Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 35: The Six Senses of Beginning and Equivocation by Reason

Transcript
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The book I emphasize in here especially is book nine, right? The book on act and ability. And it's in that book, and in fact in the third part of it, that you get the premise for reaching to what God really is. That God is the beginning of things rather than matter. So we'll see that. Just see that same, what? Continuous, huh? Right? Okay? Okay. The axioms are the beginnings of which you come to understand being as being, and the understanding of being as being is the beginning for understanding the first causes. So it's perfectly, take me that, huh? Like one, two, three, huh? Okay? So not only do you see that the order in both is from what is more known to us to what is less known, right? But also you see in the reasoning process, right? Okay? That what is shown in the first is the beginning for what is shown in the second, and so on. All the way down the line. Okay? I know this explains most of the metaphysics. It doesn't explain why the third book is there, right? Okay? But the reason why the third book comes before the other books was given at the beginning of the third book, huh? The reason why dialectic comes before trying to turn the truth. The reason why the rest of book one was there was another reason, right? The rest of book one after the premium was there to find out whether you should, what? Try to learn wisdom from your predecessors, or whether you have to... Discover it on your own. Yeah, with their help, but nevertheless discover it yourself, right? Okay? Now, in the second book, huh? A little different, huh? In the second book, he starts a wisdom being about the first causes and reasons out that it belongs to the wise man most of all to consider truth. In the middle there of the second book, right? If you recall, he wanted to show that consideration of truth belongs most of all to the wise man, and he did it in two steps, right? It belongs more to looking knowledge than to practical knowledge, right? Because it's the end of looking knowledge, it's not the end of practical knowledge. And even if the practical man wants to know some truth, it's often a contingent truth, huh? Okay? And then, among the looking sciences, he argued that the cause is more true than the effect, because of the old reason, right? Which I kind of expand on. When the same belongs to two things, but to one of them because of the other, it belongs more to the cause. So true belongs to cause and effect, but the effect is true because of the cause, which is more true, the cause. And therefore, the first cause is most true. And as a philosopher says, as a thing, therefore, is in being, so is it in truth. And as a Catholic, you know, I like to look at God and tell him, Moses, I am, who am? And then Christ sometimes saying, I am, meaning I am, who am, but then also saying, I am truth itself, right? Okay? And then Aristotle gives that as the reason why it belongs to the wise man to consider how man is towards knowing truth. Okay? And you can give out the reasons for that, perhaps, too, but that's the reason he gives that, right? So he reasons from the same starting point, but he goes off in a different, what? Direction. Direction, yeah. Yeah. And in my article there, I call that the secondary things a wisdom is about, right? It's primarily about these three things. It's about the first causes, it's about being as being, it's about the axioms, right? Okay? But in a secondary way, we can say wisdom is about how man is towards knowing truth. How the road to truth in any reason of knowledge should or should not be determined, right? Okay? But those are more secondary, right? Of course, you can say that in other sciences. I mean, you can say, what is geometry about? Well, primarily, it's about lines, angles, plane, and solid figures. But, you see, it belongs to geometry to know something about how geometry proceeds, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's something secondary, though, right? That's for the sake of knowing lines and angles and plane and solid figures and so on. So, for the order of the other ones? No. Now, you want to pass out a little thing from Book 5? Are you going to pass it over? Everybody has a Book 5 reading. Oh, brother doesn't have. Can you give me a copy, then? Thank you. All right. Can you give me a copy, then? Oh, I'm sorry. I mentioned how Thomas Aquinas, in this exposition here of the 14 books of wisdom, actually, I'm going to go through the first 12, which gets to God and satisfy. He puts Book 5 as the first book in this second part here of consideration of being as being and the one and the many. And the reason he gives is that, as we learned in the beginning of the fourth book, when we learned that wisdom is about being, we learned that being is, what? Equivocal, right? And that raises the question, I mean, can you have one science about what is said equivocally? Well, if it is said equivocally by chance, if there's no order or connection among these meanings, then there wouldn't be one reason that knowledge of being is being. If being was like the word bat, like my example, right? There's no reason to talk about the baseball bat and the flying mouse, the flying mouse, what I call it in German, in the same knowledge, is there? It's because they happen to be named that, right? Okay. If your name is Fox, like, who is it? Where is it? Like so? Yeah. Is there a reason to talk about him and the fox in the same? Might be a reason. Maybe. I can tell you. Well, I know Michael Ponson, but what him is that? So, Thomas recalls that, right? And says, look, all the words pertaining to being and being are equivocal, but they're equivocal by reason, not by chance. And therefore, Aristotle places first in book five, where he takes up all these