Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 56: Act and Ability: Definition, Being, and Time

Transcript
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Reading six is not as important as reading five, but it is very good about when you are in ability and when you are not in ability, right? And basically what he's going to say is that you're, strictly speaking, able to be something when you're one step away from it, by one operation or one doing it. Okay? So, if I can take my example from Euclid, right? If a man, say, doesn't know plane geometry, is he able to know solid geometry? So, unlikely. In some sense, you might say, hey, you do a little bit of plane geometry and solid geometry out at TAC, right? And before you start that course on plane and solid geometry, you're able to learn plane geometry and solid geometry, rather than put you in such a course, or the end of an 18-4 long. But that's kind of a loose sense to say, I'm able to know solid geometry, right? When Euclid, for example, defines sphere, he says, imagine a circle, the diameter of the circle, and rotate the circle around its diameter, and I get a sphere. Well, if you don't know what a circle is, how could you, what, know what a sphere is, right? If you didn't know what a square was, you'd know what a cube is, right? So, I'm not able to know solid geometry until I know plane geometry. Then I'm able to know solid geometry. But even as you're going through plane geometry, you know how one theorem is used to prove another theorem, right? So, the Pythagorean theorem says, proposition 47, and most of those 46 before, must be known before you can know 47, right? So, when am I able to, what, know 47? Yeah, I've got to know the other ones, just turn the page, and there it is, 47, and now you're able to learn this, right? You see? But if I've got to demonstrate something before I get there, I don't get, what? I get the strict sense able. And that's a strict sense of when you're in a building for something, huh? So, that's the main point here. It should be determined when each thing is in a built-in when not. For it is not accessed any time, in a strict sense. For example, is earth an ability a man, huh? Well, that has to go through many steps before it's able to be a man, right? Or not. But more when it has already become, what, the seed, right? And perhaps not even then, right? There has to be a number of, what, generations, right, before you are approximate to being a man, huh? Thus, not everything can be healed by the medical art or by lockdown, but there is something which is able, and this is healthy in ability. And the determination of that which comes to be an act by reason from being in ability is having willed it to come to be, and nothing outside preventing, and there being nothing in the healed which prevents it. But you have to do something before you can heal the guy, and he's not yet able to be healed. Likewise, the house is an ability if there is nothing in this matter which prevents it from becoming a house. And there's nothing which ought to come before it be taken away or be changed. This is a house in ability. So are the trees a house in ability yet? No, because the trees have got to be cut down and trapped in the boards or something like this, right? And you have a matter now that is next to being a house, right? You have to screw it together or nail it together or something, and you've got a house. There's no fun, that is a bit. Then you have a house in ability, right? And likewise in others of which the beginning is outside, I suppose those are the artificial things. And those having the beginning in themselves, the natural things, nothing outside preventing it would be to itself. For example, the seed is not yet in ability, for it must be in another in change. But when to its own beginning it is such, already is this in ability. But that has need of another beginning, just as earth is not yet a statue in ability, but changing it will be copper, and then you can take it to be a statue, right? Now, the next thing he's talking about, Thomas says, is more according to the Greek idiom in the way we speak here. Would you say that this chair is wood, or would you say this chair is wooden? Wooden. Wooden. Yeah. And why do you say it's wooden rather than wood? It's formed wood, it's made out of wood, but it's a little more than just what it's made of. Okay. And the wood is only a chair in ability, right? Mm-hmm. Right. Um. And Aristotle seems to be hinting here a little bit at a likeness in the way in which we speak of the chair as being wooden, and the way we might say that, um, I'm not colored, but I'm what? Well, colored, it's because of the imperfection of accident, right? Mm-hmm. If I said I am color, I'd be making color something as a word substantial, right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, it's only an accident, right? And so I'm denominated, right, from color, but I'm said to be colored, it can't be said to be colored. But there's some similarity between that and the fact that the chair is not said to be wood, but it's said to be, what, wooden, huh? Because the wood, it's not an accident now, the chair, but the wood is, um, a chair in ability, right? And not an act, huh? You kind of fall short of being a chair, huh? And to say that the chair is wood would be to say that wood is already what a chair is, huh? And it's only a chair in ability. In the same way when you say that, if you say I'm colored, you'd like, put him in the genus of quality or something. Um, and, uh, you can say I'm a man, right? But you can't say I'm colored. You can't