Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 52: Ability and Act: Refuting the Megarian Error

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that reason is determined to nothing, huh? And it's absolute freedom of thought that reason has, huh? But is that really the way we should understand the distinction between reason and nature, that reason is determined to nothing? That's kind of a common thought now. I think I mentioned how Claude Bernard there, with this kind of simplistic understanding of the distinction between science and philosophy and theology, right? That the scientist has the full power. His ideas, he deduces the consequences of them, and then checks to see if the consequences are in fact so, right? He uses that to confirm and reject the hypothesis. The philosopher has ideas, he deduces the consequences of them whenever he tests them. The theologian just has ideas. So, I mean, it sounds like a character, right? But he was a great physiologist, right? And the only method he can understand is the experimental method, right? And so the philosopher has two of the three parts, and the theologian, just one of the three parts are essential, you see? And, but, you know, you can see how he's determined by what he's accustomed to. And it's kind of funny, huh? Because custom is sometimes said to be a second nature, huh? And I can, even in the physical, you know, she's second nature to me now, breathing out and breathing in. So, they get some determination, but it's from custom. But the determination they have from custom, that every idea is a hypothesis to be tested by its consequences, that determination they have by custom makes them, or leads them to reject the determination by nature. And, now, one thing they do, without maybe realizing it, is that if what they predict is contradicted by experiment or observation, right, then they're really making use of the fact that something cannot go to be and not be, right? So, if I predict there will be an eclipse of the sun, in my theory, there will be an eclipse of the sun at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, and 10 o'clock tomorrow morning there's no eclipse, well, they won't say, well, there wasn't an eclipse, but there is an eclipse. They won't say that, right? In other words, they will use the impossibility of something both being and not being without realizing that they're accepting that, and they can't accept it as an hypothesis and test it whether it's contradicted or not, because then they'd be, what, accepting it to, what, accept it. You say, what's it doing there? You know? I mean, can you treat the axiom about contradiction? It's impossible to be or not be, same time, the same way. Can you treat that as an hypothesis to be tested by whether its consequences are or are not contradicted? Well, then you're assuming, right? Yeah, you're, yeah, that somebody's contradicted. It isn't so. Therefore, you're assuming the truth that it can't go to be and not be, right? So, you can't, you know, you can't really treat the axiom about contradiction as an hypothesis. And now you've got a thought that it's not an hypothesis, something that we naturally know. Okay? So, they don't kind of see what they're doing, huh? And I always think, you know, my brother Mark, you know, when he talked about the fifth postulate, right, there in Euclid, and some people, you know, try to prove it, right, as if it wasn't obvious. And my brother Mark would say, it's less obvious than the other ones, right? But where it's first used, it's kind of obvious. But, um, in examining the attempts to prove the fifth postulate, my brother discovered that the attempted proofs actually assume the very thing they're trying to prove. And, uh, that makes the proof invalid, of course. Mm-hmm. But, it also points out that they really do know it. Because they assume it without question when they're trying to prove it. Which is, you know, they don't, right? And, in a sense, if someone tried to prove or confirm the act of contradiction by its consequences, right, and whether observation contradicts that or not, they would be assuming the very thing they were trying to confirm without recognizing that they're doing this, huh? Well, it's kind of exciting that they really do know it, huh? Mm-hmm. But so strong, huh? Is custom, huh? I've been, just got through teaching the apology during the introduction to philosophy. And Socrates, um, in his speech there, the apology's defense, he replies to his so-called anonymous accusers as well as those who are trying to prove in court he's a bad man. And Socrates says more than once there in the apology, that he's more concerned about his anonymous accusers than he is about the men who are trying to prove in court that he's bad. And he's more concerned about the anonymous accusers than those who are trying to prove in court that he's bad because the anonymous accusers are going to influence the jury more. Well, the reason for that is that, for the most part, our custom is stronger than argument in our thinking. And so if you're accustomed to hear something from the time you're a little boy, um, it's very hard for someone to change your thinking no matter how good his arguments are against what you think. you're going to follow custom, right? And part of the reason for that is that the customary seems to be known naturally, right? And they're to be unquestionable, right? It shows a tremendous force of custom, right? In these things. Shakespeare uses the word use sometimes as we do for custom, And he says, use almost can change the stamp of nature. That's what he says, almost. But it shows you how strong he sees use or custom is. And so, men who are accustomed to the experimental method, and only that, like Claude Bernard and so on, because