Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 39: The Three Looking Sciences and Their Distinctions

Transcript
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So the art of cooking, right? I'd be working with dough, right? And I've seen many people use this, you know, roll the dough out, you know, to make something sometimes. I do that with wood, you know, you roll the wood out, with a steel bar, you roll it out. It ain't going to work, tell ya, tell ya. Now, that's the way we distinguish the, what, making sciences, right? By the matter in which or out of which they make them, when that matter has its own, what, tools, right, and way of being worked, okay? And when you have a matter that requires different tools and a different way of being worked, then you really have a different, what, art and science, right? You see how that's appropriate, because what you're trying to do in making science is get some idea out of your mind in the matter, right? Now, if you look at the looking sciences, it's just the reverse. Because the looking sciences are not trying to get something out of your mind into matter. If anything, you're trying to get something out of matter into your mind, right? It's going to be just the, what, reverse, huh? In a sense, huh? But now, how are the doing sciences distinguished, huh? This is about things now that are by choice, huh? When you choose, you're choosing, as you learned from the book of Nicomache Ethics, you're choosing the means to sum in, right? Okay, okay, I go to the restaurant, and I go there to get, what, to eat, to get fed, right, huh? And then they give me a menu, and I've got to make a choice, okay? But this is a choice of reference to the end they already had in mind when going to the restaurant, right? Okay? So, how are ethics and domestics and political philosophy distinguished? It's not by a different kind of matter, is it? But to distinguish basically by the, what? The inherent, huh? Okay? So, when I go home this evening, huh? I may make a choice after dinner, right? To watch the Red Sox. Or, to read some book or something, right, huh? But I'm probably making that choice with a view to the good of Duane Perkless. Would it be better for Duane Perkless to watch the Red Sox tonight, or to read the Golden Chain of the Gospel of St. John? Which would be better for Duane Perkless, right? Does Duane Perkless really need the elixation of the Red Sox? Or would it be better for it, right? But making a choice with respect to the good of Duane Perkless. Now, my children are kind of grown up now, in the grandfatherly stage of life. But, when you had little children around the house and so on, then I was making a lot of choices as a, what? Father, right? So, I chose to not have a TV set in the house, right? Kind of funny, people always offer me a TV set, like we couldn't afford one, you know? I tell them, when it comes in, I'll throw it down the stairs. I tell them, when it comes in, I'll throw it down the stairs. And, uh, only one of the guys recognized the M.T. said, you must be kidding me. It's like, so you're not running water or a toilet or something, you know? I tell you, sorry. Okay. Well, now, um, what do I read after dinner, huh? Well, it's the roly-poly pudding, right? Peter X. Potter. Now, is that better for Perkless to read the roly-poly pudding than to read Shakespeare, say, or Golden Chain of St. John's? No. But maybe this is appropriate for my children at this age, and it's very important that the father read to the children, huh? Okay? So, um, I'm now making a choice, not with the good of Dwayne Berquist in mind, now, huh? But the good of the family, which is basically the children. Okay? The chief good of the family. You see? Okay? But now an election time comes up, huh? And I go in there, and I can vote for the pro-life candidate or the pro-death candidate. And I vote for the pro-life candidate. But there I should be making a choice, not with the view to what's going to benefit Dwayne Berquist the most. What would be better for Dwayne Berquist, huh? I vote for my uncle or something. Or what would be even, you know, better for my family, right? But I really should be considering what's better for the country, right? Wouldn't be the better man for the country or for the city or the state or wherever it is, right? You see? So, you could say that the three kinds of practical philosophy, the three doing sciences, are distinguished ultimately by the, what? Who's good, right? You're getting that, right? The good of the individual, or the good of the family, or the good of the city or nation, huh? You see? So it's a quite different way that this is, what? Distinguished, right? Okay. And Thomas points out that not everything that you do, even if you're a man and a father and a citizen, right? Not every choice you make is as a citizen, right? And I'm thinking now, we're going to buy a house, or what part of town should we live in, or what town should we live in, right? And we have certain, you know, possibilities there, right? I'm going to consider what part of town, or what town would be better to live in, right? You see what I mean? Okay. And that might be thinking the good of my country, am I? I'm thinking simply the good, what would be the best town, the best part of town that I can afford for my family to live in, right? You see? Okay. But when I go in the restaurant and they give you a menu, I'm probably