words that pertain to being as being, and distinguishes and orders their meanings as a kind of preliminary to his consideration of being as being. So, that's the reason why Thomas puts book five as the beginning of consideration of being as being. But, you could also say that, in a way, book five is the end of the, what? Defense of the axioms. Because these words that are distinguished in the fifth book are also, not only the names of the subject of the science, but also the names in the axioms. So, they're also useful for a distinct knowledge of the axioms, and for defending the axioms against the most common attack from equivocal words, right? And I was giving you an example, you know, equivocating in two different meanings of the word part, right? Yeah. Okay. So, book five is useful both to understand more distinctly and to defend the axioms, and to have a clear idea of the words you're going to be using in talking about being as being and the one and the many. Do you see that? Okay. And that shows, again, how continuous these two considerations are, right? That book five, right? Right after the rest of book four, right? Although, perhaps, it's more a beginning of the consideration of being as being and the one and the many, is also very useful and necessary for understanding distinctly the axioms and for defending them against attacks from equivocation. Do you see that? So, the end of one is the beginning of what? The other, yeah. Okay. And this is kind of the culmination there of the three books about the soul. And what you find also in Plato's dialogue, the Phaedo, is the immortality of the human soul, right? That's kind of the culmination. That the human soul can exist, right, without the body. And a sign of this is that it has an operation. It does something not in the body, right? That's kind of the culmination. And you can say that's the end of natural philosophy. And the beginning of what? Wisdom, right, huh? You know? Sometimes we call this science metaphysics, but once people don't know what that word means. Meta-ta-physica. But it's especially after the showing that there is the human soul is immortal. Okay? Or the same when you show that the unmoved mover is not a body. Then you're at the end of natural philosophy and the beginning of what? Wisdom. I showed you how nicely ordered these things are, right? That in the order of learning, you know, wisdom comes after natural philosophy. Meta-ta-physica. After the books of natural philosophy, but especially the eight books of natural hearing, the three books about the soul. But they're all useful in some way. Okay? So, I'm not contradicting Thomas when I say that book five could be also considered, to some extent, as the end of the consideration of the accents. And sometimes I say book five is useful for a third thing, too. And that is that all of the other parts of philosophy will, to some extent, use these words. And so, it contributes something, you know, to not being confused about these words when they come up in the other sciences. Okay? I take the, I mean, ethics, for example. I take the word perfect, which we'll meet here, as one of the words I take up, in order to understand what's better. Well, the word nature is one of the words Aristotelic stuff. Now, we could spend a whole chorus on book five, huh? But Thomas has figured out the distinction, huh? Of book five, huh? The division of book five, huh? Now, as you gentlemen know, who follow this rule of two or three, book five is probably divided into either two or three, right? Okay? But which is it, huh? In the gospel of Matthew, divided into three parts. The gospel of St. John, in two parts. So, you know, it's going to be three or two, right? So, how is book five divided, huh? Why have I chosen, out of many, many words here in book five, why have I chosen three words? What do you think? Yeah. I think I've chosen three words. What did you say? The law of two or three. What did you say? The rule of two or three. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three, though, because it's divided into three parts, right? Okay? Thomas says, what you have in every science, or every reason, out of understanding, is you have a subject, right? And you have certain causes of that subject, right? And then you have certain properties of that subject, huh? So, some of these names pertain to causes, some to the subject, and some to the, what? Properties, right? Now, causes, the first word he takes up is the word begin. And then he takes up the word cause, and then he takes up the word element. And then, strange as it may seem, he takes up the word nature. And it's time to explain, one meaning of nature is what a thing is. And that's common to all things, huh? Everything is what it is, right? So, he takes up the word nature. Either it may seem to be more of a particular word, huh? Now, the order here, beginning, cause, and element. Every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause. Every element is a cause, and every cause is an element. Okay? And this here seems to be a much more particular name, but it has, as one of its meanings, something very general, what a thing is. And then he takes up the word, what? Necessary. Okay? Which is, seems to be titled cause, because something necessarily follows a cause that's complete and unimpeded. So, the word I chose in Adoso group is the first word, beginning, right? Okay? We've talked a bit about the meanings of cause, matter, form, mover, and end, and so on, right? Okay? We could spend time with each one of these words, right? But I've taken one here from the first group, right? Okay? Now, in the second group, he takes up the names of the subject. And he takes up the word one, and the word being, and the word substance, huh? Those three words. And then, the parts of one, and the parts of being, he takes up on. Okay? And then, the whole second group, the