say I'm colored. So I can say this is a chair, but I can't say it's wood. I have to say it's wooden, huh? So I guess he's kind of showing that there's a, what, you know, way of speaking even, especially in Greek, um, that we use a denomative form, right, uh, to indicate the, what, the imperfection in some way, huh? Although it's a little different case the way we say I'm colored and the way we say that chair is, what, wooden, huh? But there's some similarity to the two, huh? But these are two, uh, different distinctions of being, such as an accident and, uh, act and ability, right? But it's interesting that in the lesser kinds of being, ability and accident, that they are said of that of which they are the matter, or that of which they are the accident. They are said of the things denominatively, right? Wooded instead of what? Colored instead of what? Colored, right, huh? There are styles indicating that, huh? Here's an example there. Not called music, but musical, right, huh? And man is not whiteness, but white, huh? And one is not motion, but, what, moving, but motion, again, like an accident, huh? Going up in the upper part there, page 8 there, to the example there. If earth is made out of air, then we say the, what, the earth is airy, huh? And, uh, air. And if air is made out of fire, then it's, what, not fire, but fire, right, huh? And the fire is the first matter, huh? That's just to say we're arguing here, right? Then we wouldn't say that about it, huh? There's not so many other matter. But no, so again, we, in general, we don't say that things are matter, we say they are, what? Material, yeah. Well, like, the thing would, or would it not? Well, like, the thing would, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, or would it not be, And then he goes into the examples here of musical and musical, which is taking not ability, but taking accidents. Whiteness, we're not said to be, but we're said to be white. And again, we're not said to be motion, right? We're said to be what? Moving, right? So I was attentive to that way of speaking. That's what I was saying to my brother Richard, who got through with his translation there, the posture analytics there. But it's kind of a thinker's task trying to translate sometimes, huh? Because there isn't always an exact equivalent in any other language, huh? I just read across the text of Thomas in the sentences today. He's referring to Augustine. Augustine wanted to refuse the word substance in regard to God, right? Because sub means under, right? Oh, no. And there's nothing under anything in God, right? Okay. But I mean, you know, sometimes Thomas and Boethius and others will use the word substance in talking about God, right? And so you can call that tweet as there, the substance of God, right? And I'm always quoting Boethius on Divina Substantia Forma Est. So you can talk about the divine substance, huh? Homo usianza, what is it? Consubstantial, right? With the Father, right? They use the word substance, right? But etymologically, substance has the idea of under, right? Sometimes they explain the word substance because substance is under the accident sound, supporting the accident sound. And should you really use the word substance talking about God? Well, yes and no. Right? There might be a time where you would refuse the word, right? Okay. Dion used to talk about a text in Dionysius, the Arabic guy, huh? For, um, he wanted to use the word eros rather than the word the or something like that, right? You say, well, this name is more a sensual law, right? Eros. But certain scriptures use the word, right? And trying to indicate the, what? Intensity of the law, right? Okay. So like the problem we have in English there, you know, the word karitas, which would be translated by the word charity, right? But charity, you know, in the course of time has come to represent more, you know, the good deeds being done, charity, huh? And you speak of, of love as charity, it seems kind of a weak word, huh? Charity. And charity for God. It seems to have a point, right, huh? And, and, and, and so, um, uh, we often now use the word love, right? Instead of, uh, charity, you're talking about the theological virtue, right? But, but does the word love in, in English, huh, today, uh, call to mind more sensual love or romantic love at least, right? Mm-hmm. Than, than the kind of love of God, huh? I remember as a child sitting in church there and hearing the priest talk about the love of God, you know, kind of thinking of love in a sense as an emotion, right? Mm-hmm. And I know when I talk about love in French, of course, you know, sometimes in the first day of class, you say, what is love, right? And, and, and, but the only answer you get is it's, it's, it's an emotion, right? And you say, well, so is anger, so is anger. It's a very special emotion. I'm sorry. But, but, but I mean, obviously they, they have a vague notion of love and maybe there is some love that is an emotion, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, but when you ask them, what is love? That's the first answer. It's an emotion. I bet you would get that, you know, in the street. So, um, when you take the word love then and talk about the love of God, or you talk about God's love himself for us, right? Um, so I say, well, that's misleading because, you know, the love of God is not an emotion, emotional confidence or something, but it's not strictly speaking as an act of the will, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But if you don't use the word love and talk about God, you don't see maybe the, what, um, the intensity of that