De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 2: The Premium Structure and Excellence of Knowledge of the Soul

Transcript
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That is considered, most of all, the disposition of the body. So he orders those intermediary books, right? Because some of them are closer to the way of considering, right? That you have the dhyanima, where you're considering the soul kind of by itself, in a kind of separation. You can't make complete separation from the body, right? And therefore, the more immaterial powers, like sensation, seem to be closer, right? To the soul, right? Okay? And so he takes up those works on sense and sensation, and you remember this is next, sleep and waking up and so on. And then, the ones dealing with both emotions, because the senses are involved, as you'll see in the third book on the soul, in what? Moving from one place to another. In fact, only the animals that have the higher senses, like sight and hearing or smell, will move from one place to another, right? Because you have senses of knowing things at a distance, right? Why those forms of marine life that don't move from place to place, you only need, what? Touch and maybe taste, right? You see? Because their food comes right to them, right? Through the motion of the water, right? Just the crap, right? But the cat that has to pursue its mouse, right? He's got to have, you know, hearing and not catch a scratch on the belly, except come around right away. You've got to have the senses that enable them to pursue something at a distance. So he goes to the books on sensation and memory and innocence and so on, to the books on, what? Progression from one place to another, on the organs of progression. And they're going to be just a machine between walking, animals that walk, and ones that fly, and ones that slither, and all kinds of other ways that they have a movie, you know? You see these kind of little bugs, you know? Kind of cute. They hump themselves up like that, and then they spread themselves out again. You see those? Going across something, and then... So all those differences that Aristotle's interested in, right? And then after that would come the very particular books, you know? On the investigation of animals, these books on the parts of animals, where Aristotle did anatomy and so on, and these books on the generation of animals. Incidentally, in the book on the generation of animals, he says the human soul comes from without, doesn't come from the parents. He does that on the basis of what he learned about the human soul, in the three books about the soul. Kind of amazing, he saw that. So we're going to be concerned here with the Dianima, but I thought you might, you know, see a little bit, right? And in a way, another way of looking at this a little bit differently here, you could say, as you go from the eight books of natural theory to the four books about the universe, and then to the books on change, or sense of equality, substantial change, you're going down towards what? Matter, right? Okay? And then when you go from the three books on the soul, to the intermediary books, and down to the books on particular kinds of animals and plants, you're again going what? Towards matter, right? So it's like twice you go towards what? Matter. It is interesting, huh? That sometimes Aristotle will distinguish between nature and what? Soul. We'll see that a little bit in the Dianima itself. Again, the ninth book of metaphysics, he distinguishes between nature and soul. But sometimes he would consider the soul to be a, what? Nature. It's a beginning cause, right? Of motion, rest, right? Within, right? When he talked in the very beginning, when we're defining nature, if you recall, he took examples from growth, didn't he? So the soul, which is responsible for the growth of animals or plants them, comes under the definition of nature, right? So sometimes, he speaks of the soul as nature, sometimes he divides nature against soul, and especially to get to the higher soul, right? The human soul. And we've talked about that way of naming things, right? And it's kind of reflected in the use here of the term physical sciences for these sciences of the living, right? Because physical comes from what? Nature, right? So if you contrast the physical sciences to life sciences, right? You're contrasting nature with you with the soul, which is the principle of life in the living bodies. Now, why is it that the soul gets a, what? New name, right? And the things that don't have a soul, their nature keeps the name nature. Why does he have that contrast, right? Something added. Yeah, yeah. And, quote Shakespeare, right? Nature is not being able to be more than one thing. Nature is determined to one thing. But the soul, even the plant, it seems to be, what? Growth in, what? Opposite directions, right? And the higher you go in the soul, the more the soul seems to be open to opposites. And especially if you get to the rational soul, where we have the same knowledge of opposites. So that's interesting, huh? He does go from the, towards matter, twice, as if you put it all in one, what? Right? He's going from matter, as he goes from this, on the change in general, to change in place, and then he gets down to this inner change, he's