Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 32: Being as Being and the Unity of Wisdom

Transcript
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You'll find these sort of things in geometry too, right? But you'll find nothing in geometry about triangles being green or red or blue. That might happen to be so, right? But we're not concerned with what happens in reasoned out knowledge, huh? We're only concerned with what belongs to a thing as sight should do itself. And any one of these four senses, huh? Do you see that? Okay. And so Aristotle's talked about a statement being a speech signifying the true or the false and then having a noun and a verb and so on, right? And sometimes you divide it into the subject and the predicate and the copy it out of the is and the is not. Then he goes on to point out a property of the statement. Every statement has a what? Opposite statement, right? So for every affirmative statement, there's an opposite what? Negative statement. Negative statement. And for every negative statement, there's an opposite affirmative statement, right? And in fact, you can be even more precise and say there's always a statement that's opposed contradictorily to the one, right? You know, in a contradictory opposition, one must be true and the other must be false, whether you know which is the true one, which is the false one, right? President Bush is the false one, right? President Bush is the false one, right? President Bush is the false one, right? President Bush is the false one, right? One of those is true. One of them is false now, right? But those are contradictorily opposed. So that's like a property, right? Of it them. Now, when we define the good, the first definition we give of good, it's not the end of our knowledge of what good is, but it's the starting point. The good is what all want, right? The good is what all desire. As Socrates points out in the Mino, right? Here's down the beginning of the Nicomagnetic Ethics. Well, that's kakao tol, right? That's like the proper effect of the good, right? Okay, something is not good because you want it, but you want it because it is good, right? So, you still consider the kakao tol. The through itself would be as such when you talk about the good. As what all want, okay? That's not accidental to the good that's wanted. So, at the beginning of this reading, Aristotle says, there is a reasoned out knowledge. The Greek word would be epistame. There is a reasoned out knowledge of being as being, right? And what belongs to this through itself. Well, notice that expression, as being, touch upon this phrase, as such, right? And through itself. But those are to some extent interchangeable. Do you all have a copy of this? That's good. Okay. Now, as we go through some of the books on being as being, you'll see that it belongs to being as being, for example, to be good. Good. If I didn't understand what good and bad are, you'll find out that being as such is good. And that the bad is really a kind of non-being. A kind of non-being called lack or privation, right? So, that's one thing that belongs to being as such and to itself. Another thing that belongs to being as such is to be one. As Thomas reasons there in the either or syllogism there in the Summa Theologiae, what is, is either simple or composed. Now, if it's composed or put together, it obviously isn't unless its parts are, what, put together, right? So, if I smashed up this chair, you wouldn't have a chair, would you, right? Okay. So, you can see that it belongs to being as such to be one, even if it's composed, right? In A4, it's simple, is one, huh? Even more so than the composed. So, there are some things that belong to being as such, in the sense of the effect of the quite. property of being, right? To be good, which is more difficult to say, but more easily to see, to be what? One, right? Okay. Likewise, and we'll see this especially in Book 5, there are some divisions of being as such. Like the division of being into act and ability. Or the division of being into substance and accident. These are the divisions of being as being. These are different ways of being, right? Okay. But maybe being won't have defined parts, right? Because when you define, you define something by its genus, right? And by its what? For instance. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe being has some kind of act and some kind of ability in it. It's a composition of act and ability, right? So, maybe there are kind of essential parts of being, right? So, what's the experience you go into the study of being as being? So, you have to, you won't see it fully yet, but you can see a little bit, that there are things that belong to being as such, right? Being through being. Through being being. Okay? Now, that's one thing you have to see. Now, the second thing you have to see is that this wisdom we're after, this knowledge who's in their goals to know God, the first cause, that this wisdom is also the reasoned knowledge of being as being, okay? And how does Aristotle go about showing this, right? Let's look at his words first, and then I'll try to unfold them, right? Now, he says, this is not the same in the second paragraph of the first reading. This is not the same as any of those said in part, huh? Now, what does he mean any of those said in part? Well, every other reason of knowledge that we have is about something more particular than being, huh? Nothing is more universal than being, huh? Everything that is in any way whatsoever, right, can be said to be a being, right? Being