Wisdom (Metaphysics 2016)
Lecture 10: The Six Characteristics of the Wise Man

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difficult or at least a lesser-known opinion about the wise man just i mean Aristotle usually brings in for example wise man the chief artists and these are guys that are practical these are guys that direct other people yeah and they seem to have they're not doing it just for their own sake yeah oh they seem to be wise yeah but it's taken from the practical order because it's more known to us right there's a direction there and i mean in terms of the fifth thing there they might think you know um when i was teaching in college you know used to be a phrase we'd say you know when you get out into the real world and then you really then you really find out what it's all about right you know yeah yeah and uh there's some truth about that right you know you know people ask me why do all these professors vote democratic i said that's because they don't live in the real world and uh there is a kind of uh uh foolishness in professors right that everybody can see right and uh uh so you know you want these guys running the country did you you know the famous remarkable you know you'd rather be uh directed by the first 200 names was it in the telephone book you know then the faculty of harvard that's true right you know so i mean the practical is more known to us right you see when aristotle takes up the virtues of reason uh in the sixth book of uh nikamakian ethics right you know wisdom will kind of come you know later on right so it's not known as as i was talking about it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm not going to be directed in what i think yeah you see you know how catholics you know vote for uh the wrong people right you know people who are really uh you know got the worst positions really you know and things that are contrary to the to the uh what the church teaches right but they don't they don't be directed you know by uh you know they should be directed by you know in the church hillary hillary has what uh announced that she intends to use political will and resources you know to attack the catholic church right you know meaning you know religious beliefs right that are contrary to their party line there and direct abortion so so so is this ruling that he's talking about in the sixth characteristic a speculative ruling that a teacher might rule the student yeah but he's talking about about how the wise man in some sense uh directs those in the other sciences right as regards certain fundamental things that's where i was comparing you know the logician to the wise man right that they both in some way seem to what direct others right the thing you know that i noticed with the modern philosophers you know they don't seem to know the names of the various kinds of mistakes and if you know the names of that kind of mistake that's not to understand them but if you understand them you can make that kind of mistake right and uh then uh not being what directed by by the logician and they should be right so could they just call philosophers for something like uh like a five or sophists i suppose yeah yeah yeah but you also see as far as the um uh the wise ruling in today's culture you can see sort of uh moving away from reason and wisdom and uh focusing more on your emotions well the thing i know is that i go from greek philosophy um which begins as aristotle will say here in the third reading begin in wonder right i find in the great you know physicists of the 20th century more wonder right true wonder than in the modern philosophers right so i feel more at home with heisenberg right or max born or even einstein and so on than with the modern philosophers right and uh max born he says nothing great in science can be accomplished without the elementary wonder of the philosopher he's a guy who got the nobel prize right for explaining what the wave means and what he mechanics right you know he's a great great physicist right and by the correspondence between born and uh einstein right let's see in the bookstores but uh every appreciation for that right and uh my friend warren murray you know he wouldn't talk to heisenberg right warren speaks good german by the way and uh so uh he had a conversation heisenberg heisenberg was more a titanist or aristotelian and uh in terms of being you know mathematical physicist he was more like plato right but he had this great admiration for our style's understanding of potency right you see that in the gift for lectures right you know really mean it was something to give for lectures and uh the um but anyway warren would refer to some greek you know fragments you know when they were talking in conversation i said we're going to quote them in greek you know from memory mostly i i wouldn't be able to quote uh you know your kindness in greek you know from memory you know i could and uh uh so i mean he's somebody there right now you know this is uh what is it it says there's never been any science people have not come in contact with the greeks you know that that's where it is you know einstein said you know if euclid did not arouse your youthful enthusiasm you were not born to be a scientist that's kind of marvelous you know to read these euclid's a wonderful guy to read was he a greek in alexandria or was he egyptian well alexandria's in egypt but i mean he was he he went uh he studied with the platonists in athens first so i sometimes say my