Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 37: Being and Becoming: Motion, Time, and Perfection

Transcript
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And yet, if you stop and think, when you're coming to know, you're having some imperfect way that knowing already, don't you? Okay? And there's a relation or a connection between coming to be and being, right? And doesn't coming to be and coming to know in some sense exist in this world? Isn't there such a thing as coming to be? And I'm chewing my food and jesting it? You know? This is kind of important to me, right? This food is coming to be, what? Human, huh? Flesh and blood and bones. But it takes a while to get there, right? Otherwise, I'd be, you know, looking like a carrot or broccoli or between green or something, right? Being broccoli and so on. I don't eat much that's white, except chicken, maybe. But I don't become like what I eat, right? You know? So, this process of digesting and coming to be human flesh and blood and bones, it goes on to me every day, just about. That exists, doesn't it? And I've been learning all my life, coming to know, still coming to know. Process of learning exists too, doesn't it? There's some learning, you know, a little bit of learning in the school today, I guess. A little bit. Not too much. A little bit, right? So, in some sense, coming to be is, right? They learn how to be ignorant. Yeah. But see, in a lesser sense, right? Okay? But notice, it's a relation. You're coming to be a man, a substance, or you're coming to be a geometer, you know? It's a coming to be of a substance or an accident, right? You're coming to be 5'10", or something, right? Coming to be a father or something. And then, the last sense is where even, what? None being, of some sort, like blindness, and even nothing, is said to be, right? Now, how can you move the word further than that? You know? The word being is now being said of what is none being. Right? That's like you've gone from the being in the fullest sense, substance, to being now that, okay, in some sense, nothing is, right? Nothing is nothing. Nothing is something in my mind, right? So I move the word as far as I can, but it's still connection, right? Blindness is an unbeing of sight, which is an accident, right? Okay? So, in order to understand these things, you have to understand a negation as a negation of something, right? And so it's understood in reference back to these other things. So, see how far you move there, right? Now, I recall that teaching there in the fourth book because, in a way, these first two meanings here, of being as such, if you consider this being of reasons that are not also in things, right, that's the last sense of being in the fourth book, right? So it's appropriately put after that, isn't it? He doesn't mention becoming in here, but that would be in between, right? Okay? So, the fourth book casts in the light upon those two being put together, right? Okay? It's kind of interesting the way the mind works there. The mind is a great difficulty in understanding becoming. I think I mentioned how Hegel, right? Very influential in modern times. How Hegel thinks that becoming is a kind of union of being and non-being, right? Okay? So you kind of see being and non-being and then becoming, well, it's a little bit of both, right? Okay? You know, what is learning? Is it knowing or not knowing? It's a little bit of both, isn't it? But the one who's learning is not entirely ignorant, right? But he does it in a full sense, no, right? And in the part we didn't read there, in the defense of the axiom of being and non-being, something that cannot both be and not be, most of the objections come, you know, probably the most, from what? Motion, huh? Like Heraclitus said, that day and night are the same thing, right? And Hegel says, you know, that becoming involves being and non-being, huh? And so you have to know natural philosophy to be able to answer those objections, right? So I mentioned an article by Charles de Kahn, right? The Paradox to Devenir Paralacondixion. When what is not a sphere becomes a sphere, right? Well, is the last instant in which it is not a sphere, and the first instant in which it is a sphere, are they in the same instant? Well, if they're in the same instant, then you've got a contradiction of that instant, right? And both is and is not a sphere. If they're not the same instant, you've got a little period of time there, right? And what is it in that period of time? It's got to either be a sphere or not a sphere, right? So you can't have a period of time in between those, right? So it seems that the last instant in which it is a sphere, or not a sphere, and the first in which it is, are the same instant. And therefore, that instant is contradiction. Whereas God solves that in a very interesting way in the sixth book of natural hearing, by pointing out that there's no last instant in which it is not a sphere. When that period of time in which it is becoming a sphere is complete, it has become a sphere. So there's the first instant in which it is a sphere, but there's not a last instant in which it is not a sphere. It's very subtle, right? But there's a way out of that current contradiction, right? But most people couldn't see it. And DeConnick, in that article, apart from describing Hegel's problem with it, points out how it caused problems in the theology of the Eucharist down through the Middle Ages. Because there's a period of time where under the appearance of bread and wine, there is bread and wine, right? Then there's a later period of time where under the appearance of bread and wine, there's the blood and blood of our Lord, right? Now, if there's a last instant in which it is, what? Bread and wine, as well as a first instant in which it is the blood and blood of our Lord, would those two instances be the same, right? There's no time in between those two instances if they exist, because there would be neither bread and wine nor the blood and blood, right? So, if you make those two instances the same one, then you've got a heresy, right? You've got the body and blood at the same time as the bread and wine, right? You know, transubstantiation, right? Okay? But when the priest completes the words of the, what? Consecration, it has become the body and blood of our Lord, right? So, there's a first instant in which it is the body and blood of our Lord, but not a last instant in which it is bread and wine. Very subtle, right? But Thomas can solve the difficulty that puzzles the theologians and the religious, right? By his knowledge of the sixth book of natural hearing, huh? So, it's