means simply what is, right? So, what is in any way comes under that. You couldn't be more universal than that, right? But any other form of reasoned out knowledge is not that universal, is it? So, geometry is about what? Continuous quantity, huh? Lines and angles and plain figures and solid figures and so on, right? And arithmetic is about numbers, right? It's not about all things, right? And even natural philosophy is about natural things, right? Okay? And logic is about the syllogism and statement and definition, right? Okay? And political philosophy is about the city and government. So, every other reasoned out knowledge is about something more particular than this. For none of the others considers about being as being as a whole. But cutting off some part of this, something more particular, they consider what happens about it. And he takes that as an example of the mathematical forms of reasoned out knowledge, right? Arrhythmia is not about being as being as... No, it's about numbers as numbers. As Aristotle pointed out in the sixth book, not only do the other forms of reasoned out knowledge consider something particular, but also in a particular way. So, the arithmetic is about numbers as numbers, right? Not numbers as beings. And natural philosophy is about natural things, not as beings, but as natural things. And political philosophy is about political things, as political things, right? And logic is about the syllogism, not as a being, the kind of being is a syllogism, but syllogisms as syllogisms, right? Okay, you make that even more precise there. So you see that there's a difference between the knowledge, the reasoned out knowledge of being as being, and all the other forms of reasoned out knowledge that you might bring up, right? You might be acquainted with them. Now, in the third paragraph, he's going to reason out that the science that seeks the first causes of all things, or the first cause, is going to be also the science that considers being as being, right? He says, since we seek the highest beginnings of causes, I think I mentioned before how the Greeks imagined the cause to be above the effect, right? They speak that way, right? And therefore, the what? Highest causes would be what? The first cause, right? Right? Okay? And sometimes we speak, the same way in Latin, we speak of the effect as what? Depending upon the what cause. Well, you know this earring they call dependent there? It's hanging from something, right? So it's kind of like imagining the cause to be holding this thing up in existence from above, right? Okay. Well, in the English language, right? Germanic more. We imagine the cause to be what? The low. The ground, huh? Holding up, right? I think I was mentioning there how in Comedy of Errors, right? The wife is complaining that her husband, right? He's got a wandering eye. She thinks he does. And that, I mean, I've been looking at us when he married me, you know, but he's the ground of my defeatures. Of my defeatures. And that's kind of an archaic feature there, but her declining beauty, right? But he's the cause, right? But she says the ground, right? Okay. And, of course, sometimes in Greek or Latin, we do speak of the cause as what? The underlying cause. Okay. And perhaps, you know, the original etymology of the Greek word, hypothesis, right? Meant placed under, hypothesis, right? Placed under and therefore what? You imagine the cause to be, what? Supporting something, right? Okay. Now, that's just kind of a etymology of the word, right? Or there's a certain reference to above or below, right? But strictly speaking, the cause is not above or below the effect, right? But that's the way we speak, huh? So that's why I just use the word highest there, right? Okay. Since we seek, huh, in this knowledge called wisdom, the first beginnings and causes, but he calls them the highest here, right? It is clear that these are necessarily of some nature through itself. These are the causes of something as such, right? And then he takes the sign. If then those seeking the elements of being sought these beginnings, is necessary for the elements to be of being, not by happening, but as being. Whence also it is necessary for us to grasp the first causes of being as being. Now, in order to maybe make that a little more understandable, go back to something a little bit better known to us here, huh? Suppose you have a science, which is about the king, right? You're going to take a kingdom here as an example. The science is about the king. And you have another science, which is about the what? The general, right, huh? Okay. Here we're talking about two causes, and the king is a more universal cause than the general, right? The causality of the king extends to more than the causality of the general. And the causality of the king extends to everyone who is a citizen of his kingdom. And the causality of the general extends to everyone who is a soldier. Now, notice, huh, to simplify our example here, you've got citizens, there are soldiers, right? Let's say every soldier is a citizen. But which is more universal? Which is said of more, soldier or citizen? Citizen. Yeah. Because every soldier is a citizen, but not every citizen is a soldier, right? Mm-hmm. Now, you see why citizen corresponds to king and soldier to general, right? The more universal cause, right, his causality extends to things of which something more universal can be said, right? And the less universal cause, his causality extends to all those of whom something less universal can be said, right? And if you