Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 18: Man's Orientation Toward Truth: Easy and Difficult

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and got a little bit of, what, protection, right? Or it's raining hard, I get under the tree and, you know, I don't get rain done so much. Well, then I make an umbrella that goes up over me like that. I can walk around with my tree over me. But I imitate these things, right? But the other reason is that our mind is, what, made to the image and likeness of God. So our mind, even when it hasn't seen something yet in nature, right, it sometimes makes something like what is already out in nature. And then we find it later on in nature, right? I had a collection of articles from Scientific American there in my office. And one article was about how the birds fly, right? And the biologists are pointing out that there are some things about how the birds fly that we didn't notice in the birds until after we succeeded in making an airplane. Then we realized we put in the airplane something that was already in the bird, but didn't realize it was in there. Okay? So that's interesting, huh? It's kind of funny that there's this one quote that they often do from Einstein, you know, where he says, the most difficult and the most puzzling thing to understand about the universe is that it should be understandable. But if the universe is the product of understanding, right, and we're, as Anxieger says, every mind is similar to the greater and the lesser, then it's not as puzzling as it is to Einstein that the universe should be, what? Understandable, huh? But they're kind of amazed that it is, huh? But with the truth often becomes clear. That's a little bit of what Aristotle does in Book 1 of Wisdom after the Kramian that we saw. He recounts what his predecessors said about the causes and why they said them, right? Part of their reason to see if what they said was sufficient, right? We're not going through all this critique of these people. But also to see if they touched upon any cause other than the four kinds of causes that we spoke of, matter, form, mover, end, what? And so that one comes away not only at the negative conclusion that his predecessors have not gone all the way in knowing the causes, but also an affirmative conclusion that there seems to be only these four kinds of causes. And in the second book of Wisdom, among other things, we'll see that there are reasons to think that within each of these kinds of causes, there are the first causes. So, let's put ourselves now in Aristotle's position. You know, as they say, put on his shoes or his feet, do you know? And you say, well, we know from the premium to wisdom that this is a godlike knowledge, right? It's the most desirable knowledge there is, right? But also it's about things that are difficult for man to know. So, although it's very desirable, it's not easy to obtain. Now, there's two ways to obtain a knowledge that you don't, what, have. One is to discover it or find it yourself. And the other is to learn it from somebody who already has it if there is such a person, right? But the critique of these early philosophers, right, indicates to Aristotle that he can't simply learn wisdom from those guys, huh? He has to, to some extent, discover it himself, right? Maybe with their help in some way, right? But nevertheless, he has to make some kind of discovery himself, huh? Now, at this point, with my pygmy mind compared to Aristotle, what would be the next thing to do, see? What would occur to your mind, right? You have this very desirable knowledge, right? But those before you who tried to get this knowledge didn't get there exactly, right? So what would be the next step to take, huh? Kind of good to stop and think a little bit about that and see what Aristotle did, what you think would be the next thing to do, right? Yeah, yeah. But suppose, you know, take a little simple example here, huh? Suppose you knew it was extremely desirable to get to Boston, right? Suppose you knew that, okay? But you know, secondly, that all those who before you had tried to get to Boston had failed to get there. What would be the question to ask and try to answer? Why didn't you take it, huh? Yeah, but you're not very interested in understanding why they didn't get there and getting there yourself. It has to be a way. Yeah. It has to be a way. Yeah. How do you get to Boston, right? I was just trying to ask him. You see? That would be kind of an actual question, right? How do you get to wisdom? What's the way of getting to wisdom, right? I like to use that concrete word the Greeks like to use. What would be the road to take to wisdom as opposed to Boston, right? Do you see? That's what it kind of created in my mind if I kind of stopped and think. I don't know what to say. You know? You have a knowledge that's very desirable, right? But you can't simply learn it from those who have pursued it before you, right? Because they didn't get there. But you realize how much more desirable this knowledge is than the other. Well, how do you get there? What's the road to take, right? Aristotle doesn't really put aside that question. In fact, he does take it up, right? But maybe not fully until book six. I say, well, is there something else that should come before this? I reviewed