of the dominance of the experimental method in modern times, it seems to them that every thought is an hypothesis to the types of vice consequences, huh? Never anything can be questioned, you know? So you get that kind of universal idea that we never really know anything, huh? There's no determination at all. And that leads, you know, to what, misunderstanding, huh? The distinction between reason and nature. And these two, misunderstanding the distinction between will and nature. But this is the true, I think, understanding of the distinction, huh? You divide nature against reason, you're dividing nature, what is just a nature, against something that is a nature and something more. And this is a terrible problem in the moderns now, they say, that they misunderstand that distinction. And that's, you might say, the cause of all their troubles in a way, right? If I don't follow nature anymore, huh? Really, the problem in philosophy is to follow what we naturally know and to judge where we can what we don't naturally know by what we naturally know. And so for Aristotle and for Thomas, it's a kind of circle in our knowledge, right? Where we begin from what we naturally know. go ahead and go ahead and go towards those things we don't actually know, and then we try to judge those things we don't actually know by coming back to what we do naturally know, right? And you can see that most easily in geometry, right? Take the sixth theorem, say, in Euclid, if you recall the sixth theorem in the first book of Euclid, he has just shown in the fifth theorem that a triangle is the, what, two sides equal, he's shown that the, what, angles opposite those sides equal, right? Okay, I'll put it to that proof, but let's put it in the way. But now, you get to the sixth theorem, it's kind of reverse, where you're given if two angles, right, of a triangle are equal, then the sides opposite will be equal. How does Euclid show that, you may recall that, huh? It's a reduction of the obscurity, isn't it? Yeah, what he does is to say, if these two sides are not equal, then one of them is longer than the other, right? Now, whichever one is longer, let's say AB is the longer one, AC, right? Okay, well then, starting at the base here, B, cut off AB, a line, let's say, BD, equal to the, what, lesser one, right? Okay, and then draw a line from D to the other corner, right? Now you've got what is obviously a smaller triangle inside a bigger triangle. So, DBC is smaller than ACB, right? But, DB is equal to what? AC by construction, right? And BC, of course, is common to both triangles, right? So, DBC is a triangle with two sides equal to what? The two sides of the triangle, ACB. And their equal sides are containing equal angles, so the two triangles are equal. So, now we'll do what? The greater one is equal to the smaller one. Yeah. Or you could say, to make more clear the connection, if you listen to the axioms, the part is equal to the whole. Okay? So, now you've gone back to something we naturally know, that the part is not equal to the whole, the whole is always greater than the part, so you're seeing that this cannot be the case because it goes against the part ever being equal to the whole. It goes against the whole always being greater than the part. And so, now we've gone back to what we actually know. And the moderns don't think we do that anymore because they don't think it's anything we actually know, right? So, that for them, you know, the word axiom now means something you just, what, assume, postulate, right? Is it an hypothesis? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you see what's consistent with the thing you've done, but the whole thing is a game, right? You see? You see that with the modern magicians to some extent, too, you know. They think that thinking is really a game, right? And you can be consistent with the rules of this game or not, but the rules are really arbitrary. Like the rules of monopoly or whatever they are, arbitrary, right? And so, it's really a terrible thing that's happening. But you could say the beginning of this trouble is misunderstanding the distinction, right? Mm-hmm. And thinking that, not realizing that the distinction between reason and nature is between something that is just a nature and something that is a nature and something more, right? See? And the same distinction between nature and law. I guess we're running out of time right now, right? But I think, I'd like to stop here a little bit of this text here, the second reading here, because you might misunderstand the distinction that Aristotle is seeing here, right? Mm-hmm. See? In other words, you're thinking of the distinction between nature and reason, or natural ability and rational ability. It's like the distinction between, let's say, virtue and vice, right? Well, virtue is not really, but a vice plus something else, or a vice, a virtue plus something else, right? It's kind of an absolute distinction between virtue and the vice, right? Mm-hmm. And if you think of this being that kind of distinction, yeah, or whether they're totally different, so to speak, right? Mm-hmm. Like the distinction between sweet and bitter, let's say, right? Yeah. There's no sweetness in the bitter, and no bitterness in the sweet, right? Mm-hmm. And is that what we mean here, right? The one is determined to one of two opposites, and the other is not, and the east is east, and the west is west, and the frame shall be done. So it's a misunderstanding in that case of distinction, right? It's like thinking that three, in no ways, are two and three, right? Yeah. Well, that's in the kind of distinction. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad you brought, you brought. Is he coming? Wait a couple minutes to start officiating. We're talking about the way for him. What? We're talking about the way for Brother Peter. Okay. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightened, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds. Horde in a woman our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. So in the first reading, we distinguished at least five meanings of ability. The fundamental meaning was the ability to act upon another, or the ability to move another, the active ability, which is a beginning or source of devotion or change, and another as other. And then there's a second meaning, which is the reverse of that in a sense, the ability to be moved by another, the ability to be acted upon. And that refers back to the first ability, because the ability to be acted upon by the active ability. And then there's another sense of ability, the kind of ability we have in mind. We have in mind, we say something is durable, right? And that's an ability to resist, right? Being acted upon by something that would corrupt you. And then, going back to the first two meanings we just gave, there's a couple additional meanings where you can say the ability to do something well, right? Or the ability to undergo well, right? So if the fire, if the wood, say, is moist or something, it's not burnable, right? Well, it is maybe to some extent, but not burnable well, right? Okay. Am I able to speak French? Well, in the first sentence, yes. In the second sentence, no, right? So my friend says, Duane, when are you going to learn how to speak French? And so, in one sense, I don't have the ability to speak French, right? But in some sense, I do. Ernestal points out, in one of the readings there, the first reading, I guess, that you can have the ability to do something without having the ability to do it well, right? But you can't have the ability to do it well without having the ability to do it. That's a kind of obvious before and after there. Now, in the second reading, he was coming back to that first ability and he was, you might say, distinguishing between the natural ability and the, what, rational ability. And the difference that he gives between the two is that the natural ability is limited to one of two contraries or opposites. So you put the paper in front of the fire and the fire is not going to hesitate as to whether to heat or to cool the paper. It's just going to, what, heat or burn the paper, huh? But you put the patient in front of the, what, doctor, right, huh? And he has this rational ability, the art, the medical art. And the medical art could be used to heal you or to make you, what, sick, right, huh? Like those Nazi doctors, right, huh? Inoculating prisoners and watching the effect of these diseases upon them and so on, huh? Or abortion, things of this sort. So, I possessing the art of logic, right, I could make a good argument and I could make a sophisticated argument, huh? Happiness is the end of life. The end of life is death. Therefore, happiness is death, right? So, I can do contrary things, huh? In Shakespeare, by his poetic art, I'll write a tragedy or a, what, comedy, huh? Mozart can write a happy melody and a sad melody. So the rational ability is open to contraries or opposites. But then, to complicate things a bit, I wanted to point something out that Aristotle doesn't particularly point out in that text there. And that is that a rational ability is founded in a nature and the rational ability, like, say, at least the reason and sake of the will, has a nature. You can say what it is to some extent. And therefore, it's not impossible. In fact, it's actually true that the reason and the will are determined to something, not open to all opposites. So, there are some statements, or some contradictory statements, where reason naturally adheres to one half of the contradiction. And it's not open to both. And there's some things that the will, by natural necessity, wills. Like, the will, by natural necessity, wills happiness and not misery. It doesn't choose between happiness and misery. Now, that might seem to what contradict the distinction Aristotle was making between the two, huh? But, as we mentioned before, many people, and many of the moderns especially, they misunderstand the distinction, huh? Between reason and nature, and between will and nature. And they make it a kind of absolute distinction, like the distinction between, let's say, sweet and bitter, right? But the distinction is actually more than the distinction between two and, what, three, huh? Where two is just two, and three is two plus one. So that the reason and the will contain something of what nature has, but something in addition, right? And we distinguish them, a reason of what they have in addition. And it's a little bit like that kind of equivocation we spoke of before, where sometimes when a name is said, somewhat univocally of two things, but one of the two things has nothing but what is meant by the common name, and the other one has something in addition to it. The one that has nothing noteworthy in addition keeps the common name, and the other one gets the new name, right? So sometimes we distinguish man against animal, but it would be to us understand the distinction, to not realize that man is an animal. But he's an animal that has reason, right? And this is a very noteworthy addition to what just an animal would be, right? But the beasts that are just animals, they keep the name animal, right? But you shouldn't understand the distinction between animal and man, as if man is nothing like what the beast has, because he's a living body with sensation, right? And, of course, as I say, you can compare it to numbers, going back to our analogy there in the eighth book, that the natures of things are like numbers, right? And you say, well, in some way, there's