beautiful. So, as far as the order of these three groups of meanings, right? The first order that I see is that to some extent you're going from the less universal to the more universal, right? And the other one is that the first two, if you look back at the fourth book of natural, natural of wisdom, you can see that in a way there's a continuity there, right? Because when Thomas distinguishes those four basic senses of being, substance, accident, motion, right? And then, none being like blindness and so on, he's tacking on what is unique in the sense of beings of reason, they're not found in the real world, onto the, what? Regional division there, substance, accident, and then motion, right? And motion is kind of a funny thing, you know, because when does motion exist, right? So, it takes me some time to walk from here over to the wall there and, you know, part of my motion is my body and part of it is still to come, right? Well, the part that's gone by doesn't exist anymore. There's a part that comes, right? Well, how much of my motion is ever actually there? All at once. Well, if any part of my motion was there all at once, I'd be two places at once. So, all that is there of motion in the fully actual sense is what? Indivisible. So, motion hardly exists, right? It's like the problem with time. You know, time hardly exists because the past doesn't exist and the future doesn't exist and the future doesn't exist. And in the now, that is between the past and the future, there's no length of time at all. So in some sense, time hardly exists, right? See, you're getting that odd kind of being, right, between substance and action on the one hand, where something is altogether there, and none being, where it's not there at all. You've got something that is somewhat there and somewhat not there. Or, you know, it's a very strange kind of being, motion. That's why, you know, the modern mind broke down there in Descartes, and Descartes couldn't understand what motion was, so he says, let's forget about it. Let's forget about defining it. And Locke, you know, said the same thing for other reasons. And so they gave up time to define motion, which is, you know, the main starting point for knowing the existence of the unmoved mover. You have to know the definition of motion. So you're really cutting off the knowledge of God, in a way, yeah? But is it a kind of emotional being, and that it's just, I mean, or I guess, no, I mean, is that it's just a way in which we consider it, I mean? Well, no, Aristotle talks about time. He says that time would not fully be without the numbering soul, right? Which takes into account the past and future, right? To number that, yeah. And time, do you consider it as being of reason, then, or? Well, it's not, it has a little bit of that mixed in with it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you see? Because, yeah, see, three hours don't exist like these three men on the other side of the table, right? Because those three men are all together, right? But one hour, and the next hour, and the next hour, and they're together, right? So where do you get three hours, right? The mind has to take this into account, right? But there's a foundation for those three hours in reality. So it's not simply none being, like blindness, or a fourth series, not simply like nothing, right? Nothing, there's nothing there. But as soon as motion is the same, is considered, I mean, also has being of reason mixed in the same way as time? Yeah, a little bit like that, yeah, yeah. That doesn't have full existence, you see? And part of the idea, you know, that I moved from here to there, but when did I do that? And there was a time when I was, or now, when I was moving from here to there, right? And so, those things are hard to understand, see? But you can see that this is a diminished sense of being, right? Okay? See, when am I moving from here to the wall, right? It seems always, when I'm, quote, moving from here to the wall, part of my motion has gone by, part of it is to come, and none of my motion is ever actually there, fully, right? Only the indivisible, right? Of motion, which is no motion at all. So it's hard to, you can realize this is a diminished sense of being. It's just, but, like, where you, your existence at any given point is objectively true, I mean... Yeah, well, that's being in a sense of substance, right? And likewise, my being a geometer, or my being a father, or my being 5'10", right, huh? That's all here, right? Right. But my walking from here to the wall, when is that here? But the whole idea of just, is, your walking, doesn't it involve also, like, some type of observation, or somebody having an inner... You know, it's interesting, because, you know, I'm always quoting what Ulysses says to Achilles there, in Toys and Cressida, right? Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, huh? So if one person is moving, and other people are not moving, the person moving will get your attention, right? But motion, although it grabs attention to the senses, motion has hardly, what? It hardly is. It barely is. See? See, if you look at my walking from here to the wall, when does it exist, right? Does it exist now? Well, see, now it exists, right? When you say now it exists, part of it has gone by, and part of it has to come. And how much of my emotion is here all at once? Well, if any, part of my emotion, you know, was here all at once, I didn't mean two places all at once, right? So, all at once, I'm only in one place, and as long as I'm in one place, where's my emotion? So that's a very puzzling thing, aren't it? But anyway, I recall this beautiful distinction of the main senses of being, right? Thomas says this plethora of meanings that Aristotle gives there, to make life difficult for us, can be reduced, perhaps, to four main meanings, right? And substance is being most fully of these, okay? And so when I was conceived, or something like that, I came to be, right? When I learned geometry, I didn't come to be. Although you could say I came to be a geometer. You wouldn't say I came to be, would you? Just like if I forgot my geometry, you wouldn't say I ceased to be, would you? I ceased to be a geometer, maybe, right? But if I die, then I ceased to be, okay? Okay, so substance is being in a fuller sense than accident, right? And so when Hamlet says to be or not to be, that is the question. Everybody understands, I'm referring to life and death as a substantial being. But then motion has even less being than accident, huh? My being in geometry is all here now. But my walking from here to the wall is never all