teacher euclid of athens in alexandria but kind of more famous for being at still the best introduction to geometry you know i didn't read euclid i was out of college old teacher because he says duane go get euclid i said why go get it he said go get it he knew i would obey him you know that's why i'm in greek i told you a little greek i know you know he says duane where's your greek and i said my greek yeah where's your greek the other things i'd rather take he said that's no reason he wasn't any reason i don't think i'd rather take what the hell is that okay reason is that you're going to study philosophy says you learned some greek yes sir yes sir so he's directing me right and most people say you know the hell with you i'll do what i want to do i'll choose my own courses i'm not gonna tell me what to do you know especially the democratic age right now yeah so someone in this democratic age that's wise would be someone that suggested things to you but didn't direct you maybe is that what you're saying that well people will fight that i mean they don't have the humility right huh when thomas talks about um pride as a cause of error right huh and these are causes of it or causes of error you know on the part of appetite huh and he gives two reasons why the the proud man uh makes mistakes right one is that he thinks he's more what capable than he is right and so he tries to judge things that he's not able to judge right or before he's able to judge them and the other is that he won't what listen to minds greater than his own right and you know they often these greater minds they uh often recall you from errors or mistakes right so that's two ways that the pride is a cause of what here right yeah okay so we got a little more time now okay let's go finish the second reading well we'll go on second reading here yeah okay now of these to know all things necessarily belongs to the man most of all having a knowledge and universal isn't it's the last paragraph there on page three right so we left off right for he knows in some way all things placed under the universal now let's just stop there for a moment and is there some connection between his knowing the most universal and the thing he wants to bring out more fully later on that he knows the first cause or causes well let's go back to something more known to us right okay let's go back to the king and his top general who's a more fundamental mover the king or the top general who obeys who yeah okay now the causality of the general extends to all those of whom soldier can be said he commands the top general everyone who comes under the universal soldier right the king's causality his governing extends to all men who are what who are citizens okay now which is more universal citizen or soldier and you see a connection between the most universal from this from this what is said of all and the first cause yeah yeah like citizen is more universal you see a pointer you'll start at that thing right the king's causality extends to everyone of whom citizen can be said right the general's causality extends only to those of whom um soldier can be said um soldier can be said but citizen is more universal than what soldier right so the more universal corresponds to the more universal cause right you know sometimes in latin they'll speak of the universality in predicando in being said of things right and universality in causando right which universal cause right okay now these are two different kinds of facility right and you can see this with the english word general right so in the army let's say uh soldiers perhaps the most general but in the pacific war maybe um macarthur is most of all the general right was macarthur a general in the same way that soldier is general the soldier is general in being said of what oh yeah but macarthur is general in the sense of commanding all right but there's some correspondence right because you could say that uh macarthur's causality extends to everyone who's called a soldier in this army right um you see so two different kinds you may sell to you but the kind of they go together right so in aristotle's books say uh on politics the so-called politics they call it english right in political philosophy he's going to talk about government right and who governs right he's also going to talk about who is or is not a what citizen right something what the government you might say rules everybody who is a citizen right so it's appropriate that the same science should talk about government and citizen right they're both political but in different ways right so from the fact that the wise man knows all things in some way that he has the most universal knowledge right he knows what is said of all right then what kind of causes would you expect him to be looking for yeah and that would be the first cause right so you see how how is there's how it says with the truth all things harmonize right fit together right it's beautiful to see that right and then he says and perhaps you know be careful why you say perhaps perhaps the most universal are the most difficult for men to know now why does he say that he gives the reason for it for they are furthest from the senses the sense is no singular now the less universal is closer to the singular so man is closer to you and me than animal and dog is closer to mariba or his name it's than animal right now and so the most universal would be furthest away from us and from abibi abibi okay i gotta get that down it's a