love, right? Okay. That's a famous, uh, thing there where it's saying, uh, not saying, uh, uh, C.S. Lewis is talking about the love of the angels, right? He describes your love as being ferocious. He's trying to bring out the intensity of the love of the angels, right? Mm-hmm. And that their love is more, uh, unified than our love because we have the emotions and we have the, the, the will, and sometimes they're going in different directions and so on, so we're kind of, we're kind of, uh, divided in our love, huh? And, uh, they're a lot of completely concentrated, huh? When you read about the fall of the angels, let's say, they're the ones who were lost. You know, it's all at once, you know? Quite for us, we're up and down throughout life and hopefully we will end up on the way up. But, uh, we kind of sway back and forth, you know, we're, but they, wherever way they go, they go whole, they go all the way, right? You know? You have no idea of how ferocious, to use C.S. Lewis' word, that love must be, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and, and, and the fall of the angels, you know, this love of self, right, huh? You know? Um, I suppose we get into the problem of loving ourselves, but we're kind of a divided thing and we hate ourselves. You know? But, you know, the intensity, it's hard to imagine that, huh? You know, the, the, the strength of that, huh? Mm-hmm. Maybe, see, a little bit of, in the great saints, maybe they're a lot of, huh? That intensity of it, huh? Um, so there's, there's a problem about, about, about, uh, translating these things sometimes and naming them, right? Mm-hmm. You know, in the scripture, we talk about charity, I guess the word is usually, what, agape, the Greek word, huh? You know? So, you know, you'll see, as Lewis had a little book called The Four Loves, you know, where he's talking about eros and agape and philia and storge, right? You get, you know, different words in the Greek, right? But we tend to translate them all by, by, by love, huh? If you say somebody's a lover, you think right away of romantic love, right? Mm-hmm. Even though philosopher means a lover of wisdom, you wouldn't call philosopher a lover, unless you want to be misunderstood, right? Mm-hmm. You know? But he's a lover, right? There's a problem, huh? Mm-hmm. So sometimes you want to kind of talk around a little bit. I know when I translate the Greek fragments sometimes, you use the English word, and sometimes the English word is better than the Greek word, and you see all kinds of meaning because you use an English word, and you say, well, are you reading it to the other author, right? It doesn't lend itself as much. So he ends up in the last paragraph there in the sixth reading, that it happens rightly to be said derivatively, or sometimes we use the word denominatively, right? What is made of the material and the end of the goings, right? He's explaining to you what? Matter and accident, right? They're both said denominatively or derivatively, right? So you don't say the chair is wood, but wooden. You don't say, I'm colored, but I'm colored. I'm using the derivative form because they're both something, what, indeterminate by themselves, huh? Rather than something complete by themselves, huh? So, that's a good place to stop, huh? That's the end of the second part, huh? It isn't that much in the sixth reading that there was in the fifth reading, you know? Now, the remaining readings will be the third part, meeting seven to the end here. And here he's going to now talk about the, what, most of all, the order of acting built in. So, up to this point. So, up to this point. You might say he's more concerned with the distinction of act and ability, the different senses of ability, the different senses of act and so on, right? But the distinction between act and ability itself, right? And then he's going to talk about the order, right? So a distinction is before what? Order, right? And the order here, of course, is in the strict sense of order mainly, which means what? Before and after, right? And there can be a distinction without before and after, like in the Trinity, right? Or Athanasian, the Athanasian creed there, there's no before and after in God. Tom's voice is very clear to show that. But there's a real distinction between the Father and the Son, right? Holy Spirit. But you can't have a before and after without having a distinction, because of the, actually from the action of the before and after, that nothing is before or after it, but nothing is itself, right? There's always some distinction. When I talk about the before and after in Juliet's beauty, and Romeo seeing it, I say, first of all, there's a distinction between the two, huh? Because the beauty of Juliet is in Juliet. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. That was a great mistake there, foisted on the human mind, huh? And why the, Romeo seeing it, that's an imminent operation, so the seeing is in him, right? So really, two different things, you know, you've got to see that distinction. And then you can say, is there a before and after, right? Well, in this case, there is, right? In at least four of the five senses, her beauty is before and seeing it, right? In time and being and definition and God is healthy. But there's a little problem there about that, which is better, right, huh? Her beauty is seeing it, right? And that leads to the other problems I was talking about. So. So. So. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, help us to understand all the truth of it. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen. So reading seven now is beginning the third and last part of the ninth book of wisdom. Having distinguished act and ability as well as distinguished different kinds of ability and action. Now Aristotle is going to talk about the order of act and ability, right? And most of all, the order of passive ability and act. He's going to talk about mainly which is before which. Before and after, or order, presupposes a distinction. So he begins by saying, Since it has been determined, in how many ways before is said. That's a reference back to the fifth book of wisdom in which the word before is taken up. In the particular words under one. Now Aristotle also distinguishes the senses of the word before in the categories. And I think it's better to begin with the senses and the categories. Because you take the word before by itself, they're in the categories. And he distinguishes in the categories four central senses of before. And the first sense of before is before in time. Today is before tomorrow. And the second sense of before is before in being. Aristotle gives example one before two. And the before in being means that this can be without that. But that cannot be without this. So one can be without two. But two cannot be without one. Or let's say bricks can be without a brick wall. But a brick wall cannot be without bricks. Or the letter C can be without the word cat. But not the word cat without the letter C. That's the second sense of before. Then the third sense of before is in the discourse of reason. This can be seen in Aristotle's examples. And so the premium comes before the Tractatus in philosophy. And the prologue to Romeo and Juliet comes before the play, right? And the premises come before the conclusion and so on. And then the fourth sense of before is in goodness, huh? In which the better, right? Is said to be before. Now, is the word before here equivocal by chance or by reason? Okay. And by reason of what? Well, I think you could say by reason of a likeness of ratios, huh? Okay. And there are, that's one way that a name becomes equivocal, by reason, by likeness of ratios. So, the word beginning is another example of that, huh? The word in or being in, an example of a word that's equivocal by likeness of ratios. And the ratios are alike, but some are more alike or closer than others. And that enables you to order them, right? But order depends upon some beginning, something first. What's the first sense of what? A word, yeah, before, would it be the first sense? Something that follows, something that follows from. Well, there's a beginning that Thomas points out there when he's explaining the order, which Aristotle gives the word beginning, right? And he says that we name things as we know them. We name things as we become aware of them. And therefore, the order in naming follows the order in knowing. So, the ratio that is most known is the first one. And since an actual road in our knowledge is a road from the senses into reason, the most sensible meaning comes first. Now, if you know a little bit about time, you know time is taken up with the before and after in motion. And you know the before and after in motion. And as Shakespeare says in the Taurus and Crescita, things in motion, sooner catch the eye, the whatnot stirs. So the first sense of before and after is out of time, to which sense you would lead back, you know, before and after in motion. Even the before and after in the road that I traveled on up here to the monastery. That's most known to us, right? I'm kind of struck by that even when you talk about what reason is. You know, Shakespeare defines reason as the ability for discourse. Discourse comes in the Latin word for running, going from one thing to another. But what act is most characteristic of reason? Well, it's a discourse called reasoning, right? And discourse is like a what? Emotion. Yeah. And so even our reason, things in motion, sooner catch the eye, and whatnot stirs. Even our reason, huh, is recognized more by reasoning than by understanding. Reasoning, calculating, you know, this sort of thing, seems to be very clearly activity of reason. Understanding doesn't even do anything. I was just reading Thomas there in the quest chapter in this Summa Conscientiva. I said, the knowledge of God is not discursiva, you know? Well, one reason why it's not is because there's no motion in God. No going from one thing to another, right? Now, the second sense of before and after is before and being, right? And that is also somewhat sensible, or can be, right? And I gave you a simple example of the letter C before the word cat, or the bricks before the brick wall. But notice, being is not as sensible as motion. It doesn't catch your attention so much, right? It's not somebody's being, but it's his being in motion. I used to have an parking lot outside my window there, you know, and kind of look out that window there, and you're, what catches your attention? What's a car coming in or going out? It's not the car, it's all parked there. Their being there doesn't grab your attention. If they're coming in or going out, that gets your attention, huh? Then the third sense of before, in the discourse of reason, and to this third sense, you reduce before and knowing. Well, you can see how it's like before and being, huh? Just as some things can be without other things, but not vice versa, so some things can be known without knowing other things, but not vice versa. There's a real likeness there, okay? But the fourth sense is the most remote, huh? Before and goodness, huh? Better, you know? But in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle does something