thinking just of the good of a good breakfast, right? Maybe be happy with a steak or chicken or something else, right? Okay. Do you see the idea? Okay. Because we don't have a family in a Fort Serious city or nation that doesn't have the unity that an individual has, right? What my arm does in a sense I do, right? But what I do as an individual, I don't always do as a father, right? Or as a citizen, right? You see that? So, it's a quite different way that the doing sciences are distinguished to the making sciences, right? It's the same person here, right? That is choosing for his own good, right? Or making a choice for the good of his family. Or making a choice for the good of his city or nation, right? That's more by the end, huh? Okay. Now, as we mentioned before, the looking sciences, in a sense, are just the reverse of the making sciences. In that the making sciences may have an idea of what you want the chair to be or the house to be or the table to be, right? But the trick is to get that into matter, right? And in the looking sciences, the idea is not to get something out of your mind, but something into your mind, huh? And therefore, since the mind and the reason is immaterial, as you know from the third book about the soul, in a way it's to get it out of matter, right? Okay. Now, let's look at the subdivision here, a bit of the looking sciences, huh? You could say natural philosophy is about things that have matter and that change, huh? Okay. It defines these things with matter or change, huh? So, let's look at the subdivision here. Let's look at the subdivision here. Let's look at the subdivision here. Let's look at the subdivision here. Let's look at the subdivision here. So, if you wanted to talk about the difference between, say, your teeth and your tongue, or between your bones and your muscles, right? You'd have to bring in some understanding, at least in general, of the kind of material that the tooth is made out of, the tongue is made out of, right? The bones and the muscles are made out of, right? And because of the kind of material that they have, and because they are material, they're subject to some kind of change, right? It can be a change of place, or a change of quality, it can even be growth and things of this sort, right? Nature itself is defined by change, right? But now, mathematics is kind of an odd science, huh? Because you could say that mathematical philosophy, like say geometry, fundamental science, for example here, Mathematical philosophy is about things also that have matter and change, huh? But, this is a strange thing, but that can be defined without matter or change, huh? I'll take a couple of simple examples to illustrate this, huh? And you've probably played with a rubber ball, right? It's more or less a sphere, right? They tell me that the earth is kind of a sphere, and the sun is a sphere, and maybe you've played with marbles that are spheres, and maybe you've seen these little steel balls, right, huh? Maybe you've thrown a snowball at somebody, huh? Okay. So, all these spheres have matter, and they change, right? The snowball melts, right? And so on. The rubber ball bounces off things, and so on. But, is that shape of a sphere, can that be defined and understood without rubber, without glass, without snow, without steel, without the earth? Mm-hmm. And if you ever look at the Solid Geometry books of Euclid, and he gets to talk about the sphere, and this is long after he's talked about the circle, right? To help your imagination, imagine a sphere, right? He says, well, imagine a circle and the diameter of the circle, right? And then rotate the circle around its diameter. Now you've got a, what? Sphere. But it's all imagination. It's not really, what? Made out of anything, huh? And there's no matter there, at least in the ordinary sense of matter. And therefore, there's no reference to change, huh? If I had a lead balloon, and I'd have to go over there, it would go down, right? If I had a helium balloon, and I'd have to go over, it would go up, right? But a geometrical sphere, you couldn't say it goes up or goes down, because it has nothing that refers to, what? Motion, right? If I threw a rubber ball against the wall there, it'd probably bounce back, right? If I threw a glass ball against the wall, it might shatter, right? If I threw a steel ball against the wall, it might stick on the wall, go through it. But you couldn't say anything about a geometrical sphere, but do any of these things, right? Because it's neither brittle like the glass, nor solid and heavy like the steel ball, or elastic like the rubber ball, right? It has no matter whereby it could be said to bounce or shatter, or anything like this, right? The same way for a cube. There's a little charge, you might play with a wooden block, right? A little wooden cube, huh? I have a plastic cube, and my desk is kind of like a paperweight, huh? An ice cube originally was supposed to be in the shape of a cube. They don't always come in the shape of a cube now, but they originally were in the shape of a cube, right? But is that shape, that figure called the cube, can that be understood without ice, without plastic, without wood, without any sensible matter? And consequently, there's no reference to change, huh? The ice cube has a melting point, and a boiling point, right? And I suppose the plastic cube has got a melting point, too, right? But you couldn't speak that