hard thing to say first cat we had when i was a little boy there was called scrapper yeah and then the next two cats we had the the woman we got them from she named them you know captain and he was like a commodore right and it's by the wings i guess on the tail of the kind of military so of course um commodore you know he always got it abbreviated to commie because this is the day you know of mccarthy days and so on and he's like you're coming you're coming it's like calling him a communist right but his name was actually commodore right you know captain was we made to cappy you know we call it cappy here cappy here cappy but commodore got known as a commie he disappeared you know and the one of the neighbors thought that he's installed and it's a beautiful cat you know they thought he's just standing in a beautiful cat like that black and white he scrapper was it was purition you know we got we didn't get that from private we got that from a you know pet shop you know everybody we're going to the pet shop and they had they had monkeys and kids you could get bummed i could see it's hard enough our mother put up with the cap and put up with the monkey would have been uh that would be a big mistake when i come home with that you know we had scrapper out at the lake my father had a friend who had a lakeside place and so we rented it from him and my brothers and i would sleep out on the porch you know but it was screened into mosquitoes and so on and the cat would be outside and in the morning the cat scrapper would be climbing up the get a kick out of that but notice the reason he gives for they are furthest from the senses right but notice if you take another you know thing from the the actual road you can say effects are more known than causes right and causes are more known than the cause of the cause right so the effects are closer to our senses and causes the further away you and the cause of the cause, right? And eventually, if it's an immaterial cause, it'd be very far away from our senses, right? So, in one way, the most universal seems to be furthest from the senses, but maybe in another way, the first cause is furthest from the senses. And it's even more difficult to know. So that's why he says, what? Perhaps, right? So is he talking about the first cause? No, no. He's saying that the most universal are the most difficult for men to know. Now, why is that? Because they're furthest from the starting point of our knowledge of senses. We could also say that the first cause is furthest from the senses, too, right? And maybe the first cause is even more difficult to know because it's something immaterial, etc., etc., right? And you have to reason to it, right? And so on, you see? It's interesting. People do have a great difficulty. And I mean, just people in general, but even the so-called modern philosophers, right? They have great difficulty in seeing, what? The most universal things, right? What exactly is the purpose of modern philosophy in general? Is there any utility to it, really? Or is it really just sort of an abstract, academic sort of a game? Oh, did you read Whitaker Chambers' book, Witness? No, I... That's his biography there? Yeah, yeah. But he says when he got through his education at Columbia, he had two choices. Commit suicide or become a communist. So he chose to become a communist. I guess his brother chose suicide. Wonderful education they had there at Columbia, I guess. That's what man alive, that's what one of the things in it was that suicide is... That's what the professor is teaching suicide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was thinking of the parties that would think that, you know, they've been indoctrinated, you always say, in a bad sense. But I remember when I was reading, when I was in graduate school, they had copies of theses, you know, that had been, you know, people got to doctorates. And, you know, I had to give a copy of my thesis to the library and so on. And so suddenly we'd go and read one of these theses, if you're interested in the topic, you know. Well, at that time, of course, Marxism was very much in the, you know, center Marxist philosophy. So there's a thesis on Marxism. So I thought I'd read this particular thesis. And, but anyway, in his criticism of Marxism, right, as you know, Marxism, the official name of Marxism is dialectical materialism, right? Materialism says matter is the beginning of everything. That's the first cause, so to speak. But everything develops out of matter by the conflict of opposites. And dialectical is opposite sides. That's what they, these are dialectical. Now when they apply this to human society, it's all developments from conflict. So they're always talking about contradiction and opposition, right? Now Aristotle, in the book called The Categories, right, and in the book called, in the fifth book of Wisdom, right, he distinguishes the four basic senses of opposites. And Marx never does that. This is the key thing in this thing, right? Things develop out of opposites, right? He never distinguishes the central senses of opposites and shows the order, right? Well, that's kind of a fundamental, yeah. But it's difficult, difficult to talk about something that's universal as opposites, right? Aristotle sees that relatives are one kind of opposites too, right? But you have contradictories, and then having and lacking, and you have contraries, and then you have relatives, right? And Gesureki drum them into me, and I'm going