Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 26: Wisdom, Causes, and Axioms in Aristotelian Philosophy

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during the patristic period, was necessary for the development of what? Theology, yeah. Because the heretic contradicted some article of the faith, sometimes starting from misunderstood passages, maybe, of scripture, sometimes starting from philosophy or something like that, right? And the church fathers, like Augustine, were forced, right, by this attack upon the article, to defend the article of the faith, right? And to untie that apparent contradiction, huh? And that's how they came to a deeper understanding of that article of the faith, right? Whence, too, it is elsewhere said, the son who receives instruction will be wise, and he uses the foolish as a servant. I was reading Sherlock Holmes' story there, and Watson calls himself the whetstone of what? Of Holmes, right, huh? And sometimes he speaks of the fool, right? It's the what's stolen of the wise, huh? Shakespeare speaks that way, too. For while the hot restlessness of heretics, that's a good description of it, he stirs up questions about many articles of the Catholic faith, right? The necessity, see, of defending them forces us. Notice those words necessity and forces, like we saw Einstein using those same words, right? The necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly. And the question mooted by an adversary becomes the occasion of instruction. God brings good out of what? Evil. Evil, yeah. You see? What does mooted mean in this question? The question mooted by an adversary? Well, it's something raised by an adversary, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's not a real question in some sense, but... See, in other words, you just go on believing, kind of, you know, but not penetrating too much what you believe, until someone, you know, so that can't be true, what you believe, you know. It doesn't make any sense. Here's the reason why it doesn't make any sense. And now you're forced to, what? Defend that, and defending it, you come to understand it better, right? So here you see the role of contradiction in the development of theology during the, what? Patristic period, huh? Now, in this particular passage from the Decree on Priestly Training, it says, dogmatic theology should be so arranged that these biblical themes are proposed first of all. And so I began with the scriptural passage here from our Lord in the Gospel of Matthew. Next, he says, they should be opened up to the students what the fathers of the Eastern and Western Church have contributed to the faithful transmission, right, and development, but notice what it says, of the individual truths of Revelation. There's a kind of ad hoc character to many of the works of Augustine that there isn't, for the most part, for Thomas' works, you know. Thomas has some ad hoc works too, but, you know, contra so-and-so, contra, contra, contra, you see all these works, you know. So Augustine is always replying to some heretic who's denied this particular article of the faith, and he's defending that article of the faith against these objections, and so he's contributing to, what? The development of an understanding of that individual truth of Revelation. Okay? Now, the next thing is similar to that, because, let's read it first, and then I'll point out how it's similar. The further history of dogma should also be presented an account being taken of its relation to the general history of the church. But you go down to the various church councils, and I'm thinking, you know, especially the ecumenical councils, right? They're very often in response to, what? Some heresy, right? Some heresy, okay? And so, in the early ones, somebody's denying the divinity of Christ, or denying that Mary's the mother of God, or something of that sort. In the Council of Trent, you know, there's problems with the heretics there in regard to the sacraments, right? So, it's kind of development of sacramental theology there in the Council of Trent, right? So, it's kind of an ad hoc character, too, right? That the councils are not usually trying to consider the whole of the faith, right? But they have in mind some false notions and heresies of that particular period about some articles of faith, and they're responding to those, right? So, it's a little bit like the patristic period, huh? Okay? Now, finally, at the end, it says, next, in order that they may illumine the mysteries of salvation as completely as possible. That's a very strong phrase now, right? If you want to illumine the mysteries of salvation as completely as possible, what should the students do? The students should learn to penetrate them more deeply with the help of, what? Speculation. Under the guidance of Thomas, right? Now, if you take, you know, the most famous work of Thomas, the Summa Theologiae, or you go back to the question of Disputate, right? Obviously, Thomas is, what? Always starting from a contradiction, right? You could say, in a way, every article in the Summa, and there's hundreds and hundreds of articles there, every article begins from a, what? Contradiction that's developed to the rejection, son. He's always arguing against himself or arguing against the truth, right? He's always objecting to the truth, right? And so, if you're going to take the guidance of St. Thomas, the role of contradiction is going to be central to all you do, right? But what this is, that's how you illumine the mysteries of salvation as completely as what? Possible. That's a very strong statement, right? And notice what it adds there. And to perceive their interconnections, huh? Because Thomas is looking at, you might say, the whole of the faith, right? You contrast that with what it said in the second paragraph. Development of the individual truths of revelation, right? And now you're seeing all of them in a kind of connected way in the Summa