Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 42: Truth in the Mind and the Contrariety of Knowledge and Love

Transcript
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In the, we'll come back to that in a moment, but in the rest of this third paragraph it's talking about exactly where it's found in the mind, nor is it in the mind about the simple, okay? So man or animal or stone are not yet true or false, right? Although you understand something by man or animal or stone, okay? You might know what a man is or what a dog is or what an animal is or what a stone is, right? But it's not yet true or false, okay? But you find it in the, what, putting together these things in the affirmative statement or the dividing the negative statement. When you say man is an animal, right? Or man is not an animal, then you have something true or false, right? And when you say man is not a stone or man is a stone, then you have something true or false, huh? Okay? So I sometimes ask students, you know, where do you find truth or falsity, right? If you dug down to the ground, you know, would you find truth or falsity? No, I think you'd find rocks in this soil, but you don't find truth or falsity, right? If you go into the ocean, you find some truth or falsity in the ocean, right? Or you walk through the air, right? So where do you find truth or falsity? Where is it? In the mind. And not just any place in the mind, not in the simple, right? But in the putting together or dividing, which you have a statement. So it's in statements that you find the true or the, what, false, huh? So it's like something kind of funny about the engaging system, right? Because the parts of it are, what, simple, right? You have being and you have them being and you have becoming and all these things. None of them are statements. There's no truth or falsity in the Gated Sister, right? Which simplifies life, right? Not to worry about falsity. But you don't get any truth either. Okay? Now you contrast that with the, what? Good and bad. Yeah. The good and bad are chiefly of things, huh? And this is kind of a contrast that you have then between knowing, right? We're aiming at truth or falsity. And loving, right? That in knowing, knowing takes place because of the thing known being in the, what? Knower, yeah. But love is more what? The heart being in the thing loved, huh? I left my heart in San Francisco, right? Okay. Our Lord says, where your treasure is, there your heart shall be, right? Or Augustine says, the soul is more ubi amata, where it loves, huh? Then ubi animata, okay? It's more in the love, right? Then in the body that it animates on. So, there's a kind of contrariety, not in a strict sense of contrariety, but kind of contrary way that love and knowing work, huh? Then knowing you're trying to get something inside, and in love you're trying to, what, go up to it, right? So sometimes, I take that example, you know, Augustine's supposed to have walked on the shore, right? And you saw a little boy, he looked like a hole in the sand there, was going down and getting water and putting it into the, what, hole, right? And he was distracted and said, what are you trying to do? I'm going to put, you know, the ocean in here, right? And he said, well, you can't get the ocean into that little hole, right? Well, neither can you get the trinity fully into your mind, neither of them, the little boy disappeared, right? But no, you're trying to, what, get the thing you're trying to know inside the mind, right? You see? Okay? But although you could get the ocean into the hole, even into yourself, right? Nevertheless, you could jump into the ocean, right? Okay? And that's what he'd do in the sense that he loved God, right? So, the famous description there in St. Joseph, this is life there when you first saw the ocean, right? Kind of a metaphor for God, right? You know, this infinity of the God divided being. But notice, now, that's what Boulay would say, the will, in that sense, at least in this life, is more proportionate to God. You could more easily go into the ocean, right? And then put the ocean in us, right? Okay? Okay? Now, in terms of knowing, the famous difference is that, as based on this, is that there's the same knowledge of what opposites are. So, if you go through the different sciences, right? If the doctor knows what high blood pressure is, he must know, in his knowledge of high blood pressure, what proper blood pressure is, right? If one knows what virtue is, that helps one to know what advice is. So, the famous thing that Plato and Aristotle point out is the same knowledge of opposites. And I told you how that one. A clever student there, you know, he argued against us teaching ethics, you know, in that St. Mary's, I told you about that. Well, the same knowledge of opposites, right? So, you learn not only what virtue is, ethics, but what vice is, huh? And you learn not only how to become virtuous, but how to become vicious. And since men are highly vicious, you're making them worse. Well, that was the best argument I knew against, you know, teaching ethics, right? And it's a little bit like the question that Aristotle raises in the rhetoric, then. The rhetoric enables you to persuade men, but you can persuade them to the good or to the bad, or, you know, make the man seem just or unjust in the court, too, and so on. And so, you know, people say, well, they shouldn't teach this sort of a thing, right? And Aristotle, in the fifth book of the politics, he teaches