before him. Yeah. Examine his own experience. Yeah. Is there some question that needs to be asked and try to answer it before you ask it? What road should we try to follow to wisdom or in wisdom? What is that road? No, what is wisdom? Well, we kind of answered that a bit in the premium, right? We have an idea of what wisdom is in some way. It's aiming at the kind of knowledge it is, right? And we know that there's men before us who have wondered and pursued this knowledge, but they didn't get there, right? Okay. Well, one thing, as I say, that might occur to you is the question we already asked, right? If there's any question before that, huh? Okay. Now, another question is related to that one. It would say, well, I can't simply learn from these guys. I've got to discover it myself. So how do you discover things? Right? That might be it. Test experiment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, when you turn to the beginning of book three, Aristotle will talk about how discoveries are made. But that's the beginning of book three. You've got a whole book here in between, huh? You know? So those are two things that occur to my mind, right? How do you discover something? And what roles do I take in wisdom, right? Okay. And Aristotle does take up those questions, right? But he seems to take them up and answer them later on. So, what's this book 2 doing here? It's kind of funny, in the Greek text there, you know, they call it book 1. In Greek, they use the same letters of the alphabet, so book 1 would be called book alpha, and book 2 beta, and so on. But instead of calling this book 2 in the Greek, they call it alpha the lesser. So the lack of appreciation for it, you know. Well, there is a more general question, right? That would seem to come before the question of what is the road to follow in wisdom, right? Because you could ask a question like that in geometry, right? Or you could ask a question like that in natural philosophy. Or a question like that in ethics, right? What road should we follow in geometry? What road should we follow in natural philosophy, right? What road should we follow, what? In ethics, huh? What road should we follow in politics? What road should we follow in wisdom, right? Just like there's a question like, you know, what road should I take to Boston? It's like the question, what road should I take to Springfield? What road should I take to New York, right? You see, similar to these questions, right? Okay. What? It means, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But notice, how do you find the road to Boston or the road to Springfield or the road to New York? Where you start. Yeah, yeah. Because that's a difference from something else. Okay. But in our society, you get a map, right? Okay. Now, if you don't know how to read a map, you've got a problem, right? Okay. So the question, how to read a map, in a way, is before the question, what is the road to Boston? What is the road to Springfield? What is the road to New York, right? And if I can answer the question, how do you read a map, right? Then I can, that's going to open up the way for me to, what, find not on the road to Boston, but the road to Springfield, the road to New York, the road to my house, and all kinds of roads, right? Do you see? So, maybe Aristotle, you know, was wiser than us, and he looked before what we saw, right? And he saw that before the question of, what is the road to follow in wisdom, right? Or, what is the road to follow in geometry or in natural philosophy and so on, is the question, how do you determine? How should you determine the road to follow, right? Do you see? From a general question, okay? Now, some might say, well, but isn't that general question and its answer presupposed to determining the road to follow in geometry, as well as the road to wisdom, right? Is there any reason why that more general question, right, would be appropriate here in the second book of wisdom? I mean, in terms of the map, you might say it's kind of indifferent, right? Is the guy who wants to get to Boston who should figure out how to read a map? Or is it the guy who wants to get to New York who's figured it out? Well, it doesn't seem to belong to one guy more than another, right? Okay. So, it's a man who wants to know the road to follow in geometry, or the man who wants to know the road to follow in ethics, or the man who wants to know the road to follow in natural philosophy, or the man who wants to know the road to follow in wisdom. Is there any reason why one of these guys, more than another, should consider how you determine the road to follow? Well, it's relevant to all of them, in a sense, isn't it, right? But, notice, huh, the man who teaches you how to read a map is going to direct the man who wants to get to Boston, and the man who wants to get to Springfield, the man who wants to get to New York, and so on, right? He's directing all those guys, isn't he? Okay. So, there's one over the whole thing. Yeah. There's one, now the Joe Berger family. Yeah. Yeah, the wise man, right? And remember, the sixth attribute of the wise man in the second reading, right? And what he knows was that he directs others, right? He's the most architectonic, architectural sort of thing. He's the chief artist, huh? So, the man who considers how the road of each