a little bit different, because he's already taken up the word beginning. And at the end of the discourse on beginning, he gives a kind of common notion of beginning, as what is first in being or becoming or in knowing. And then he distinguishes the senses of before and after, corresponding to the senses of beginning. And of course, even goodness there was left out, huh? It's being less familiar, right? And so, it's not as, you might say, immediate a look at the word before as he has in the categories. It's maybe more sapiential, because you're seeing in terms of the beginning, which is the source, you might say, of order, huh? But it's not directly dealing with the word itself. It's seeing or distinguishing or beginning to distinguish the meanings of before by the meanings of the beginning, rather than just all by itself. Now, I'm recalling that, because he's going to be showing that... Um, act in almost every sense of before is before ability, right? But it's not so clear sometimes exactly what senses he has in mind in some cases. Because he'll talk about before in time, he'll talk about before in perfection or goodness, he'll talk about before in knowing, right? But he doesn't speak of before in being explicitly, right? But I think he understands that when he says before in time because of the proximity of that sense to that. And in the categories, you may recall when he gets through it, the four central senses, then he brings another sense, which I named the crowning sense. Because it's the crowning sense for a reason that looks before and after and the crowning sense for the philosopher. And that's the sense in which a cause is before and effect. But I don't think that sense he brings in would belong fifth in order. I think cause before effect resembles most of all before and being. Because what is before and being seems a little bit like a cause because what comes after depends upon it. So it seems a little bit like cause and effect. And I think when Aristotle says before and time here, he's thinking of not just the limited sense of before and time, but before and being, and even as cause as before effect. And we'll see that in his explanation. So he says, Since it has been determined in how many ways before is said, it is clear that act is before ability. That's the conclusion. And I mean by ability, not only that definite kind, which is said to be a beginning of change as other, but in general, every beginning of movement or of rest. For nature is in the same genus as what? Ability. Because they're both defined as a beginning. For it is the beginning of motion, but not in another, but in the same, the same. Now he says, Act is before all such, both in definition, and more generally speaking in knowing, right? And in substance, which is Aristotle's annoying way of saying imperfection. It's the identified substance with form, and form is perfection of matter. And there he doesn't distinguish at all. It's just before in both ways. And in time, it is before in this way, but not in that. Okay? There he's going to make a distinction. I see a distinction, right? Okay? Now, he says, It is clear that it is before in definition. For what is first able, is able in that it can act. For example, I say, The builder is able to build, and he who has sight is able to see. And the visible, how would you define the visible? What's able to be seen. So you define the ability by the act for which it is a what? Ability. And the same can be said in others. So that necessarily the definition of one exists before the definition of the other. And the knowledge of one before the knowledge of the other. So, stop and think about that a bit, huh? Is ability, any kind of ability, ever really known by itself? So I say, and you have a baseball player there, or a football player, a great player. Do you really see his ability? Or, strictly speaking, do you see what he does because of his ability? And you know his ability through what he does. Let's see your stuff. But, you're not going to see the ability, right? You're going to see what he does through his ability. If someone says, and I'm able to play the piano, okay, well, let's see you do it. Okay? So you don't really know that you have an ability, except through the act for which it is an ability. And so sometimes when a man's eyes have been injured or something like that, right? And he's got these covered up and so on. And they won't know until they take the patches off whether he can still, what? See. See. And how do you distinguish abilities, huh? Well, my standard example is the ability to talk and the ability to walk, the same ability. Well, if talking were a form of walking, or a walking form of talking, they might be the same ability, but they're two quite distinct acts, right? And then the ability to walk and the ability to talk are not the same ability, huh? And so you not only know an ability through the act for which it is an ability, but you distinguish one ability from another one, right, by the difference in the act for which it is an ability. And of course you have to distinguish things to define them, so obviously act is before ability in what? Definition. Now that's very important, you know, in particular when you're studying the powers of the soul, right? The abilities of the soul. And Aristotle said in the Dianima, three books of the soul, and the second book there, that you have to know the ability through the, what? Act, huh? So, you can see that in Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? What's an ability for? The ability for a large discourse, looking before and after. He's defining the