theology, right? Okay? So, we could bring other texts in, but that's enough to kind of see that Aristotle's got something involved, right? And he talks about the role of contradiction in discovery, huh? But, I think some light is thrown upon this by what Aristotle said in the second book, right? He talked about how, why natural philosophy is more difficult than geometry, right? And why theology or wisdom is more difficult than geometry. and that's connected with discovery being made in theology or wisdom and in natural philosophy by seeing contradictions and then tying them, right? I think that is not so much true about discovery in geometry, huh? And I was pointing to the fact that before a theorem is proven in geometry, for the most part, there are some exceptions, right? Very interesting exceptions. But for the most part, men would not guess or think opposite things about them, right? A lot of times. What? Many, many times, yeah. They would not? Yeah. They would think they would guess what was true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And even something, you know, as hard to know as the Pythagorean theorem, right? You might not have a new opinion about that, right? But you wouldn't have opposite opinions about that, right? No. You see? And so, one thing that's very important about discovery is the disposal of discovery is to have a good, what, imagination, right? And so, Schott Holmes always, you know, talks about the imagination there. And of course, the modern physicists, you know, are always talking about this imagination, you know, almost putting it higher than reason, right? But, geometry is more accessible to the imagination. I can imagine the things I'm talking about in geometry, right? I can't imagine God or the angels or the soul and I can't imagine, you know, the natures of things, right? So, there's a connection between discovery being made maybe in geometry without there being a contradiction first, right? And geometry being more accessible to imagination, which has got this great role to play in discovery, and okay? So, take a little break now before we, logical place to make a break, don't we? let's start to look at the second reading now. Now, the distinction between the questions in the second reading and the third reading, right, is explained by Thomas from what Aristotle shows us at the end of the second book, right? At the end of the second book, he says that you can't at the same time learn reasoned-out knowledge and the way of reasoned-out knowledge. And it's not easy to get either one, right? And the way of reasoned-out knowledge has to fit what that reasoned-out knowledge is about. And therefore, the questions about what wisdom is about come before the questions about the things themselves. Do you follow me a little bit there? So the second reading is, for the most part, there'll be a couple exceptions to that, but for the most part, the second reading is questions as regards what wisdom is about, right? Questions that have to be answered before you can know the way or the road of wisdom. And then the third reading is questions about the things themselves. Okay? So the distinction of the questions here is based upon that distinction at the end of the second book, huh? Okay? Now, notice, come back upon that distinction for a minute again. You could say, in all of our knowledge, you can distinguish between what we know and how we know, right? It's kind of funny. Yesterday, I had the students at the house there, you know? And we're touching upon this because it's in a different context, huh? And I just happened that day to be reading the 10th chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, huh? And that's the chapter where we learn the names of the 12 apostles, and they're being sent forth now by Christ to preach and heal and so on. And Christ is giving them instructions and advice, right? And how else are they going to be persecuted and so on and drawn in front of courts and so on. And he says, but don't be disturbed or worried about what you're going to say. Okay? But if you look at the actual text there, it says two things Christ says, huh? How are you going to speak and what are you going to say? And in the Greek, it's pos, how, you know? Well, I was making that distinction in talking about custom, right? You know, saying how custom has a great influence both upon how we think and what we think. And in that fifth reading there of the second book of wisdom, Aristotle's talking about the influence of custom upon how we think, right? So men, some men he says, are accustomed to think mathematically, right? And they want to proceed mathematically everywhere, right? Okay? You see that very much in the Pythagoreans and with the moderns because of the physical sciences, huh? That's why we have this confusion there of mathematical logic, right? Everything's got to be mathematical, symbolic logic. But Thomas, in the beginning, say the Summa Contra Gentiles when he's talking about the existence of God being in need of proof, right? And not being obvious that people think it's obvious because of custom, you know, from the time they're little children. So, or I speak to my students and I say, is water H2O? No, yeah, definitely. No doubt about it. But they have no proof of this. They can't even describe the experiments that someone might have used to guess this, okay? So, you can distinguish then between what you know and how you know, right? And Aristotle says, in the case of reasoned out knowledge, it's not easy, either one of these. So, the things that we're going to learn about in wisdom are difficult to know, but it's also difficult to know how we should know these things, okay? It's difficult to know God, even the way we can know Him. And it's difficult to know how we should know God. There's problems about both, right? Okay? So, there's problems about the things, and that will be the third reading, right? And problems about how we should