here. Why, my being dead has not been here at all. It's not being at all, right? But yet, in some sense, it's said to be being, right? But it's being in the sense of true, right? Okay? I am dead, that's true. But it's a kind of being of reason that doesn't have being outside the mind corresponding to it. The same way if I'm blind, or I'm ignorant, right? That seems to be a little nearer to being, because you have a subject there, right? That's apt to know, or a subject that's apt to have sight, right? But the being blind is really a non-being of something there, right? The being ignorant is a non-being, the non-existence of knowledge, and something able to know. Okay? So, the fact that Aristotle puts being as true right after being, according to the fixed of predication, you can say, well, that fits in, right? With the order and the meanings of being that Thomas gives us in the fourth book of wisdom, huh? Okay? But you're also, to some extent, you take being of reason to include everything that can be in reason, and even real being, outside the mind, can also have a kind of existence in the mind, then you're going from the more, less universal, to the, what? More universal, huh? It's amazing this guy can do this, huh? Absolutely amazing, you know? The more you read him, the more you realize how orderly he is, right? Oh, it's amazing. Let's turn to the word perfect. Should we take a little break now? Being that we're going from the 18th meeting, right? Okay. Now, as I mentioned before, there are many words in Book 5, but the angelic doctor there divides them into three groups. Usually divided into two or three, right? And the first group of words pertain to beginnings or causes. I took the first word there, beginning. The second word he takes up is cause and so on. Then the middle group of words are words that pertain to being or substance or one. Which are names of the subject of wisdom or the parts of the subject. And then the third and last group of words are like properties of being. And the fundamental words are perhaps perfect and whole, very close. And perhaps in English you could translate the word perfect sometimes, sometimes we might use the word complete. So Aristotle, in the 18th reading here, this is the first word in the last group. Just like beginning with the first group and the first word in the first group. So he's going to distinguish now the meanings of perfect. So he says, perfect or complete is said in one way, that outside of which not even one part can be taken. As the complete time of each thing is that outside of which it is not possible to take any time, which is a part of that time. Perhaps you could say more simply, the first meaning of perfect or complete is that you have all your parts. Okay? And when I was a student in Quebec, you know, you see on the restaurant there and the menu, the price and so on, repas complet. And what did that mean? That meant for that price you're going to get some kind of an appetizer, the main course and something of dessert, right? Dessert might not be any more than a little jello or something. But I mean, that's a complete repas. It has all the parts, right? The appetizer, the main course, and the dessert, eh? Okay? As opposed to a la carte or something of that sort, eh? You see? So, you're a complete man if you have both your arms and legs and your head and your ears and so on, right? Okay? But if you're missing an arm or a leg or something, then you're what? Incomplete, right? Like Schubert's unfinished symphony, right? Missing parts, eh? And some things have come down to us, some books even, you know, missing a part or something, right? You know, during the dangers of preserving books and so on. So, that's the first sense, huh? Okay? And there you see how close perfect and ho are, right? It has all its parts. But partial means what? Incomplete, imperfect, right? Okay? So, um, uh, complete, complete word, right? Cut all its letters, right? Not missing the letters, right? Okay? Okay, cut that? Now, the second sense of perfect is like the first sense, what has all of the ability of its kind, huh? Okay? It's a little bit like whole and partisan, huh? And that not exceeded, according to virtue and goodness in its kind, as a perfect doctor and a perfect flute player, when they fall short of nothing in regard to the form of their own, what? Virtue, right? Okay? Okay? Now, uh, take Homer, whom Aristotle in the Poetics calls the poet, right? And whom Plato in the Republic praises among the poets, huh? Especially Homer. Now, why is Homer called the poet? Well, because in some way he seems to be the perfect or the complete poet, huh? Aristotle in the book on the poetic art, he praises Homer for teaching all the Greeks how to make a good plot. And Homer realized that a plot is not about what happens to one man like Odysseus, but a plot has to be a course of action that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And he taught that to the Greeks, huh? He doesn't take the whole Trojan War like he's a historian. He doesn't take the whole life of Odysseus, right? But he takes a course of action and has a beginning, a middle, and an end. So he has one part, that's one part of the ability of the great poet to make a good, what? Plot. And Homer stands out, because he taught the Greeks what a good plot has to be. Why one might say that Dickens had trouble with his plots, huh? And Wilkie Collins, the other English novelist, is trying to help Dickens improve his plots, huh? Okay? But Dickens is very good with his characters, but his plots are not so good, see? Now, if we can quote the devil here. Hegel, right? When Hegel talks about the characters in Homer, right? He has a beautiful passage there where he's comparing the characters in Homer's tragic epics with the characters in the French tragedies. And he says the characters in the French tragedies are one-dimensional people, you know, like a passion personified and so on. While the characters of what? Homer are like a multifaceted diamond, you know, with all these sides and things and so on, huh? So, he excels in his what? Characters, right? Okay? Characters of Achilles and all the rest of these men. And then both Aristotle and Hegel praise the language of Homer, huh? It's absolutely amazing, the language, the similes, for example, of Homer, huh? He has these bloody scenes, you know, and then he brings in these similes, they're so gentle and give a, as Shakespeare says, a smoothness and all your violence, huh? And, um, comparing the mantle and orbit to the flower, you know, falling to its side and so on. And, uh, it's beautiful, beautiful similes. So, maybe