a two in three, right? But you distinguish two against three, because three is not just two, it's something more, right? Okay? So you've got to understand Aristotle's distinction there. And I mentioned, let's take the example from modern philosophers, for Sartre, the will is completely, what? Undetermined, huh? Completely free. So even according to the end, it's completely free. You choose to want this or not want it, right? And for Mill, the reason is like that, huh? Reason is never determined naturally to anything. So this is a very serious mistake, right? But it comes from misunderstanding, the character of that distinction. Okay, now, in the third and fourth reading, which we'll look at, Today, Aristotle is going to talk about ability and act in the same subject. But in the third reading, he's going to address himself to a couple of mistakes that he's going to be arguing against. And the first one is more in need of being refuted. He's going to be very thorough about refuting that. The second one is a little different. But in the course of this too, he'll also touch upon the fact that the first meaning of act is really motion. And how motion seems to be the most real thing. That's why the kids want to go where the action is, right? That seems to be real, right? We'll have some other examples to show that this is where we are. So the first mistake is those who say, what? That nothing is really possible or able. This is kind of a funny position, huh? And he mentions the Megarians, huh? Megaro's a city in Greece, huh? He says, there are some who say, as the Megarians do, that a thing is able to act only when it is acting. And when it is not acting, it is not able. For example, that he who is not building is not able to build, but only the one building, when he is building, and likewise in others, huh? Now, we think, and Thomas kind of suggests this, that the Megarians might be influenced by what in modern science we call determinism, right? Where everything is, what, completely necessary. There is no contingency, huh? I think I might have mentioned before how this was the absolute principle of modern science, but it first arose in what we call the physical sciences, the most mathematical part of modern science. And it arose, I think, in part because you are applying pure mathematics to the natural world, and so you are carrying over what you find in pure mathematics to the natural world, and in pure mathematics, like in Neiman Geometry, you are always talking about what is necessarily so, right? Interior angles of a triangle aren't necessarily equal to right angles, right? And there is one thing that is necessary after another, right? So you seem to have complete necessity. So if you think you can understand the natural world, simply mathematically, you're going to be believing in complete what? Determinism, right? Aristotle argued against that in Book 6, you may recall. But, so, if you have this complete determinism, you believe in that, and this is what you find maybe in Galilee or Capra and Newton to some extent, and when the biologists and the psychologists tried to be more scientific, right, they thought this was a thing they had to, what, hold on to, right? And so I gave an example before, I think, one time, of how even Freud would try to see that dreams are, what, completely determined you had a dream that you dropped last night, how every iraq might have seen your dream, huh? Crazy, huh? It was something necessary. If it's already for other things that seem less chancey than dreams do. So, I'm sitting now and you're sitting now. Well, most of you are. But if we were to be determined, I would not be able to be standing now, right? See? Because I had to be sitting now. So, partly because you're seeing everything that's being pretty necessary, there's no ability for anything other than you are. Because that would be to deny, what? Be necessity. Yeah. So, when I'm sitting, it was not possible for me to be not sitting, or to be standing, or lying down, or something else, right? Okay? And I thought I was going to have about four absurdities that follow from this position of the area. So, he says, starting in the second paragraph, It is not hard to see the absurd things that follow upon such opinions. And the first absurdity he's going to talk about would be that a man would have the, what? Acquire and lose the art of building many times a day. As he builds, he does not build, right? For it's clear that a man, according to his opinion, will not be a builder unless he was building. For to be a builder is to be able to build. And likewise, in the other arts, huh? If, then, he says, it is impossible to have such arts if one has not at some time learned and acquired them, and not to have them if one has not at some time lost them, either by forgetfulness, or by some undergoings, or by time. For it cannot be by the thing being destroyed, for it always is. If you always have the raw material, you can always make something, huh? When a man pauses, he will not have the art, right? When the pianist pauses, he loses the ability. He's not able to play the piano. At that time, when he's not actually playing it, right? No. And then he starts to play again, he suddenly acquires the ability to play the piano. And, uh, he says, obviously, what? Observe, right, huh? It takes a while to acquire an art, to learn it, and so on, right? And it takes some kind of time, or some sickness, or something, to lose an art that you have, right? Okay? So when a man pauses, he would not have the art. How will he get it right away when he builds again, huh? So they're denying that he's able to build when he's not building, right? Because if he's able to build when he's not building, then he could, what? Be building when he's not building. He