word I selected, of course, is the word being. That's the most key word today. Now, in the third group of words, the first and fundamental word is the word perfect. And you'll find out that perfect and imperfect, the opposite. Very much that would be. In the very first divisions of being, like substance and accident, or act and ability, right? One is perfect, and the other is imperfect. And this is tied up with the idea of the good, right? Okay? So, you're likely to assume the theologian, but Thomas shows that God is perfect, and to that he attaches the consideration of the goodness of God, right? So, I've taken one word from each group to kind of give you an idea of what book five is, huh? It takes up names pertaining to beginnings or clauses, names pertaining to the subject, names pertaining to the, what, properties, right? But I've taken the first word in these two groups, and the most simple word here, in the second group, huh? Okay? Give you a little taste, huh? If you had a course at Laval, after my time, you know, where somebody would teach, the whole course is in book five. The first course I had at Laval was on book four, the last part there, on the defense of the first axioms. And the guy was going to Europe, so they kind of punched up the course, you know, exotized each week, so that was the first course I had, the first exam I had, and so on. But, see, you could spend a whole semester in book five, you know? And in book four, and so on, right? Okay? So, I got to realize that Aristotle was the first man to fully realize that the words and the axioms are all equivocal by reason. And that those words are also the words that name the subject of the science, and are used in talking about its causes or properties, and they're all equivocal by reason. And to some extent, these words are used everywhere. So, Aristotle's done an enormous task for us, right, in distinguishing these words. He's helped us to understand and defend the axioms. He's helped us to, what, speak clearly about the things we want to talk about in wisdom. And to some extent, he's helped us in all the sciences. When I teach natural philosophy, I go back to this thing on nature here, to explain what nature is, and what sense we mean it when we talk in natural philosophy. So, let's start to look at this thing. And, again, remember what I said before, huh? Remember those two if-then statements? If a man understands the words he uses, then he is wise, true, or false. I would say no. See? The wisdom doesn't consist chiefly in knowing the meaning of the words you use. It consists chiefly in knowing the causes, the first causes. And now the second if-then statement. If a man does not understand the words he uses, right? Then he is not wise. That's true, yeah. So is anybody wise besides Aristotle? Unless you've learned these words from Aristotle like Thomas says. But if nobody else understands these words, I had some students at my house last night and they were doing the post-pray comments, the last part there, the categories. And we're taking up the word opposites, which is a word taken up here in Book 5 too, under the parts of one. And Aristotle distinguishes four kinds of opposition, four senses of opposites. And so we're going through the text there and I was remarking how when I was at Laval there reading some of the theses that people had done. And of course at that time the Marxists were still empowered right there, you know, and during most of the time was up there. All the time I was up there, really. And of course the Marxists make a great deal of opposition, right? And the official name of the Marxist philosophy is dialectical materialism. Materialism means that, what, matter is the beginning of everything, right? Source of everything. But dialectical means that there are opposites in matter and the struggle of these opposites is giving rise to development. But they don't distinguish the different senses of opposites. And this is not a secondary thing, but this is the very central aspect of their thought, and it goes back to Hegel, right? The dialectical. The idea they're being opposites in everything and their struggle giving rise to the development of things. Are they wise? You know, they don't even understand the words that they, what? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not if you understand those words, are you wise? But if you don't, haven't even got that far. You know? Time is going against you, as Thomas says. Somewhere in the commentary in the Psalm, this is saying, boy, you know, somebody doesn't know the articles of faith, right? You know? Time is going against him. This type that I was mentioning the other day, you know, I mean, doesn't even know the articles of faith. So, things are going against him. Okay, so, let's look at book five now here and the first word, which is, we want to get a little break now before we begin book five here. Thank you. Now, in the case of words that are equivocal by reason, there are many ways that they've, or many reasons, shall we say, by which the word becomes equivocal by reason. And we've talked about some of them before here, right? But in this word beginning, I think it's equivocal by reason of a likeness of, what, ratios, huh? Okay? That's not the way every word would be equivocal here, huh? Okay? Now, usually when you have a word that's equivocal by reason of a likeness of ratios, the first and most known meaning is the one that is clearest to the senses. Okay? And then gradually you move to similar ratios that are less and less, like the original one, right? The word before, I think we talked about before. And that's equivocal by reason, I think, too, of a likeness of ratios. So, he says, That is called a beginning, whence one would first move over a thing. As on a line and road, here is the beginning itself, but the opposite limit, the other, the end. Okay? So, this is the