he has the whole power of a poet, right? He can, the poet has to make plots, he has to create characters, and he has to put it in the right language, and Homer's got it all, right? So, he's a perfect poet, a complete, what, poet, huh? Um, and then you take Mozart, huh? Um, maybe Mozart would be the example of the perfect or the complete musician, huh? And you might say, well, Mozart can write, what, um, for the human voice, he can write instrumental music, right? He can write violin concerto or piano concerto, oboe concerto, bassoon concerto, flute concerto, right? He can do anything. And he adapts himself perfectly to the instrument, huh? And they compare Mozart, say, with the Baroque, you know, where they would transcribe their trios from one instrument or a group of instruments, no ones. But Mozart seemed to have caught the very essence of that instrument, huh? And he can write, what, you know, symphonies, and he can write defermentos, huh? And, you know, all the different kinds of music Mozart can, huh? Now, they say Beethoven can't write very well for the human voice, huh? And they even, singers say that the Ninth Symphony there, where you have the Ode to Joy and so on, um, that, uh, singers find difficult to sing, right? And Mozart perfectly understood the human voice. And no one can write more beautifully than the human voice than Mozart. So you could say Mozart has, what, the whole power of a, what, musician, huh? What did, uh, the great, uh, Samuel Johnson say about London? When you're tired of London, he says, you're tired of life. London has everything, you know, the life can afford. Well, I say sometimes, when you're tired of Mozart, you're tired of music, huh? Because he says they have the whole, you know, uh, power of the musician, huh? Um, if you're talking about a rhetorician, see, uh, well, there are three main means of persuasion, right? The image you project of yourself as a speaker, the way you move the emotions and so on of the audience, and then the arguments or parent arguments you give, huh? And so a completer, pre-rhetorician, does all three of these, huh? You see, not just one of them, right? And some of the rhetoricians, you know, before Aristotle, you know, they're trying to just deal with how to move the emotions of the audience. But Aristotle pointed out that the image you project of yourself as a man, you know, who's prudent, who has your good in mind, you know, et cetera, et cetera, right? Uh, this is even, in some ways, even more important than the emotions, huh? Because we can't really know these things very well, and we tend to trust this kind of a person, huh? And the Irishman says something to do with it, too, although that's the least important, Aristotle says. So, no, it's a complete or perfect, what, um, the rhetorician is a man who has all the means of persuasion at hand, huh? Um, now... An interesting way of speaking here that kind of shows the likeness of the second meaning to the first. John Dryden, the English poet, who I guess is a poet laureate of England too, for a while during his life. But John Dryden described, in his time, people just realized the excellence of what Shakespeare, right? But when he was a young man, there would be, say, as many plays, if not more, performed to Beaumont or Fletcher as of what Shakespeare is. You'd see Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakespeare, you know, just one of many, huh? But as he went to see these plays more and more, he began to realize how superior Shakespeare was to Fletcher. And he finally described it, he said, he began to realize that Fletcher was just a limb of Shakespeare. Like an arm or a leg of Shakespeare, huh? He had something of Shakespeare, but only a part of what Shakespeare had, huh? Shakespeare had it all, right? That's the second sense of perfect, huh? Shakespeare had it all, right? He could write the plots, he could do the characters, right? He could do the language, huh? He had the whole, like Homer, he had the whole ability, right? Or you could say, you know, the complete poet, the complete playwright like Shakespeare, should be able to write both tragedy and comedy, and Shakespeare excelled at both, right? Most people are more familiar with Shakespeare as, say, tragedies, you know? I remember years ago, my brother Richard happened to see one of Shakespeare's comedies. I didn't realize Shakespeare was that funny, you know? But Shakespeare could do both, right? And Aristotle, in the book on the poetic art, he talks about this work that is now lost to Homer, called the Margites, which means, I think in Greek, they're the worthless fellow. But the Margites is a comic work, huh? And Aristotle, and Plato talked about it sometimes, but Aristotle says the Margites is to comedy what the Iliad is to tragedy. So if that's true, then Homer was the complete poet. He could write both, what, tragedy and comedy. And we see this in Shakespeare, right? As well as some forms of in-between, too. But you see the excellence of Shakespeare in tragedy and comedy. This is a very puzzling play of Shakespeare there, the Henry IV, Mark I, right? Where he has comic and tragic scenes in the same play, you know? And he did it so smoothly there. He's just incredible. But you can see how the man is a complete, what, poet, huh? And nobody can excel Shakespeare's language, huh? But that's the second sense now, perfect, right? Shakespeare has the whole ability now, not of Mozart, not of the carpenter, not of the cook, but he has the whole ability of the poet, right? Plot, character, language, basically, right? Tragedy, comedy, huh? Just like, you know, that marvelous actor there, Ellie Guinness, huh? And if you've seen Ellie Guinness, I've seen him in comic roles, and I've seen him in, what, tragic roles, and he can do both very well, right? I've seen Jerry Lewis might be able to play a comic role and play a tragic role, right? And some actors, you know, they get, you know, typed a certain type of thing, and that's all they can do. They go and play themselves, as they say. And so he's not, but a man in Guinness is more a complete actor, huh? He can, he can, he's got the whole ability of an actor, right? He can play tragedy and comedy. It's kind of marvelous to see that, huh? I remember when I was teaching in California there, and my brother Mark and I would go down to the San Francisco Artist Workshop, you know, and they had a permanent core of actors in there, you know, fill in with other people, too. But I saw this guy playing in Ben Johnson comedy, the alchemist, and playing a comic role, right? That's when I first saw him on the stage. And