getting more down to matter. And then, in the order we just saw, in the books of life, he's going towards matter. I remember when I was first talking to him on Sea of Beyond about the order and wisdom, you know, and Beyond's phrase was, towards the immaterial. Right? In wisdom, you go towards the immaterial. You start off with these common things that, like being, and one, and many, and so on, that can be found in the material world, right? But need not be found in the material world, right? And you go towards the immaterial substances that cannot be in the material world. So you're going towards, what? The immaterial. The less the material, to the more immaterial. Here, you're doing the reverse, right? You're going down towards, what? The material matter. But, the eight books of natural hearing, and the three books about the soul, have something in common that we've talked about before, that they both seem to, we depend only upon our common, what? Ordinary experience. When you get into, these other parts here, the, what we call the physical sciences today, right? When you get into these later, more particular books, right? After the three books of the soul, then, the further you go, the more you seem to require a private experience, huh? Okay? So the three books about the soul, and the eight books of the actual hearing, depend only upon common experience. But the books after that, right? More and more depend upon the, what? Private experience, right? Okay? And sometimes I like to contrast, in the way that, the, the Greeks there, in the, in the modern sound, because the Greeks, perhaps, thought they could get further, than you can get, on the basis of common experience, right? Okay? If, for example, Earth, air, fire, and water, if they were, in fact, the first forms of matter, right? Then you could arrive at some knowledge of the first forms of matter by common experience, right? But if the first forms of matter are something like hydrogen, oxygen, or proton, and neutron, electron, or quarks, if there are such things, common experience is not sufficient to arrive at the first forms of matter. Okay? Okay? Now, but if the mistake of the, of the Greeks, is to try to get further than you can get, on the basis of common experience, right? The mistake of the moderns is to reverse. You can't get anywhere on the basis of common experience. Okay? As if there's nothing you can understand, right? That's reliable, about the natural world, or about life for that matter, right? For which common experience is sufficient, right? Okay. So those are two different mistakes there. One is to think you can get further than you can get on the basis of common experience, right? And the other, that you can't get anywhere at all on the basis of common experience. How do you deal with the Greeks? How did they do that? How did they make the mistake of making... I said the Greeks tried to understand the natural world, not only on the basis of common experience, because Aristotle did anatomy and things of this thing. It was down here. And he knew that, huh? But the Greeks, it seems, in retrospect now, right? In hindsight, the Greeks thought you could get further on the basis of common experience than you can in fact, right? Okay. You mentioned the theory there of Empedocles, right? That the four roots of all things are earth, air, fire, and water, right? And that was the standard theory accepted by most thinkers for 2,000 years, right? Okay. See? And, you know, you find it still in Shakespeare, right? Shakespeare referred to earth, air, fire, and water as if, you know, take it for granted. That's what we're made out of. So for 2,000 years, that was the standard theory, right? Yeah. And they thought that earth, air, fire, and water were, in fact, the, what? The first forms of matter, huh? They have Boyle there in the 1600s, I guess. You know, the skeptical kibist? Where he's skeptical whether this is really the ultimate, the first forms of matter, right? Okay. And eventually it was something like the Voici, right? The Voici, right? The Voici, right? The Voici, right? The French Revolution. You went beyond water, right? To something more fundamental than water, right? Like hydrogen or oxygen, right? And then eventually something more fundamental than that, like proton, right? And neutron or electron. Maybe something beyond that. Who knows? But the point is, once you start to go beyond earth, air, fire, and water, you need some kind of private experience. You need some kind of an experiment, right? To get beyond that, right? So the Greeks may have thought that they got further than they did, on the basis of common experience, right? Okay. And when Aristotle talks about the sun, the moon, and the stars, and so on, he complains, you know, about not having enough, what? He's being so far away from them, right? So he was aware, you know, that thing, right? But nevertheless, he talked about the sun, the moon, the stars, as they seem to appear to us. That's in our ordinary experience, right? Okay? So, let's say, in retrospect, we say the Greeks thought, let's say, that they'd gotten further than they did, right? By common experience. And we now know that you can't really get to the first forms of matter, or the most basic forms of matter, by common