beginning of the table here. That's the first meaning of the beginning. Right? You see? The point is the beginning of a line. Here you see how the word beginning is broader than cause, right? Because the point is the beginning of the line, but not the cause of the line. The beginning of the table. The beginning of the road, right? Okay? That's the first meaning of beginning. Now, as Thomas explains in the commentary, if I was to move down over the top of this table, right? The beginning, starting from the beginning of the table, corresponding to the beginning of the table with the beginning of my motion down the table, right? And that's a different sense of beginning, but it's attached to this first sense of beginning. And then, it'd take me some time to go down the table, right? And the beginning of the time would correspond in the way to the beginning of the table. And each later part of the table would correspond to a later part of my going down the table, and a later part of the time it takes me to go down. Okay? So, the central meaning here is the beginning of the table, right? But, to the side are attached to other meanings. They're not made explicit here, but that's where they would fit in. Okay? Now, the second sense of beginning, right? Suppose you're not at the beginning of the road. So, if I go to Boston, and I take the road to Boston, do I take it from, do I start from the beginning of the road? Go out to the western Massachusetts and find the beginning of the road, and, you know, that would not be very convenient, right? So, wherever my entrance is on the road, that's my beginning, right? It's like the first one here, but it's not now the beginning of the road, is it? See? And here it's more determined by where it's convenient for me to begin my trip, right? So, the beginning of the road is not to be the fundamental meaning here, but more the beginning of my emotion, right? Where it's convenient for me, doing breakfast, to begin my trip to Boston. Okay? And then whence each would come to be best, huh? And Thomas gives here a beautiful comparison, I mean, Aristotle does. Just as in learning, right? Sometimes one should not begin from what is first in the beginning of the thing, but from where one could learn most easily. Okay? Now, someone recalled to me hearing Monsignor Dion with another professor having a conversation about this, and the professor was thinking that the second meaning was the beginning of learning. Well, that's not the second meaning. That's not going to be down until the fifth meaning. Aristotle is giving a comparison here just to help you understand the second meaning. You know, Heisenberg says there in, I guess, the Gifford Lectures, but when we study, we never began the beginning of things. Okay? So where it's convenient for us to start is not the beginning of things. We don't start with the first clause. Okay? We don't start with the proton, although proton means first, but it's not first in our knowledge, right? So that's what the comparison Aristotle is making to learning. Because the beginning of learning is something more hidden now and more remote from the senses. But here you're still fairly close to the senses, because I know what it is to not go to the beginning of the road, but to get on the road where I live, or right next to where I live, right? That's where it's convenient, right? And that's the beginning of my journey. Do you see? Now, the third meaning is very much like the first meanings, in that the beginning is in that of which it is a beginning, but it's not just a limit, like the edge of the desk. But it's the fundamental or first part of the thing. Then whence first something comes to be, existing within it, right? As the keel of the ship, or the foundation of a house. That's the beginning of a house. It's the fundamental or first part of the house, right? And of animals, it says, some people think it's a heart, some of the brain. Okay? And yet others, whatever they hit upon is being such, right? Okay? But it doesn't have to determine which is the fundamental part, to see what the meaning is there, right? So he takes these examples from artificial things. The keel of the ship, because that's the main thing, and you build up things out of it, right? And maybe more known to us, the foundation of a house, right? They lay the foundation of the house, and then everything else is built on that. So that's the beginning of a house. You see how it's like, in a sense, this is the beginning of the table. Except it's a, what, fundamental part, and not just a limit, huh? Okay? Now in the fourth meaning, he's going to take a beginning that is not in the thing of which it is a beginning. Like the carpenter is the beginning of a table, right? Yeah. Okay? Or the carpenter is the beginning of the house. Then, whence something first comes to be, not existing within it, and whence motion and change is first apt to begin, like the mover or the maker, right? As a child from the father and the mother, right? But the father and the mother are not the edge of the table, I mean the child. Nor are they the fundamental part of the child, right? Like the foundation of the house, right? Okay? You see how this fourth meaning is further removed from the original meanings. Because you have a beginning that's not in that of which it is a beginning, huh? And the one by whose choice things moved are moved, huh? So Benedict is a beginning here in this sense, huh? Benedict 16th. And President Bush is a beginning, right? And the general, and so on, huh? That one by whose choice things moved are moved and things changed are changed. As the princes of cities, right? Now, the Greek word for beginning, of course, is arche, right? And, of course, that's carried over to government eventually. Monarchy ruled by one man, right? But you see something like that in the Latin, you know, where you might say the Latin word