then, I don't know, some year later, I saw him playing King Lear, right? But I thought he made King Lear a little bit too senile, a little bit too ridiculous. And it's a delicate thing to do, right? Because he is a bit senile, a little bit out of it. But if you put him too much out of it, or make him too comic, you know, he's not really, you know, going to be the tragic character. You want him to be in that play, right? So he hadn't really got out of it. They rolled the alchemist into, you know, the tragic role, right? I don't think Alec Guinness would have failed in that way, you know? But anyway, going back to the writings you marked, and that he discovered that Fletcher was just a limb of Shakespeare. That's kind of a metaphorical way of speaking, that he only had a part of what Shakespeare had as a whole. But it looks back to the first meaning, right, huh? If you're only a limb of me, in the original sense, you'd be very incomplete, right? You went missing most of your parts, right? You see? But you can see how you can move from the first meaning to the second meaning there, that way of speaking, huh? The first sense of perfect is I have all my parts. The second is I have all the ability of my kind. If I'm a playwright, or I'm a musician, or, you know? A complete or perfect cook can make what? The appetizer as well as the main chorus. And the dessert as well as the main chorus, huh? Okay? My son Marcus has a friend there who went to the CIA there, you know, the Culinary Institute of America, right? And he came to visit you now, so we thought of him prepare the dinner, you know? And he makes the whole dinner, right, everything, you know? And so, but it's a man who can deal with different kinds of, what, you know, steak and chicken and fish and each thing, right? He's got the complete, what, art in a sense. I mean, I forget the different categories that say that. You can go there for partial training, too. But if you want to get the top thing, you've got to be able to do everything, more or less, huh? And then you've got to complete, what, cook, right? He's got the whole building. But he can't write a symphony or write a tragedy, right? They won't teach you that in the CIA. But you go to some of the restaurants around New York, you're like when your my son Paul's at West Point, and you'd see something on the menu, you know, the CIA chef here, you know? Well, okay. Now, the third meaning of perfect is a little different now from the first two. Further, those are called perfect, to which the end, when good, belongs. The third sense of perfect is something that has reached its, what, end or purpose, huh? Achieved its end or purpose. They are perfect by having the end. Since then, the end is one of the last things. We also metaphorically about bad things, that they are completely lost and completely corrupted, right? It's interesting, huh? You know, when your house or something gets hurt, and they have a term insurance, you know, your house or car has been totaled. But that's metaphorical, right? Because it's far from being total or whole at that point, right? But it has been, you know, my house is completely destroyed, right? Nothing left of it, right? Okay. That's kind of a metaphorical thing, right? So these are the three senses that Aristotle sees for the word perfect, huh? And when I was teaching the students, you know, about what is better, right? We could say in a kind of abstract way that the perfect is better than the imperfect, right? But basically, you get two different senses here. You could say the whole is better than the part, and the end is better than what is for the sake of the end. But perhaps the second is more important, talking about the better, because you could say, when you say the whole is better than the part, it's because the part is for the sake of the whole. So the whole is the end of the parts. So the most basic meaning is that of the end. So, now, these three senses of perfect are talking about perfection of what we would call, in theology, preachers. Because God is not perfect in this way, right? He doesn't have any parts. Nor does God have an end that he's got to reach, huh? Okay, he's the end of everything else, right? He is the end, huh? He is the good, right? Like I was mentioning there in the 19th chapter there, Matthew, where Christ says, why do you call me good, huh? One alone is good, huh? Ho, agathos, huh? But notice, huh? If you want to connect with this, you say, not that God has reached his end or purpose, but he is the end or purpose of all other things, huh? Okay? Now, in the next paragraph, Aristotle is going to... Now, as Thomas explains in the commentary, between the way in which creatures can be called good and the way in which God is called good, right? Things called perfect by themselves are said then in so many ways, but some by lacking nothing in goodness. Now he's thinking of God, the way God is good. Neither having anything above or taking anything outside. Now Thomas would express that sometimes by saying God is universally perfect, right? He's lacking in nothing. And some, now this is the creatures, in not having an above in some genus or anything outside. So you could say that Homer or Shakespeare lacks nothing that a poet should have, but he lacks what Mozart has, he lacks what the cook has, he lacks what, you know, someone else has, right? But God is lacking in what? Nothing. He's universally perfect, huh? So that's very interesting. He distinguishes the sense in which God is said to be perfect and the creature is perfect. The creature can be perfect in its kind, in its genus, right? Cook or musician or poet or carpenter or something, right? But its perfection is limited to that kind of thing, right? But God's perfection is infinite, huh? In fact, in the Summa Theologiae, you know, if he takes up the perfection of God, he takes up the infinity of God, right? Which is not to be understood in a quantitative sense, right? But that God is infinitely perfect, right? Okay? But Aristotle is kind of touching upon that difference, huh? The way in which the first cause will be perfect and the way in which all other things can be said to be perfect in their kind, huh? Well, I happened to read the edit. It was out at THC last year there. They had a copy of Mrs. Jamison's book, you know, so I, you know, I wouldn't see to quote it, you know? I mean, she was a 19th century, I guess, woman. But she wrote this famous book on the female characters of Shakespeare. That's really something, you know, huh? And I was finding a little thing there on the internet, or a thing on Ophelia there in Shakespeare's play, you