to teach at Gesureki. But it just shows you what Aristotle said, right? Things that are most universal are hard, right? And you get to being, which is, Aristotle distinguishes being according to the figures of predication, right? And according to act and ability, and people can't do that. Even philosophers, right? They're just too far away from the senses, right? Do you have a sense that temperament also is a major force behind Marx, also Luther? Yeah. How do you power in many ways? With Marx, when you read him, you know, you feel kind of his anger. You get that, you know. He's not calm, you know. I mean, he's kind of fun to read that way, you know. He's a little picky, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I'll make a little bit of fun of Beethoven, which I shouldn't do, I suppose. But, yeah, crank it up, Beethoven, you have an enthusiasm, you know. The Fifth Symphony, you know, became, you know, for victory, you know, in the Second World War, you know, and so on. But there are nice things in Beethoven, too. Beethoven is actually closer to Haydn than to Mozart. He's taught by both of them a bit, you know. They've taught more about Haydn than Mozart. Although when Beethoven heard Mozart's 24th, piano concerto says, now, we shall never equal that, he says. It's over. You don't even try, you know. You can't. No philosophy without music, as my brother Marcus said. There's a few of Karyani who said, why did he say that? We got to stop now, or what? Yeah, okay, so we'll continue here with page three. Yeah. of course, Aristotle kills many birds with one stone, right? And he has taught us in the first reading something about the natural road, right? Sometimes I distinguish at least three orders in the natural road. And the order that he points out in the first reading is the order in which different kinds of knowledge come along this road. What is that order? Yeah, well that's the whole, the name of the road, the senses and the reason. But sensing comes first along that road, then comes memory, then comes, yeah, and then finally a knowledge of the universal, right? Now, how does memory arise in sensing, right? Yeah, in a sense you're retaining the movement of the senses, right? Okay. The image inside you, right? Caused by the movement of the eye, right? To move something else else, right? Okay. So we retain, you might say, you get from sensing to memory by retaining what you sensed, right? Okay. Sometimes you can't retain what somebody says, right? Okay. But we try to retain, right? What we sensed, right? And that's how you get memory, right? Now, how do you get from memory to experience? Yeah, but by gathering them together, right? Okay. A little bit like getting money, right? You don't spend it as you get it. You can retain some of the money, right? When you retain some more money, then you start to get together and get a big pile of money. Now you're wealthy, right? Okay. So experience arises from memory in a different way than memory from what? The senses. How does knowledge of the universal arise from experience? In one of those two ways or in some other way? Yeah. I separate out what they have in common, right? I compare them, you know? He's got two ears, he's got two ears, he's got two ears, two ears, he's got two legs, he's got two legs, he's got two legs, he's got two legs. So what man is a two-legged animal, right? I guess something universal, right? So having brought together so much as what separated out what you have in common, comparing you. Now, in the premium to the eight books of natural hearing, Aristotle points out another order in our knowledge, right? Along an actual road, right? And this is the order in which even the same thing is known, right? That's known in a confused way before it's known distinctly, right? Or it's known in an outward way before it's known in an inward way, right? So the beautiful word in Latin there to lead you, right? To read within, right? Or the beautiful word in English to understand, right? But you can also speak of a third order, right? A little more easier than this one I just spoke of. And that's the order in which different things are known on this road. So sensible things are known before things that are not sensible if the last are known at all, right? And therefore material things are known before immaterial things. That's what we use the negative, immaterial, right? And then we can see that effects are known before causes. So every time you ask why, you're witnessing to the effect being known before the cause. You see the effect, but you don't see the cause, right? Okay, you're researching that. And if the cause is known after the effect, what about the cause of the cause? Yeah. So if wisdom comes at the end of our knowledge, it might be a knowledge of not just any cause, but of the, what, very first cause, right? It's a knowledge of God, as I tell Lady Sophia, Lady Wisdom. And if you ask Sophia, what is wisdom? She says, it's a knowledge of God, huh? Okay. But Aristotle, in the second reading here that we saw, I guess last time, right? We kind of went through that. He kind of backtracked and said, let's just say that wisdom is about causes and let's consider again, right? About what kind of causes it is. He wants to show that it's about the first causes, right? And he suggests that maybe knowing a little bit about what the wise man is might help us to see what kind of causes he's after, right? And so he works out a, what he thinks out, a six part