for beginning is principium. And then the prince is taking the same route there. He's the beginning, too, but in a different sense, huh? Yeah? Or we used to call the, you know, the nun in charge of the school there, the principal with P-A-L, right? Okay? And, of course, they're always telling us the difference between P-A-L and P-L-E. Because the principal spelled P-A-L is in the fourth sense here at the beginning, but P-L-E is in this fifth sense, we'll see. But it's kind of the same route, basically, that you can see it, huh? And arts are also called beginnings, huh? And among these, especially, the chief arts, because they especially initiate a beginning. things. Now, just make a little side here to the axiom of beginning. Aristotle uses the axiom of beginning there in the first book of natural here. Nothing is the beginning of itself. Okay? Now someone might say, you know, well, the foundation of the house is the beginning of the house, isn't it? And the foundation of the house is part of the house, isn't it, the beginning of itself? Well, if you realize the difference here between the third and the fourth sense, right? The distinction between the beginning and that which is the beginning is always found, but differently in different meanings, right? When I say that there's always a distinction between the beginning and that which is the beginning, right? In the case of the foundation of the house and the house, it's not the distinction of two entirely different things, right? What's the distinction between the part and the whole, right? Okay? So we don't say the foundation of the house is the beginning of the foundation of the house, do we? No. See? We say the foundation of the house is the beginning of the house. Okay? And that is in some way not the same as the foundation of the house. Because the whole is not the same as the part. And you're demanding that axiom to be understood only when the beginning is something entirely outside of it. Why don't you realize that the word beginning is equivocal? And equivocal by reason, it has a different meaning? And the distinction between the beginning and that which is the beginning will be different, right? When the beginning, like in the first three senses, is in that which it is the beginning, right? Because you could say that the point is the beginning of the line, right? But the point is in the line, so is it a beginning of itself? Okay? Well, the distinction between the beginning and that which it is the beginning is different in these first three senses, especially in this third sense and in the, what, fourth sense, right? Beginning in the fourth sense is very much entirely outside of that which is the beginning. The carpenter is not in the chair, hopefully, right? Okay? But notice this fourth sense is still closer to the senses than this fifth sense, huh? Then, whence a thing is first known, it's also called the beginning of a thing, huh? That's what underlies demonstrations. And so the Latin word principle is the word beginning, right? But spelled P-L-E, it means the beginning in this sense there, huh? So the axioms are what? Common beginnings of all reasoned-out understanding. And every reasoned-out understanding is also private beginnings, which Euclid calls the postulates there, right? Okay? But this is the beginning that's more hidden, it's more in the mind, huh? So when I was in college, you know, I was known as a pretty good philosopher, so this guy comes up to me and he says, what do they mean by first principles purposed? Well, they used to be the first beginnings, oh! But, you know, it's been in danger for us in learning our philosophy and other things from the Greeks, right? Or from the Romans, that we sometimes take over the Greek or the Roman word in the later meanings of the word, right? And then we lose the connection and the order to the earlier meanings, and now we're out of order, you see? And that's what happens, right? So when we hear the word principle, P-L-E, we speak of the principles of sociology, the principles of this, the principles of economics, and so on, right? We don't see the word beginning in there, do we? So either we have to go back to the Latin and say, well, principle was, you know, basically back to principium, the beginning, right? Or else you'd have to extend the English word, right? And say instead the principles of economics, the beginnings of economics, right? But it's a simple thing like that that gets the mind out of order. And as we say, you know, when a machine doesn't function properly or work well, we hang up a sign saying, out of order, right? Well, in the modern mind, you can hang up a sign saying, out of order, even the use of words, right? That's a very serious thing. You're not quite sure what these words mean that the people use, huh? And we use the word method, right, huh? Well, the original meaning of method there, hodas, road, is something very sensible, right? And the Greeks took the word road and they spoke later on of a road in the mind, right? Well, that's the equivocal use of the word road, but the road in the mind is in some way like the road you walk on, right? When I walk from here to there, I come to one thing before another and one thing after another and so on. And so there's something like a road in my mind, right? So the one thing you prove, I mean, we saw the road today, right? The road of the whole wisdom to some extent, right? Okay? Well, that's not road in the original sense of the word road. But it's much clearer if you could carry over the original sense of the word road over, right? But people don't do that. They don't say, oh, systematic, that's a crazy word that doesn't have any sensible origin. And so we don't know what we're talking about, huh? Most of the time. It's a serious state to be in, huh? It's just a fundamental defect in our mental life, huh? Now the sixth and last sense is