know? She's pretty solid, you know, writer about what a woman should be. But she says a woman should be three things. Modest, graceful, and tender. Merciful. And if she doesn't have these things, she's not a woman. I wouldn't get a car. But she's not a woman, right? But it's pretty good, you know? I don't know. But if you see her full book, you know, it shows all the different types of female characters in Shakespeare. It's really kind of beautiful instead. But yeah, that seems like a fairly solid thing. I was thinking, you know, of the Blessed Virgin, you know. The car, the Mother of Mercy, right? But some of the prayers used the word tender, too. That's what she means by that. And she's obviously graceful and modest and humble. Humility has a modesty. Well said. But Ophelia has, then, the perfection of a woman, right? Okay? But not the perfection of a philosopher or a poet or, you know. So perfect in their kind. Ginati's horse champion, Jeremy Champion. I met Champion when I was a boy. And I would say Champion was a perfect horse. Didn't have the perfection of a philosopher or a cook or a pianist or a musician, right? But he was a perfect horse. Beautiful. Beautiful horse. And Ginati, you know, at the end he went around, you know, doffing his hat. And Champion went sightseeing, like that, around the whole auditorium, you know. That's a remarkable step, you know. Perfect horse. But perfect in that kind of thing, right? So Shakespeare represents Portia there in the Merchant of Venice as a perfect woman, right? But perfect in that kind, huh? That's the only perfection the creature can have, to be complete in its kind. But its kind lacks all kinds of things that other kinds of things have, right? But all the perfection that is divided up into creatures is all united in God in a simple way, right? That we shall never fully understand or fully, what? Love, huh? Now, in the last paragraph, Aristotle says there can be some other senses of perfect, like what produces one of these conditions that we talked about, right? But the basic senses of the three that we met here in the beginning, huh? So when I talk about, as I said, better in general, I go back to this text on the whole thinking, huh? And most people right away will agree that the whole is better than the part, huh? It's better to have a whole automobile than part of one, huh? Better to have a whole meal than part of the meal, right? Better to have the whole shoe than part of the shoe? The whole pants rather than part of the pants? And so on. Pretty hard to deny that, right? When you come to this even more basic in some ways thing, that the end is better than what is for the sake of the end. I think we've talked about that before, how you can show that, right? You can show it inductively, right? Health is better than medicine, right? Knowing is better than learning, which my students usually agree. And money is better than making money, earning money, and so on. But you can also give a kind of more general reason, going back to the reason we saw in the second book there, which I expanded a bit upon, where you say, well, the same belongs to two things, right? But to one of them because of the other. It belongs more to the cause. So if good is said of the end and of the means, but of the means because of the end, then the end is always what? Better than the means, when both are good, of course. So you can say, in a very general way, that the perfect is better than the imperfect, but then you can distinguish these three, what? Senses, huh? It's better to have all your arms and legs, right? They come back, you know, from the Iraq War, from the Mother War, missing an arm or a leg, right? And the musician, right, who has the whole ability. Oh, yeah, that reminds me of another expression. I don't know if you know the connection there between Mozart and the youngest son there of, were you on Sebastian Bach? You know, and Christian Bach? You know, and Christian Bach, he went down from Germany to Italy, right? And picked up, you know, kind of international style of music and so on. And I guess he married an Italian and became a Catholic, right? And then he moved to London, right? And so when Mozart went around Europe with the tutorship of his father, right, he went to, what, London, right? And he became very fond of Johann Christian Bach. And Mozart, you know, four or five years old, but he would sit on Johann Sebastian Bach's leg, you know, and lap it. And Johann Bach would play something, and Mozart would carry it and so on. And so Mozart was very devoted to Johann Christian Bach. And the first, you know, several concertos of Mozart are kind of imitations of Johann Sebastian Bach, I mean Johann Christian Bach. And you can buy some CDs, you know, where they give you the piece of Johann Christian Bach and you can hear Mozart's thing, you know? And Einstein, not the Albert Einstein, but the famous Mozartian critic there, Alfred Einstein speaks of a pre-established harmony between Mozart and, and if you like Mozart, you kind of like Johann Christian Bach and his music. But someone described Johann Christian Bach as Mozart with something missing. But that's a little bit like, you know, he's saying, you know, that Fletcher's a limb of Shakespeare, right? There's something missing there, right? And so he's not perfect in the way Mozart is, huh? I joke about that. I would like someone to describe it. Purpose, you know, is Aristotle with something missing. Well, I consider that a great compliment, as well as. Our purpose is Thomas Aquinas, with something missing. He doesn't have a complete power, this man, right? But now, you know, the thing about Aristotle, that's kind of striking about Aristotle, is you have, on one hand, is doing what Boethius and Thomas call inward philosophy, logic, and philosophy and agency and a remote from our experience. But then he does, you know, politics, and he does the theory of how revolutions take place, and he studied 150 of the Greek city-states. See that very concrete work, right? They actually have, I think, you know, the Thanksgiving given to Aristotle for clearing up the chronology of the Greek plays and so on. And then he did what? He cut up on animals and plants and did all kinds of anatomy, and had Alexander sending back animals and plants from the East and so on. So there's something about Aristotle, a kind of universality about Aristotle, that he could do historical research, which is very particular, and then he could do logic and wisdom, which are very universal. He can do anatomy, right? Marine biology and so on. He's kind of the, what, complete poet, huh? Or