wouldn't be determined to not build at that time, right? And likewise, with regard to soulless things, huh? For nothing will be either cold, or hot, or sweet, or sensible at all, when no one is sensing. So they'll have to assert the position of Rategas, huh? Rategas, it says, I almost like what Barclay says, S-E-S-P-R-C-P, right? To be is to be perceived, right? You know, you hear people saying these things, you know. Is there a sound in the forest? There's nobody there to hear, right? Well, if you say there isn't, you're kind of denying that there's an ability there, right? Okay? Able to be heard, but nobody's hearing it. And they're denying that that's true, right? But then you have some contingency. So, they're going to be denying, then, that the sugar is sweet, when no one is, what? Tasting. Tastingly, the sweetness of the sugar. And the birds are not singing, if no one's listening, right? Okay? And then, the third objection, which is even stronger. But indeed, neither will anything have sense if it is not sensing or active, huh? So I'm not able to see, they're saying, when I don't see, right? So therefore, I'm blind, and I don't see, right? So it goes on to say, then the same thing will be blind many times in the day. And death, many times, huh? This will undo the miracles of our Lord, right? This will be one miracle after another, right? So what you're denying is that you're able to be something other than you actually are. So in a way, you're denying abilities. There's no little thing you're denying. Again, he says, if that which lacks ability, this is the fourth objection now, fourth absurdity. Again, if that which lacks ability is impossible, that which has not come to be will not be able to come to be. But God is saying that what is impossible to come to be, either is or will be, is speaking falsely. But impossible means this. Therefore, these thoughts take away both motion and, what, becoming. This is perhaps the reason why Aristotle will emphasize it. Motion or becoming is the reality that seems the most real to us, even though it's the least real. For the standing will always stand and the sitting will always sit. For it will not stand up if it is sitting, because to stand up is impossible for what is unable to stand up. Am I able to stand up now or not? Well, no, you're not standing up. Well, if I'm not able to stand up now, I will never succeed in standing up because I don't have the ability to stand up. So our style is maintaining, and it's a real distinction between an ability to act. And then I have an ability for what I don't actually, what, have now, right? I have an ability to stand up and to be standing right now, even though I'm actually, what, sitting. If I have no such ability, I'm going to do away with all motion and all, what, becoming. So he concludes then, if then such things do not be said, it is clear that a built-in act are other, right? But these thoughts make ability to act the same thing. Whence it is no small thing they're seeking to take away. Thus, something is able to be when it is not, right? And able not to be when it is. So even though I'm actually sitting now, I'm able to be standing now, right? And even though I'm actually sitting, I'm able to not be, what, sitting now, right? Likewise, he says, in the other predicates. Being able to walk and not walk. Now, it's kind of a little corollary at the end there, in the next two little paragraphs. He says a little bit more about the built-in act. He says, and that is possible in which, if the act of which it is said to have the built exists, nothing will be impossible. Well, there's nothing impossible about my, what, standing now alone. If I have been standing now instead of sitting, there's nothing impossible about that. Now, the next paragraph is very important here because he's talking about how act is what seems to be first referring to, what, motion. The word act, which is placed later on upon perfection, upon other things, has come most of all from motion. For act seems to be especially motion. Now, you know what Shakespeare says there, huh? Things in motion, it's when they catch the eye and what not stirs, huh? So, motion is the act that really, what, catches the senses, huh? It's kind of interesting because, you know, when you take the other division of being according to the figures of predication, you're being helped by logic, right, huh? Because the ways in which things can be said of individual substances, right, correspond to different ways of being, right? Well, it's kind of a little more abstract way of approaching the distinction of being, huh? And eventually, you see substance as a fundamental meaning of being when you distinguish being according to the figures of predication. But is substance something sensible as such? What you sense as such is qualities and maybe, what, quantities, huh? Okay? You don't sense substance as such, huh? And that's why, you know, one reason why the moderns have kind of difficulty with that, huh? And Descartes, the so-called father of modern philosophy, he identifies, what, a material substance with extension, huh? So he's really identifying, what, substance with quantity. And there was a tendency, you know, some of the Pythagoreans in ancient times, and maybe even the Platonists, some of those who were into mathematics, some. And then that's why I had my little joke, you know, that Descartes never grew up. Because the idea of growing up is that you, an individual substance, an individual man, right, acquire different, what, sizes, right? Your quantity changes, but you're still the same man, right? That's when you go to your relative's house, and little Johnny or little Mary is mildly grown, right? But then Johnny or Mary is something more fundamental than the size of Johnny or