description of the wise man, right? Now, what is that six part description of the wise man? It has six parts to it, huh? What's the first thing he says about the wise man? Yeah, yeah. Now I mentioned there's, you know, we kind of think that about the wise man, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Are you a wise guy? No at all? It's a Georgia sense, right? Even there you seem to recognize that. Or I took the example, you know, I hear people say about somebody, you know, he's got it all together. See, he's kind of wise or something about life, right? He's got it all together, right? Most of us have it all together. Our life is kind of, you know, shipwrecked or kind of in pieces, so to speak, right? That's where Estelle says, you know, that Homer taught them how to tell a good story, right? It's got to be a course of action as a beginning, middle, end. You can't just take anything that happens to a person, right, huh? Because they have no connection, right? Got out the trash today, because that's where they come on Thursday, right? What's that got to do with teaching philosophy, right? You don't perform a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the second thing he says about the wise man? He knows all things in some way, huh? He's talking about what we think, you know? And as I say to the students, he's not using the editorial way, you know, used sometimes to give us more parent authority. He's talking about men in general, we think, you know? But we also think about the wise man. Yeah, things are difficult for a man to know that he's involved, right? Okay. And then what's the third thing he says about the wise man? Yeah. Don't we go to the wise men when we're not sure what to do or something like that, right? Like he's maybe more sure about what we should do than we are? Or if you have a difficult thing, I'd go see what, you know, De Connick would say or what Dian would say or what Dian would say or what Dian would say. What Dian said funny about some of my questions. Wait until De Connick comes down and you ask him. Okay? Then Dian came down and Dian's talking about the importance of logic and wisdom. Isn't natural philosophy more important than logic? Because in natural philosophy you learn that there's an unmover and therefore there's an immaterial, and it's immaterial. And that's how you know it's immaterial things, right? And you learn that the human soul is immortal, right? And you begin to say, isn't that more important than that? And so I go over and see Dian as well. And so I give him this line like a cervix. He says, he distinguished Dian, right? Because obviously knowing those things you have to do through natural philosophy, right? And Aristotle calls a natural philosophy. He gives it. title second philosophy right so and of course all the way back to socrates and plato there right you know if you want to talk about causes you go to natural philosophy right that's when you first learn about the various kinds of causes because the natural philosophy uses all of them right the geometry he doesn't use all of them he just uses form a little bit right doesn't really have matter in his strict sense so he doesn't have purpose right now what's the purpose of a triangle having a steering to turning there's no purpose in this logic what diana was talking about was that logic in one way is more like wisdom right than natural philosophy is because it's more universal right so the first distinction we have of being is according to the figures of what predication and this is proper to logic to talk about predication right and then um logic is like wisdom in this immaterial talking immaterial so in some ways logic disposes us for wisdom right in a way that natural philosophy does not right natural philosophy um goes from what the general down to the particular and it goes towards matter um as aristotle points out and as thomas points out and uh wisdom you're going what towards the immaterial right and as i like to say you know um logician seems to be like the wise man because he directs all the sciences right as to how they should proceed you know that's not a syllogism what do you think you do it you're the job okay you can't have an inclusion falling necessarily but induction you know i can give an infinity of examples that numbers are odd right you know for a thousand all the numbers are odd i got a huge i had a large induction right three five seven nine eleven how long you want to go yeah yeah that's so impressive right you know that's what i can say you know you count to a hundred and then you're on you count to a thousand dead so you see a distinction there right in one way natural philosophy right i think natural philosophy you know helps us more with act and ability right in fact the definition of motion there you have what and motion is what's most known and thomas has a beautiful distinction between the way logic proceeds and the way natural philosophy proceeds right and it's marvelous because of its brevity right he says that natural philosophy proceeds per modemotis by way of motion everything is made known by what motion right even nature's defined as the beginning and cause of motion and rest right it's within and logic proceeds what by way of predication he says now i'm not studying logic at laval there uh my teacher was elbert the great you know and uh one of the first two books in logic whether the isa goge right of porphyry and the categories of aristotle in the latin you call them