complete philosopher, rather, in the way that maybe Plato was not, right? Plato can do certain things, mathematics and abstract things, but he can't maybe do history or do historical research or study the way that revolutions actually took place in the Greek cities and so on. So I think that Aristotle, in some ways, was the most well-balanced mind in history. There had been a mind quite like that, huh? What he wrote about how tyranny can be preserved and other forms of government. I still use the targets, they say. So, there's that sense. He has the whole power of a philosopher. I'm going to give you a sixth book now. I won't say too much about it now, but I'm going away, you know, to the point on this Saturday. It's kind of funny going to the Los Angeles airport, right? And, you know, it's a terrible thing going in there, you know, like six, seven lines, going this way, six, seven lines, going that way, you know? So, usually you get some kind of public consultation, so I'm in and face this murderous highway, you know? But they call the bus the great stage coach, you know, on the very most of these days coach. But anyway, kind of a fun place. Yeah, sort of some copies here. Around the sixth afternoon. You want to make your copies, sir? I don't think we'll make it for them. Well, thank you. I don't know if you can make them. Yeah, I got some copies here today. Okay. You know, get around to my computer finally. Thank you. I would give you a little idea of what he's doing in book five, but there are other words that eventually should be studied, huh? In fact, all of them should be studied eventually, but it's not appropriate the first time to do all the words, you know? Think about, I mean, just think of the word being, you know, enough to occupy you for some time. But the word cause, the word whole and part, the word nature, all these words are very important. Let's look now at the book six of it here. Now, book five could also be considered, as we've said before, as the end of a, getting a distinct knowledge of the axioms, huh? Because it might be considered an axiom, for example, that the perfect is better than the imperfect, right? But a distinct knowledge of the axioms that is able to defend them and so on, book five is going to be useful for that purpose, especially to defend them against the mistakes of the sophism for mixing up the senses of these words, huh? Now, in the sixth book of wisdom, in the first reading here, Aristotle is going to complete, to some extent, the distinction of wisdom from all other kinds of reasoned-out knowledge, from all other arts and sciences. And it's interesting the way Aristotle comes back to this distinction, huh? You saw him doing this in part already in the premium, right? In the premium, we separated wisdom to some extent from all other knowledge, huh? But then, in the beginning of book four, we learned, again, huh? And some other things that helped us to separate wisdom from all other things, huh? In the premium, we learned that wisdom is about causes, but at last, about the very first causes. And that's unique to wisdom, and it separates wisdom from all other knowledge. In the beginning of book four, we realized that wisdom is about being as being, right? And the one and the many, and this is more universal than the subject of any other knowledge. And the others don't even consider their particular subject as being, but in some particular way. So arithmetic doesn't consider numbers as being, what kind of beings there are, but numbers as numbers, huh? Well, now in book six, he's going to add more to separate wisdom from the other kinds of knowledge in the first reading, huh? And he's going to also, a little bit like we saw in the premium, he's going to be separating the forms of reason out knowledge that you could call theoretical or looking, and the ones that are productive or making, and the ones that are concerned with the doing, huh? Okay? And then, since wisdom is among the looking knowledge, he's going to distinguish among those in particular. And he's going to distinguish between looking knowledge and practical knowledge, whether it be about making or doing, in a different way here in the first reading than he did in the premium. When you distinguish looking knowledge from practical knowledge, perhaps the first way you distinguish them is by their end or purpose, huh? The purpose of looking knowledge, as the word looking suggests, and theoretical is just a Greek word for looking, the end is to see, in the sense of to understand, huh? That's the end of this knowledge. The end of the practical knowledge is not to understand or to know. It's, in the one case, to make something. The end of the art of cooking is to make dinner. Not to know and understand food. There may be some of that involved, but the end is to make dinner. And how do you make dinner? And the end of the doing knowledge is not to know what it is to be just, even, or what it is to be modest, or what it is to be courageous, but to be courageous, huh? To be modest, huh? To do what is modest, to do what is courageous, to do what is just. So the end here is doing, and not making, and not knowing, huh? That's the first way we distinguish them, and we saw that already in the first two books of wisdom. But here he's going to distinguish them in another way, huh? He's going to distinguish them by the cause that they are concerned with. And so he's going to distinguish the looking knowledge that it's closest to doing and making, namely natural philosophy. He's going to distinguish them by distinguishing between nature and human art, like he did... Already in the second book of Natural Hearing, and choice, okay? He's going to distinguish between a knowledge which is about things that are by nature, and things that are by art, and things that are by choice. And he's going to distinguish them by distinguishing between nature and art and choice. And then he's going to distinguish natural philosophy, or from natural philosophy, mathematical philosophy, and wisdom, or first philosophy. And it's interesting the way he does this, right? Because he doesn't distinguish looking at philosophy as a group from making or doing, as he does and he did it from their end. But he separates simply natural philosophy from the others, right? Now, how does that suffice, right? Well, it would be like if I was going to separate New England from Canada, and I separated, what, Maine and Vermont from Canada. Well, if Maine and Vermont are not parts of Canada, then Massachusetts and Connecticut, which are even further away, are obviously not part of, what, Canada, right? Okay? So