the geometrical cube is having a boiling point, or a freezing point, right? Any of this sort, huh? So, in natural philosophy, huh? You get something out of what? Individual flesh and blood and bones, right? Okay? Your flesh and my flesh, and your bones and my bones, are not in the definitions of natural philosophy, right? But you have to keep the kind of matter a bone has, and the kind of matter that muscles have, and so on, in your definitions, at least in general, right? You have to keep sensible matter, right? In general. And you have to talk about change, at least in general. You can't even define what nature is without motion, huh? Motion's in the definition of nature. But these things in math are even more, what? Removed from matter, right? Because now you have the general here, in which you've left out this sensible matter, right? Now, sometimes, they'll speak of it being a kind of matter in geometry. This extension, they'll call it intelligible matter, right? Imaginable matter, you can call it, right? But it's not really matter in the original sense, huh? A sensible thing, huh? And so, Proclus, huh? The famous Neopiginus says that, you know, mathematics, purificat opiumentes. It purifies the eye of the mind, right, huh? Okay? And it kind of frees you from, what? The material world, to some extent, huh? And so, the Pythagoreans, who are very much into this sort of stuff, they're kind of like that, kind of religious order on this, huh? The Pythagoreans in Italy, huh? And it's interesting that at the University of Paris in the Middle Ages, when you wanted to go to study theology, probably the most famous place to study theology, University of Paris, right? You had to know at least the first book of Euclid before you could be admitted into, what, theology, right? Okay? So, it has a certain freeing the mind, to some extent, from the material world, right? Not entirely, because beginning with things that outside the mind, huh? Exist in matter, there's change, right? But in the mind, they can be understood without matter and without change, huh? Okay? Now, for 200 years, the Greek philosophers pursued these two kinds of living philosophy. So, the first philosopher is usually considered to be, what, Thales, right? Thales of Lydides, huh? And Thales is famous as a natural philosopher. In fact, they attribute to him the famous statement that water is the beginning of all things, especially of living things. But he also is held as being the first man approves of the geometrical theorem, or something. They attribute to Thales, for example, the famous theorem that in a circle, you take the semicircle and you inscribe an angle there, take any point out in the end points here of the diameter, and draw straight lines in that point to the ends of the diameter. This angle here will always be a what? Right angle. Any point you take that there, huh? And draw lines that will always be right angle. It's a beautiful theorem, right? You could have the proof of that, right? the three book of the elements, huh? But they attribute that theorem, the strict proof of it, to what? Thales, huh? And when Euclid, you know, after he defines circle and diameter, he says that the diameter of the circle divides the circle into two equal parts, but he doesn't try to prove or manifest that. And then, you know, it's a little bit that's a little bit that's a little bit that's a little bit that's a little bit that's a little bit that's a little bit that's a little bit that's a little bit Well, they say, it takes the first man to manifest that, right? Because once you know what a circle is, every point on the circumference is even distant from the point of the interior called the center, well then if you take the, what, diameter aligned from one point on the circumference to the center and to the middle, if these two sides are not equal, then if you imagine one side flipped over to the other side, if they coincide with the person equal, if they, if one went outside the other, or below it, then all the way they are not equal, right? So, kind of like in the fourth theorem, the one about the angle and two sides trying to be equal, you can see the imagination, or you can see it this way, right? You can flip it over, right? It's either going to coincide or not. If it doesn't coincide, then they're obviously equal. If they don't, they're really aren't all equal. It's not a circle. Okay? So, these are the two kinds of looking philosophy, right? Until you got to the man called, what? An exagnes, right? From Socrates, that's a young man. And the man whom, as David says, seemed like a sober man among drunk men. And we read the great fragments of our friend, and Xavier said, the DK-12 especially. And Xavier said, he came to the conclusion that there is a greater mind than our own behind the order that you find in the natural world. And then he gave a very good reason to say that this greater mind could not be mixed up with matter. And then you get to Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, they begin to see reasons to conclude that the human reason is not, what, material. And then, when they're studying motion, they begin to understand that motion depended upon a mover, but the movers that we know are moved movers, right? But a moved mover doesn't move to itself, but to another, right? And before what is to another, there's something to itself, right? So there must be an unmoved mover, right? But