you how to preserve a government and how to overthrow it. Same knowledge of both, right? Well, people use this knowledge to overthrow governments. But that's the strange thing about knowledge. You can use the medical art to save the baby's life or to kill it. And nobody could kill it better, maybe, than a doctor, right? So his knowledge does give him the know-how, you know, the savior life, maybe, or to end it up. And that's the idea of knowledge, huh? But is there the same love of opposites, huh? And that's a reflection of the fact, a result of the fact, that love goes to the thing in itself, right? Well, in itself, what happens it excludes the other. And so you're observing the condition of opposites in things. And since in things, one opposite excludes the other, then the love of one excludes the love of the other one. But knowing is putting the opposites in the mind, right? And in my definition of blindness, huh, is included sight. So blindness is a lack of sight, right? And an animal apt to have sight, huh? So one opposite is in the knowledge of the other. It's a kind of amazing thing, right? But in things, being blind excludes sight, huh? And having sight excludes blindness, you can see, I suppose. And if I love sight, I can't have blindness. It doesn't make any sense. You see? So love of one opposite excludes the love of the other one, huh? And that's because, as I say, that's condition of things, huh? Okay? Now, when we start to do the Summas, like we do before in the year, you'll notice that Thomas talks about God being good, right? Goodness of God. He talks about God being truth itself, right? But where does you talk about these things, huh? Well, the order in talking about God is you talk, first of all, about the substance of God. That God is simple, perfect, unchanging, infinite in one. Okay? Those five things. The substance of God. And then you talk about the operation of God. That God understands and wills and so on, right? And then you talk about the Trinity, again. So you have to understand that God understands himself, right? And that God loves himself. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. And that God loves you. ...understand the Trinity, right? How the Father, how the Son proceeds from the Father and why he's called the Word and so on, right? And how the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But now where does he take up that God is good and that God is truth itself, right? Well, he takes up the goodness of God to attach to the consideration of perfection of the divine substance. Just like eternity is attached to the consideration of the unchangeableness of the divine substance, right? He doesn't take up truth at all on the substance of God, but he takes up the goodness of God. But he takes up the truth of God after he's taken up God's understanding. That's kind of striking, right? You first meet that God is good before you talk even about the divine what? The divine will, you know, which has good as its object, right? But you don't talk about the divine truth, God's truth itself and so on, until after you see that God the divine understands. That's a very interesting order. And it's interesting, you know, in that great, the other chief philosopher there, Plato, Plato in the Republic, he talks about the beginning of all things as being the good itself, right? The good itself to itself, right? Which is the same as the beautiful itself, right? In the symposium. And he doesn't explicitly seem to understand that the good itself and the beautiful itself, right, understands and wills, right? It's something after the good itself and beautiful itself, right? Well, that's a mistake, right? But nevertheless, notice the order, right? In a sense, he's seeing that God is the good itself, the beautiful itself. Before, right, we see that God understands and what? Wills, right? Okay? Just like in the Thomas' treatise theorem, the goodness of God is considered under the substance of God, right? And truth only after you take up the, what? He understands and wills, right? Kind of interesting, the order, right? That Plato would see first, right? He sees first at the beginning of all things, so to speak, is the good itself, right? Seeing that before he sees, or before Aristotle sees, at the beginning of all things, he says, is mind and will, right? Understanding and will. Okay? But the more fundamental point I want to make is that good and bad, being in things, right, can be considered in the perfection, right, of God's substance. By truth being primarily in the mind of understanding, has to be brought in once you've understood something about God's understanding. Do you see the idea? So it goes back to this thing that Aristotle's pointing out here. We had a talk a few years ago at TAC there, and it was about the contrariety of love and knowledge, right, but it goes back to this, the contrariety of quotes, right, not contrariety in the strict sense. But there's a contrariety kind of in the way to work, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? You see, I know that text from Gessler last week, too, remember? The one about the speaking figuratively, right, is more appropriate to love, right? Of course, the perfect sign of love is music, is the music. Or you can even do without words, right? So that's kind of a reflection of the contrariety between the two. You know, to know something well, you've got to, what, analyze it, which is a Greek or a Latin word meaning to take apart. See? What I love