know, right? But presupposed to how we should know is what it is we're trying to know. And that how we know should, in some sense, fit what we're what? Trying to know, right? Okay? So, you see that Thomas uses the end of the second book, right? With the distinction Aristotle makes there, and so on, to explain the difference between the second reading and the third reading. Okay? Now, I divided it, like Thomas does, the second reading, into nine questions, right? Although some of them can be subdivided, right? And then, in the third reading, there'll be 14 questions, right? Okay? Now, how are the, yeah? Or did you get the first one? This is from the last time. That's quite a lot. We're on book three there, yeah. Okay? Now, in the second reading here, notice we know from the premium a little bit about what wisdom is about, right? We know that wisdom is about causes, right? Eventually, the first causes. We also say that the wise man knows all things in some way, right? Okay? So, this first question is about the causes that wisdom is about, right? Okay? And then, the other questions are about the things. Okay? Well, maybe, there's another question that's going to be a little surprising in between. Okay? Okay? But the first two questions are about the causes or the beginnings and then the other ones about the things, right? I mean, about the things it's about. So, let's look at the first one here and then we'll kind of unfold this a bit. Because Aristotle just stayed in the question here and then you go in, you know, later on to the dialectic about it. But we'll kind of combine those two. The first difficulty is that about which we doubt it in paving the way. Whether it belongs to one or many forms or reasoned out knowledge to consider the causes. Now, if you recall, and this is something we learned in the first book and in actual philosophy, there are four kinds of causes. Now, cause is that which something depends upon, something that is responsible for things existence or coming into existence. So, this wooden table in some way wood is responsible for this wooden table, right? But in another way, the shape of the table is responsible for the wooden table. In yet another way, the mover, the carpenter is responsible for this, right? And having something to sit our papers upon or lunch on or whatever it is is another reason, another cause, right? So, you have matter, form, mover, and end, those four causes, right? Now, which causes would wisdom be about, huh? Now, if you go to the natural philosophers before Aristotle, what causes do they talk about? I'm talking about matter all the time. Matter, yeah, they all talk about some kind of matter, and then when you get to, especially in Pedocles and Anxagris, you talk about the mover, too, right? So, you might say, well, the natural philosopher talks about matter and what? Mover, right? Okay? Now, you go to the geometer, what does he talk about? Just form, yeah. And then you go to the, what? Moral philosopher, he's talking about end or purpose, right? Okay? So, it seems that different sciences talk about different causes, right? So, which cause should the wise men talk about? What's this thing, huh? What's this thing, All of them? Yeah, but it didn't seem that the same science talks about all, right? See? Because the natural philosophers are only talking about matter and mover. Like the modern physicists talking about mass and force, you know? A little bit like that, right? But that's what they seem to talk about, huh? The mathematician about form, the more philosopher about purpose. It seems that one science can't talk about all causes, right? So which ones should the wise men talk about? Can you talk about all causes? No science does that. You know, all of them were brought in physics. Aristotle would talk about form along with it. Yeah. He's perceived as some kind of probability, right? And the probability is that the natural philosopher is talking just about matter and mover, right? That's what the guys in the form did, right? And so these mathematicians like Pythagoras started bringing form or something like that, right? And they'd talk about that kind of cause. And then they, you know, Socrates wants to talk about the purpose of man and so on. And ethics, huh? You guys said earlier, wouldn't you make a strong argument that metaphysics would talk about all the causes or at least matter or not? Well, see, someone might say, if everything is material, then matter is a cause of everything, right? But if everything is material, maybe wisdom would be the natural philosophy, wouldn't it? Meta-tafusica would be after natural philosophy, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. It'd be part of it. And in natural philosophy, Aristotle proved you had an unmoved mover, something immaterial totally. Okay. Okay. And in the dianima, right? Yeah. The soul is immortal, right? Okay. But, of course, that's going to be another question that will come up here, right? Are there immaterial substances, right? Okay. That's going to involve, right? What wisdom is about. Now, that's going to be the exception we'll see when you get into the next page. Aristotle will ask those questions, not because they're questions about what wisdom is about. Until you answer the question whether there are immaterial substances or not, you can't say what the wisdom is just about. That's going to influence this question here, too, right? How important is matter for the wise manna? If everything is material and comes out as some kind of matter, then matter can be very important. But if there are immaterial things and matter is only a particular cause, it causes material things and not a cause of these separate. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And also, when you're talking about these other sciences like ethics and or geometry and form. Yeah. They're using form in just a limited way, likewise, and you're talking about the particular end of man, not the end of all. Yeah. Not everything. Yeah, yeah. So you see there's some problems here about, which causes wisdom to be about it. Now, the second question Aristotle asked, I think this is one that occurred more to Aristotle than to his predecessors, right? Because going back again to that first question again, the Platonists, right, somewhat in the Pythagoreans, they wanted to reduce everything to numbers, right? They wanted to make form the only cause. So they disagree, right? There's a disagreement already between that and Chris. When modern mathematical physics became more and more mathematical, Schrodinger, right? Schrodinger, right? Schrodinger, who was a very important physicist in terms of the mathematical theories of the atom, right? He perfected the mathematics of wave mechanics, huh? And then Heisenberg came out the same year with his quantum mechanics with different mathematics. And then Schrodinger showed the equivalence of his two mathematical formalisms. But he says, you know, the modern atom consists of no stuff at all. And he compares it to Plato's theory of the four elements in the Timaeus, which is all in terms of geometrical figures and so on. There's no matter there. It's kind of funny, you know, when the communists were still in power in Moscow, and they were kind of, you know, looking a little bit at modern science kind of strangely, because it seemed to be denying that there was any matter. But that's part of the disagreement there, right? Is matter really a cause then, right? You see? So there's disagreement among the people as to, and reasons maybe to think, right? That there is or is not these causes. Okay. Now, the second question he raises. And whether it belongs to this reasoned-out knowledge called wisdom, to consider only the beginnings of substance, substance being the fundamental things, or also the beginnings of which I'll demonstrate, as whether the same can be affirmed and denied at the same time or not, and what other such things. Now, sometimes we state the first beginning in our thinking, at least as far as statements are concerned, that it's what? Something cannot both be and not be. Sometimes we say more precisely at the same time, the same way. And sometimes, you know, Thomas and Aristotle speak of there being two of them, right? A guy gets up on the stage and he says, to be or not to be? That is the question, right? And it's a question because, first of all, because you can't both be and not be. If I said, you know, to breathe or to eat, that is the question. So that's not a question. You can do both, right? And you better be both, right? You're going to go on living. But to be or not to be, that's a question because you can't both be and not be, right? But also because either you must be or not be. So sometimes they'll give these two beginnings. It's impossible to be and not be, and you must either be or not be, okay? But sometimes they'll state it with the help of logic. You can't affirm and deny the same or the same at the same time, okay? Of course, there's many other what we call axioms, right? Like a whole is larger than one of its parts, right? Nothing is before itself, huh? Nothing is the beginning of itself, and so on. What Aristotle is saying now is that should the wise men consider only the beginnings or the causes of things, of substances primarily the fundamental things, or should they also consider these statements from which all the science is reason, okay? Now, I think you have to divide this question when you discuss it into two questions. What Aristotle is talking about here, really, is these statements like the one he gives there, statements that Boethius says are known by themselves or through themselves, and I have to be proven, and they're known by everybody, okay? Everybody knows that a whole is more than a part, don't they know that? And if somebody says, I don't know that a whole is more than a part, we'll give him a part of his dinner tonight. We'll give him a part of the car he bought, huh? We'll give him a part of his cell rate. He'll scream and rave and rant, right? Because he does know that the whole is more than the part, right? Everybody knows that, right? Okay? So right away, there's a problem. Now, is it necessary to consider what everybody knows? If everybody knows it, all you have to do is use it, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So, this is one question, right? Is it necessary to consider the axioms? Now, the axioms in Aristotle's sense, you mean the statements known to themselves, the statements that are obvious, right? And obvious to all men. And these statements are the beginnings of all reasoned out knowledge. It only gives us some of the axioms at the beginning of the elements, huh? The whole is larger than a part. If equals the axioms, the results are equal. The quantity is equal to the same, equal to each other, right? Mm-hmm. If I have the same height as you, and he's the same height as you, then what about us? Okay, here we can figure that out, can't we? Of course not. It's necessary to consider... The axioms, that's the question itself, right? And the objection to considering the axioms is that they're known by everybody, right? So, if I bother them, I might just use them, right? But, there are people who sometimes deny the axioms in words, right? And sometimes even give a reason for denying them. Now, I've given you my example there, kind of a stock example of such a statement is a whole was large on one of its parts, right? I've given you the argument whereby I convinced my students that the whole is not always greater than the part. Sometimes the part is greater than the whole. Let me repeat it, huh? You know, what's a man, right? Well, a man's an animal, right? And I remarked, my mother didn't like me saying that, and said, well, mama, I don't mean that he's just an animal. He's an animal that has reason. Well, that's better to weigh. Okay? So, an animal