wanted to have a reasoned-out knowledge about the king, you'd have to bring the citizens, wouldn't you? Because he's the king of all the citizens, right? So it belonged to the same reasoned-out knowledge to talk about the king and to talk about the, what? Citizen, right? Okay? Or in general political philosophy, it's the same knowledge, political philosophy, that talks about the government, right? And talks about who is or is not a citizen. Okay? Well, if there is a science about the general, it would also be a science about the, what? The soldier, right? Because the general's causality extends to everyone who is a, what, soldier. So what is a cause of more considers a subject, right, said of more. What's the most universal cause? The highest cause, as he calls it, right? The very first cause, right, then? So its subject is going to be what? Everything. Something said of everything, right? And what is it that said of everything that is and even its work? Being. Being, yeah. Do you see how it's proportional to what you have here? Okay. It's like Aristotle was reasoning, right? In saying that the science that considers the king should consider what a citizen is. The science that considers the general, just what a soldier is, right? But the science that considers the first cause of all, should talk about what? What is said of all? Okay? So you don't want to confuse cause of all with said of all, but you want to what? You see that they belong to the same knowledge, yeah. You see that? Okay? Now, let's take another example right now which is a little more profound in some ways. And when you study ethics, I mean, you look at the premium to ethics there at the beginning of Nicomachean Ethics. And Aristotle points out that ethics in a way is about happiness, huh? It's about the end or good that is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, but everything else for the sake of it. So it's a cause in the sense of, in the sense of, in the sense of, in their purpose of everything in human life. Okay? So, that's the first thing he points out. And he says, in a way, this is political knowledge, huh? As Thomas says in the commentary, ethics gives you the elements of political philosophy. So you can say, ethics or political philosophy, which is the elements, it's about human happiness, huh? The end of the whole life. When you go to the most famous work in Introduction to Philosophy, the most red work even in this crazy country you live in, the apology of soccer. Well, you read that work carefully, and you come to the place where Socrates is talking about the life he's been leading, examining people, his fellow citizens, and how he got into this way of life, and how he examined men, he found out that they didn't usually know what they thought they knew, and so on. But then after that more general view of his life, he singles out something that he's especially been talking to his fellow Athenians about. And it's about their pursuing the goods of the body, and exterior goods, more than the goods of the soul. He's been examining them about whether it's reasonable, to try to get as much as you can of exterior goods, and the goods of the body, and be satisfied with the minimum necessary of the goods of the soul to acquire these other ones, and preserve these other ones, as a fool with his money or soon party, as they say. Or whether it'd be more reasonable to get as much as you could of the goods of the soul, and be satisfied with that minimum necessary of the goods of the body and exterior goods, right? Right? Now I know what side you guys have chosen, but the Athenians have chosen the other, right? Okay? Well, Sarkis doesn't develop it there, but he's touching upon the division of all the goods of man, into the goods of the soul, the goods of the body, and the outside goods, huh? And Aristotle himself, in the seventh book of the politics, he takes up this division again, huh? And he says, everybody knows that there are these three kinds of goods, early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. In some extent, we're all kind of aware of that, but not as distinctly as a philosopher is. And everybody, Aristotle says, agrees we need some of each of these three kinds. And so the laws will have reference reference to all three of these things, even our laws, huh? But men disagree as to which ones are better. And the philosophers and most men disagree about this. Now, I point this out because it seems to belong to the philosopher, like Socrates, who's primarily a moral political philosopher, and Aristotle following Socrates, and so on. It seems to belong to the moral or political philosopher to consider, in general, all of the goods of man, right? And the art of cooking doesn't talk about all the goods of man, does it? And even the medical art doesn't talk about all the goods of man, right? And there's some reason why the consideration of all the goods of man should be made by the moral political philosopher. Well, before you get to that point, right, you might ask the question, is it necessary to consider at some time all the goods of man and divide them and find out which ones are better? Is that necessary? It would seem so, because there are the moral philosophers asking what the nature of happiness is, and in a way, we need all three of these goods, but in a different degree. Because if you don't know which ones are better, right, you might be spending your life pursuing the lesser goods, right, more than the greater goods. And then, as I tell the students, your life is based on a mistake. Now