Mary, or the height of Johnny or Mary, right? Those little marks on the wall as you get tall, you know, you stand here and you will mark, you know, when you're here. They make a mark on your fire. So, it's kind of interesting to compare these two, right? Because kind of the fundamental meaning of being, when you divide it according to ability and act, is act, right? We'll see it more clearly in the middle, in the third part. But ability is said in reference to act, huh? Okay? And when you say being, huh, of act and ability, it's not said equally of these, like a genus, say, like animals said equally of dog and cat. A dog is not more an animal than a cat. And you don't say animal or dog before cat, right? It's said equally of them. But being is said of act before ability, huh? Okay? And you can see that even in our way of speaking, right? You would say, I am sitting, right? You wouldn't say, I am standing, but you have to qualify. You say, I am able to be standing, or I am standing in ability, but you wouldn't say, I am standing, period, huh? And so, but then among the different meanings of act, the one that's most known is motion, right? And that's a common sensibilism we learn in the second book about the soul, right? But it's something that's very striking to the, what? The senses, right? Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs. So, you're starting very much with what's most sensible, right? But if the first meaning of being, when you divide being according to the figures of predication, is substance, well, substance is not what's most, what? It's sensible, right? And you kind of follow the modern philosophy, you know, substance has to disappear, right? There's a famous remark of Law, of Bertrand Russell, you know, that the accidents of Mr. Smith have no more need of a substance to exist in, and the earth has need of an elephant to rest upon. That's it, cleverly. But then, what you have is a collection of accidents, right? With no unity, really, huh? And that kind of runs through the modern mind. Even Einstein is puzzled by it, because he comes back to think about this as a scientist who's used to hypotheses, right? And so for Einstein, the substance is like an hypothesis, huh? So my joke about Einstein is that his wife is an hypothesis to unite a number of sounds and sensations and so on that he has, as far as experience, and he hypothesizes he belonged to someone called his wife. So that's what I'm going to talk about Einstein now. But it's kind of a reflection of the confusion in the modern mind, huh? And, you know, Barclay, you know, of course, ends up denying material substance exists, right? S.A.S. for cheap means he used to have spiritual substance, whatever that is. But then you go on to human soul, even that disappears, right? But as far as motion is concerned, huh? The moderns don't deny motion, right? In fact, it's so impressed upon them that they seem to be back in Heraclitus' thinking that all things flow and nothing abides, huh? And this is kind of the meaning of dialectics in Hegel and in Karl Marx, that reality is, what, fluid, right? And there's nothing permanent. And sometimes they summarize, you know, the existentialist position is saying that man has no nature. Could that be something, you know, rigid, you know? And they say man has no nature, it's only a history, right? So that reality is just, you know, and you have what they call process philosophy and so on, huh? So... So... So... Motion is reality, right? And it seems most real to us. And that's what I was saying, really, that the kids want to go where the action is, right, where the motion is. And in one more joke there, they're saying if you're applying for a grant as a professor, right, you're going to have so much to do a year off like that, you want to take some money to support your research, right? Well, if your research involves traveling from one place to another, and traveling to this library or this university, you're apt to get a grant, then you're going to stay in your room and think. Because it's only you're not doing anything, right? But if you're traveling, you know, from conference to conference or university to university or one place to another, then you're doing something, right? And it seems like you're doing something more, right? I told you this one philosopher I knew, he was remarking about when his wife, you know, coming after a small talk, right? If he's sitting in the living room there reading a book and his eyes are going, you know, over the lines as your eyes move, right? She knows enough not to disturb him, right? Because he's doing something, right? But when he looks up from the book, you know, as you do, you know, you kind of think about what you've read, right? Well, then there's no apparent emotion going on, right? And then that's your opportunity to come in with your small talk, which you want to say. And that's probably the most important moment, right? For what you've read is kind of sinking in and you're maybe thinking about it and developing what you've thought about it. But because there's no outward sign of devotion, now you're pausing in your activity, right? And now there's an opportunity where to come in with your latest news of where it is. I guess that's funny, but it shows you how people actually think, right? Actually, people, you know, the kind of danger to do computer, you know, you keep on jumping from things to things, you know, you keep on doing things, right? And rather than sitting in front of a page there and looking over and over at a paragraph or a sentence, right? I remember coming out of Monsignor Dion's class, you know, maybe remembering a key line and that same sentence staying in my head for a day or so, you know, just thinking about that one sentence. Well, I'm