ability by the act for which it is an ability. So that's pretty clear. Now, in the third paragraph, bottom of page 8, he's going to distinguish now his ability or act, and he's thinking now especially of passive ability here now in this case. He says, which comes first? Chicken or the egg, right? Okay, you've got to get the answer now. Which comes first, ability or act? Well, his answer is going to be that in the thing that goes from ability to act, right? In that thing, ability is before act in time. But since it goes from ability to act, by reason of something already in act, like the water, say, which is able to be hot, goes from ability to be hot to being actually hot. So in time, it has ability before it has act. But it goes from ability to act to something already hot. So simply speaking, act is before ability, even in time. But notice how he's bringing in a little bit there the idea of what? Cause and effect, eh? Because he's saying that what goes from ability to act, goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act. So notice the distinction. What kind of distinction is being made here? Now, I think it would be foolish to try to distinguish all the kinds of distinctions there are. But there are certain kinds of distinctions that are very common. And you should recognize these kinds of distinctions. And sometimes I emphasize the first two kinds of mistakes in the sophisticated refutations from words and the first two kinds of mistakes from what? Things, right? And they correspond to what? Four kinds of distinctions. So the first kind of mistake from words is a mistake from mixing up the senses of a word, right? And so you're overlooking the distinction of meaning here, right? The second kind of mistake from words is for mixing up the senses of two, what? Speeches. So geometry is analogous. So geometry is analogous. Reason, knowledge of reason is a knowledge about reason, therefore geometry is a knowledge about reason, right? When you say, you know, a knowledge of reason, the preposition of there can be referring to the knower or the known. So when I say geometry is a knowledge of reason, I mean it's a knowledge that reason has, right? When I say a knowledge of reason is a knowledge about reason, right? Then of reason is not talking about the knower, but the known. So I'm mixing up two senses of knowledge of what? Reason, right? Or if I say the Bible is the word of God, the word of God is the son of God, therefore the Bible is the son of God, right? I don't think that can be right, is it? But the more common of those two distinctions that people overlook is the distinction of the senses of a word, right? Like we had in the word before. Then the first two kinds of mistakes outside of words, the first one is the mistake for mixing up what is so, kathaotoi says, per se, through itself, or you could say maybe as such, right? And what is so through happening or by happening? And that's a very important distinction, and you make all kinds of mistakes more looking at it. What did Heraclitus say? Day is night, and night is day. Because day becomes night, and night becomes day. Well, by happening it does, but not as such. You're kind of mixing up what becomes day or night as such with what happens to that, right? The good is what all want. Well, some people want to say that's not a good definition because sometimes you want bad things, right? But the bad is bad if not wanted, huh? Only the good as such is wanted, huh? Well, the second kind of mistake outside of speech is a mistake for mixing up what is so simply and what is so what? Not simply, but in some imperfect way. And that's the kind of mistake that you find, say, in Amino there. Amino is asked by Socrates to join an investigation of what virtue is, right? Well, they're going to be looking for what they don't know, right? Well, how can you go looking for what you don't know if you don't know what you're looking for? And how would you know if you found it? And that's kind of a beautiful little dilemma, right? Socrates, in trying to respond to it, makes the same kind of mistake. You wonder whether Plato did that on purpose, did he do what he was doing or what? It's kind of interesting, right? That they both make the same kind of mistake, but one guy trying to answer the other guy's mistake. But sometimes I put that in a little more simple way with the students, and I say, when the student asks a question, does he know what he wants to know? See, Amino says, you can know what you don't know, and if you don't know whether you got it or not, right? So how would the student know that you didn't even answer this question? But if he knew what he wanted to know, then he wouldn't be ignorant of it, right? So he can't know what he doesn't know, right? Therefore, he can't ask a question all that he doesn't know, because he wouldn't know what he's asking about. And then I say, if you don't know what you're asking about, how can I help you? Well, that's a very common mistake, right? Or I always take the simple example in class. I always call upon some young lady, and I say, do you know my brother Mark? And she'll say, no. And I say, I heard what she said. She's going to contradict herself a moment. And then I say, well, do you know what a man is? Yeah? Well, that's what her brother Mark is. So you do know who her brother Mark, right? You see? She doesn't really contradict herself, right? But you can say, simply, she doesn't know him. But in some imperfect way, she does. Okay? Aristotle seems to be saying that here, right? Simply, act is before ability, right? But, not simply, but in some way, ability