you want your life to be based on a mistake? Okay? So someone, right, has to talk about all the goods of man, right, at least in a very general way. Someone has to divide all the goods of man into these three, and more consider which are better. Now, does that belong to the medical art, or to the art of cooking? You see? Is there some reason why it belongs to the moral political philosopher, and not to the medical art, and not to the art of cooking? See? Well, if you examine, the end of the medical art is health, right? Now health is a great good, but is it the end and purpose of life? No. No one looks at health as being his inner goal. He wants to be healthy, so he can do other things that he wants to do. And the end of the art of cooking is that the food be tasty. Now, is that the end of life, that food be tasty? It's nice that food is tasty, but is that the end of life? No. And so that's not the end of everything in life, right? But hey, the moral and the political philosopher, he considers happiness, right? Which is the good that's desired for its own sake, and not for the sake of anything else, but everything else for the sake of it, as Plato points out in the symposium, or Socrates points out in the symposium. See, if there's a reason for the fact that the philosopher, meaning the moral and political philosopher, considers happiness, right? He considers the end of man, the end of human life, the goal of man, the end of human life, that it belongs to him to consider, at least in a general way, all the goods of man, right? And how they, in a more proximate or more remote way, right, contribute to or enter into or don't enter into the final end or purpose of man. Do you see that? Okay? So there's a connection, then, between the universality of the cause, right, that ethics and political philosophy are about, and we're talking about all human goods. We're talking about the division of all human goods, right, and the order in goodness of those three kinds, huh? Do you see that? So once you see this connection, right, that the more universal the cause, the more, what, universal setup, right, corresponds to that, right? Okay? So the science about the king talks about the citizen, the science about the general, about the soldier, the science of happiness, about all human goods, right? The medical artist talks about what's healthy and food and exercise and other things, right? Okay? So that's, in a sense, the reason that Aristotle gives a sign for, but the reason why the science that aims at the very first cause of all things, right, is reasonably the science that talks about what is said of all things, huh? Okay? Especially for us mortals who have a hard time understanding the universality of a cause, except by saying it extends to all things in which this is said. Do you see that? Okay? So notice that Aristotle has done here now in the first three paragraphs, huh? In the first paragraph he's pointed out that there is, episteme, a reasoned out knowledge or a reasoned out understanding of being as being, right, and what belongs to it as such or to itself, and that this is none of the particular sciences that we're familiar with before, right? And then finally, the third paragraph, that this must be the same reasoned out knowledge that is seeking the, what, first cause, right? That wisdom, whose goal is the first cause, is going to, because of that, talk about what is said of all things in some way. It's going to be about all things in some way, right? Okay? You could also see that a bit from the description of the wise man that he's a know-it-all. In the way in which a man can be a know-it-all, right? Because a man can't know all things in particular, but even in knowing what an odd number is, I'm knowing in a way an infinity of things. So I could know even an infinity of things in some way, right? Not simply, but in some way, by knowing what is said of all things, right? And so in knowing being as being, I know in some way all things. And we think of the wise man in that way. just as we say to the practically wise man you hear this kind of a common phrase in the common discourse nowadays people say he's got it all together right you know it's kind of a vague way but somehow he sees the whole life right now and he's got some kind of a proportionate view of things right you see he's got it all together right doesn't know everything in particular but you see that now starting in the fourth paragraph Aristotle's going to in a way touch upon what you might put in the form of a question and that is is being said with one meaning of all beings and he's quickly going to indicate that being is said equivocally not with one meaning right and someone might object and say well now is there one science or one reason knowledge of all bats everything called a bat could be I mean you have the same knowledge of baseball bats and the bats that fly out of the thing so if the word being is like the word bat in meaning more than one thing right just because you have one word does that mean you have one knowledge of such things if honey is said of the man's wife instead of the stuff the bee produces is there one knowledge of these two things just because you happen to have a common name or a name same name so you could form it even kind of an objection right against there being a reasoned knowledge of being as being on the grounds that doesn't mean one thing okay now we learn even in logic when we talk about genus right we learn in logic that there's not one genus said of all things in the so-called categories