not going from one sentence to another sentence, I'm not doing anything, right? And another thing you notice is as a student, too, or in classes or as a professor, too, sometimes people think they're not doing anything unless they're doing a lot of reading, right? Unless they're going from page to page and turning the page fairly frequently and so on. And if you, you, I can take, you know, one fragment of the early Greek philosophers I gave, that famous fragment of Heraclitus, huh? I gave it a nickname, the royal fragment, right? So, you announced that, you know, speaking of the royal fragment of Heraclitus, and of course everybody's, you know, scramming around trying to find out the royal fragment is, sounds pretty good. But it's one sentence, right? But if I spend a whole, you know, hour just explaining this one sentence, huh? I wasn't going anywhere, obviously, right? I wasn't doing anything, right? And sometimes, you know, students, you know, if they read a whole noun or something like that, you know, they've really done something, right? Because a lot of motion of the eyes and a lot of turning of pages and so on, right? And, um, too much, huh? So motion seems to be very real. And you read the Marxists, you know, and the emphasis upon history and the modern thinkers, huh? And it's motion, it's process, huh? That then it seems real. Anything that isn't in motion is kind of an abstraction from the real. But actually motion is the least actual of acts, huh? And if I get up here and I walk from here to the wall over there, right? Part of my motion is always over and part of my motion is always to come. But how much of my motion is ever actual? Nothing. I was at being two places at the same time. If any part of my motion was ever fully actual, right? So, you find out when you define motion that it's the least actual of acts, huh? And yet it seems to us most, what? Most real. And Aristotle goes on to say that, huh? For act seems to be especially motion to us, right? Hence we do not attribute motion to what does not exist. But we might say other things of what does not exist. For example, non-beings are said to be understood, right? You can think about something that is not, right? It's thinkable. What is not, right? And it can be desired. We often sucker things that are not, right? But does what is not move around or do anything, huh? That seems to be impossible, right? Okay? Because it seems that if what is not moved, it really would be, right? So, that seems to be kind of the first meaning of our reality for us. You know, a kid wants to be moving all the time. Aristotle talks about the rattle is a good invention, right? It keeps them occupied, you know? And you've probably seen this, you know, in the baby cradle, crib or thing with the bars and so on. There's a thing you put up over here and they call it mobilia. You spin it. Oh, oh. And you watch it going around, you know? Okay? But you know how you kind of, you know, kids wrestle, you kind of, you know, shake a baby, if I mean. I'll have it down a little bit, you know? I don't worry about me shaking the baby, but, you know, people can do it too much, but that will calm down somewhat, right? So, motion is the act which is most known to us, but it's the least act for it. And when you go, as you do see in the first argument for the sins of God, you reason from the effect motion all the way to the unmoved mover, right? You're going from the act which is most known to us, but least actual, to the act which is most actual, which is mere act, but least known to us, huh? And it's kind of a supreme example of what Aristopoulos says, that what is more known to us, right, what is more noble to us, you might say, is less noble, because it's less actual. And what is least noble to us is most noble, because it's most actual, the exact contrariety of those two. This is an important observation that Aristotle is making here. It's a famous statement of Hegel, the history of philosophy is philosophy, right? I know you're thinking of this, this motion, right? The historical process, that's the reality, right? Did Carl Reiner get into that? Theology? Could be. I think so. He would say you have to understand the whole history of theology to really be a theologian. Yeah. You have to hide. All that he says, so the rest of us are religious as devil towns, we're not really theologians. Yeah, nobody can do that. Yeah. You might say American universities a lot. Those who are not into, say, you know, symbiotic logic or mathematical logic, which has its own problems. But, you know, the stories of philosophy, right? And so they're kind of, you know, they're talking about the history of it, the emotion of it, the succeeding of, succeeding, but never succeeding. That's exactly theologian. Yeah. Now, in the next paragraph, he goes to the other mistake, which he's more brief with, because not as plausible or not as kind of any supporters to it. And he's talking about how there's some who say that kind of the opposite error, everything's possible. You know. Some things will never be. And so even these contradictory things, right? They would say, you know, a square is able to be a circle, but it will never be so. And Aristotle says, well, they don't really understand what ability is, right? And if something is possible, as we said before, it means that if it takes place, nothing impossible will result. So if something is really involved in a contradiction, it's not really, what, possible. Because if it was, something impossible would take place. And so he goes on in the next paragraph. I actually stick with that first paragraph a moment here. If the able is that which has been said, to which something follows, it is clear that it cannot be true to say, as some people say, right? If the able