is not a taking apart, is it, huh? That's kind of, I don't know if the lover does exactly. Okay. So that's a very profound thing Aristotle says, but it's not unfolded here, right? But the more you think about that, the more true you see that it is, and the more you see the consequences of that, right? I have it myself, right? You know, I studied the truth and the sins of God, and that's kind of struck me. And he talks about the goodness of God in the truth and the substance of God, but doesn't talk about truth in God until he gets to the truth and the operations of God, right? Of course, the substance of God and the operations of God are the same thing, but because he starts from creatures, you know? And creatures, you know, the example there in the circle, right? God is like a symbol, right? But the substance and the operation in creatures are two different points, two different things, right? But they derive one thing in God. But we're going bad for creatures, so we have two thoughts. And neither thought describes God out of it, right? Okay? Everyone is imperfect, right? Okay? So that's why we have these, the substance and the operation, but you have to do the substance first. Do it with the operation, right? So there's that distinction in theology. But as they say, the goodness comes into the truth of the substance of God and the truth and the operation, right? And so the Plato not yet seen at the beginning of things is a person, right? Or persons with mind and will and so on, right? It doesn't speak of the true itself, right? But the good itself, right? And in the Republic, in the symposium, he speaks of it as the beautiful itself. The Thomas will talk about, you know, good and beautiful are basically the same thing there, right? In the Sunna Theologiae, he talks about good. And you see that in Dionysius, right? The consideration of divine goodness and divine beauty come together, right? That's interesting, you know? Before he sees the aberrations and the personability, he might say of God, right? He doesn't talk about truth in itself. There's something interesting, right? There, to put back to what Aristotle's pointing out here. Now, it says, putting together the fourth paragraph and taking a part in the mind, but not in things. Being in this way is other than being most, what, properly speaking, you know? For the mind joins together or takes away the what it is, substance, or the how, quality, or the how much, quantity, or the other divisions of being according to the figures of predication. So he's going to what? As he says now in the fifth paragraph, he's going to set aside now, accidental being, like geometers, Christian geometers, all such things will be set aside now. And we're going to set aside what? Being as true, right? For the cause of the one, meaning accidental being, is indeterminate, right? Or indeterminate. While the other, being as true, is some underblowing of the what? Mind. But we want to know fundamentally the being in things, right? Yeah, the being as such. So there's talked a bit about both. And both are about the remaining kind of being and do not show outside some existing nature of being. When's that these be set aside? Now we have to get down to being now. Okay. The causes and the beginnings of being says being should be considered. It is clear where we distinguish in how many ways each is set. That was in the fifth book, right? That being is set in many ways. Okay. Why didn't you bring book eight here, didn't I? That being is set in many ways. Okay. Okay. So Aristotle, in books seven and eight, is going to talk about being according to the theories of predication, but mainly about, what, material substance, and about substance and material substance, which is more known to us. But in book seven, he will start from things said in logic about substance, and in book eight, from things said in natural philosophy about substance, and then in book nine, he's going to talk about the division of being into ability and act, and it's primarily in the ninth book that you see how he's going to go all the way to the first cause, from a knowledge of being as being. The ninth book is the book I usually take to, you know, you're in one of these books, right? We'll do something about book eight, huh? But book nine is the one where you see how he's going to reason out the first cause, and the first cause being pure act, and so on. Let's talk a little bit here, just inform me here, a little bit about the things in book seven, right, huh? Okay. Now, do you remember how being was divided according to figures of predication? I mean, predication is just a lack of word for, like, being said of, right? Okay. But now you've got to say, what's being said of what? Subjects and actions. Yeah. But how would these predicates, these said of, as you want to call them that, how are they being distinguished, right? Let's come back a little here to the statement, huh? When you say, for example, that man is an animal, the subject, in this case, man, right? You could say, man, in the statement, is said to be, right? Something. In this case, an animal, right? Okay. But animal is said to be an animal. So, yeah. Okay. Now, I find, you know, students, they can never get clear the difference between that which is said of something and that which is said to be something. They can't quite get into their head, right? Okay. Now, sometimes, you know, they'll call man here the subject of a statement, huh? And they'll call animal be what? Predicate, huh? But