that there are ten highest genus now as I think I mentioned before Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Contra Gentilas casts a certain light upon the distinction of the five predicables and porphyry because in a capitulum chapter on whether any name is said with the same meaning of God and creatures and he's arguing that no name is said univocally or with the same meaning of God and creatures one of his arguments is that every name said univocally is a genus or a species or a difference or a proper accident and then he eliminates all five of those right from any name said of us in God now you may recall when we arrived at the ten highest genus a bit we began by saying you know that the same thing can be a genus of a species remember that so for example quadrilateral is a genus of square with a species of rectilineal plane figure or man animal is the genus of man and dog and a species of living body right with a plant but then we asked is every genus a species does every genus have a genus above it right and then we asked well there are many difficulties if you say that every genus has a genus above it because you have to know an infinity of things to know anything and how could you begin to know anything right but also if every genus had a genus above it since a genus is said of more than a species you'd always have a name said of more things than any name but can there be a name said of more things than say the word thing or something or the name being can there be something that isn't a being well being can be said of anything that isn't any way whatsoever right and everything is a thing in some sense it's something so the fact that there are most universal names shows that not every genus has a what but then there arises the question is there just one highest genus like being or thing being or something or are there many highest genus right that's a question right just think if you in order to say the same man can be a father and a son but is every father a son if you say no not every father is a son for whatever reason you could give it this so that's the question is there one father of us all like Adam or is there more than one father right and so he asks say you can't if every genus is not a species is there just one highest genus that covers everything or are there many highest genera that was the question right and you do have words like being or something that is said of everything but are they genera well if you go back to the definition of genus in the strict sense that's a name said with one meaning of many things other in kind signifying what it is aren't is the word being or the word thing said with one meaning of all things well I can show in some simple ways that it's not starting with Hamlet there right he comes down the stage and he says to be or not to be that is the question right what's he talking about to live yeah yeah he's not talking about to be a student or not to be a student is he to be in Denmark or not to be in Denmark to marry Ophelia or not to marry to be married right if he's talking about that he'd have to qualify it wouldn't he okay so it doesn't seem to be exactly the same meaning of to be is it when he says to be or not to be and then we talk about to be in Denmark or not to be in Denmark right okay another way I express that is if I say to you now if you leave this room you will cease to be sounds threatening doesn't it and now if you charge me in court with threatening people and so on I say well your honor all I meant was that if he left the room he would cease to be in the room well Mr. Berkwist no one would understand what he said in that way would he see so when you think of what ceasing to be when you leave the room right then you're thinking of life and death right death yeah if I meant you would cease to be in the room and I have to kind of qualify right so it doesn't seem that to be instead of dying you know or coming to be and coming into the room in the same way does it same if I said you know did you come to be when you walked into this room yeah he came to be in this room you have to qualify right so to be doesn't seem to have just one meaning does it in the same way for the word thing right so if I asked the man in the bar there is my nose and my ear the same thing what would he say they're two things right okay but is my nose the shape of my nose two things like my nose and my ear are two things what would he say be a little puzzled right if you got a man and a dog in a room and the dog leaves you've got one thing left in the room right or do you have two things the man and the sheep the man. Or three things, a man and his shape and his health. At first you'd say you have one thing left, right? And my nose and the shape of my nose don't seem to be two things like my nose and my ear, right? So you begin to see that the word thing has more than one meaning there. And therefore, being or thing, although said of everything that is, and everything, everything, are not said genetically of everything. And being is not said of everything that is with exactly the same meaning. And therefore they can't be a, what, genus, right? And then you realize there's more than one genus on it. But it took the genius of Aristotle to find out what the many were, right? But now, Aristotle's going to point out that even when a name is said of many things with different meanings in mind, it can describe, or it can name, the subject of one knowledge when there's a connection among those meanings, whereby they should be studied together, right? In the