reasoned knowledge should or should not be determined, since it's the same knowledge of opposites, that man, in a way, is directing everybody to think. And it's most appropriate for the wise man, therefore, to talk about that, right? Even though it isn't relevant to anybody, right? Okay. Now, Aristotle, in the end of Book 2, the fifth reading, right? The fifth reading will be about how the road of each reasoned-out knowledge, whether it be geometry or natural philosophy or ethics or wisdom itself, how it should and should not be determined. That's what that fifth reading is about, right? And that's, in a way, presupposed, right, to answering what is the road to following in wisdom. Do you see that? And it's appropriate for the wise man to do that, because he's the one who, more than anybody else, directs everybody else. Do you see that? Okay. Now, Aristotle's very brief in that fifth reading. And he talks about this also in the first book, the Nicomachean Ethics, right? And to some extent, he's a little more expansive there, right? Even though it's more appropriate to wisdom here. I don't know if you ever had a chance to read Bwethius' Dei Twinty Tate there. But in there, Bwethius distinguishes natural philosophy and mathematics and first philosophy or wisdom. He talks about the roads of these things, right? And he quotes Aristotle from the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? Thomas has a famous commentary on that. Kind of an expansion of what Aristotle does later on in Book VI here, where he distinguishes the sciences and their methods. And it's interesting. He refers to the ethics rather than that. And it's kind of because it's a little more concrete, a little more particular there, a little more expansive, you know? But it's really, nevertheless, what's most proper to the wise men, right? Okay? So notice, you're not mistaken in thinking, hey, before I can acquire wisdom, I have to know what road to follow in wisdom. But before I can really answer that question, I have to really answer the general question, how should one determine the road to follow? Not just in wisdom, but in any science, right? Do you see that? And that, in a sense, is appropriate to the wise men. Does that make sense? So I'm trying to sneak up on the guy, you know? From what occurred in my mind, and then he said, well, this is before that, right? Okay? You know the famous story of the cat that was terrorizing the mice? And what are we going to do about this, you know? And finally, some bright mouse says, well, hang a bell on the cat's neck, right? And then when he comes, we hear the bell ringing. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! And then someone says, yeah, who's going to put the bell on the cat's neck? You see? You know, it was before that. You know, it was like he was thinking before, right? You see? And, yeah. He's a little wise, right? He's no more thoughtful. Okay? Now, we say that general question presupposed to determining the road of any reason out of knowledge is at the end of Book 2, right? Well, something before that, Aristotle says, right? Okay? And in the very first reading, Right? Okay? And what is that? Hmm? See something before that? It would be appropriate for the wise man to talk about? It's a bit harder to say, this is the other one. Hmm? Well, what Aristotle is going to take up in the first reading is this. How man is towards knowing truth. Well, in the fifth reading, right? You might use the word truth, right? You'd say how should the road to truth in any reason out of knowledge be determined? How man is towards knowing truth and how should the road to truth in any reason out of knowledge be determined? Which of those questions is, or how is it more general? Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a reason not only for seeing that before you see the second one, right? But also a reason why the wise man rather than an actual philosopher or the geometer or the moral philosopher or the political philosopher should answer that question? How man is towards knowing truth? Well, Aristotle actually it's in the beginning of the second reading that he'll give the reason why it belongs to the wise man, right? Why it's appropriate for the wise man to take up this very general question. He'll direct everything. Yeah, that's part of it, yeah. But also he'll point out beginning the second reading that the consideration of truth belongs most to all the wise man. Okay? You can get very good reason for that. Now, notice that this in a sense is more general than that because is the only truth that we know is the truth we can reason out? Okay. If all truth was gotten by reasoning to it, what would we reason from? Right? See, we reason to a conclusion which is a statement from what? Other statements, right? Okay. Now, let's go back to the our future here, Democritus, right? And Democritus says that we imitate what? Nature, right? And so Thomas, Aristotle and Thomas say often that art imitates nature. Or even more generally that reason imitates nature, right? Now, what gives rise to a dog in the natural world? Another dog. Yeah. Two dogs, right? Okay. What gives rise to a cat? Two horses? No, two cats give rise to a cat, right? What gives rise to a horse? Yeah. So what gives rise to a statement? Two statements. Two statements. Right? See? See