Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
Lecture 9: The Central Question of Philosophy: Knowledge and Reality

Transcript
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In the last two paragraphs, Aristotle is going to give a reason and a sign for the truth of his solution. Now, the reason is drawn from the definitions, the kind of definitions that underlie geometry or some mathematical science, and the kind of definitions that underlie natural philosophy or natural science. Now, why does he draw his reason from that? Well, natural philosophy and geometry are two forms of reasoned-out knowledge, and reasoned-out knowledge is fundamentally based on definitions. And you can see that from your study of Euclid, that the definitions are what are most fundamental in the science. So Aristotle looks towards the definitions, and he says the definitions in geometry, if you examine those definitions, like the definition of sphere or cube, you'd find no reference to matter and no reference to motion or change. Now, sometimes when he talks about this difference, he says there's no matter in the definition. Other times he'll say there's no motion in the definition, but he's understanding both because matter and motion or change go together. So when you talk about the geometrical cube, is it an ice cube made out of ice? Or is it one of those wooden cubes you had a little child in your blocks? Or I have a plastic kind of a paperweight cube in my desk. Is there any kind of matter in that definition of the geometrical cube? And likewise, geometrical sphere, is there any, you know, is it a steel, like a marble, I mean glass, or is it a steel one, or is it rubber? There's no matter in the ordinary sense, no sensible matter in the very definition of the geometrical sphere or cube. And then consequently, there's no reference at all, he says, to motion. And you know, if you have a material sphere, if I had, say, a lead balloon here, and I'd go of it, it would go down. If I had a helium balloon and I'd go of it, it'd go up, huh? Because the helium is lighter, I guess, than the air or something. And the lead is heavier. But now, would a geometrical sphere go up or go down? If you'd have to go of it. No answer to that. Because it's neither heavy nor light, huh? There's nothing of that sort. You probably know there's a melting point for an ice cube. And different things have different melting points and maybe freezing points and so on. What's the melting point of a geometrical cube? Or the freezing point, which I would go, like, I wasn't going to have any, no reference to that at all. Well, if I had a rubber ball and I threw it against the wall there, it'd probably bounce back. If I had a glass ball and I threw it against the wall, it might break or shatter. If I had a steel ball, maybe it would go through the wall or stick in the wall anyway. If I had a geometrical sphere, would it bounce back or would it shatter? There's obviously none of these applicable to it, huh? So there's nothing that pertains to change there because there's no matter there. Why we saw the very definition of nature is change. Nature is defined as a beginning and cause of motion or change and rest in that which it is. First as such, not by happening. Of course, the Greeks at first identified nature with matter. And then later on with form and the genus of substance. So, and this is, if you go even further in natural science, you're going to be bringing in the matter. So if you wanted to define what bone is or what flesh is and so on, you'd have to talk about a different kind of matter that the bone is made out of. The bone is harder than the flesh. I'm not trying to be too profound about what it's made out of. So the definitions in natural philosophy involve matter and motion, which is what's essential to natural things. The definitions in geometry have no matter, no reference to motion. So since the definitions are the foundation, We just had the definition of nature the other day, and you can see from Euclid there, the definitions are the fundamental things. If the geometry defines without matter in motion, then he's considering these things in separation from our natural bodies, a sensible world. Why the natural philosopher is considering them in matter with motion. See, that's his reason. Did he suggest all that? And Aristotle's always taking the example, you know, the snubbed nose and the curve, because apparently Socrates had a snubbed nose. So, of course, the nose stands out. It's right in the center of your face there. And the definitions in natural philosophy are like that of snubbed nose. They involve a certain kind of matter. By the geometry, we just have the curve without the flesh and the cartilage or whatever the sensible matter is. So, that's kind of a standard example in Aristotle. So, Socrates' snubbed nose lives on in Aristotle's examples. Then in math, say, when you wanted to say, I'll get a spear by rotating a circle. But that's imagination, you know, using the word, emotionally, equivocally, it's not an emotion of matter, it's just the act of imagination to help to imagining things correctly. Now, in the last paragraph, he's going to give a sign. And the sign is taken from the mathematical sciences of nature. Now, sometimes in the Middle Ages, they would call the mathematical sciences of nature middle sciences, because they're kind of in between math and natural science. But what he takes, the way he takes a sign is this, that in a mathematical science of nature, you take something from math, and then you apply it to the natural world. And the fact that you have to apply it is a sign that in mathematics, it's what, separated from the natural world. Otherwise, you