is for act. Because the thing that goes from ability to act, right? That thing is an ability before it is an act. But since it goes from ability to act because of something already in act, then simply, you can say, act is even in time before ability, right? Now, this is very important in what you're going to say eventually about the first cause. Because if you think the first cause is matter, right? And matter is what is most in ability, you know? Then you're thinking that ability is simply before act. And it's only in some way before act, right? Well, if you say the first cause is pure act, as we will say eventually, then you've got the truth, right? So, the materialists are really making the mistake of simply and not simply. Because ability is in some imperfect way before act. Therefore, simply speaking, ability must come first in the universe. Just like Mino was saying, you know, because you don't know what you're looking for and you can't go looking for it, right? You've read my simple example I always take in class. I say, how many students are in class today? Anybody know? I don't know myself. See? But I could direct myself to knowing what I don't know with the greatest of ease. Then I count them, you know, and say I get 23, right? Now, how did I direct myself with the greatest of ease to 23? I didn't know I was looking for 23. Well, I knew 23 in some way, didn't I? Because 23 is the number of students in class, and I knew I was looking for the number of students in class, and that was enough to tell me I should count. Right? And therefore I arrived at what I didn't know, simply, but didn't know in some way, right? So in a sense, you know, saying, hey, you can't investigate at all what you don't know, because then you'd be knowing what you don't know. There's kind of a controversy between Hegel and Marx, right? Because Marx, I mean, not Hegel and Marx, but Hegel and Kant, huh? Because Kant says, the thing of the self is unknown, then why are you talking about it? Now they can't, you don't really see the distinction too clearly. That kind of distinction comes up again and again and again in what? Philosophy, right? And that kind of mistake, right? So as I say, understanding that kind of distinction helps you to understand that kind of mistake. And seeing that kind of mistake being made everywhere kind of keys you in to the kind of distinction that is being overlooked in that mistake, huh? But this here is kind of a supreme example. You might say, this is maybe the most fundamental difference about the first cause, right? Is the first cause most in ability? I mean, in a passive sense, right? Or is the first cause most in act? Well, the first cause is before everything else, right? So it's a question, what comes before? Act or ability? As Aristóteles says, you have to distinguish, right? In some way, right? In some limited sense, you can say ability is before act. But that's simply. Simply act is before ability. So therefore, the first cause must be most in act. And therefore, it's a mistake to think of matters being the first cause. That's really kind of a profound thing when you see it, huh? So you see Mino making that distinction, making that kind of mistake and logically beginning of philosophy. And I see Materialist making that same kind of mistake here at the end of what? Philosophy, huh? About the first cause. Let's look at Aristóteles' words here then we'll see. Time is a little bit more. In time it is before in this way. The same in kind acts before, but not in number. I mean this, that the matter and the seed and the visible, which are in ability, the man and the grain and the seeing, but not in act, are before in time this man and this grain and this seeing, not existing in act. But before in time to these are other beings in act for which these come to be. Now you see, it seems to me like Aristotle, without saying it there, is bringing in also what? something of before as a cause or an effect, right? Because he's thinking that what goes with it. ability to act, does so because of something already in act. So you're talking about because, the cause being is what the word because means, doesn't it? Because, the cause being. And perhaps also before and being, right? That act can be without ability, right? But ability cannot be without act. But he only uses the word before and time, right? So I think you've got to kind of look at this with the help of the text and the categories and elsewhere. Okay? And the principle he uses here, for always from what is an ability comes to be what is an act, or what is an act, as man from man and the knower from the, what? Knower. Okay? And then he's hinting there, there being always a first mover for who is already an act. He's hinting out the first mover, the first cause, as being what? Just an act, huh? And that was manifested a bit, he makes a reference back to the seventh book. It's been said in the discourses about substance, and it's in the seventh book, which we didn't see, that everything which comes to be, comes to be from something, right? And that's the matter, which is something in ability, and by something in act, right? Which is the oeuvre of the maker. And this is the same in kind, at least in the approximate sense it is, right? So a man produces a man, right? Or a dog produces a dog, right? Okay? So what came first on the chicken or the egg? Haven't you heard it all your life? But it really is a question that's solved in wisdom, right? You'd say that in the individual, right? Individual is an egg before you say what? Chicken, right? Okay? But the egg came from what? Yeah. So it begins with