the predicabilibus and the predicamentis which is taken from the word predikara right and to be said right and uh when you get to the the great argument called the syllogism it's based on what did you do only and did you know the sort of all and the sort of none right so logic is characterized by being said or something right by natural philosophy you learn these things through what motion right it's alive you know but because it moves of itself right you know you see you know you sit down and it's just trying to move something you know and by focus you know sometimes you think of something moves you know it's not really moving you know but uh well you know something is alive because it grows or something right so he knows all things in some way it has to be in particular because you can't know them i mean it has to be in general because you can't know the ball in particular okay and he knows what things difficult to know right and thomas will aristotle will point out something kind of interesting there right that the most universal are furthest away from the senses which know will be singulars right and therefore perhaps are the most difficult to know right well it turns out that we know the effect before the cause and the cause before the cause of the cause and that way the last thing we know would be you know the first cause and that turns out to be more difficult to know and the most what universal right now conic says one day you know every respectable word in philosophy is analogous right it's equivocal by reason right and modern philosophers they have very difficulty right now i always gave the example of the uh writing the thesis there on marxism you know marxism is known as technically as dialectical materialism right but matter means materialism is everything begins with matter right and it develops by what conflict of opposites right but nowhere does uh marx distinguish the four senses you know even if you're aware of it right now you might call contradiction or whatever it is you know whether it be contrariety or you know some other kind of opposition and you say gee whiz that's that's fundamental it's in the very name of the you know it's in dialectical men you know would argue on opposite sides right and so that's why they started to use the word dialectical for this war of opposites and uh you know they quote uh heraclitus saying more as the father of all you know good exposition of the rudiments of telecomiticalism trying to show you know that stretches all the way back to the great heraclitus but they they can't you know distinguish you don't seem to know that these most common words equivocal all of them by reason right this is what aristotle discovered right that the common words we use especially in wisdom but in the axioms right now and to some extent everywhere right these common words are what all equivocal but equivocal by reason and so he set out and he spent a whole book there in wisdom the fifth book distinguishing these senses of these words and thinking out their order right the thing we use for before and after right was uh taken from the categories right okay because important for logic but it's also this person the fifth book of wisdom right that i think it's good to start the texting categories it's marvelous what he does there right who else could do that maybe thomas and i give an example there you know of uh the fourth book of the physics aristotle distinguishes the eight central senses of in or to be in uh he doesn't order them at least the text we have right thomas said well we'll order them uh in the way that he taught us in the fifth book of wisdom right and he orders them beautifully we talked about that before those eight sentences yeah yeah they're kind of very fond of that because he thought they had a course you know he taught on place you know i still remember him coming down to class there looking up in my eyes and saying isn't this wonderful it's still a wonder they've been teaching us since 1930s right i'm up here in the 1960s i'm learning from him right thank goodness wonder yet but he deferred to dianne right you know that humility is amazing right and he was much more famous than dianne you know dianne didn't go out to lecture tours or you know he wasn't okay so um that's what he says perhaps right they're actually things more difficult that's difficult enough you take the moderns as an example of the difficulty right most universal things are very hard to see what's the third thing he says about it more certain yeah we talked about a little bit of tension there between the second and the third right because is he most certain in his knowledge of those things that are most difficult for us to know or there's some things that are less difficult for us to know but he's very certain about well you can look at the axioms right huh and aristotle defends the axiom that so they cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same way right something that hegel and marx couldn't they say dialectics is a study of the contradiction within the very essence of things so it's based upon denying right aristotle is most certain about these axioms right and without trying to say why he's more certain than other men entirely part of it is that he can what yeah like burquist you know who tries to you know convince his poor students that sometimes the part is greater than the whole right at least for you know yeah because hegel says that when something is becoming it both is