then they said an unmoved mover can't be a body, because bodies don't move another without being moved themselves. So I can't move this body, right? By my, what, briefcase here without my briefcase itself moving, right? So if there's an unmoved mover, it's not a body. And if the human soul, as Socrates argues in the Phaedo and Aristotle, even better, in the third book on the soul, can exist without the, what, body, right? If understanding is not in the body, well then there are, what, not only things that, what, depend upon matter for their existence, right? Although some not from the definition, right? If there are things that are immaterial, and we can know them, then there's going to be another kind of looking philosophy, okay? And this is going to be what we call first philosophy, or wisdom. First philosophy, or wisdom, and sometimes they call it metaphysics, but metaphysics is writing together three words in Greek, right? Meta, ta, fuzika, right? Which means literally, meta after, right? Ta is the article, the, and fuzika means the books in natural philosophy. So the editor in Genesis of Rhodes, right, correctly saw that the 14 books of wisdom refers to philosophy in the order of learning, right, are after the books of natural philosophy. And we buy, even today, that thick book we call the Casey Brooks of Aristotle, which is, you know, selections of Aristotle with some of the major works. You'll find that they put the books in the selections from natural philosophy before the books called them in physics, huh? Okay? The first philosophy, or wisdom, is about things that do not depend upon matter. Now sometimes you make a distinction, in fact this is important to make a distinction, there are some things that can be in matter but need not be in matter. And these are sometimes called the communia, the common things like being and substance, huh? Once you realize that there are immaterial substances, right, as well as the material substances, then you realize that substance need not be in matter, right? But then there are things like what the Greek philosophers would call the separated substances, we might call them the angels, and then God himself, right? Which can't be material, right? Okay? And that distinction is before understanding something of the order of wisdom. As Monsignor Dion would teach, you know, it's towards the immaterial. So you begin with those things that need not be in matter, right? But can be in matter, like being itself, substance, act and ability, and so on. And you go towards those things that cannot be in matter, right? Because the things that can be in matter but need not be in matter are more known to us who start with material things, right? And then we go towards the things that cannot be in matter. And we'll see this beautifully, especially in the ninth book of wisdom, huh? Because in the ninth book of wisdom, Aristotle will talk about being as it's distinguished into act and ability. And he'll begin from act and ability as they're found in material things and things that move, right? In the first part of the ninth book. And then he'll ascend to a completely universal consideration of act and ability where it can be found even in the immaterial world in the middle part. And then in the third part of the ninth book, he will show the order there is between act and ability. And this is the beginning to reason at the end of book 12, right? That God is pure act, right? So we'll leave it until I get to it now, right? Now, I think I mentioned before, sometimes we crisscross two divisions into two. And sometimes we end up with four members, as you'd expect. And sometimes we end up with only three. I'll give you an example. You can divide human beings into good men, bad men, good women, bad women, right? Now, how do you get four kinds of human beings? Well, you can divide human beings into men and women, right? And then, in another kind of division, into good and what? Bad. You crisscross these and you get what? Four. Good men, bad men, good women, bad women, right? But now, take another example. Well, when Aristotle is distinguishing the composing parts of a plot in the book of the Poetic Art, and he says that the great Homer, the supreme poet, Homer taught all of the other Greeks, he says, how to make a good plot. And he mentions that Homer realized that a good plot was not a story about one man, because all kinds of things that happened to one man that maybe don't have any connections with each other, really. But a good plot should have a beginning, a middle, and a what? End. Okay? Well, now, when Aristotle defines beginning, middle, and end, he does by two pairs of, what? Opposites. Not by man, human, and good, and bad. But he does so by, he forces. something, and not before something, and after something, and not after something, right? Okay. Now, what is before something, but not after something? Beginning, middle, or end? The beginning, right? The beginning is before something, but not after, right? Okay. What's after something, but not before something? The beginning. Yeah. Yeah. What is both before something, but also after something? Middle. Yeah. Okay. Now, the fourth possibility would be something that is not before anything, and not after anything, right? Is that a real possibility for a part of the clock? It wouldn't have any connection, right? It doesn't come after anything. It doesn't come before anything, so there's