how you're imitating nature, right? Dogs give rise to a dog, cats to a cat, horses to horses, and statements to statements, right? It's got a famous passage there in the British astrophysicist story as Eddington, right? You know? He's talking about, you know, the equations of scientists and so on, right? And all these numbers he has and so on, right? And if you put numbers in, what do you grind out? More numbers! You know? If you add two numbers, what do you get? Yeah. You see? You see how that's imitating nature, right? Okay? So, if you come to know that a statement is true, you're gonna have to come to know it through other, what? Statements, right? And so if you didn't know any statements to be true before you're reasoned, you'd have nothing to, what? Reason from, right? Okay? So, man's is towards knowing truth, that's kind of a broader perspective on the mental state of man than just his reasonable knowledge, right? You can see how this is more general than that, right? Just as this in some ways is more general than what road should I follow in geometry, what road should I follow in wisdom, right? Do you see that? Okay? As I say, Aristotle would give reasons why the consideration of truth belongs most to all the wise man, huh? in the beginning of the second reading. Now, perhaps this general question, too, is related to the other thing we said, right? We said there's two ways of coming to know what you don't know. One is to learn it from a man who already knows it, the other is to discover it, right? Well, they're talking about different ways of coming to know the truth, aren't you, right? So maybe there's a background to that of how man is towards knowing truth is relevant, right? Why there should be those two ways of coming to know it. Do you see that? Okay? See how smart Aristotle is, right? He's kind of already on the road to wisdom just to ask the question. Yeah, yeah. And these aren't the main things wisdom is about, but they're important things that wisdom does talk about, huh? Okay? So you see the order of those two, huh? Okay? So let's look at that first thing now, how man is towards knowing the truth, huh? Okay? Now it's interesting the way Aristotle begins this, huh? Because if a modern philosopher was to begin this, right? I'm sure the modern philosopher would say, would be out of the question or problem, whether man can know truth, right? You see? Aristotle seems to assume, right? That man can know truth, right? And he goes right to the question, well, is it easy or difficult for man to know the truth, right? Okay? Okay? Now, some might say, well, gee, has Aristotle ignored the question before, right? You see? Well, let's look at this here now. Is knowing truth easy or difficult? And someone might say, well, aren't you assuming that man can know the truth, right? Okay? So someone might say, shouldn't there be a question before this, I'll put in brackets this here, Aristotle's asking, can man know truth? Aristotle doesn't answer that question, right? Hmm? I objected him like a modern philosopher, but didn't say. So Aristotle's ignored that question, right? He's assuming that man can know truth. It's not a question of this. It's not a question. Easier or difficult for him to do, right? Yeah? How about, does the truth even exist? Yeah. You could ask that question too, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, why does an hairstyle ask those questions? See, have you overlooked something? I think this is an unreasonable question. One is, if a man's not sure if the truth exists, that's what St. Augustus says, he must like to be lied to. Yeah, and the question that's been raised, does truth exist, right? Now, Thomas Aquinas says that the existence of truth is obvious. It's per se no to. And I think we'd say the same thing here, that man can know truth is obvious, right? Now, are those two in fact obvious? You wouldn't ask. If it wasn't true that man could know the truth, you wouldn't be interested in the answer. Yeah, yeah. Even that Carl Newton, he's doubting everything. He says, I can't doubt that I'm doubting, right? Okay. But, you know, I'll take the idea that, you know, if truth exists, is that statement true? If truth does not exist, yeah, I think we're going to conduct itself, right? So truth must exist, right? Okay. Or I like to put on with the idea that statements exist, right? True or false? And so even the man who says the statements do not exist cannot say it without making a statement, right? Mm-hmm. So that truth exists is obvious, right? Now, in the, um, Aristotle doesn't say it here, but in the second book of natural hearing, the so-called physics, when Aristotle defines nature, right? Yeah. And, um, he has, after that, um, an objection. Someone might say, well, you should have shown that nature exists. Mm-hmm. Before you said what nature is, right? And Aristotle says, well, it's obvious that nature does exist, huh? Mm-hmm. And so the man who asked, does nature exist, he's speaking as if he doesn't know what he does know, right? Well, the same thing he would say here, if we had opposed to him, these objections, right? Okay? That, um, you can't but not know that the truth does exist, right? And that man can know truth, huh? And just a question of how easy or how difficult is for him to know truth that