where it's generalized, where any kind of cause can be called in some way a beginning. And to see how this comes last, well, you could say even the end is the beginning in this sense. That sounds very crazy, doesn't know? That the end can be a beginning. Okay? Just like with the word, you know, back in the fourth book there, the word being there, where you apply the word being to substance first, and then to accidents, and then the coming to be of a substance or an accident. And it's kind of strange to say coming to be is one way of being, right? It's all like a contradiction at first, right? And then finally we even speak of being not being. To be, blind, right? Is that to be or not to be? Huh? To be ignorant, right? Is that to be or not to be? So even not being in some sense, the word is stretched to have some sense of being, right? So the word beginning here is stretched all the way so that even the end is the beginning in a way, huh? Because you desire the end first, right? And then you try to find the means, and so on. So the end is the beginning, and all practical things, and so on. And, uh, dang, that's strange, right? You see how far you've moved, right? You know, this is the beginning of the table, that's the end down there, right? But now the end, in some sense, is being said to be beginning. Any cause, in some sense, is a what? The beginning, yeah. But notice, not every beginning is a cause, right? Aristotle is kind of following the order from the general in particular, right? It takes up beginning, cause, and element. And Thomas often explains that he uses those three words in his commentary here. Just like I say, you know, distinction, division, definition, right? It's the same order. Every definition involves a division, but not every division is a definition. And every division is a distinction, but not every distinction is a division. That's the way beginning, cause, and element of order here. Now, after he's given these six meanings, huh? You notice the likeness here is one of ratios, huh? See? I go from here to there, right? With my body, that's the first meaning, right? Beginning here. That's where I begin and I go down there. And I begin with the premises, then I go to the conclusion, right? Certain likeness there, right? It's not the same thing, is it? But a certain likeness, huh? Wonder is the beginning of philosophy. Remember that? In the premium, and Plato says it in the Theotetus, Socrates says there's no other beginning of philosophy than wonder. What sense of beginning is wonder, the beginning of philosophy? When it's something, something first comes to be not existing within. Yeah, yeah. It's the beginning in the fourth sense, right? Philosophy is a kind of knowledge, a reason-bound knowledge, right? So wonder is not a part of that knowledge, is it? So it's not a beginning in the thing, right? Like those first three senses. And it's not going to be a beginning in the fifth sense, which is in the knowing, right? Okay? So the x So the x ...are in that sense beginnings of philosophy, right? And there are beginnings that are private to each form of reasoned out knowledge, huh? Those are beginnings in this sense here, right? So if I say wonder is the beginning of philosophy, it's a beginning in the fourth sense, right? If I say that the axioms of being and non-being are the beginning of philosophy, that's a beginning in the what? Fifth sense, right? Of course, the fourth sense comes before the fifth sense. And that's partly why, partly why, you know, one is more apt to say that wonder is the beginning of philosophy than what, the axioms, right, of being and non-being. But those are beginnings of philosophy in some sense too, right? Okay. And what about the knowledge of the road to follow in philosophy? Or the knowledge of the roads to follow? Is that a beginning of philosophy? Yeah, where'd you place that? Well, I mean, is that road there? I'm a third of the third. More like the third sense, isn't it? Though it has some likeness to the fifth sense, right? Yeah. I mean, if I say wonder is the beginning of philosophy, that clearly belongs to the fourth sense, right? If I say the axioms are the beginning of philosophy, or the private beginnings, you know, in science, that's more like the what? Fifth sense, yeah. When I say a knowledge of the road to follow, well, it means a little bit of the fifth sense, you know, a little bit of that, right? But it's a different kind of beginning, in a sense, right? Than the axioms, say, in the postulates, right? It's a knowledge of the road to follow in geometry, that you go from the simple to the composed, from the equal to the unequal, and so on, right? That's a little different than the axioms and the postulates, isn't it? A different kind of beginning. And certainly the axioms and the postulates seem to be more within, right? They're the premises of the syllogism, so much you, you know, get your geometry, right? But a knowledge of the road to follow, in some way, is a beginning in our knowledge, too, right? A little different thing, huh? A little different meaning of beginning. Okay, so nothing is more necessary in philosophy than to begin well. But you can distinguish some of the senses of beginning here, in philosophy. If a man doesn't wonder, he doesn't have one of the beginnings of philosophy, right? He thinks he doesn't know the axioms, he lacks another beginning. He doesn't know the road to follow, he lacks another beginning, right? Okay. Now he gives a common notion of the beginnings. It is common to all beginnings to be that first, when something is, or comes to be, or is what? No, right? That's kind of a common notion of beginning. Aristotle will use that common notion of beginning and later on in Book 5, when he talks about the word before. Because beginning is kind of the source of before and after, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's