same knowledge, huh? And one example he'll take there is healthy, right? Now, when I say your body is healthy, when I say your complexion is healthy, or when I say your diet is healthy, right? Or your exercise, your food is healthy, does the word healthy mean the same thing exactly in all these cases? But is there a connection among the meanings, huh? Because kind of the central one there is the health of the body, right? And the diet is said to be healthy because it preserves that condition of the body, right? And the complexion or something is a sign of that good condition of the body, right? And the food is healthy because it preserves the health of the body and so on. So maybe the medical arm would talk about what is healthy, even though everything is not healthy in the same sense exactly, but because there's a connection, right? Okay? It wouldn't make too much sense to talk about what is a sign of the good condition of the body and a science other that knows what the good condition of the body is. Ready? Okay? Now, let's take a different example here, more from philosophy here. Now, we have a part of philosophy, which is a combination of the practical philosophy called political philosophy. Now, what's political philosophy about? Well, this is the Groucho Marx question, right? Who's buried in Grants 2, huh? So the safe answer is that political philosophy is about political things, right? Just like natural philosophy is about natural things. But are political things all clinical in the same meaning of the word political? Well, if you know a little bit of Greek, you know that the word political comes from polis, right? Which means the city, you know? But, you know, a sovereign city, right? Okay? So, in political philosophy, we talk about the polis, right? Now, we also talk in political philosophy about government. But is government a polis? No. So, the word political is equivocal instead of polis and government, right? But is there a reason why they're both called political? Yeah. Because the government rules and directs the polis, right? So it makes sense in the same knowledge to talk about the polis and the government, right? How can you talk about government without talking about the polis if the government rules the polis, right? Okay? Now, Plato has a famous work in political philosophy called the laws. It's not the last work some people think that we have the platos, right? Now, is law a polis? No. Is law a government? No. Well, why talk about law in the same knowledge that talks about the polis and the government? The government rules the polis by means of the law. Yeah, yeah. Okay? Then you get to the fifth book of Aristotle's politics and he talks about revolution, right? Now, is revolution a polis? No. Is revolution a government? No. Is revolution a law? No. Well, talk about that, I mean. You know? But is it connected with these, right? Yeah. Now, revolution is further from polis and government. Revolution is a change of government, right? So does it make sense to talk about government in one knowledge and the change of government in another knowledge? It might be a different part of the same knowledge, right? Mm-hmm. But does it make sense to consider the revolution independent of government? No. You can't really understand revolution unless you know that it's a change of government, right? You know, Plato in the Republic, right, talks about what kind of government something changes into, right? And de Tocco talks about that and Aristotle talks about that, right? So democracy gets a little bit too and rulli, right? Didn't feed up in that. Period, right? Dictator and so on. So, there's one kind of reason out of knowledge, one kind of happy statement called political philosophy that's about all these things that are political in different senses, but the word political here instead of these is not equivocal by chance, like the word bat said in the baseball bat in the flying rodent, right? Mm-hmm. But it's what we call equivocal by reason, right? Okay? And that means that there's an order because reason is concerned with order. There's an order, a connection among the beings. And there's a fundamental meaning, right? And the other ones refer back to that, huh? The government rules the polis. Revolution is a change of art. The government rules the polis by law, right? So, it's reasonable to consider them the same thing, right? So, the question is, granted, huh? That the word being is said of my nose and the shape of my nose equivalently, right? Granted, being is equivocal when I say that I came to be when, I don't know, I guess my parents generated me, right? God infused my soul, so on. That's when I came to be. And when I came to be in this room today, right? Granted, the word to be there is equivocal. Is it equivocal by chance or is there a reason, right? Is there a connection among these meanings? Yeah. And just like in the case of the political, there's a first meaning, right? Of political, which is the polis, right? And every other meaning of political, in some way, refers back, more immediately or more remotely, to what? First. Yeah. Polis is the first meaning, government is the second meaning, revolution is the third meaning, right? Okay. But they all refer in some way back to the polis. That's the chief, what political philosophy is chiefly about, right? Okay. In theology, right? Theology is about, I'm talking about revealed theology now. Revealed theology is about what? God, right? And does it talk about anything besides God? Yeah. But only in relation to God, right? Okay.