is this, but will not be. So that the things unable to be would escape. I say, for example, someone who does not think that there is the unable to be should say, and this is a famous example from Greek geometry, the diagonal is able to be measured, right? Okay, this is the famous thing that they show, that the diagonal, the square, is not commensable with the, what, side, yeah. But some people say, well, that's possible too, but it'll never be. That's kind of stupid not to see the difficulty in there, huh? But as he goes on to say, the false and the impossible are not the same thing, right? Okay? It's false that you stand now, but not, what, impossible, right? But then he goes on to say in the last paragraph, we're in page four, that if the if-then statement is true, if A is so, then B is so, right? If that's true, and then A is possible, then what? Well, B is possible, right, huh? Okay? But you're using possible here now in the broad senses Thomas explains, huh? Okay. Now, what does that mean? Well, if you're talking about the possible as opposed to the necessary, the possible as it includes the necessary, well, the possible that is opposed to the necessary is what is possible to be and not be, right? So what is able to be and not be is opposed to the necessary, right? Because the necessary is not able not to be, right? So it's opposed to what is able to be and not be, huh? But then there's a broader sense of able, right? Where you have to say that what is necessary is able to be. Because if it's not able to be, then it's impossible to be. And that's out of the kind of diction that what is necessary to be is impossible to be, right? So there's an equivocation there at the word, what? Impossible, right? Okay? But see, that area is not so important as the first one, huh? Okay? Let me take a little break here, but this is one thing, we have a little break here because we're talking to readings, huh? Talking about the word necessary for a moment. Is it necessary to understand the word necessary? Well, if you say it is necessary to understand the word necessary, right? Then you better understand the word necessary, right? But if you say it is not necessary, right? To understand the word necessary, you're going to have to understand what necessary means, because you can't understand the negation of necessary without understanding necessary, right? Furthermore, if you say that it is necessary to understand the word necessary, the next question I'm going to ask you, why is it necessary to understand the word necessary? And then you see, you're going to have to understand the word necessary to understand why it's necessary to understand the word necessary. But likewise, if you say it's not necessary, right? To understand the word necessary, you're going to have to understand the word necessary to show why it is not necessary to understand the word necessary. So, in either case, you must understand the word what? Necessary. Necessary, right? Okay. Even though in one sense the word necessary, it's not necessary that we understand the word necessary. But in another sense of the word, it's very necessary that we understand the word necessary. And why is it so necessary to understand the word necessary? To understand the truth. And when we talk about necessary truths, finally those are the ones who want to understand the most. Yeah. But is the word necessary... The next question I ask, right? Once you get someone to admit that it's necessary to understand the necessary, then the next question is, what is necessary to understand the word necessary? Perhaps, yeah. Yeah. But, more basically, you can say that to understand the word necessary, you have to understand what stands under the word necessary, right? And it's one of those words that's equivocal, but equivocal by reason, right? So you have to understand the meanings that are necessary and be able to distinguish them on, because there's an order among them, right? You see? So, when I say, for example, that it's necessary that two be half of four, right? And when I say it's necessary to breathe, does necessary mean the same thing in those two cases? And when we turn to the first article, the first question of Summa Theologiae, right? Whether besides the philosophical disciplines, right? Some other teaching is necessary. What sense of necessary is that? It's more like breathing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or if you say, you know, Thomas may have an article on faith, which is necessary to believe, right? What does necessary mean in that case? Yeah. Yeah. Because sometimes something is said to be necessary when something else cannot be without it, right? And so we say that to breathe is necessary to live, right? And sometimes we say something is necessary for the well-being of something, huh? Okay? Now, when Thomas talks about necessity of believing, is it necessary to believe those things about God which reason can find out? See? Thomas will distinguish between those things that reason can find out about God and those things that must be revealed, right? Okay? But Thomas will argue that belief is necessary even for those things that reason can figure out by itself. And it's necessary for those things that reason cannot figure out by itself, right? But is it necessary in the same sense for both of those? Because you could say that the Trinity, right, reason could not know at all without revelation, right? But those things that reason could know without revelation, about God even, very few men would know them, right? And those few men that would know them would know them towards the end of their life. And maybe with mistakes and errors and so on, right? So maybe you can't know those things well, right? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.