and is not right i'm coming into your house am i in your house or not in your house well i'm both in your house and not in your house right it's a contradiction right becoming is contradiction so they have a hard time you know a very difficult time to distinguish those sources right so ourselves perhaps it's most difficult right okay so it's not the most difficult but it is but so he's able to defend the axioms right because he knows these things huh you know i'm just thinking of another fiendish question when i asked my tuesday night students i told you after after giving them the text and the categories and the senses of before how i used to ask the question and what sense of before does one sense of before come before another sense of before you know peter peyper picked a pepper well why are you doing this to me but those senses that he gives there right those four senses are distinguished in a certain what order right in a certain before and after well which sense of before and after is it is before and time better than the other senses is it before the other senses in being well as thomas gives the principle there when he's talking about the fifth book there huh we name things as we know them right so when they find something they didn't know about before they give it a name don't they right we name things as we know them and that of course leads to the idea that naming what follows the order and knowing the third order right we were looking at a text there last tuesday of my students there and in the text comes of course a statement that thomas very often talks about it goes back to plato right that the per se is before the per allia right to speak english the through itself is before the through what another right and we're talking there about the move mover right and the move mover is not a mover to itself right so it's got to be before it another mover now if that is a movement well then you got to come to a what a mover that's a mover what to say yeah yeah to itself yeah i said now um you could go more general and say um is there a cause before a cause cause cause cause cause is a what cause to itself no unless it's cause it's not going to cause anything else right so a cause caused cause is a cause through what another well there must be somewhere somewhere before the cause cause cause yeah okay a nice thought see i gotta get him next time you know and say uh i asked them you know this great proposition that thomas i'd say to all kinds of places recently you know it goes back to plato right there so plato regionally huh the through itself is before the through another right now in what sense of before is the through itself before the through another now unlike the other question right which said that um what sense of before does one sense of before come before another sense of before there is one sense of before to answer right and you guys need to be answering trying to guess one sense of before right well i think it's found in the second and the third and the fourth maybe not the first i'm too dumb to see it in the first but in the second sense third sense and in the fourth sense and in the so-called fifth sense which is not fifth in orders i always put in quotes uh but which is later on the second sense right the cause and effect right i've just been talking about how what the caused cause right then is an effect right the cause that is an effect itself right as a cause before it right and eventually have to get to something that is a clause but through itself and not an effect right okay but the same thing might be said of what being too right huh and so you know the argument one of the arguments for the god goes from the contingent can be and not be so it depends upon something that must be and some things that must be or or must be through something else like the conclusion of the syllogism right demonstration and so then you gotta come to a being that is what yeah yeah that's why thomas argues you know that god is being itself right because he's being through himself and when he's being through being so he must be being itself very simple okay but again in no one is that true too some things are known some statements are known through other statements right so like that famous statement the pithagomine theorem right is known right and some of the premises used to prove it are known through other statements right now is every statement known to another statement would any statement be known at all if every statement needed to be known to other statements i mean if statement a is known to b you have to know b before it can know a and if every statement is known to another statement then b would be known to c right you have to know c before you could know b or a and you couldn't know c you know D and D and you couldn't even begin to know something, right? And there'd be infinity of what statements behind any one statement. So if every statement is known to another statement or has to be known to another statement, then no statement can be what? No. Not quite as obvious, you know, as the difficulty of a guy who says every statement is false, right? People like to maintain that, right? Well, every statement is false, then that statement itself is false, right? And that's one way you get that, right? So if every statement is false, they can't even know that statement. But the same thing would follow if every statement was known to another statement. No statement could be what? And so that third sense