don't have to apply it. I used to take, I take a, sometimes a very simple example in class here, to just give the force of that sign. When I was a little boy, it used to be common in the post office, you could buy envelopes to mail a letter in, and you can buy stamps, and then you'd lick the stamp and put it on there. We could also buy a letter envelope that already had the stamp built into it. Did you ever see those? Some people have seen them, some people haven't, but they were very common. And I remember my mother would send me up to the post office and so on. She kind of liked those envelopes that already had the stamp in them, because the glue never seemed to be very good in the old stamps. The stamp would fall off, and you'd clean out your own glue, you know, and try to fasten it nice and strong to it. What's the point I'm trying to make? Well, if you buy a letter envelope with the stamp in the envelope, it's part of the texture of the envelope itself, not space it on there, you don't have to apply the stamp, do you? But if you buy this other, then you have to lick and apply the stamp to the envelope. So obviously, if you have to apply this other kind of stamp, before you apply it, it's not an envelope, it's in separation. So if in the mathematical science of nature, you have to take something from math and apply it to the natural world, then in mathematics it must be, what, separated. If I have to apply my hand now to the desk, before I apply it, it must be separated. You see the force of that? Of course, if you know the history of the mathematical sciences of nature, that sign becomes even more clear, because often the math is worked out by someone other than the man who makes the application. And sometimes the man has no idea that there's a possible application of it. So I guess when Kepler was studying the paths of the planets and so on, he was, you know, making observations of the planets and reading the observations of, what was it, Tycho Brahe and so on. He was rummaging around in Greek pure mathematics, I guess, in Apollonius, the conic sections and things like that, and he found a geometrical figure which we call today the ellipse, the Greeks named the ellipse, and that he was able to, what, apply to the paths of the positions of the planets. But the Greeks had no idea that the planets traveled in ellipses, and they were trying to, as you know, trying to explain the movements of the planets in terms of circles and circles on top of circles and so on, the epicycles. So here the map is worked out by a man who had no idea of this application, and then somebody else takes the map and then applies it, or like Einstein, I guess, in the 20th century. He took some strange kind of math that Riemann had worked out in the 19th century, and he used that in one of the theories of relativity, you see. And when Heisenberg was trying to mathematize the quantum theory there, and he was kind of, he had some kind of idea, and Max Born said, and George said, it reminds us of this kind of weird math they have over here in Göttingen there in Germany, theory. And sure enough, this matrix math, the mathematics and so on, was at law. So there it's very clear that the math is worked out separately from the application, and the man who makes the application is not usually the man who did the math in the first place. So the fact that you have to go get something and then see if it can be fitted into this is a sign that when you go get it, it's not in there, but it's outside. You see the force of the argument? So that's the sign he gives. But the basic reason is that the definitions, which are the foundation of everything in the science, the definitions in natural philosophy have reference to matter and motion, but the definitions in math have no reference to matter or motion. Okay? Any question then about the basic thing, the problem and the solution? Okay? Now... About the application, when you apply the math, would that have to do with what you were talking about the idealization? Because it's not those mathematical shapes. Yeah, it may involve that too, yeah. But that's another thing to consider. Okay? But the fact that you make an application is a sign that up there in math, it's separated. And even today we sometimes use the expression applied mathematics. You wouldn't have to apply it if it was in the thing to begin with. Now, apropos of this, Aristotle touches upon the central question of philosophy. But let's state that central question and we'll see what he's talking about here. Now, the title of the central question. Now the word central comes from the center of a circle. Now you know in a circle, if you look at the mini radii, they all have one point in common, which is the center of a circle. But the other ends are all different. But they all come together in some way at the center of the circle. So it's by analogy to that aspect of the center of a circle that we speak of the central question of philosophy. It brings together, in some way, we'll see, everything the philosopher talks about with the end of purpose that he has in mind. Okay? Now the end of the philosopher is, of course, truth. You know the truth about this thing. And you could sum up what the philosopher talks of in just two phrases. He either talks about the way things are, or he talks about the way we know them. Okay? The way we know and the way we are. Now, if you listen to the philosophers, in natural philosophy, we're mainly concerned with the way things are, in particular the way natural things are. If I was teaching political philosophy, we'd be concerned with the way political things are. If I was teaching wisdom, we'd be concerned in some way with the way all things are. But if I was teaching logic, as I do sometimes, they were more concerned with the way we know, by defining and reasoning and so on. Now, we've talked a little bit here about the way we know natural things, but the primary emphasis here would be upon the way things are. Now, logic, of course, the primary emphasis would be upon the way we know. So the central question is going to bring together the way we know and the way things are, and the very end or purpose of the philosophy, to know the truth. So how do we put that on one question? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? That's the central question. Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? Now, I'd say, fellow students, I'd say there's two possible answers to that question, which are? Yes or no. Yeah. They're buzzing their heads. These are one student in class, yes or no. Yeah. These are two possible answers. Yes and no. Well, now, what we'll be meeting as we go through this course, some famous dichotomies in human thought, like we met the one between Aristotle and Descartes about the confused and the distinct. Aristotle says the confused is more known to us and more certain for us, and Descartes is identifying sort of two with clarity and distinction. So a very important dichotomy there, a very important diversity of thought there, mostly very basic. Now, perhaps here we can start with these two guys, Plato and Aristotle. But Plato would seem to be answering yes to this question, and Aristotle, no. Now, you could go down the history of philosophy, the history of human thought, in a way, after Plato and Aristotle, and see who follows Plato and who follows Aristotle. Now, they don't always ask this question explicitly, but they would have implicit an answer to this question. They don't always consider it as carefully as they should. And I would say if you went down and took, you know, the names that kind of stand out in the history of philosophy and so on, probably you'd find more agreeing with Plato than with Aristotle. And you might ask yourself, why would one tend to agree with Plato in regard to this question, at least at first sight? Well, because we all have kind of a confused but very basic understanding of truth that would seem to justify the answer yes. We all have some idea, don't we, that truth is the agreement of the mind with things, the harmony of the mind with things. So, for example, if you think now that Berkwist is standing, you're thinking truly, aren't you? But if you think that Berkwist is sitting now, you're thinking, what, falsely. If you're thinking Berkwist is not standing, you're thinking, what, falsely, right? If you think Berkwist is not sitting, you're thinking truly. So you think now that Berkwist is standing and he's not sitting, you're thinking truly, and your mind seems to be in harmony and agreement with what's out here. When you think now that I am sitting or I'm not standing, then your mind is not in agreement with things, it's not in harmony with things, huh? So I think we all have that idea of truth, huh? The truth is the agreement of the mind with things, the informity of the mind to things. It doesn't seem to be what we have in mind. And therefore it seems at first sight that truth requires that the way we know be the way what things are. Now, having answered yes to this question, Plato, and as I say many thinkers after answering yes, they often reach very different ultimate conclusions because of the other premises that they add to the answer yes. And we can exemplify some of those, but let's look at Plato first. Now, Plato was influenced by, of course, Socrates most of all, but he's also influenced by the Pythagoreans. And after the death of Socrates, Plato left Athens in disgust and he went traveling for a while. And he traveled over to the big cities in Italy. And over in southern Italy was where the Pythagoreans had their seat of power, I might say. And he studied with the Pythagoreans. And, of course, his most famous work on the natural world, the tomatoes is put in the mouth, not of Socrates, but in the mouth of tomatoes was represented as a Pythagorean. See a famous picture of the School of Athens? And we've got the arch there in the center and we have Plato and Aristotle walking together and Aristotle's carrying a copy of the Nicomachean Ethics and Maritha represents Plato carrying a copy of the tomatoes. So if you read the tomatoes, Socrates is present, but he sits there and he listens and tomatoes gives this beautiful discourse on the universe, but kind of a mathematical picture of the world. And Werner Kroheisenberg says this inspired him, well, we need tomatoes to look for mathematical symmetry in his study of atomic physics. During the revolutions there in Munich after the Second and First World War, he was up there on the roof there reading the tomatoes in Greek while the war was going on down below. So he was convinced that in mathematics, in geometry, science of numbers, that we really knew something, that we had, what, truth. Now, at the same time, he saw what Aristotle saw, that what the mathematician is considering is separated from what? The natural world. Now, if you put these two premises together, that truth requires that the way we know will be the way things are, and you add to that these two other premises, that we have truth in geometry, and we're knowing what? Number, or in the case of geometry, knowing sphere and cube, in separation from the natural world, in separation from the sensible world, in separation from all sensible matter, well, then it follows as the night of the day, that what? There must truly exist spheres and cubes outside of our mind, in separation from the ice