no connection to anything else, right? So it can't possibly be a part of the, what, thing, right? Okay. Do you see the point? Okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Sure. Okay. Permission, right? So he put the recording thing in his briefcase and he came in the first day, he reached down, he turned it on and recorded the whole lecture. And the second day of class he came in, he reached down and he got the wrong button and yesterday's lecture came out of the briefcase. Oh no! The guy came out red. The colleague says, I guess I have to say something different, he says. The guy with the guys in Paris. Oh, wow. And so he did, yeah, these French things they have, you know, they were afraid to ask him, you know, because kind of a shy guy that he wouldn't give permission, you know, so they came in, you know, with their coat and they recorded lectures, you know, see, and they finally guessed he probably knew, you know, but they were afraid to ask him. And he didn't want to know that they were doing this stuff. But eventually when they taped them up, they brought them to him, you know, because sometimes those type up things, you can have little errors in them and so on. So, let's go back here. I was mentioning, right, how sometimes we crisscross two divisions by opposites, right? Like in the division of human beings into good men, bad men, good women, bad women. Or we crisscross the division of human beings into male and female and into good and bad, right? And you end up with four memories, right? Okay. Whereas now, in the way, it's using two pairs of opposites, right, to distinguish the beginning, middle, and end of a, what, plot, right? And he says that the middle is before something and after something, right? The beginning is before something, but not what? After something, right? The end is after something, but not before something, right? Okay. So you've got before and not before, after and after, and you should have a fourth member, right? But the fourth member, you realize, is not a true one, because could there be a part of the plot that is not before anything and not after anything? Okay. It's not a real possibility, right? We have no connection, right? Okay. Now, Thomas does something like this sometimes with these here, huh? He says, A looking science is either about things that depend upon matter for the existence, right? Or it's about things that do not depend upon matter for the existence. That's exhausting, right? And either it defines with matter, or it defines without matter, right? Now, you crisscross this, and you would get four members apparently, right? Now, what science is about things that depend upon matter and defines with matter? Well, that's natural philosophy, right? Okay. What science is about things that do not depend upon matter and does not define with matter? That's listed. Our first philosophy, yeah. What science is about things that depend upon matter for the existence, but can be defined without matter? That's mathematical philosophy. Okay. Well, now, is there a fourth one? A science is about things that do not depend upon matter for the existence, but should define it with matter anyway. That doesn't make any sense, doesn't it? You see? Because if the things in themselves don't depend upon matter for their existence, right? And reason which is knowing them is immaterial, right? There's no reason why matter would be brought into their definition, right? Okay. The odd example is mathematics, right? That there are things like rubber balls and marbles and so on, spheres that depend upon some kind of matter for their existence, right? But their shape could be considered without matter because the mind is, what? Immaterial, right? So it's not altogether, it's an unusual thing, right? But it's not something impossible that an immaterial power like the mind should know a material thing in a, what? Immaterial way. But there's no reason why an immaterial power should know an immaterial thing in a material way. There's no reason on the side of the, what, thing being known or on the side of the, what? No. See? So that's not a real possibility, right? Okay. So, there can be only three and not four, what? Divisions? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, incidentally, that same thing is used in talking about the Trinity, right? Okay. Because you have to proceed from someone or have someone proceed from you to be distinct from him in the Trinity. So the Father, what? Doesn't proceed from anybody, but someone proceeds from him. The Holy Spirit is just the reverse. He proceeds from someone, but no one proceeds from him. The Son both proceeds from someone and someone proceeds from him, right? Now, the fourth possibility would be one who, what? Neither proceeds from anyone, nor does anyone proceed from him. Is that a real possibility? No. No. You see? Same thing, right? In other words, you have two opposites. Proceed from someone do not proceed from someone. Have one proceed from you, not have one proceed from you, right? And then you get four boxes, right? But you realize one of these boxes is what? Not a real thing. An immobilism. Yeah. Yeah. There couldn't be a person in the Blessed Trinity that neither proceeds from anyone or does anyone proceed from him. Because there'd be no basis distinction from the others. Okay? And that's part of the reason why we had the Philioquia, right? You know? That if the Holy Spirit