of, you know, before, you could take it in the case of defining as well as in reasoning. Sometimes, like in the definition of reason, I had to define discourse, right? Discourse is coming to know the unknown through the known, right? But if every part of every definition is in need of definition, could you define anything? No, because you have to define the parts before you understand the definition, and then you have to define the parts of their definitions, and so on. Same thing you have with the statements, right? So there must be some things that are known what they are, but not through definition, right? Just as there are statements that are known, what? Through themselves, right? And not through other statements. Aristotle distinguishes them, but there's a way in which Boethius does. It's a marvelous way. He says, some statements are known to themselves by all, and some are known to themselves by the wise. So the whole is larger than a part, is known to itself by all, because everybody knows that a whole is parts, and so on. And there is kind of obvious that a whole is more than one of its parts, right? But, you know, every perfect number is a, what, composite number? And that's per se known to the wise, right? To those who know what a, what, perfect number is, right? Because a perfect number is a number that is equal to the sum of everything that measures it. So six is the first perfect number, right? It's measured by one, by two, and three, but not by four or five. And one plus two plus three equals six, right? So Augustine and Thomas, when they talk about God making the universe in six days, right? It's a sign of the, what, perfect number, right? Perfection, right? Kind of, I kind of, makes me think in music it's kind of mathematical, right? And the custom of the composers, you know, to write, you know, in six, you know, Mozart's most famous quartets are called the Haydn quartets, because he dedicated them to Haydn, right? He said he taught me how to write a quartet. But it's six, right? It's very common, huh? Six. As long as you have 12, right? It's two times six, but it's about six, right? Well, now a composite number is a number that is measured by another number, not just, every number is measured by one. But a prime number is measured only by one. But a composite number is measured by at least one other number. But now it's obvious that a perfect number must be a composite number. Because if it wasn't a composite, it would be measured only by one, and that wouldn't add up to it. So it's got to be. So it's per se known to the Ys, right? Not the Ys in full sense, but I mean, let me see, you know. Or if I know what an odd number is, right, an even number, it's obvious to me that no odd number is even, right? But a little kid might not know that no tragedy can be a comedy. Shakespeare's always making fun of those who say, you know, a very lamentable comedy or a very, funny tragedy. That sort of thing, you know. But the Ys, you see, you know, tragedy can't be air, you know, it's nonsense, right? Is a line longer than a point? You see, a point has no length, right? So can a line be longer than a point? Longer means you have more length, right? Okay, just add more points. Well, more and less are relatives, right? So if a line had more length than a point, then the point would have less length. A lot of people think points do exist, right? Because they have no length or their depth, right? I used to try to show kids that points must really exist, right? Because there are lines that could go on forever. So there's an end of the line, and you know, the line is a point. Gotcha. So what's the, uh, so there's a little tension there between the second and the third, right? Huh? See, so the wise men might be most certain of the actions, which are the most certain statements of all, right? See, it's great certitude, right? Okay. I heard Shakespeare talk about that. Yeah. To be or not to be, that is the question he says, right? See, it's a question because you can't both be and not be. Somebody said, you know, to eat or sleep, that is a question. Well, you can do both and you probably should do both. Eat a little bit and steep a little bit, right? But you can't both be and not be, right? That's the question. So in dialectic, kind of, the problem is always, like, that kind of dictates, right? The human soul is immortal, or it's not. You take your own side, you want to take your own argument, you know, for a while, but it's the truth. So he knows all things in some way, right? He's more, what? Things that are difficult to know, right? Yeah, he's more able to teach, know the causes. And he has knowledge that's more desirable, what? He orders all this, right? Now, how do those last things arise, huh? Why would you think of him as being more knowing the cause, right? But when he compared the man of experience, right, to the man of universal knowledge, right? And he spoke of the man of experience, as far as doing something, right, might succeed better, right? Because what you do is something singular, right? But the man of art or science seems to be wiser, because he knows why things are so, right? Don't we think the man knows why he's wiser? We're positive. Why do you do that? So you think of the wise men with no causes, right? Okay. But if he knows things that are more difficult to know, then he's the man who would know what the cause of the cause, right? And the furthest too long would be knowing the first cause, right? Okay.