predicate is a lacking word for that which is said to be something, right? Okay. But they'll call man the subject, huh? It's under the line, right? So you think of the subject as being under what is said to be, huh? And so usually when we, you know, divide, say, a genus into species, we'll put, you know, you've got the board, the genus above the, what, species, right? Okay. Now, this idea is said of is very important in logic, huh? And there's a text of Thomas there in the Postero-Lytics, which always kind of bothers me a bit. But he says logic is about syllogism, statement, predicate, you know? And here's the word, pronunciation statement. And then predicate, right? Okay, what's a predicate? Yeah, yeah. So, he used to term predicate. Now, if you go to the division of logic according to three acts of reason, well, syllogism corresponds to the third act, statement to the second act, and now predicate to the, what, first act, yeah. Now, there are other texts, though, of Thomas, where he says that syllogism or argument, as syllogism or argument is to the third act, so statement is to the second act. And definition to the, what, first act, yeah. Now, let's recall those three acts of logic again. The first act of reason, you could say, is understanding what a thing is. And the second act is understanding the true or the false. And the third act is reasoning, right? Okay. Now, you reason by some argument, right? Syllogism being the most perfect of the arguments, right? Okay? You understand the true or the false in some statement. Like make a statement, right? Because that's where truth and false are, the statements. And you understand what a thing is fully by a definition. But in this text, in the apostolic litics, instead of saying definition, he says, predicate it. Now, why does he say that? Why doesn't he say, you know, why doesn't he say definition? Because in other texts, right, he says the definition is to the first act, but statement is to the second act. But syllogism is to the, what, third act, right? And would it be related to the fact that we predicate the definition of that of which it is a definition? Well, that's partly true, but in syllogism statements, you say something is something too, right? Mm-hmm. You see? And why doesn't he take the perfect thing, the definition, right? It's not predicate that perfects understanding what something is. Socrates, in the dialogues, is always trying to get somebody to define something, right? Mm-hmm. So they can understand distinctly what something is, huh? Well, the predicate doesn't do that, then. It's the definition that does that, huh? So why does he do that, sir? Now, is he thinking of the books that have come down to us in the father of logic? Because the books that have come down to us in the father of logic, most of the books are in the third act, huh? Dealing with demonstration, dialogue, arguments, and so on, and flinched arguments, and so on. But there's a book on the statement, which is called the periharmonism. But in the logical first act, the only book that's come down to us is the categories. Categories, the Greek word for praying, seven, right, huh? So sometimes I refer you to ten categories. You want to see if you ask questions, it's a ten-sevice. Kind of like that, see? The ten set-sevice, huh? The other work that's come down to us in the ancients that has quite a deal of authority is the isovoge of porphyry, right? But those are all set-sevice, too, aren't they, right? Okay. So maybe Thomas is thinking of what has come down to us from the great logicians of the past, right? And all that's come down to us from the first act is books about cells, cells, okay? Predicata, they cut them, huh? And of course, in Latin, they call the five, the porphyry talks about genus, difference, species, parking, accident. They call them the predicabilia, the predicables, we say in English, okay? The ten that Aristotle talks about, substance, and quantity, quality, and relation, and so on, they call those the predicamenta. But when you say predicable or predicamentum, you've got a word derived from the same word as predicament. So maybe Thomas is thinking of the books that have come down to us, right? Okay? Now, Albert the Great, the teacher of Thomas, when he talks about the logic of the first act there, the simple unknowancy. How is it? He has four parts, right? The predicables, the Asagogi and Porphyry, the categories of Aristotle, and then a consideration of division, and a consideration of what? Definition, right? Now, Aristotle passed down to us no book in the logic of the first act and definition, because he thought he didn't need a book on definition in the logic of the first act, or he just never got around to it, or if he did, the book has been lost, you know? What would you say? Certain reason to think, right? Both, huh? Now, my suspicion is that Aristotle thought that it was not, maybe, necessary, right, to write a book on definition for the logic of the first act. That the consideration he makes of definition in the second book of the Post-Unalytics, and the consideration of definition in the eight books of places, the topic so-called, was, what? All you need to know, right? Now, Aristotle takes up definition in the second book of the Post-Unalytics, because definition is the beginning of what? Demonstration, right? And there he says many things about what definition is, right? And he distinguishes two ways of arriving at a definition, so that's a great session, right? And