you have to consider? That's where the things are not altogether clear, huh? But that truth exists and that man can know truth, right, some truth, right, is, what, obvious or, per se, no, to man? And Aristotle says it would be laughable to try to, what, prove what you know, because what is there besides what you know but what you don't know? And try to prove what you don't, what you do know but what you don't know would be absurd, right? So, you said amen? So he doesn't ask those questions, does truth exist, or can man know truth, right? But he takes it as being obvious that truth does exist, and that man can know truth to some extent, right? And now it is, well, how is he towards knowing truth, though? Is it an easy thing for him or a difficult thing or, you know? Okay? Okay. He doesn't ask the question here, but you could say, right? Is the consideration of truth, is the knowledge of truth, easy or difficult for a man, right? Okay? Now, sometimes make this concrete to the students, you know, you have the assumption there, you have the hallway there with a whole bunch of offices of professors, right? And so if you went down and knocked on the door of each professor here, right, and you ask, is it easy or difficult for a man to know truth? What answer do you think you could get from most professors? Difficult? Yeah. And probably get some answer like, difficult if not impossible. I bet that's the answer you'd get from a list of professors, don't you think so? And students would say that, yeah, that's kind of what they mean, okay? But now you come to the last door, and on the door it says Aristotle. Okay, everybody down the hall has said, it's difficult if not impossible, right? Okay, now you're knocking on the door, and you ask Aristotle. Is it difficult, easy or difficult to know truth, Aristotle? In one way it's difficult, another way easy. Different answer from everybody else, right? Interesting, huh? Okay. Okay. And also he says difficult first, right? And in another, what? Easy. If you think of the difficulty first, right? But also he's going to say in some ways easy. That's his answer, but he's got to talk about both of those, yeah? When Carla Ratzinger points out that among the great crises that are around our theology and philosophy, many are now questioning or doubting the existence of truth at all, and also. So it makes you wonder, you know, people who say, who, one, raise this question, that there's really no such thing as truth at all, you know, or you can't even know the truth, presumably it does exist. Because can there be any other explanation for that than just moral perversity? And they just perverse, this almost pernicious doubting what should be obvious, what is in fact obvious, lying to themselves and to the whole, if you're trying to lie to the man, can they conviviate? But what Aristotle points out there in the passage I referred to in the second book of natural hearing, he said, is it possible for a man to think he doesn't know what he does know, right? And Aristotle gives as a sign that he can be in this position, is the reverse, right? He can think he knows what he doesn't know, okay? Now, let's put this down on the board for a second now. He takes the fact that man can think he knows what he does not know, He takes that as a sign that man can think he does not know, but he does know, okay? Now, why does Aristotle say that? Why does he reason from the first to the second? Take the first as a sign. Well, it's more known to us, right, that a man can think he knows what he does not know, right? And before Aristotle, he has Socrates going around examining people who are always claiming to know something that they are shown not to know, right? So, there's no doubt that man can make this first mistake, right? But notice, if I can make the mistake of thinking, say, that a man is a woman, if I see Michael Jackson and go, this is a woman, if it's possible for me to make the mistake of thinking that some man is a woman, right, is it possible for someone else to make the mistake of thinking that a woman is a man, see? Because I make the mistake of thinking some man is a woman because sometimes they're hard to tell apart, huh? And therefore, the mistake could go in either, what, direction, right? Okay? If I can make the mistake of thinking that Miller's is Budweiser, couldn't someone else make the mistake of thinking Budweiser's is Miller's? Can you see that? Okay? So Aristotle takes this, which is more known to take place, right, as a sign that the reverse is also possible. But the first kind of mistake is a mistake which is made by most men, huh? Very common. The second kind of mistake is a mistake made by thinkers, see? And they're trying to avoid that first thing, and then they go to the opposite, what, extreme. What Aristotle is saying is you've got to avoid both of these, huh? You've got to avoid thinking you know what you don't know, and you've got to avoid thinking you don't know what you do know. And then you've got to use what you really do know to investigate and come to know what you don't know, right? And then you've got to avoid thinking you don't know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what you do know what So that's the way he shows the second is possible, right? No, maybe also a defect on the side of the