something that's already actually chicken, or something that's even actually more perfect than a chicken. Okay? So simply speaking, the chicken came for the egg. The actual, the perfect, right? In some way, you've got to say, you know, it does come for the chicken. You see? Okay? See something like that in our statements, huh? A statement that's a conclusion in geometry, say, the theorem geometry, it's able to be known before it is actually known, right? So you say reason is able to know this statement before it actually knows it, right? But it goes from the ability to know this statement to actually knowing it through other statements that are already actually what? Knowns, right? So simply speaking, the actual comes before. Okay? Now, notice, stop and think a little bit upon the idea here, huh? One of my, uh, I've been in a seminary, I used to speak about, oh, a seminary professor, right? I may have told you this before, but I got it good myself. But I used to, you know, call upon students to answer questions and so on. And it was usually the students, you know, usually didn't know the answer, you know? And I suppose in those days they used more Latin, right? So you'd always say when a student couldn't answer the question, Neil, doc, what not how? No one gives, so he doesn't have. And so, you could learn anything from not being able to answer the question. You learn, Neil, doc, put them out there. Okay? So, how can ability now in the past is sense, right? It's able to be an act, right? But lacks the act, right? How can it give itself the act which it doesn't have? Neil, doc, put them out there. You see? But have to have the act that's going to give itself, it's going to give itself the act it doesn't have. But since it doesn't have it, it can't have, but it's going to give itself, right? Or you're claiming it will give itself, right? So, what goes to ability to act must be given that act, right? By something already in act. So, simply speaking then, act is before ability. We can see, as Aristotle's hitting there, on the top of page 9 there, but then the first cause must be most in act. A little that like Plato thought when he spoke of the forms, at least they're acts, right? Rather than like the early Greeks who thought of matter as being the beginning of all things. They built to his foot as first, huh? And it's interesting that pure act can be used to show all the attributes of the divine substance, huh? I see that when you get to the Summa Theologia, right? That's really kind of a key thing, huh? Now, what's he talking about in the last three paragraphs, huh? Well, remember there was another kind of strange ability there, right? Ability that's acquired by repeated acts, huh? Well, there is a special way that act is before ability, huh? Once it seems impossible to be a house builder without having built anything. Or a harpist or a pianist, right? Never having played the harp or the piano, right? He didn't know about the pianist. For the one learning to play the harp learns to play the harp by playing it, and likewise the others, right? Now, how'd you guys acquire the ability to speak English? Yeah, yeah. And that's how you'd acquire the ability to speak some other language, right? It'd be by speaking it, huh? Imitating those who speak it, right? You know, you get these tapes or something like that, and you have a native there reciting the words, right? And you repeat it after him, right? So you can say it more or less the way he says it, right? And so it's by speaking French that you acquire the ability to speak French. Well, then Aristotle says, whence the sophisticated refutation arises, huh? That one not having knowledge will do that of which it is the knowledge, for the one learning does not have it, huh? Now, of course, this goes back to the objections you have in the ethics, too, huh? Aristotle says, how do you become courageous? Well, by doing courageous things. How do you become just? By doing just things, right? How do you become temperate? By doing temperate things. That's why we call these moral virtues, because moral comes in the word for custom. Well, if I become just by doing just things, aren't I already just? I'm doing just things. Well, what's the answer to that, right? Yeah, yeah. You're not able to do just things before you have the virtue of justice in the way you do it afterwards, right? And maybe the struggle to do it, right? To screw your fortune, your nerves up to do it. And the instability, right? And you're doing this thing, right? But the virtue gives it some instability, right? You didn't have before. And now it becomes more, what? A real worry to do what is just or moderate or courageous, huh? Then would have been, or at least less painful, than would have been before you acquired the habit, huh? But Aristotle goes back to something that is shown in the sixth book of natural hearing, that when something is coming to be, it already has come to be. When I'm driving up here, I have driven some way already. And so I have some act already, even when I'm driving up here, right? What he shows in the sixth book of natural hearing is that before having driven any distance, you're driving some distance, right? And before driving any distance, you have driven some distance. So there's always a little bit of act there, right, huh? Okay? In the same way, in learning, huh? He is learning, must have something of knowledge, right? So there's some knowing before learning, as well as the result of learning. Hence, too, then, it is clear that act is thus before ability in generation and in time. Now, in reading eight, he's going to say,