is not the whole of what a man is, right? It's a part of what we are, okay? But it's not the whole, right? Okay? So, that gets them to admit that animal is a part of man, right? But man is more than that, right? But then I say, but animal includes, besides man, dog, cat, horse, elephant. Yeah, it does, yeah, yeah. So, it's only a part of man, includes more than man. Gee, sometimes the part is more than the whole then. Okay? I think we're very good. You see? Now, my students, I tell them that this comes down, not this fine group here, they're convinced, at least for the time being, by that argument, right? Okay? And therefore, they think they don't know what they do know. Now, Lord Bertrand Russell, right, in the 20th century, he gave another argument to show that the part is equal to the whole. And my teacher, Charles DeConnick, was the one who showed the defect in his argument. It's a more difficult one than what I'm giving, but even what I'm giving is enough to stop most people. So, there are people who do deny the axioms in words, right? I don't say in sight they're doing it, but in words they do, right? And they give a reason for denying it that most people can't answer. You know, Zeno gave arguments, you know, against you being able to walk out the door, even though we know you can walk out the door. But even obvious things, you can walk out the door. People like Zeno can give arguments that make it seem impossible, right? Arguments that most people can't, what? Answer. Answer, yeah. So, this is a reason to think, well, maybe you do have to consider the axioms, right? Because someone's got to defend the axioms against these kinds of, what? Objections, right? Now, the objection that I gave against the axiom that the whole is more than a part is based upon mixing up different senses of whole and part. Because when I say that animal is a part of man, right, I mean that animal is a part of the definition of man. And the definition of man is what we call a composed whole, a whole put together from its parts. And the definition of man is put together from more than just, what, animal. Okay? Got to bring reason in there as well. Well, when I say that animal includes besides man, dog, cat, and horse, I don't mean that animal is put together from these, but it's said of all these. And this is a whole in a different meaning now, what they call a universal whole. So, one of the fundamental distinctions that we make in the fifth book of wisdom is between the composed whole, the whole put together from its parts, and the universal whole, which is said of its parts, huh? And so you're confusing now these two senses, aren't you? Okay? And that points out a second thing, right? That maybe the words in the axioms are equivocal. Not purely equivocal, but there is a what? Related meaning. A connected meaning, yeah. Okay? So, sometimes in talking about the universal whole, we speak of the, and its parts, we use the word general and particular. But the word particular comes from the word parts. It's like a part. And the Greek word for general, katalu, comes from holos, meaning whole. I forget the word Catholic, by the way. Katalu. So, maybe the words in the axioms are equivocal by reason. But most people aren't aware of this. And they have a kind of confused knowledge of the axioms. And so, for a distinct knowledge of the axioms, you need someone to distinguish the meanings of the words in the axioms. But that's especially necessary to meet those very common objections, which are based on mixing up the different senses, huh? Take another example of an axiom here. Nothing is before itself, right? So, today is before tomorrow, right? And yesterday is before today, right? But can today be before itself? So, it can't be before itself. No. No. Okay? Now, if A is before B, and B is before C, then A is before C, right? Okay, now, Chaucer came before Shakespeare, right? But all the critics put Shakespeare before Chaucer. So, Chaucer is before Shakespeare, but Shakespeare is before Chaucer. Therefore, Chaucer must be before Chaucer. Right? Except it was impossible to send me before itself, right? Well... I think this is an equification. What a lot of people have said to happen. Yeah. Because Chaucer can be before Shakespeare in time, right? But Shakespeare can be better than Chaucer, right? Can be before him in excellence, right? So, it seems it is necessary, then, right, to distinguish the senses, and maybe see the order of the senses, of the words in the axioms, right? Both to have a distinct knowledge of the axioms, and to have a, what? To answer the objections, right? An ability to understand. Yeah. Yeah. Or take the axiom that Aristotle gives in the first book of the physics there, that nothing is the beginning of itself. So, he says there's a distinction between the beginning and that of which it is a beginning, right? And someone says, well, isn't the foundation of a house the beginning of a house? That's one of the meanings of it, yeah? Okay? So, the foundation of the house is the beginning of the house, but the foundation is a part of the house, right? Therefore, it's a beginning of itself, right? Well, there's always a distinction between the beginning and that of which it is a beginning, right? But in the case of that sense of beginning, right, or the fundamental part of the thing, like the keel of the ship, as Aristotle's other example, or the foundation of the house, you're taking the fundamental part of the whole, so the distinction between the part and the whole, right? Not between the part and itself, eh? Why don't you take an extrinsic beginning, like your father's the beginning of you, right? Then your father's not a part of you, right? So, there's more of a distinction there, eh? But the distinction will be different in the case of that different sense of the beginning, eh? So, you can see how a person could go back and forth in this, right? Say, well, gee whiz, if these are the...