cube and the plastic cube. and the glass ball, and the snowball, and the rubber ball. In other words, in addition to the sensible world, there must be a, what, mathematical world corresponding to mathematics. That's a very strange conclusion, isn't it? But notice how it follows from answering yes to this question, and also thinking that in geometry you do have the truth, because geometry is so certain, because in Vinsuri had truth there, and seeing that in geometry you're not talking about the wooden cube, or the plastic cube, or the ice cube, or any other material cube. So, if we're knowing these things in separation, and we're knowing them truly in separation, then that must be the way they are, because he's answered yes to this question. Strange conclusion, but, notice, huh? He shares with Aristotle that we know the truth in geometry. He shares with Aristotle that in geometry we know cube in separation from matter, right? But he doesn't share the same answer to this question. So answering yes to this question, he's forced to say that cubes and other mathematical things truly exist outside of our mind in separation from the sense of a world. Otherwise, the way we know would not be the way things are. We know them in separation, therefore they must exist in separation, otherwise we wouldn't have truth. We do have truth in geometry. Do you see that? Very strange, huh? Now, the other big influence, as he said, of course, upon him was Socrates himself. And if you read the Phaedo and other dialogues, you see that Socrates was seeing the importance of definition for knowing him. We mentioned before how definition is the foundation of reasoned out now. in Euclid, right? Definitions of the fundamental things. Now, Socrates, like in the Phaedo, he was showing that the way to know truth was through definition. And again, Plato was convinced that through definitions we could know what truth, huh? And, you know, if you take a statement like no odd number is even, you can see some truth there. If you understand what an odd number is, a number not divisible into two equal parts, an even number is a number divisible into two equal parts, huh? Then it's kind of obvious that no odd number can be a, what? Even number, right? So he saw the importance. You can see it in Euclid, huh? That the definitions are what enables him to get going to really know things. But now, in definition, what do you define? Do you define the singular or the universal? Well, the definition of man is an animal with reason. Is Socrates in the definition? Is Berquist in the definition? Is Phaedon the definition? No? No individual is in there, right? So you define the universal in separation from the singulars. Now, if truth requires that the way we know be the way things are, and by definition we know the universal in separation from the singulars, and if you say we're getting truth in this way, then the universal must truly exist outside of our mind in separation from the, what? Singulars. And so that's the world of forms that Plato talked about, which is often mistranslated the world of ideas, huh? But the word idea in English has a different meaning than the Greek word it is, idas, huh? And the word idas could be best translated in English as forms. So now Plato has kind of like this three different universe. You've got the sensible world that we know through our senses to some extent, but it's hard difficulties in knowing it because these things are always changing and so on. Then there's the mathematical world corresponding to the mathematical sciences, and then the world of forms corresponding to the universal definitions that Socrates was urging us to develop on. So notice, Plato arrived at that conclusion by answering yes to this question, and then by adding those premises that we do know through definition, truly. We do know through geometry, truly. But in both of these we know in separation. And having answered yes to this, then they must prove the existence of separation. So that's a very strange position, Aristotle. Very strange, too. So you're saying he thought that these things had a concrete existence? Yeah, an existence outside our mind in separation. But that we couldn't detect only... Well, you see, this gives Plato kind of a different way of knowing. You know, Aristotle, you know, things that our knowledge starts with our senses, huh? And through what you sense, you can think about what you sense and understand them, and perhaps through that you can understand other things through that. But for Plato, I think in public when he talks about it, one has to try to turn the soul around and away from the material world. And Plato kind of describes it as, they say, I'm looking at the material world. And then I start to look at the mathematical world, huh? And then finally turn the soul all around, and I'm looking at the material world. And you can see why Plato is of interest to the Church Fathers, huh? Because in a way, they're mortifying their flesh and so on, and going through the darkness of the soul, maybe eventually, right? And they're kind of being turned around to receive something directly from God, rather than through the senses, huh? So Plato has some of that same idea, huh? That we could turn the soul around to face immaterial things. Now, Aristotle is saying, just a minute now, apart from the arguments you give against this mathematical world, or against this world of forms, which you meet them in physics, he sees a basic difficulty here in answering yes to this question. Now this is only one aspect of that, huh? And that's when he talks about it here. Wherefore he, meaning the mathematician, he separates from the natural world. For they are separated in thought