experience, right? You can't really know, you know, whether the moon or the sun is made out of matter other than the matter that these things down here are made out of, right? On the basis of common experience. Okay? Okay? See? Very, very general knowledge of natural things, or a very general knowledge of life, right? Okay? And as we said at the beginning of the course there, the confused is both what? It's more known to us, and we're more, what? Certain of it, huh? Okay? Than the distinct, huh? And therefore we're more sure, or more certain, of the general than the particular. Remember how we deduce that, right? Okay? Now, if the particular was not only more precise or more distinct, but also more certain as Descartes thought, then the particular would replace the general entirely, right? Then the particular, the distinct, huh? Would replace the confused entirely, right? But if the confused is more certain and more sure than the particular, confused and the distinct, right? And the general than the particular, you don't replace the more certain by the less certain. I think we look at some of those texts from some of the scientists there, from Louis de Broglie, for example, or Heisenberg, right? We'll come back to some recognition, right? Heisenberg, for example, says in the Gifford Lectures that the concepts of natural language vaguely defined as they are, he says, have a greater stability in the expansion of nows and the precise terms of science. Well, more stability means more what? Certain, right? You see that word stable in town. You see, it's a speaker. So, the moderns make the mistake of thinking you can't understand anything, right? On the basis of what? Common or ordinary experiences. Reliable, right? You know? Certain, huh? In a way, in defense of the Greeks, even our mistake, one could say that there's a kind of principle of simplicity in the use of our knowledge, right? If something can be known in the basis of common experience, right, then you should what? Know it in the basis of common experience. Yeah, yeah, rather than being in this other experience, right? Which isn't necessary to know that, right? Okay? So, I mean, you know, let's have some scientific research tomorrow in our labs to find out whether the whole was more than the part, right? That's kind of absurd, you see. And, of course, often they're making fun of these sociologists, right? You know, who have these elaborate things, you know, and they find out, you know, at the end, women, really are different. I mean, just, you know, our young people and old people are really different, you know? We're looking, we're all the same way, you know? And things that you could know from common experience, you see? You know, I talk to my students sometimes, you know, when you try to say precisely, distinctly what the difference is between men and women, you know, you get into trouble often, right? You see? But everybody's convinced that there is a difference. And even though they're not too sure exactly what it is, right? But they're very sure in their confused knowledge of men and women that there is a real difference there. Or the sociologist is not going to, you know, make you more certain of it. So, as they say, you know how the modern scientists as well as the Greeks are very much in favor of the principle of simplicity, right? But it seems to me you could apply that principle in a way to, what? Experience, right? And that you shouldn't use more experience or require more experience, but then it is what? Necessary, yeah. And on that ground, you should get as far as you can on the basis of common experience, right? The Greek says they went further than they could, or tried to go further than they could, right? But at least they were, what? Once you try to see how far they get, that's right? Okay? You can only do that by, what? Following it out, right? As far as you can. Now, this is another thing that's kind of interesting, huh? That these two parts of natural philosophy, the eight books of natural theory, and the three books about the soul, are the parts of natural science, in general, that are closest to what? Wisdom. Because when you take that wisdom, as we did the picture, to find out that wisdom is, what? The most universal knowledge, huh? And these parts are very universal compared to the other parts of natural science. So that's one way in which they resemble wisdom, right? Okay? And the second thing that's got interesting, if you just stick within the eight books of the actual hearing, you're studying what? Motion, mainly. Change, huh? You're seeing, first of all, what's involved intrinsically in change, right? Then you're on your defining change, huh, or motion. You're taking up time and things that are properties of motion. And you talk about the division of motion, and we saw the quantity of divisions in this course earlier. And only then you begin to see the dependence of motion upon a, what? Mover, right? But eventually that leads you to the unmoved mover, right? In a way, you're going towards the material there, aren't you? And you go towards the unmoved mover. The same way here that the Anman, he's going to talk about, so in general, but then talk about what we have in common with the plant, like growth and things of that sort, and production, and what