you can do it in that way. Okay? It's like you two guys are different, right? Well, he must be even more different from you, right? He's even further away. Right? Okay? But anyway, it's a different way here of separating them. And Aristotle was the man who discovered, well, he has some help from Plato, discovered how the kinds of looking philosophy should be distinguished and how they are to be distinguished. And there's only three kinds of looking philosophy that's involved once you understand how they're distinguished. And although he doesn't make it explicit here, you could point out that the way you distinguish the making sciences is a different way. And the way you distinguish the doing sciences is a different way. And this is interesting, huh? And Aristotle could do this. I've been noticing, you know, how Thomas, in talking about the mistakes of the philosophers before Aristotle, he often points out that their mistake comes from not seeing some distinction and from not understanding some distinction and not considering enough some distinction. And you see that a lot when you come to the point of distinguishing the different kinds of knowledge, huh? That Aristotle, I think, knew how to distinguish them and most academics don't know how to, right? On Senior D.I. used to say, if you want to, you gave a good example of Confusion of the Modern Way, he said, just look, you need a college cowboy. And students and even professors, I say, they don't understand too well how to distinguish things, huh? And the distinction is actually clear. So, but when he gets through separating wisdom then from all other kinds of reason of knowledge, then in the beginning of the second reading, he's going to recall in the first paragraph the distinctions of the senses of being that we just saw in the fifth book, huh? And then he's going to consider briefly in the second and third reading, accidental being, huh? But also see why we don't have to consider it to any great extent here in the science of being as being. And then in the fourth reading, he's going to talk a bit about being as true. Say some very important things, but you're going to set aside those two kinds of being as not being what we're chiefly concerned with, right? And then come the three great books about being, seven, eight, and nine. And seven and eight are about being according to the figure of predication, but chiefly about substance. And book nine is about being as act and ability. And then book ten is on the one and the many. And that completes the consideration of being as being and the one and the many. And now you're ready to start the search for the first causes. Okay? So there's a lot here in the sixth book, huh? So you're going to recall here the distinction that we saw already in the fourth book. But let's look at the first reading here. So we're writing a title here. The beginnings and the causes of beings are sought. And it is clear as beings, right? Okay, we're looking for the causes of being as being. And I just have to point out how every science seems to be looking for some kind of causes. There is some cause of health and vigor, right? You might, in the medical science, investigate that. And there are beginnings and elements and causes of mathematical things, huh? And in general, every science, and by science, the Greek word is episteme, right? Means reasoned out knowledge, right? And that's spelled reasoned out. Or reasoned out understanding, huh? Okay? And generally, it says every science, understanding or particular understanding, is about some causes and beginnings. Either more precise or in a more loose faction, right? Or more certainly or more less certainly. Translate that way, too. So he's pointing out something, huh? That reasoned out knowledge, seeks to know something in the light of its causes, huh? Okay? Now, but all these, drawing a line around something more particular, you might say, consider about some being and some kind, but not about being simply. And that's the first difference that we saw back in Book 4. And the second difference, nor do they consider that particular thing as being, right? Okay? And consequently, they do not give an account of what it is, huh? But from this, some by sensation make this clear, some taking the what it is as laid down. They demonstrate more necessarily, or in some cases, more loosely, right? What belongs as such, huh? We saw that reasoned out knowledge considers what belongs to something as such. Hence, it is clear from such an induction that there is no demonstration of substance of what it is, but some other way of being shown, like definition. Likewise, they say nothing as to whether the kind of thing about which they consider exists or does not exist, because it belongs to the same understanding to make clear what it is and if it is. He's kind of touching there in an obscure way upon the fact that these other sciences need to be propped up a bit by wisdom, huh? So arithmetic is about numbers. Where do you get these numbers? Well, a mathematician doesn't say, he just assumes that there are numbers and let's talk about numbers and let's forget about the way they exist, you know, and so on. And now he's going to, in the third paragraph, begin to distinguish the looking knowledge that is closest to making or doing. And that's natural philosophy, right? Because natural philosophy is about things whose cause is nature and nature is a cause of motion and so on. So in a way, we're dealing with motion. That seems a little bit like doing and making, doesn't it? So if natural philosophy is not a doing or making science, then a fortiori mathematics, which kind of, you know, is more abstracted further away from matter and motion, will not be a doing or making science. And a fortiori wisdom, right? Which is about ultimately immaterial things, right? It's not about doing or making, those things, right? Okay. Now in this third paragraph, what he's going to do is to start to distinguish natural science or natural philosophy from the making sciences and the doing sciences by distinguishing the cause of what it studies, nature, from art and from what? Choice, huh? Since natural science is about some kind of being, for it's about such substance as has in itself a beginning of motion and rest. And you saw the definition of nature, I think, didn't you, before in the second book, where nature was defined as a beginning and cause of motion and of rest, right? And you saw the definition of nature, and you saw the definition of nature, and you saw the definition of nature, and you saw the definition of nature, and you saw the definition of nature,