from motion. And it makes no difference, huh? Nor does a falsehood come to be in those separating. So Aristotle is saying you can know sphere and cube in separation from matter, because it is known when understandable apart from it, even though it doesn't really exist in separation. And there's no falsity in knowing in separation things that are knowable, one apart from the other. The falsity would come if you said they exist in separation, but then he goes on to speak about the forms. We've been talking about mathematics here just now, so he talks about that first. It escapes those doing this and speaking of forms, for they separate natural things, like there's the universal man and the universal dog itself. But man's very definition requires matter, and therefore it's going to have to be, in reality, singular, which are less separated, he says, than mathematical things. Now, when Thomas Aquinas explains this, he starts with something easier to see. He takes things that are accidentally joined, and I'll exemplify it with myself here in the way Thomas proceeds. Someone who has me as a teacher in class, they might know that I am a philosopher, leaving out of their picture of me that I am a grandfather. Now, the nurse who's seen me at the hospital there, when some of my grandchildren are being born, she knows me to be the grandfather, but knows nothing about by being a philosopher. But in reality, I'm both a grandfather and a philosopher. But now, is the student or the nurse mistaken in knowing the one of them? these without the other, because, but they don't exist in separation one from the other, do they? I'm both of these. But my being a philosopher is knowable without my being a grandfather. And vice versa, in this case, the reverse is true. My being a grandfather is knowable without my being a, what, philosopher, huh? Now, you could say that if somebody knows that I'm a philosopher and leaves out that I'm a grandfather, you could say his knowledge of me is incomplete. But that's not the same thing as being mistaken, is it? Now, if he said this philosopher is not a grandfather, then he would be mistaken, huh? Or if the nurse said this grandfather is not a philosopher, then she'd be mistaken. But to say this man as a philosopher, leaving out anything about his being a grandfather, is to know in separation things that don't exist in separation. But does it involve any falsity? Right? The same way, Aristotle says you've got a wooden cube here and an ice cube here and then my plastic cube from my desk and so on. And the shape of cube is knowable without wood or without plastic or without. So there's no falsity in understanding what a cube is, what that shape is, without wood or without plastic or without wood, huh? Now, if I said that that shaped cube exists outside my mind but not in any matter, then I think I'd be mistaken. But there's no falsity in knowing in separation because it's knowable separation. Likewise with the universe and singular. When I see, you know, many individual men and I compare them and I see they're all two-footed, supposedly rational animals, I can separate out what you have in common, leaving aside your individual differences, because that's knowable apart from your individual differences. But that's not to say that what's common to you exists in separation from you outside my mind. But I can know what you have in common, leaving aside your differences. The same way, more generally, I can take a dog and a cat and a horse and separate out what they have in common, namely animal, and understand a living body with sensation, leaving aside the differences between cat and dog and horse. Not that animal exists without those individual differences, or there's specific differences between these, but it's knowable without them. So Ernestal says there's no falsity in understanding in separation things that don't exist in separation if they are knowable one independently of the other. The falsity would come if you said that because we know them in separation, and we really do know them in separation, therefore they really don't exist in separation. The error comes in when you answer what? Yes to this question. Now, if you go to some of the modern thinkers, William Ockham, for example, in the 14th century, William Ockham, he was answering yes to this question, but he agreed with Aristotle that universals don't exist in separation from the singular. But because he answered yes to this question, he had to conclude that we don't know in that. See? Because he saw that in all of our sciences, we're knowing the universal in separation from the singulars. But the universal doesn't exist in separation the singulars. There's only singulars out there. Therefore, you know, science is the way we know the way things are. Therefore, we know nothing. And this is spread through the universities, they say, in the 14th century. century, this universal skepticism. So people went to the universe used to learn nothing. Yeah. And notice, he's answering yes like Plato, but his other premises are different. Having answered yes, and then, but Plato seeing that there really is not a universal existing separation from the singulars outside the mind, outside the mind is only singulars, and then he said, well, then the way we know in all the science is not the way things are, because we don't have any truth. So as you go down the history of thought, those who answer yes to this question, sometimes they have premises whereby they arrive at very strange conclusions, because they, what, take the way we know to be the way things are, and they think they know something here, right? And therefore these must be the same, right? Others answer yes to this