it's interesting, huh, that even in the prior analytics, when Aristotle talks about the syllogism in general, right, he sees a connection there between the syllogism and definition. And in the metaphysics, and in the metaphysics, one place where he's talking about Socrates, he takes Socrates' desire to define all the time, right, as a sign that Socrates wanted to syllogize, right? So he sees in the prior in the Post-Unalytics, definition as the beginning of syllogism, right, and especially the beginning of demonstration. And therefore, he considers definition, right, especially in the second book of the Post-Unalytics, where he takes up the beginnings of the demonstration. So maybe Aristotle would not have thought it necessary, right, to consider definition, again, in the logic of the first act. Now, when you turn to the eight books of places, huh, it's called Topics in English, but it doesn't tell you which it is. It's a Greek word for place, it's topas, huh, but Topics in English, there's nothing to do with that. But Aristotle will explain that, right, how the third and the fourth tools of dialectic, the tool of difference and the tool of likeness, are useful for definitions, right? And the first tool of dialectic is useful for gathering definitions that others have made, and so on. And then he gets into the places in books 2 through 7. He says that the places about all the problems all contribute to examination of what? Definitions, right? Okay? So there are places about whether something belongs to something or not. Whether something can be said of something or not. Now, obviously, the definition has to be said of something, right? Okay? And then there are places for whether what is being said of something is said of it essentially. Now, obviously, what's in the definition that is said essentially? And then there's another book about whether what is being said of something is convertible with it. And obviously, the definition has to be convertible. And then there are some things that definition has in addition to being said of, being essential, being convertible, that it brings out through the nature, et cetera. And then you have this in the book on the places about definition, right? So, I mean, the whole book of, the whole eight books of places, almost, is ordered to what? Definition. Definition. Definitions, especially, what? Definitions. What's used to do at the beginning of the first book? It's definitions, right? And sometimes there are definitions that would be in the later books that they needed to. And so, I suspect that Aristotle did not write a book on definition for the logic of the first act. Not because he didn't get around to it or because he wrote it and it's been lost or something like that. But because he thought the consideration of definition in the analytics and in the eight books on places was more than enough. On the other hand, right, I don't say that a consideration of definition in the logic of the first act is out of place. It shouldn't be there at all, right? And when I teach a general logic course, I talk about definition in the logic of the first act, right? Kind of follow the Albert in the street card, right? So, I don't say that Albert is out of order talking about definition in the first act. Even more than Thomas, when he says the definition is the first act, what's stated is the second act. You know? It seems disappointing, right? But, in fact, though, he would say Aristotle talks only about the setup. And he was going to add Porphyria, that was having great authority. You're still talking about something set or something, right? That's where we are. Okay? And when I talk about definition in the logic of the first act, I've borrowed things from the posturality. You've done it in a sense, right? But I'm not saying it's simply a mistake. It's like it was the logic of the first act. It's got to do with the first act very much, right? Understanding what something is. Now, what's the difference between set of and distinction of set of in the Isogobian Porphyry, right? And in the categories of Rassau. What's the difference between the two? Would it be in the Isogobian Porphyry, or speaking about them, in relationship to the subject? And that's why it'd be maybe like a property belongs to the subject per se, but it could be an accident, just like, whereas in the categories, he's simply defining what all the accidents are, and you're not seeing whether it's an essential or accidental relationship to... Well, yeah, it gets in there, but let's put it this way. In both the Isogobian and the categories, there's a distinction of sevens, right? Okay? But it's obviously not the same distinction, right? In America, right? There's five in the Isogobian, right? And ten in the categories, right? I was quoting before that Father de Lack during the logic course at St. Thomas, when I was a student. And Lack said, you know, a big disparity, I've been teaching a lot about these years. Getting students to see the difference between accident as opposed to substance, and accident as opposed to poverty. There's some things you discover as a teacher, right? And no matter whether you stand in your head or what you do, 99.99% of the students will never get in their head straight, right? They'll never see it, right? But they are a different distinction, right? Okay? So that what is an accident in one sense, in the sense of the categories, may not be an accident in Porphyry's sense, right? Okay? Now, to me, the clue...