Wisdom (Metaphysics 2016)
Lecture 3: Wisdom, Causality, and the Characteristics of the Wise Man

Transcript
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two and two right after 10 years so to speak not seeing it i said well gee miss it just seems so quick you know when he came i think i'll go and check him at the end and uh so i came down to see him and i started in a very order way because i see he says i know where you're going he says i said well damn it can i go there and uh so you know what i had to say you know you see but you go to somebody and you're not in what too sure right now see especially if you're in doubt right okay so if the doctor is not too sure you know you might want to call in a specialist right who he thinks is wiser right so he's more certain about what should be done for you right you're not too sure what to do for you sometimes a doctor right i remember coming with i think my doctoral thesis i said i'm gonna go see what they kind of think you know the conscience what he asked me when you got the yarn i said i don't know what you think anyway okay he says but isn't that true right that we go to somebody we think is wise huh see with it would be generals right now go to the man go to napoleon right don't know what to do what do we do napoleon he's wiser you know for his battle and the one we're able to teach the causes we saw that being developed before right now so this is what he knows all things in some way he knows things that are difficult to know right then you know he's more certain about what he's saying and he's what yeah the causes right because we're able to teach right okay heisenberg you know in a mystery book i've read that heisenberg he always goes back to the to uh his first encounter with niels bohr you know and uh what do they call that in germany there and this bohr came on a speaking tour in germany called the bohr festival or something like that you know they're so impressed right and heisenberg uh was a young student at the time and heisenberg when bohr first came there but bohr had a reputation of knowing more about the adam than anybody in the world it's called the bohr festival and he put down history you know but heisenberg you know in the question period he posed a question you know and looked at him and he gave him an answer you know then after the expression period he came over to heisenberg he says let's go for walk you and i and that heisenberg said that walk you know determines his whole way of thinking about the atom right and he keeps it coming back down to bohr bohr is quite a man and uh of course you know there's bohr in in einstein there was a show down there at the you know the uh being a physicist there and einstein i guess uh was using these thought experiments and he'd come up with a real good thought experiment to attack the copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory and the next day you know bohr would come back and refute you know einstein and uh finally einstein gave his last attempt and uh war was really rude you know and uh actually in the photograph you know of them coming out you know einstein's looking kind of you know cocky you know and and bohr's you know wants to switch into the conversation before so bohr had a had a sleepless night to say the least and he discovered that einstein had failed to apply his own theory in his uh thought experiment so he came back the next day and pointed out the defect in einstein's thing and that was the last time einstein tried to challenge it in public so he's quite a man who steals bohr right now and einstein was kind of a more more of a loner anyway you know and and hey and bohr had you know he had influence upon people you know so but in fact heisenberg always still backed that so it's more but anyway because he made a play out of called copenhagen right out of the you know because bohr was very uh nervous about heisenberg coming to see him about the atomic bomb you know what the germans are doing you know and the sciences huh the one for itself and for the sake of knowing is more wisdom than that for the sake of its what results so einstein is seen to be what wiser right than the man who makes things as if knowledge is what he understands the universe right we can't do anything about the universe but yeah yeah but if he's if he's a man who understands the universe right because the general theory of relativity gave a great impetus to what cosmology right and so this man seems to understand the universe better than anybody else he's the wise man right because that's the ultimate thing it seems like the universe right you don't know about god i mean but you know you know like the whole is more than the part right so if you understand the cosmos you really but you're not gonna do anything with that knowledge of the cosmos probably right see there's more knowing right and god's unchangeable so they can't do anything with god no results there and the one ruling is more wisdom than the one obeying right and this is true even with the what practical arts right that the chief artist right he commands and the others what obey right now so uh macarthur commands right now and the others but obey and he seems to be what why he's here right i think that time when uh macarthur was visited by a friend there you know another general and uh they sat down to eat right and the guy knows that macarthur wasn't eating anything and so finally he said why aren't you eating so macarthur said i'm too tired