act, right? Okay? But lack of form would seem to be something, what? Bad. Bad, because it's opposed to form, isn't it? So if form is something good, then lack of form would seem to be something bad, right? But matter, being capable of form, right? Therefore being capable of the good, would seem to be good in some way too. Although in a secondary way, right? Okay? But he goes on to say, but if lack of form were to desire form, would it be desired its own good? Its own. Elimination, right? It's own destruction, right? Okay? Sometimes I like to put on the word, the two meanings of the word end, you know? My students are always confusing them. You know, the physical syllogism, happiness is the end of human life. The end of human life is death. Never happiness is death, right? You know? I told you one time, on the final exam, a student was arguing, you know, against the proposition that nature acts for an end, right? If nature acted for an end, all things would come to an end, but all things have not come to an end, therefore. And I had, and I cut your feet in one of the girl's papers this last semester there. When I take up the question whether nature acts for an end, I talk about the importance of this question, why it's so important for knowing natural philosophy for all of our life. And she was saying, well, if nature acted for an end, then it would all be about, you know, death, right? This would be very gloomy. Actually, if nature acted for an end, right? That man has no end. So they tend to confuse those two. But you could say that in one sense of the end, right, form is the end of matter, right? It's a purpose of matter. Just as the ability is for the sake of what? Of act, right? The ability to see is for the sake of seeing, right? The ability to be formed is for the sake of being formed. So matter, in a way, is for the sake of forming. But in another sense, form is the end of what? Lack of form. The elimination of it, right? Okay. So the way Erskalba has two ways here, maybe, of distinguishing between matter and lack of form in comparison to form, right? What is that matter desires for? Now that concrete way of speaking there, right, doesn't mean that matter has a will or that matter has, you know, even sense desire, right? Or even that it has the kind of desire that we speak of in a plant, right? Sometimes when you buy a plant, you know, they'll say to you it wants a lot of sunlight, right? Okay. But it means simply that matter is, what, ordered to form as it's, what, in, right? And sometimes we say that, too, that we're trying to put a screw on something that doesn't fit, right? Or in a hole it doesn't fit, huh? See, it doesn't, what, want it to go, right? It's not made for that, right? It doesn't fit that part, right? So in this sense, we speak of matter's desire to form, huh? Matter is ordered to form as it's, what, in, as it's perfection, right? Okay, it's fulfillment, right? Okay, okay. But, in a sense, using a reduction to observe it, it says, but if lack of form were to desire form, right, it would not be desiring its own good, but its own what? Structure, right? Okay. So how can matter and lack of form be the same thing if the one desires form while the other couldn't really desire form, huh? To make it a little more, I don't know what to say yet. If form is a perfection of matter, but the destruction of lack of form, right, how can matter and lack of form be the same thing? It's only the perfection of something is not the same thing as its destruction, is it, right? So form is the destruction or the elimination of lack of form, right? But the perfection of form, how can matter and lack of form be the same thing, right? Okay? So, and it doesn't form a reduction to deserve it. If lack of form were to desire form, it would desire its own destruction. But see, involved in that distinction there is the fact that that form is the perfection of matter, but the destruction of the nation of lack of form. So in a way, Aristotle is seeing that you must distinguish between matter and lack of form by comparing them to, what, a third thing, right? If you're shorter than me and he's taller than me, or vice versa, you two guys can't be the same thing, right? If one of you is taller than me, one of you is shorter than me, so if you compare matter and lack of form to form and you see that one is perfected by form, in that sense it can be said to desire form, right? In order to form, it's perfection. While the other is eliminated or destroyed, right? By form, right? So there could not be desired, there must be something different, right? Okay? I could also argue that lack of form is bad because it is opposed to form, right? But matter would seem to be something good because it's what? Kippable form, right? Matter is good because kippable form. The first sentence of that, staying under nature? Yeah, that's the matter, right? The staying under nature, the underlying matter in other words, is a cause with the form of what comes to be, and he's using a comparison that Plato makes in the what? In the tomatoes, right? That goes back to the comparison between mother and what? Matter, right? But the other part of the contrariety would seem to be the one applying his mind, to be harmful to the same and not to be at all. For there being something divine and good and desirable, namely form, one of them, we say, is contrary to this, namely the lack of form, right? And therefore bad. So, but the other part of the contrariety, that's the lack of form. Yeah. The other, however, the matter, however, is apt to desire and want this according to its nature, right? But to some it would happen that the contrary desires its own corruption, right? If you don't make a distinction, right? You're going to say it's desiring its non-being. You know, it's just silly. But surely the form is not such as itself to desire itself because it's not needy. Nor the contrary, for the contrary is correct each other. But this is the matter, right? Okay. Is this the woman, the man, and the ugly, the beautiful? I take an example there of the ugly and the beautiful. I say to students sometimes, do the ugly want to be beautiful? Of