didn't proceed from the Son, he wouldn't be distinct from the Son. Okay? So, the only kind of distinction you can have in the Trinity, I mean, Thomas will, you know, we'll break this down, but the only kind of distinction you can have among the persons is that of proceeding from someone, right? Or having someone proceed from you, right? Or not proceeding from somebody. But then you realize that the fourth box can't be any real possibility, huh? Okay? But I think it's easier to see in my first example of the Trinity, right? You know, the example there in Aristotle's definition of the beginning, middle, and end of a plot, right? Okay? Why does he have two pairs of opposites but gets only three members? One member is not, what, a real possibility. there couldn't be a part of a plot that is neither before anything nor after anything. Because such a part would have no connection with any other part, right? Okay? And there couldn't be a fourth person that blessed the Trinity that doesn't proceed from anybody because anybody proceeds from him. Because there'd be no way of distinguishing him from the other persons. If the only way of distinguishing in the Trinity is by what? Procession, right? Okay? So, the same thing here, right? Thomas will, you know, in the beginning you see the commentary on the physics he'll come back to this distinction that Thomas Aristotle gives here, right? And he'll divide looking philosophy by whether it's about things that depend upon matter for the existence or things that do not depend upon matter for the existence. And then those that define with matter and those that define without matter, right? And that gives him four boxes, right? But then you point out that there can't be in the part of philosophy which is about things that don't depend upon matter for the existence but they're defined with matter. You see? Because the things known have no matter and the knower has no matter so there's no reason to have any matter there, right? You see? It's a very subtle thing. So here's three places where you have this, right? In the definition of the parts of a plot and the distinction of the three parts of looking philosophy and even in the distinction of the person's identity, right? This is quite a one of the other examples but two but it's very striking, right? You almost got one of that in numbers, right? You got odd and even numbers and prime and opposite numbers and you crisscross then you get four possibilities and you almost didn't get it though, right? Because there's only one even number that's prime. Yeah. There's one. So you have four boxes, right? But all the other even numbers are accounts, right? There's one, two. That's the only prime even number, two. There's all four boxes there. But notice how different here is the way in which looking philosophy is divided, right? And the way practical philosophy was divided, doing sciences, and the way the, what, making sciences. They're all divided in a different way, right? And Aristotle and Thomas saw that, right? Quite different the ways they're divided. Of course, you know, when Thomas explains the reason for the basis here, it's because the mind is invaterial, right? The reason is not a body. And the whole purpose of this is to get something into the mind, right? And that means to get it out of matter in some way, right? Okay? And each of these has a different relation to matter. Or you're just trying to understand, right? And you know the old problem? Heraclitus and his followers said, all things flow and nothing abides. Well, how can you understand something that doesn't stand still? So, something has to be, to some extent, removed from motion, right? Okay? In natural philosophy, you extract from individual motion, but you keep motion in general. Because that doesn't change. Okay? The definition of time is, what? Timeless, huh? Time in the country is always flowing, right? Waits for no man, right? But the definition of time is timeless, huh? And the definition of motion in change never changes. The great discovery of the Greeks was that change is between opposites, right? And that never changes. So, and even if you say a thing that's changing, that's changing is always different, right? That never changes. But never has to keep motion of change in general, right? Here, although the things are found in changing things, they're defined without change at all, right? And here you're dealing with things that don't involve change, huh? Necessarily, or they can't have change, huh? So, because you're trying to get something into the mind, which is immaterial, because you're trying to understand things, right? These are distinguished by how they are towards matter and towards change, huh? So, a unique way of distinguishing these things. So, in the last paragraph here on this first page, then, he talks about the, what? The way these different sciences, what? Define, huh? And some define with matter and change, and some without, huh? Now, sometimes Aristotle will speak, though, of it being a kind of intelligible or imaginable matter. In geometry, that kind of extension, right? Okay? But it's something quite different from matter in the ordinary sense, huh? So, he speaks, then, of the natural science, there at the bottom of page one, and then there's the mathematical one, okay? And, of course, he hasn't fully cleared out the difficulties of Plato, huh? And I mentioned those, and we talked about