appetite too, right? And it can be pride and things of that sort, right? Even this first case, pride can influence us too, right? I can think I know more than I do know because I think I'm better than I am, right? Okay? You see that? Okay. So people who think that truth does not exist, right? Well, they've made a statement. Truth does not exist. Is that statement true or false? Well, if it's false, then truth does exist, right? And if it's true, but they're admitting there's some truth, right? You see? So they really do know that truth exists, see? But they think it doesn't exist, huh? Okay? Now, even the so-called axioms, which are the statements most known, right? I give you an example there with the whole and part, haven't I? And I sometimes present that sophisticated argument in class to the students, right? Oh, gee whiz, sometimes the part is bigger than the whole, you know? See, they're deceived by a bad argument, right? And so often, you know, that could happen, right? Even about something like that. And you get, you know, sometimes, you know, I read scientists, too, you know, and they're trying to understand change, right? And they think, well, you can't really understand change without admitting that something can be and not be, see? And I've heard, you know, mathematical physicists say that, you know, higher mathematics is not possible without contradictions, you know? So they think that something can both be and not be, because they can't solve these difficulties, huh? Okay? There's a beautiful one there that Aristotle solves in the sixth book of Natural Hearing, but it's one that Hegel takes up again, right? And Hegel takes it as an argument that something both is and is not. And you find in the theology of the Eucharist, you know, in the Middle Ages, the same problem. And it's, you kind of get a beautiful article on that in the La Valle de la Gigue. It's in French, paradox de devenir par la condiction, see? Suppose what is not a sphere, right, becomes a sphere, okay? Anything contradict, what is not a sphere becomes a sphere, right? Okay? Now there's a time when what is not a sphere is not a sphere, right? And that time has an end, right? And there's a time in which it is a sphere, right? Okay? Now there's the last instant in which it is not a sphere, and the first instant in which it is a sphere, are they the same instant? The same instant, then that instant, it both is and is not a sphere, right? If you take the other alternative and say, well, they're not the same instant, then there's a period of time between any two instances. Just like between any two points, instead there's a line. And now you ask the same question. In that time, right, in between, is it or is it not, right? And if it is not, then that's not the time in between. That's, well, it's the first time, right? So it seems you can't have any time in between, right? And therefore it seems that the last instant in which it is not a sphere is also the first instant in which it is, and therefore it both is and is not. And Hegel gives that argument, right? And therefore he said all change involves a contradiction, right? And this came up in the Middle Ages when they tried to understand the Eucharist, right? Because there's a time in which under the appearance of bread and wine, there is really bread and wine, okay? And then there's a time in which under there there's the body and blood of our Lord. Now, if the last instant in which it is bread and wine is the first instant in which it is now the body and blood of our Lord, then you've got a heresy at that, you know? And so in order to solve that theological difficulty, Thomas goes back to the sixth book of natural hearing. And to solve Hegel's one, they go back to the sixth book, huh? It was a very subtle explanation of Aristotle, right? It involves seeing that there is no last instant in which it is not a sphere. But there is a first, what? Instant in which it is, what? A sphere, right? Just like when you say you're dying, right, huh? There's a time when you're dying, you know? Okay? Your last day, your last hour, your last minute, right? When you're dying, is there a last instant in which you're alive? No. But there's a first instant in which you're dead. There's kind of a paradox, right, huh? You know? In fact, that's the way it should be. You've got to stay at the sixth book, you know, somewhat. But you can get arguments that are very difficult and the average person could never solve, right? You see? And so even arguments against the axiom about being and unbeing, right? Something and not both be and not being. And about whole and part, we can give arguments against them, or the sophists can give arguments against them, that most people can never, what? Yeah. You're right, right? So, because there's an argument against something obvious that you can't answer, then you think you don't know what you do know. Well, okay? But this takes something a little simpler than some of the things I've been saying there. People who deny the axiom about contradiction, if you ask, why do they deny it, right? If it's not just out of perverse will, that could be perverse will, but if there's a reason why they deny it, it's because something contradicts it. So they're denying it because they what? Because they accept it. They're saying that