we have in common with the animals, right? And find what's unique to man, right? In a way, he's going towards the material, isn't he? Because growth and eating and so on is more material than sensing, and sensing is more material than understanding, right? So, there's a couple ways in which the Eighth Books of Natural Hearing, the Eighth Books of the Soul, kind of prepare the way for wisdom, right? Prepare our mind for that, huh? Because in both of them, you're considering things in a very general way, right? In the sharp run here, at least, right? Not going to look at the whole picture here, right? But in the sharp run, you're going a bit towards the material. He sells what you do in wisdom, right? So, a man can go from a study of the Eighth Books of Natural Hearing, and the three books about the soul, more easily to wisdom than you can go from experimental science to wisdom. It's just such a different thing, right? You're going so much down into matter there that your whole way of proceeding is contrary. And the more you proceed, the more different, right? What you do in wisdom, huh? Likewise, huh? The very existence of material things, when we show that there's an unmoved mover, we can show that the unmoved mover is not a body. Because every body moves only by being moved itself. So, that's one place where we arrive at the existence of something immaterial. The other place is when we show the immateriality of our mind. So, there's at least three ways there, then, that the study of the Eighth Books of Natural Hearing, the three books about the soul, prepare us for, what? Wisdom, right? It's in those two parts of the study of the natural world that we come, eventually, to the proof of the existence of something immaterial. It is nothing immaterial, as Aristotle says in the Sixth Book of Wisdom, wouldn't be any science after natural philosophy. That would be it. Natural philosophy would be wisdom. But also, as I say, as far as the way of proceeding wisdom, bees anticipate that a bit because they're very general, right? Not as general as wisdom, but the most general parts are of natural science. And because, in a short run, they go towards the immaterial. They kind of prepare our minds for this other way of thinking. So, I don't think a man can go from being an experimental scientist to being a metaphysician, but he could go from knowing the Eighth Books of Natural Hearing and the Three Books about the soul, to, what? Metaphysics, right? But, you know, as you go further into natural science, if you don't have that perspective from the more general books, you're just kind of being immersed in matter, you're kind of bound to be returned. That's what you're thinking about. It's matter, right? Your whole life is sunk into matter, right? If you, you know, neglect on this knowledge that can be gotten just with common experience, you're never going to be a wise man. That's it. Well, the game's over. Too much of a leap, huh? Now, there's a little difference here between the common experience required for the Eighth Books of Natural Hearing and for the Three Books about the soul. That the Three Books about the soul, the common experience is more our inward experience, huh? Of being alive, huh? That's interesting, huh? Is life as life, huh? More known to us from inward experience or from outward experience? Well, see, up here, this is more our common outward experience, right? Of motion of change, huh? But in the case of the Dianima, Christoph has basically himself in our common inward experience of being alive. Now, is life as life more known to us by inward experience or by outward experience? And if you think of even the first confused notion people have about life, huh? We think something is alive if it, what? Moves itself, right? Okay. And if it senses, right? The answer makes us think that something's alive, right? Okay. But self-motion means the causes of end. So in that sense, life is more known from what? Inward experience than from what? Outward experience, huh? And those who study life only from outward experience sometimes end up denying that life really means anything at all. Just a more complicated form of what? Chemistry, right, huh? Organic chemistry. It's a subdivision of chemistry, right? Doesn't it, you know, like if you, like a phrase is a sign that something might be dead because it's not moving. So it's that sense of outward. How does that relate to what you're saying? I'm saying that life means not just motion, but what? Self-motion, right? Self-motion. Yeah. So it's the idea that the source is within, right? Well, I have experience of moving myself from within. But I don't have when I see the cat even moving, right? So this would be more in the sense of self-knowledge than life in general, or something like that? No, it's the idea, what do you mean by life? And the first meaning we have of life is not simply motion, but what? Self-motion, right? Sure. But what's more known is the motion than the self-motion. Yeah, yeah, but that's the thing that's back here. The Eighth Book's in actually here, right? We're talking about motion, right? This is most known. But I'm saying life is life, right? Well, life is life is not motion as such, it's self-motion as such, right? Okay? And therefore, say that the cause of this motion is within, right? Okay? What's more known to me that I'm alive and that you're alive. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I experience, let's say, hunger, right? And anger, right? Which move me to do different things, right? Thirst, and so on, which move me to do things, right? Now, when I watch your face, I might, you know, note that you're angry. I see signs of it, right? But I know anger more from my own experience of anger within me, you know? And I kind of know that you have something like what I have within me because of, you know, you get angry and you shout at me and so on. Okay? I know what it is like for the cat to be hungry in some sense, because I know what it is for me to be hungry, right? I know how I use my senses in order to move, right? To something. I know where the class is here, right? So, I would say these books of natural hearing are based upon our common experience of natural things, right? But the three books on the soul are based primarily in our inward experience of life. Herman Vail, the scientist there, a petition, he said, from outward experience, he says, life is most known in the, what? Plants, right? But from inward experience, life is most known, what? In ourselves, right? And then nix the animals and least of all the, what? Plants, right? Yes. Yeah. But we're more alive, we need to do that. animals and the animals are more alive than the plants get the modern biologists sometimes you know they'll start the study of life by talking about the cell well the cell is least known from the point of view of inward experience right and life is not most known there they're starting where life is in a way least known they get puzzled and they say these billions of cells in us you know each one is alive you know my really one living thing or not i was a congregation you know but everybody has the inward experience really of being what one thing right nobody thinks of himself as we except to be so quite a total we you know are we giving you a lecture today i don't think of myself doing that right are we going to dinner well you know i think a bunch of us are going to dinner right you know just quite myself are we going to dinner okay so let's start to look a little bit at the diana here what was that that you read from in the beginning of class again the de sensuets and sato okay thomas's commentary the very beginning of it right okay actually with the marietta it would be a separate thing i had them bound together when i was young you know now it's all worn out the cold writing there you know but i had written you know erickson's bindery there in minneapolis minnesota right goes back in up days so let's look here at the beginning here now almost everything aristotle wrote is divided in into what two parts and palo kind of anticipates this in the tomatoes huh is more like a treatise than a dialogue yeah usually in latin they'll say the premium and the tractatus right okay now let's go back to those words here if you look at at the tomatoes of plato there right um tomatoes is going to give a discourse on the universe right cosmology but it begins by giving a premium and plato breaks it up because when he finishes the premium socrates you know applauds the excellence of this premium right now premium comes from the greek word meaning what paving the way yeah paving the way yeah it's probably the best player and the premium is to the main body of the work you might say something like a what a prologue is to the play i don't mean to the right okay most of shakespeare's plays don't have a premium i mean a prologue but moment juliet does have a prologue right the prologue is very short right but it kind of prepares the reader for the play right likewise the premium prepares the mind right in some way for the main work right the most essential thing in a premium is the what's called the the scope us in greek right which means the like target what you're aiming at so when you start to be an author the first thing you want to have in mind is what is he aiming at in this book right what's his target what's his goal right and sometimes once that scopus is stated you can see the excellence importance of it right but sometimes the author will elaborate on the what importance the dignity the usefulness that is our ability of what he's aiming at right okay that's the most essential part of praying right but sometimes in addition to that he'll say something about the way we're going to proceed the road we're going to follow right in order right now in this premium thomas says there are really three parts right and the first part he shows what we're aiming at and the desirability of it in the second part he says something about the order which we're going to consider these things but then he has the third part which is actually the longest part which is about the difficulty of this okay this is a very famous premium and thomas's commentary is very interesting and when i was in graduate school you know we all tried to imitate this you know so every time we wrote a philosophical thing we have a little premium when we talk about you know uh the desirability of what you're going to say here you know and the order we're going to proceed and the difficulty of it right and uh but uh they say the most essential