the central question of philosophy. Plato thought that in order to have truth, the way you know has to be the way things are, okay? And Aristotle said no, okay? And you don't even gradually see that Aristotle is correct there, but most philosophers down through history are mistaken about this. And you have to admire the subtlety of Wethius and the consolation of philosophy, because when he gets to the fifth book there, although he's announced in the first book that he's in the academy of the School of Plato, right? In the beginning of the fifth book, Lady Wisdom introduces Aristotle as her true follower. And he's about to take up, what? God's eternal knowledge, right? And this is where the famous definition of eternity that you have in theology comes from. And, of course, God knows what is in time, but his knowledge is not in time. And how is this possible? That God truly knows things, right? How can the past and the future be present to God? And now you've got to follow Aristotle, right? You've got to begin to understand that the way you know doesn't have to be the way things are. And he has kind of a faint imitation of this in man when you and I remember the past now. We can talk about the past now. We can have a knowledge now in the presence, present, of the past. Are we false? Now, if I think that yesterday is today, then I'm mistaken, right? But am I false in talking about yesterday, today? Yesterday is in my knowledge today. And if we talk about tomorrow, what we do tomorrow, tomorrow is in our, what? Knowledge today. Are we false? But more particular to the example of the math here, Aristotle realizes that things that exist together can be truly known in separation sometimes. Like I'm a philosopher and a grandfather, right? And both of these are in me. But can you know one of these without knowing the other? Yeah. You can truly know I'm a philosopher without knowing I'm a grandfather and leaving out of which I'm a grandfather. And the nurse at the hospital can truly know I'm a grandfather, this little one, and knowing nothing about by being a philosopher. Well, falsity would come in if you said, this philosopher is not a grandfather or this grandfather is not a philosopher. So to know me to be a philosopher without my being a grandfather, you can say the analogy of me is incomplete, but it's not false. You see? And even though sphere cannot exist without rubber or glass or steel or some other matter, right? It can be understood without glass and rubber and so on. And then later on you say that you can know things in the reverse order that they are. My stock example in class of the students is that I know you before your parents. Is my knowledge of you false because I know you before I know your parents? Yeah, but in reality, your parents came before you. So the order in which I know reality is the reverse, right? We knew water before we knew hydrogen, right? And maybe we didn't know water fully until we knew hydrogen, right? But can't you know something true about water without knowing about hydrogen? We generally know the effect before the cause. We have to reason backwards, as the great Sherlock Holmes says, huh? Says to Watson, we've got to reason backwards. What do you mean? From the effect back to the cause, right? But is your mind false in knowing the effect before the cause? In knowing that there's day and night before you know the Earth turns on its axis, if that's the reason why. Because in reality, the cause is before the effect. But the falsity would come in, Aristotle says, if you said that the order in my knowing is the order in things. Then you'd say that the effect is before the cause, because, in things, because it's before the cause in my knowledge, right? That's a great mistake of the rationalist, right? You know, Spinoza says, the order in thoughts and the order in things is the same. That's the terrible thing that Hegel gets from Spinoza, right? So Hegel identifies what? So Hegel gets from Spinoza, right? So Hegel gets from Spinoza, right? So Hegel gets from Spinoza, right? The first thought we have, which is the confused thought of being, right? With the one who said, I am, who am. He's identifying what's first in our thoughts, what's first in what? Things, being, yeah. As if the order in our thoughts had to be the order in things, otherwise it would be what? False, right? And then in the second paragraph on page two, he's talking about wisdom or first philosophy, right? Which is about things that are what? Eternal and immovable and separated from what? Matter, right? Okay? And then he concludes in the third paragraph. Hence there will be three looking philosophies, the mathematical, the natural. Notice he uses the word theological, but I usually avoid that because of our use of the word theology, right? And incidentally, if you call first philosophy theology, theology, you could say that it's about God as its end or goal, right? Okay? But God is not the subject of first philosophy. It's being as being, huh? But in revealed theology, I can assume the theologiae, God is not only the goal, but also the very subject of science. Okay? Okay, so he again comes back to what he says in the premium there. And it's the most honorable science, right? Because the most honorable science is what? About the most honorable kind of thing. And notice what he says at the bottom of the page here too. He said, if there were no immaterial substances, right? If