what I was wondering, is these senses of beginning are related in some way, not the senses of before? Yeah, they are, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But even here, when he defines it, is that first, when something is, or comes to be, or is known, first means before all the rest, right? So in some sense, before and after comes first, right? But that's why I like to begin with the chapter in the categories, because he distinguishes before and after by themselves, right? Without beginning, right? In the fifth Book of Wisdom, he distinguishes the senses of before and after by this common notion. That leaves out the fourth sense, huh? What is better? Okay, because that's kind of more remote. One thing, I'll make a theological footnote here. When you get to the study of the Trinity, you find out that the Father is the beginning of the Son, but he's not before the Son. So Thomas, what, says that what Aristotle is saying here refers to the beginning in, what, creatures, right? The beginning of creatures is always first, before. But the beginning in the Trinity is not before. It's a very subtle thing, right? And so, you know, the real idea of beginning, then, is the origin of something. But Aristotle, knowing nothing about the Trinity, sees this as being always first. So it's a very subtle thing you get into. And through the study of the Trinity. But we can excuse Aristotle for not knowing the beginnings of the Trinity, right? Okay? I suppose so. See? When we say God is the beginning of creatures, then God is before creatures, right? Right. So, this fits every beginning that Aristotle could know by natural reason. But it doesn't fit the beginning he could have known by natural reason. So, you know, Thomas often quotes the Athanasian Creed, you know, there's no before and after in God. And it's interesting, when Thomas shows there's no before and after in the Trinity, he goes back to reading it, the four senses in the categories, and shows that in no sense is the Father before the Son, right? Not before him in time. Not before him in being. He can't be without the Son. The Son. You know? He's not before him in knowing, because we know relatives together. And he's not before him in the sense of better, right? In no sense of before is he before him. Okay? So, therefore, although he's the beginning, the origin of the Son, because the Son proceeds from him, he's not first, right? Because first would imply that he's before. But some of these are within, like we saw in the first three meanings, right? And some outside, like in the fourth meaning and so on. Whence nature is a beginning, right? And also element is a beginning. And understanding and choice are even beginnings. And even substance, huh? And last of all, but not least, that for the sake of which the end is even a beginning, right? For the good and the beautiful, he says, are often the beginning of knowledge and motion, right? See? So the beauty of Juliet is the reason why Romeo, the beginning of his climbing over the wall, right? So the good and the beautiful are often the beginning of knowledge and motion. Okay? Beautiful the way he's heard of them, right? So any question here about the word beginning? Good place to begin? Interesting he begins with the word beginning, huh? It's interesting that the first group of words are words pertaining to beginning and cause and so on, which he began from in the premium, right? The wisdoms about causes, and about the first causes, at last. And then in the rest of book one, he recalled what his predecessors had said about the causes and the reasons they gave forward and so on, to see if they had arrived at the first cause. So, but you also at that time learned that there are four kinds of causes or you get confirmation. So, we've kind of been introduced to the idea of causes and the senses of cause and so on, and so we're already into that. So he begins with those words, huh? So it's interesting what he does. Plato and Aristotle, they're often quoting the Greek proverb, you know, archaipon himisio, the beginning is half of all. And Plato says, I think it's more than half. And so, you know, you could say that nothing is more necessary in philosophy than to, what? Begin well, yeah. De Connick said, you know, a man should read some good literature. That means Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, before he's into philosophy, right? But, let's see. The idea is to say that the wonder that Homer gave the Greeks, right, was a stepping stone to the wonder that is the beginning of philosophy. The kind of fiction we read nowadays is not going to lead anywhere. Down. Yeah, it's going to have to lead to it. It's usually kind of photographic to some extent, you know. It's going to lead to immorality, but it's not going to lead to philosophy. It's pretty hopeless. In our movies, they're, you know, more and more corrupt, too, you know. So we don't have the beginning, huh? You've got the end. Yeah, yeah. Chris Aristotle compares, you know, a mistake in the beginning to a guy who takes the wrong turn at the fork in the road. He's not very far from where he should be at the beginning, but the further you go, the further you are. So the famous statement that a little mistake in the beginning is a great one in the, what, end. With astronomy, just a material thing in astronomy, you point your telescope to look at something, you might only move the lens a fraction of an inch, but you might move about 400 light years out. Sure. You're looking at the optics. It's even worse with the gun, right? You wear it a little bit like that, and the targets are over there, you're way off. That's a little mistake here in the beginning. So you have to be very careful about it, so it's the beginning. Okay? Now we come to what is perhaps the most difficult word of all, right? And that nobody at Aristotle could have figured out all these