part is that first one right and then the second part and then the third part huh so amino has a i mean uh tomatoes is a premium and then he has the main body of his work now in latin they call that main body they call it the tractatus and that comes in the latin word for what attraction for drawn out and the drawing out you might say right okay i'll give a little translation to my hand but it might be more clear to say it's the main body of the work now right okay as i say this is analogous to the prologue to roman juliet and the play itself right okay so almost all of aristotle's works as they say have a premium and uh and the treatise follows and the premium will occupy the beginning of the what first book right okay not the whole of the first book yeah so we look to the premium it gets to the wisdom okay and the the uh nicobotan ethics is the premium right that first reading there in the uh it puts an answer here there was the premium there and now we have the premium here at the beginning um i think i mentioned how in the second vatican council there if you go to the dogmatic constitution there uh the revelation they call it in english i guess but it's called the verb in latin if you look at the at the latin text not the english translation because one of the english translations at home they call it introduction no you go to go to the greek and into the latin the official text and it says premium and it's a magnificent frame from that one to the day i don't know who wrote it maybe the holy spirit wrote it but it's magnificent you know it's being magnificent you know that's that's the present you know the most beautiful fragrance i've ever seen you get perfect premium you know but if one example there's the actual context that's really a good example of it you know and a good use of the word praying right uh you see the introduction uh as far as the etymology of the word is concerned it means what a leading into right and the framing is something before that right okay so we might call it assumption college now we have a course called an introduction to philosophy or we might have an introduction to politics or an introduction you know to some other science introduction and you're being you know led into the what the science of the art or the science that's right okay the framing that you kind of you know see what you've got to be aiming at here right kind of preparing it which is actually going in that work of porphyry is called the what isagogi remember that isagogi is simply the greek word for introduction and the isagogi it's an introduction to the categories of aristotle but it's also introduction to definition division and what demonstration but porphyry has a magnificent premium right to the um uh isagogi right where he says what he's going to talk about right and why it's desirable and necessary to talk about this right and something about how he's going to proceed right because he says he's going to consider what genus is and what difference is and what species is and what He says to the guy, he's interested to, this is necessary, he says, not only to understand the categories of Aristotle, Aristotle's talking about 10 generons, he's talking about species and differences and so on, properties, but it's also necessary, he says, to understand definition. He defines a species by its genus and difference, right? It's necessary to understand division, he says, because one of the categories of division is the division of a genus and two species, right, for instance. It's necessary to understand the demonstration, he says, right? Because in a demonstration you prove a property of a species through its definition. So, he really shows how important this is, right? But then he says he's going to proceed in a way that's appropriate to the beginning, right? It is the beginning of logic, which is the beginning of philosophy, and so he's going to speak in a way that's proportioned to us, right? And he does that very well, right? So, that's the medicine premium that Porphyry has, right? So, Aristotle's giving you premium here, huh? And forward, would forward just be premium? Yeah, yeah. Forward is, you know, not used in quite the precise way sometimes in our language, you know, it's premium, but you could, yeah. In some of the, in Thomas's works there, you have, what, prologus, huh? Prologue, right? Which is like forward, right? Okay. That's really more or less the same thing as a premium. Maybe not quite as strict, but something the same as that, huh? But in a way, the word forward is not bad, because forward is really not an introduction, is it? I don't think you'd call an introduction a forward. We have a whole semester of course about introduction to politics, or introduction to economics, or whatever you mean, introduction to, but we call it a forward too, so much, right? Forward is something, you know, before we get into work. So let's look at the beginning here now. Assuming, and I don't know if that's really a good translation there, huh? Aristotle's not assuming. Holding that all knowledge is among things good and honorable, right? Okay. Let's stop there for a moment. I'd like to contrast knowledge and love a bit here, at this point. Aristotle was saying, behold, that all knowledge, you might want to add, has such. All