contradictions exist, something can both be and not be, because if you say that isn't so, you contradict change. So you're saying it isn't so because it is so. And it's a little bit like the thing in ethics there, huh? In ethics we say, should a man live by his reason or by his emotions, right? Now, if someone wants to argue with you about that, right? If someone wants to argue you should live by your emotions rather than by your reason, well, emotion can't argue, only reason can, right? So, he's in a sense admitting that reason should decide whether you should live by reason or by your emotions. In which case he's already admitting that you should live by your reason. You see? And so, people who deny the principle of contradiction, something can both be and not be, they deny it because something contradicts it. So they're denying it because they accept it. You see that? Yeah. That's why you couldn't make the axiom about contradiction an hypothesis to be tested, right? By its consequences. Because you test an hypothesis by seeing whether its consequences are or are not contradicted by observation or experiment, right? Okay. So you have to assume the truth of the axiom about contradiction to test it, right? Which is absolutely absurd. So, a man can think he doesn't know what he does know, right? Not only because of perversity of will, although that could be part of it, but also because there's an argument against the obvious that he can't, what? Answer, yeah. Yeah. So when Aristotle, you know, is talking about the axiom of contradiction there in the fourth book of Wisdom, he'll talk about how people will deny it sometimes because of their difficulty and something else that they can't resolve, right? Okay. So you can think you don't know what you do know. It's kind of a strange situation to be in, right? But Aristotle shows that that's possible, as they say, by taking the more known situation of the human mind, right? This would be different from something practical where, take an example of what Chesterton says in pornography is not something that we should reason about. It's something we stomped on with your foot. Yeah. Because it's obviously a moral evil. Yeah. That's different than reasoning about something like that. I think in moral matters about homosexual marriage and this sort of thing, you know, people, perverse will, they're really involved in these things, huh? Or even abortion, you know. It's funny, like judges sometimes, you know. If I kick... A pregnant woman killed a baby, that's murder. Homicide, at least, right? So they didn't even be, right? And then you turn around, you allow abortion, right? So, I mean, there's really a contradiction there in their judgments. So you tend to get, you know, more, in moral manner, you get more of that. Shakespeare says it very well in the, what, beginning of Macbeth, right? Fair is foul, and foul is fair. He's saying, in a sense, good is bad, and bad is good. Then he gives you two reasons for it. Hover through the fog, and filthy air. And the hover through the fog is more the defect on the side of the knowing powers, right? But the filthy air is the defect of the heart, right? And of course, in Anthony Cleopatra, he talked explicitly about that filthiness of the heart there, blinding the eye of the soul. He did it very clearly. Okay? So you've got to be careful, right? Sometimes, to say, people will get into this second position here because of an argument they can't solve, right? And therefore, they think because of that they don't know what they don't know. But that that second state of mind is possible is shown by the fact that the first is possible. If I can think, if somebody can think that an orange is the limit, somebody can make that mistake of thinking an orange is the limit, shouldn't the reverse be what? Yeah, yeah. It's funny, when I was out at my daughter's there, out in Omaha there, usually in the morning at breakfast, I slice an orange, right? And so they used to get some oranges, I mean, I don't have some in the house, but they also had some grapefruit, right? Mm-hmm. It's kind of funny, you know, some of these oranges are really getting big now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're bigger than the grapefruit, yeah. Well, one of the medicines I take says explicitly I should take no grapefruit. Oh. And so, um, there was one morning I was cutting one of these things, and I was saying, is this an orange or a... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's kind of a funny, tasty orange. Oh, yeah. And I said, well, I'm about to mix the wrong things here, you know. But no, so someone could make the mistake. I mean, I think one day I picked out a grapefruit, and I cut it, and then I realized it was a grapefruit, you know. But I started to cut it because I thought it was an orange, right? So if breakfast can make the mistake of thinking that an orange, excuse me, that a grapefruit, in this case, that a grapefruit is an orange, right? Couldn't someone make the reverse mistake and think that an orange is a grapefruit? Because you wouldn't make the mistake going in one direction if it was hard sometimes to tell the two apart. And then someone could go in the opposite, what, direction, right? Do you see that? Okay, we should take a little break, and then we'll come back to this.