meanings of the word being, okay? And actually in the text there, he takes up the word one before, which is in some ways easier than the word being, huh? And you get kind of prepared for this, right? And this distinction between being by happening and being by itself, this distinction, this kind of distinction between by happening and by itself, you meet this in many other places, even in the fifth book. When Aristotle takes up the causes, for example, right? He distinguishes between the cause as such or by itself and the cause by happening, right? So if the cook is a violinist, right? Right? Okay? We could say the violinist cooked my dinner. But was it as a violinist that he did so? Was it through his knowledge of how to play the violin that he cooked me a delicious meal? Hmm? No. He would be the cause of my dinner by happening. Because the, what, cook happens to be a violinist, we can say that a violinist cooked my dinner. But it's not through being a violinist. It's not through itself or by itself, right? It has such that he did so, right? So you get used to that kind of distinction, right? It's as cooked that he cooked the meal, right? Okay? But now if he, you know, entertains me by playing the violin after dinner, then the cook played the violin. But that, again, is what? Accidental, to use the Latin word, or by happening, to use the English word, right? He's not the cause as such of the playing of the violin, huh? Okay? So Aristotle will talk, you know, in the first part, I mean, he takes up the word cause about accidental cause and for his senses of accidental cause, huh? Okay? And so, in this distinction, this kind of distinction is not something altogether new, but it's kind of hard to see with being, huh? So he says, this is called being by happening, and that kath-a-to, or per se, or to itself, or by itself, or as such, right? Okay? By happening, as we say, the just is musical, and the man musical, and the musical man. Notice he compares it to what we saw here in the case of cause, huh? Speaking in the same way as a musician builds a house, because it happens to the householder to be musical, right? Or it happens to the musician to be a house builder. For this to be that signifies this happens to that, huh? Okay? So that's the most accidental, the most by happening, the first kind he gives. Likewise, in the fourth said, when we say that the man is musical, only musical man, or the white musical, or this white, is because both happen to the same, or because what happens to what is. For the musical is said to be a man, because musical happens to it. Thus also, not white is said to be, because that to which it happens is. Thus, what are said to be by happening are thus said, either because both happen to the same existing thing, or because it belongs to that existing thing, or because it is itself that to which belongs what is said of it, huh? Okay? So if you say, let's take the most accidental, because you can see it better, you know, what's most accidental. You're looking at a Christian geometry over here. I am a Christian geometry. Okay? What kind of being is it to be a Christian geometry? What is that? First, I would say, that's being by happening, right? Because to be a Christian is really one thing, and to be a geometry is another thing, right? And because to be a Christian happens to me, and to be a geometry happens to me, then you can say that you have a Christian geometry now, right? Was that really anything? It's hardly anything. That's not very much. Yeah. You see? As he'll point out, when he takes up this kind of hardly being, he might say, there's something by which I am a Christian, by baptism or by grace or something like this, huh? There's something which I'm a geometry, huh? By the science or knowledge that's in my head, huh? But is there anything by which I'm a Christian geometry? The happening, the co-incidence of this kind of thing? Yeah, but there's no such thing as Christian geometry. And that's the only thing by which I can be a Christian geometry. Right? So, in a way, there's nothing by which I'm a Christian geometry. So, am I really a Christian geometry? Or am I simply a man who is a Christian and is also a geometry? To be a Christian, that's being as such, right? To be a geometry is being as such. But to be a Christian geometry, see? As Aristotle will point out in the sixth book, there's a way by which I become a geometry. Maybe by reading Euclid and studying into him, right? There's a way by which I become a Christian by baptism, right? Okay? Now, I wasn't always a Christian geometry. I wasn't born a Christian geometry. And is there some way by which I become a Christian geometry? There's a way by which I become a Christian, right? There's a way by which I become a geometry. But is there a way by which I become a Christian geometry? Not as such. You become those two things, but you don't become that one. So, if I wasn't always a Christian geometry, and there's no way to become one, am I really a Christian geometry? You see? And yet, in some sense, we say that such things are, right? See? There's a very weak sense of being, though, isn't it? But if, you know, the Christian Academy wants me to hire a Christian geometry, I suppose I can find one out there. I'm one myself. You see what I mean? And affirmative action, you know, is based on this kind of being, right? Yes, sir? Do you see that yet? Yeah. So, Aristotle's taking into account even that kind of being, right? But as you'll see in the sixth book, he'll say that we don't have to talk too much about this kind of being. Because it hardly is, right? Okay. Okay. Now, what about, a little lesser sense of accidental, but still accidental. What about a geometrical man? I mean, geometrical man, right? And that's not because these two things happen to a third thing, like in the case of the Christian geometry, but because one happens to the other.