knowledge as such is good, huh? Why do I say all knowledge as such is good, huh? Wasn't all knowledge as such a perfection of the knower? Compatiation of his ability to know and so on, right? And not only is knowledge of the, what, good, but also knowledge of the, what, bad, is good, right? Okay. Knowledge of the good is good, and knowledge of the bad is good, huh? In fact, they're kind of the same knowledge. It's the same knowledge of the good and the bad. So, if knowledge of the bad is bad, all knowledge would have to be bad, right? You know? So, ethics is a knowledge of both virtue and of what? Advice, right? And logic is both a knowledge of correct reasoning and of what? Incorrect reasoning. And grammar is both a knowledge of how to speak correctly in this language and how to speak what? Incorrectly, right? And the medical art is both the knowledge of health and of sickness, right? Of normal blood pressure and of what? Adnormal blood pressure and so on, right? And the fifth book of Aristotle's Politics is a knowledge of how to conserve governments and how to, what? Overfill them, right? Okay. Same knowledge of what? Contraries, right? Opposites, right? But now, had as such, right? Because if a man has a bad will, right? And is going to misuse his knowledge, right? Then you could say, happening, the knowledge is bad, right? If I'm going to shoot my wife, it's bad that I know what a gun is. Right? Right? If I'm going to poison you, it's bad that I know what poison is, right? Whatever it is. What can be gotten, right? Objection you get sometimes from people, you know, it's about sex education, right, huh? Okay? And in many cases, such knowledge is bad, the kind of information given, right? Okay? But that's, that the knowledge is such as bad? No. But the person who's appetizing to not get trained and so on, right? Or not to get you into the good, they can be that astray, right? Okay? So it's not the knowledge of such that is bad, right? But the bad desires that they have, right? Okay? Aristotle talks about that when he's in the rhetoric now, because rhetoric is the art of persuasion, right? Well, if I'm the master of the art of persuasion, I can maybe convict an innocent man, right? Or get a guilty man to go free, right? So I can misuse that, right? The same way a doctor could use his medical art to kill you, and sometimes he does, right? So is the knowledge of such bad, see? Or I could use the knowledge of the politics to overthrow my government, even if it's a good government. But is the knowledge of such bad, just as strength? If his strength is such bad, well, I can misuse my strength, you know? Grab the oldies, press the mackerel down, and so on, right? Beat somebody up, huh? But now, what about all love? I could say, love of the good is good. I could say, love of the bad is good. Love of the bad is bad. That's a very interesting difference between knowing and loving, right? And it shows you, in some sense, that love goes out to the thing love. By knowing, you're putting the thing into your mind, right? So it's in the mind, according to the character, the condition of the mind, huh? But love is tending towards the thing as it is in itself. So the love of the good is good, but the love of the bad is what? It's bad, right? That's a nice contrast there. First, I was beginning here by saying that... I'm going to bring the Greek here if I didn't, but... About the first, it should be known that every knowledge is good. And not only... good, but also honorable. But then he goes on to say that there's two ways in which you can say that one knowledge as such is better than another. For one sort is so more than another, either according to its certitude, or by being of better and more wonderful things. I think two ways you can say one knowledge is better than another. Now, why are those two ways? Just consider it as knowledge. Well, you could say, in all knowledge, or in all our knowledge anyway, there's a distinction between what you know and what? How you know it, right? What is known and how it is known. So you can say, using knowledge in a kind of broad sense, there's two ways one knowledge can be better than another. Either because you're knowing a better thing, right? A more wonderful thing, right? Or because you're knowing something, what? Better. Okay? And that's why it speaks of certitude there, right? Now, you might say, for example, it's better to what? To see the sunset than to see the garbage, right? Because of what? Because of what you're seeing, right? It's better to hear Mozart than to hear noise, right? It's better to taste wine. Good wine. You know, there's a joke here about the, I joke about the French when you know, huh? There's an old saying, it's in the Bible, feed them the titicat cor homies. Wine rejoices the heart of man. The French have added to, improved upon scripture, right? They say, good wine rejoices the heart of man. Scripture says, wine rejoices the heart of man. Okay? So, it's better to taste wine than some things I wouldn't want to mention, right? Okay? But in all of these cases, you're what? Knowing a better thing, right? Okay? But, even knowing the same thing, one person might know the same thing better than another person, right? He's more sure of what he's saying, huh? So, if everybody