question, but they see that these really aren't the same, and therefore they tend to deny that we know anything. So with Kant, Kant is a little bit more like Aquaman, for Kant, the way we know is not the way things are, therefore, we don't know anything. The thing in itself, the noumena, all that, is unknown, okay? Why Hegel is a little bit more like Plato. Hegel is convinced he knows, and therefore the way he knows must be the way things are. Right, and you go to Marx, for Marx, the only way we know is by making, after the only things that we know are the things we've made. So we're the beginning, the end of all we've made, huh? Now, let's exemplify this particular thing again here in a little different way. Sugar. Sugar is white and sweet, huh? Now, if I taste it with my tongue, I taste the sweetness of the sugar without the, what? Whiteness, yeah. Is my tongue false in knowing the sweetness of the sugar without its color? You can say its knowledge of the sugar is incomplete, but it's not saying that the sweet is not white, huh? It knows nothing about the white. Now, vice versa, if I look at sugar with my eyes, I see the whiteness of the sugar, but I don't see the sweetness of it. Is my eyes false, knowing one in separation without the other? You can see the eyes knowledge of the sugar is incomplete. It knows only the color of the sugar and nothing of its sweetness. Is it false? So, you can see there that the sweetness of the sugar is knowable without the color, and the color is also knowable without the sweetness. So, though these two exist together, they're knowable in separation with no falsity. The falsity would come if you said that because my sense of taste knows the sweetness of the sugar without white, then the sweetness of the sugar really exists without the color. Or if the eye, you say the eye truly knows the color of the sugar, without the sweetness, therefore it must truly be white without the sweetness. Then you would say, you'd be saying that the way we know is the way things are, and you'd be making a mistake about the sugar. Because the student truly knows me to be a philosopher without being a grandfather, then I truly am a philosopher without being a grandfather. Or because the nurse truly knows me to be a grandfather without being a philosopher, but therefore I truly am. You see? Yeah. Now, this is only one aspect of knowing things the way we know. things being other than the way they are. We can know things in separation that don't exist in separation without being mistaken. It's the truth of what Aristotle is saying there. Now, we'll go on to something else that he doesn't talk about here explicitly, but take a second thing on it. Now, instead of separation, take order, right? Can I know things truly in a different order than they come? Now, an example I often give in class, I say to the students, I know you before your parents. Am I false in knowing you before your parents? But your parents came before you. In reality, your parents came before you. Am I false in knowing you before them? And I might know them before I know your grandparents. But your grandparents came before your parents. So the order in which I'm knowing you, your parents, and maybe your grandparents, is just the reverse of the order in which they come reality. Is my mind false in doing that? The falsity would be if I said what? The way, the order which I know in this case, is the order in which things come. Because I knew you before your parents, and therefore you had to come before your parents. You see the idea? Now, that's very important when you talk about cause and effect. Because in reality, the cause gives rise to the effect. But in our knowledge, it's usually what? The effect before the cause. Now, is my mind false in knowing the effect before the cause? No. In that case, the order, though, in my knowing is exactly the contrary. I said Aristotle saw him. And the great Schock Holmes saw this too, huh? So Schock Holmes says in one of the stories to his friend Dr. Watson, we're going to have to reason back what he says. And Watson says, what do you mean? We have to reason from the effect back to the cause. Is our mind false in doing that? That might be the best way to know things. God always starts, you know, and you say, God knows himself primarily, right? And he's the first cause. But we, we tend to know the first effect, and we have to reason our way back to the cause. Whodunit, huh? Whodunit. We know the effect and we're trying to find the cause. So this is a beautiful example of how the order in our knowing is different from the order of things without really there being falsity for that. Now, take a famous modern philosopher, the Rationalism. Now, Descartes, in a way, almost anticipates this, but here he comes full-blown, the next maker, who's Spinoza. Spinoza. Now, Spinoza, if you read his major work there, the Ethica, more geometrical demonstrata, Spinoza says that the order in ideas and the order in things is the same. Well, notice, huh? The Rationalists, they tend to, what, think that they really do know something, right? But because they're answering yes to this question, then the order in our ideas must be the order in, what, things, huh? Okay? Now, Hegel, who's kind of the most full-blown Rationalist in some way, if you could say anybody's more full-blown than Spinoza, Hegel, huh? He makes his, you know, system the most general and the most confused idea of the human mind, he makes that correspond to the beginning of reality. He takes the being, the being, right? The being which is said of all things, huh? The being which is said of all things, huh? The being which is said of all things, huh? The being which is said of all things, huh?