there were only immaterial things, then natural philosophy would be what? First philosophy. Yeah, it would be wisdom. As it is, it's second philosophy. Okay? But for 200 years at least, the Greeks identified wisdom with natural philosophy. If all that existed was material things, natural and artificial things, and the artificial things depend upon the natural things, right? Then the one who knows the first causes of natural things will know the first causes of all things. So, if someone says, you know, if I say, wisdom is the best knowledge, and people say, well, you just say it's the best knowledge because you like it the most. I say, no. Because we first thought that natural philosophy was the best knowledge, right? And then we realize there's something, you know, before this, then we realize that that was wisdom more, right? Okay. Now, at this point, Aristotle, just up around, what, 430, maybe? At this point now, Aristotle has finally determined what wisdom is about, right? And he separated wisdom from all the knowledge. Now he's ready to really begin wisdom, right? Now he's ready to begin the study of being as what? Being, right? Okay. And in a sense, he knows how to proceed, right? And he mentioned something already about the order of consideration. We have to consider the common things, right? Like being and one before we consider the angels and God, right? Okay. We've got to consider the things that need not be in matter, but can be in matter, right? Before the things that cannot be in matter, cannot be in matter. So he's going to begin now in the third reading, or excuse me, the third page, the second reading. He's going to begin by recalling the distinction of the senses of being in Book 5. And we'll have to recall that, and he's going to consider in Book 6, briefly, two of the four kinds that he talked about in the fifth book. He's going to consider, briefly, what we call accidental being, like a Christian geometry, for example. That kind of being, that kind of being, and being as what? True, being and the reason, right? Okay. And he's going to say something about both of those kinds of being, but he's going to set them aside as not being the main concern of the wise men. And then he's going to talk about, in Book 7, 8, and 9, the division of being according to the figures of predication, substance, quantity, quality, and so on. But mainly about substance, in Book 7 and 8. And then being as an act and ability in the ninth book, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, we'll look at the brief consideration of accidental being, and being as true, right, in Book 6 here, and look at part of the consideration of substance in Book 8. And then look at Book 9, where he talks about what act and ability in, okay? But you should probably look again, and you'll recall that, huh? If you recall, in Book 5, he first distinguished between being as such, being to itself, as he calls it, kakalto in Greek, and being by happening, or through happening, being karachidans, kathos and bebikas in Greek. And the most accidental kind of being by happening is when two things happen to a third thing, right? Okay? I say, I'm a, what, Christian geometer, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. To be a Christian happens to belong to me, and to be a geometer belongs to me, right? And therefore, you have a Christian geometer, right? But does my Christianity and my science of geometry come together and make one thing? No. Is there really such a thing as a Christian geometer? Well, there's a way you become a geometer, by studying Euclid, I suppose. There's a way you become a Christian by baptism, right? But is there a way of becoming a Christian geometer? Is there a geometrical baptism? No. No. No. See? Now, was I born a Christian geometer? No. And there's no way to become a Christian geometer. There's a way to become a Christian. Mm-hmm. There's a way to become a geometer. But there's no way to become a Christian geometer, is there? And there's something by which I am a Christian. Grace and so on, right? There's something by which I am a geometer, right? Is there anything by which I am a Christian geometer? So I'm hardly a Christian geometer, right? And yet, you know, affirmative action, right? And if the Christian academy wants to hire a Christian geometer, I suppose you could find a Christian geometer, right? Okay? If they want to hire a black geometer, I suppose you could find a black geometer, right? Mm-hmm. But this is hardly, it's hardly is, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So I was going to talk a little bit about this kind of being, because it hardly is, right? It's not the main thing, sort of being as being, right? But, you know, sometimes we talk about what? The influence or importance of accidental being in our lives, huh? I used to say, you know, if you're a black woman, you might get hired. Because you're black, because you're a woman, right? So someone else, a white man, might not get hired, you see? So this can influence your life a lot, right? Accidental being, huh? You see? And maybe a white man wants to marry a, you know, a Christian white man wants to marry a Christian white woman, right? So the black woman doesn't get married to him, right? Okay? By some cases, right? So if you're writing a biography of somebody, accidental being might be very important, huh? Mm-hmm. And, you know, there you go. There you go.