knows, in a loose sense, perhaps it's the word, the Pythagorean theorem, right? But, if you've gone through book one of Euclid, right? Right. You know that theorem much better than the man who just accepts it because the geometers say so. The teachers say so, right? Okay? So, two different criteria, right? Okay. And Aristotle's going to apply that to the study of the soul, right? Those two criteria, right? He's going to see an excellence in both ways, right? Okay. But Thomas, in his commentary there, he says, Which of these criteria is more important? Aristotle doesn't say here, but Aristotle does say in the first book of the parts of animals, which of these criteria, to use the plural, is more important? In other words, if A is the analogy of a better thing, right? But B is knowing better, a lesser thing, right? Which criterion outweighs the other, right? What is known if it's better. Yeah. Yeah. And Thomas says that this is really more essential to knowing. What is known, right? This pertains to the very substance of knowledge. It's knowledge of something, right? And how it is known is more like the quality, right? The analogy. So, it's less substantial to what analogy is. So, you could apply to this, actually, that distinction there of what? Simply in some respect, right? If I know better what a triangle is, let's say, than what the soul is, right? But the soul is a better thing to know than the triangle, right? Which is better, then, for me to know imperfectly what the soul is, or to know perfectly what a triangle is? That's substantial, right? What knowledge is, right? It's more like the quality, right? Of the knowledge. And Aristotle teaches that, as I mentioned in the first book of the parts of animals, right? It's a very beautiful way of showing it, too, right? You know? He says, just as he says, a glimpse of those we love, right? Is better than a, what, long view of some we don't love, right? An example I take from students is, you know, suppose you can see the old nasty boss there all day long, you know? I mean, you know, you kind of look up and you stare, you know, like you shouldn't work it, you know? So you can see the boss very well, right? Very clearly, you know? But maybe your girlfriend is there in the office building across, right? And there she is, and she wades to you, you know? That means more to you, right? Than this, what, long leisurely view of the boss, right? And in a sense, you know, we even, you know, talk to someone in the telephone, right? And the communication is not too good sometimes, but someone we love very much, right? And that's more, what, important to us, right? Than a long conversation with someone who's right there that we don't care about, you know? I'd rather hear Mozart in, you know, imperfect, you know, machine than you have a crab thing, you know? And here's some lousy piece of music that's being, you know, performed in equipment. Well, perfect, right, huh? As I say, it's better, you read a poet, huh? It's always better to read a poet in the original if you can, obviously, than to read him in translation because you, what, lose in translation, right? But Homer in a good translation is still better than most people in their native language, right? So, although it'd be better to read Homer, you know, fluently in Greek, you know, it's better to read him in English, you know, than to read many, most English authors, right? Maybe Shakespeare's. Shakespeare's going to be a rival of Homer, right? I was looking at King Lear there, you know, where he, his daughters, you know, closes the doors to him and so on and so on. And, you see, you don't know, weep that woman, right, you know? You know, touch me, you know, God's touched me with noble anger, he says, you know. And, of course, you know how noble anger is involved in Achilles, right, huh? In Injects and Sophocles play, right? It's very much tied up with tragedy, huh? Coriolanus and the noble anger. Those two poets, huh? So all these two criteria, then. What is known is, simply speaking, better, right, huh? To know a better thing, right? But in some way, secundum quid, right? Assured to, right? There's also, you know, comparing there, you know, he thought that the heavenly bodies are much better than the things down here, right? But he complains about the fact that he doesn't have much evidence, so he says about the heavenly bodies, right? But that it's better to know even imperfectly these better things than to know perfectly these things that are right around us. So, he's comparing, you know, his anatomy of dogs and cats and the animals, right? With his ability to know the higher things, you know? But still, it's better to know imperfectly those higher things, huh? And Thomas, you know, he uses that thing that he's talking about in the Summa Tante Gentiles, and he's talking about how to know something about God just by faith, you know? It's better than to know something else about the primary, I'd say, by demonstration, right? Because you know I need, what? A better thing, right? I was mentioning how, when you get to wisdom there, wisdom has to be both the knowledge of the first cause... ...the knowledge of the first cause... ...the knowledge of the first cause... ...the knowledge of the first cause... ...the knowledge of the first cause...