course, they first say, yeah, the ugly want to be beautiful, right? I say, just a minute now. Now, is ugliness and the body the same thing? See? Now, the body, you could say, wants to be beautiful, because to be beautiful is a perfection of the body, right? But does ugliness want beauty? It's not as perfection. No. It'd be as limited by that, right? See? So, though we can say that the ugly want to be beautiful, right? See? Is it, I was thinking per se, as such, to itself? No. No. It's not the ugly as such that want to be beautiful. It's the body as such that wants to be beautiful, okay? And if beauty is something good, right, then ugliness is something bad, right, huh? But the body being capable of beauty is, that's good, but not as good as being actually beautiful. In the same way, you could ask the student, you know, do the sick want to be healthy? Does the sick want to be healthy? Of course, yeah, yeah. But just a minute now, see? The sickness is going to be what? Eliminated, right? See? So if the sick wanted to be healthy, then they'd want their own elimination, right? So it's really the body as such that wants to be healthy. Healthy, health is a perfection of the body, but health is not a perfection of sickness. Not to please just the elimination of it. See the way he's arguing there? Right? In a sense, the distinction here of the as such, you know, the accidental. The as such and the by happening, right? The through itself and the through happening, you know, speak both ways in English, right? It was being made here, right? In a sense, in confusing matter with lack of form, he's confusing what as such wants form and what cannot as such, right? But notice, when you think of, when you try to think about matter in distinction from form, which Plato's trying to do, you think of matter in distinction from form, then you think almost naturally of matter as being something what? As formless, yeah. But to be matter and to be formless are not really the same, are they? See? Even though matter may be formless or may lack a particular form. Right. Now, there's a comparison here between Aristotle and what? And St. Augustine, right? Because if you confuse matter with lack of form, the lack of form is something bad, right? So if you don't separate or distinguish matter from lack of form, your tendency to think that matter is something bad, right? Okay? And you see that a little bit in Plato, huh? But you see it even more explicitly, say, in Poitonus, right? There's a famous neopiginus, right? Where matter is something bad. And of course, this became the, what? One of the pullers of, what? Manichaeism, right? As you know from the life of Augustine, he became a, what? Manichaean, right? Okay? But eventually, through his mother's prayers and the words of Ambrose, the Cicillonian words of Ambrose, he worked his way out of this, right? And then he wrote, maybe he works against the, what? Manichaean. And his most definitive work against the Manichaeans is called David Turaboni, Manichaeus, right? The nature of the good against the Manichaeans. But in that work, Augustine gives this argument against the Manichaeans. He says, matter being capable for them is something good. So he's giving, essentially, the argument that Aristotelic gives against Plato, right? He's giving that same argument against the Manichaeans, right? But in a sense, the Manichaeans have a similar, what? Mistake here, huh? And the Platonism they run together with, with Manichaeanism, and this thinking that matters something bad, right? Now, as far as we know, Augustine didn't have Aristotle's life. But we're reading here, right? But it gets categorized, but we don't know anything else he had. So, it seems that Augustine arrived, independently of Aristotle, at the same argument against the Manichaeans, or against the same error, really, as Aristotle did. It's kind of interesting to see these two great minds. Aristotle, perhaps, the greatest of the philosophers, and Augustine, perhaps, the greatest of the church fathers, right? They both, what? Come up with substantially the same argument against the same error, right? But as far as we can see, independently. But Thomas and Pontus had the advantage of being able to read both Aristotle and Augustine, right? So Thomas wrote the definitive work about Edo, huh? The question is just be taught to the about, right? But, you know, the famous time when Thomas was at the King of France's table there? And in the middle of the dinner, he just slammed the table and said, this is the Manichaeans. Then he realized he was at the, you know, table the king. Well, of course, the king was to say to himself, oh, he was the ninth, huh? So he said, quickly, someone get something right down to Thomas' table. But you'll keep thinking there, you know, well, for the Manichaeans, huh? But notice, Thomas had the advantage of both Augustine and Aristotle, right? Those two great minds are kind of independently arriving at the same argument against the same mistake. So this is very important for the Manichaean thing. The Dominicans, of course, were founded originally to fight the revival of Manichaean heresy in the south of France, the Almagensian heresy. St. Dominic was going through that area and he stopped one night at the inn. And he got talking to the innkeeper and he found out he was picked up the heresy, the Almagensian heresy. So he went to bed and get his rest. He stayed up all night talking with the man. By morning, he convinced him, you know, his errors. So the Dominican order was originally founded, right, to fight by words the Almagensian heresy by dispute. So the Dominicans go in and debate these guys. So you see a lot of that reflected in Thomas there in the Devalo and in the Summa Ante Gentiles and so on. This is very fundamental. Now, we mentioned a bit why Plato might confuse these two, right? It's because when you try to understand matter as something really distinct from form, you think of matter as something without form, don't you? And therefore, you think of matter as being formless. And then you tend to kind of identify matter with its formlessness or with its being formless. Um, you know,