to eat so finally he said good night went to bed you know next morning this guy got up and he said to the officer of the day uh say goodbye to macarthur for me i don't wake the half you know he was so tired he went to the front he said two hours ago so but the british thought he was the best general on our side there of course they say a patent and regardless they've been in the same same area it would have been you know yeah okay so even the practical things you see this right the one ruling is seen to be more more wise right now for the wise man not not to receive orders but to give orders and he ought not to be persuaded by another but the less wise by him well it was the inch on landing right i guess they didn't think that it could work you know and i've read several accounts of it you know people were present at the time and they and they they sent down the head of the army there the chief of staff to try to dissuade macarthur from doing it and and the navy was opposed to it because they didn't think they could do it and uh everybody's waiting in tension you know when he probably just got to speak you know and he got there and he started knocking down them you know and so so finally uh they they agreed you know that he should do it right and then actually went back to washington they sent you on your own he walked my hands in it you know it's like it's like uh a pilot there you know so these are the six things right now okay now it's this last one here that is where they say sapientis this ordinary in latin right it belongs to the wise men to order right i talked to you about thomas's famous distinction of the knowledge of reason there in the premium his own premium to the nicomachean ethics and he distinguishes um the knowledge of reason by the order it considers right and he doesn't take the distinction of order that we have in the senses of before right because that would be too what general He takes the distinction of order in comparison to reason, right? To distinguish what? The knowledge of reason, right? And so he says there's an order which reason doesn't make but considers. And this is a natural order, right? Then there's the order which reason makes in its own acts. The acts, the order which reason makes in the acts of the will and the emotions. And the order that reason makes in exterior matter, like here, this chair. And then he divides it, natural philosophy, right? And then logic, and then ethics, practical philosophy. And then the mechanical arts, as it's called, the art of carpentry, and all the other arts of work in exterior matter. But when Thomas begins that, he quotes, goes back to here, right? Sapientis, or an hour, wisdom is the, what? Highest perfection, not of the senses, but the highest perfection of what? Reason. And it's proper to reason, he says, to know order, right? Therefore, wisdom is the highest perfection of reason. Most of all, sapientis says ordinari. It's of the wise men to order things, right? That's what Aristotle's saying here, right? So it's a harmony between what we know about reason, like in the definition of reason by Shakespeare, right? Where the culminating part is looking before and after, right? Knowing order, right? Considering order, right? And the wise men, right, must be there for the man who orders everybody else around. Because he himself has got the highest perfection of reason. His reason has wisdom, which is the highest perfection of reason. So in some sense, the wise men directs all the other, what? Arts and sciences, huh? Here, you can see why logic is, in a sense, close to wisdom, right? Because logic directs us in the use of reason, whereby we acquire all the arts and sciences. Such and so many, he says, are the thoughts we have about wise men and what? Wisdom, right? So you can put it into either way. You can say, the wise men knows all things in some way, right? Or you can say, wisdom is a knowledge of all things in some way, right? Or the wise men knows things are difficult to know, right? And wisdom is a knowledge of things difficult to know, right? And so on for each of these things, right? You can transfer it from the wise men to wisdom, or from wisdom to the wise men, right? Okay, now he goes into some of the consequences of this, following the same order. Of these, to know all things, necessarily belongs to the man, most of all, having a knowledge of the universal. Because the universal is said of what? Many. And some universals are said of infinity of things, right? No odd number is even. That covers how many numbers? There's infinity of odd numbers, right? Okay. Of these, to know all things, necessarily belong to the man, most of all, having a knowledge of the universal. For he knows, in some way, all things placed under the universal. So wisdom is going to be a knowledge of the most universal, right? We find this out, what that most universal is, in the, what, fourth book of wisdom, right? It's a knowledge of, what, being and the one, right? And your style shows those two are equally universal, right, huh? Okay. There's a lot of one here in the Gospel of John, too, right, huh? They all be one as we are one. So, and, huh? And secondly, right, about difficulty, right? And perhaps. Now, why does he say perhaps, right? Because maybe the first causes are even more difficult, right? Okay. So he's very careful. And perhaps, right, the most universal are the most difficult for men to know for they are furthest from the, what, senses. Okay. I've never seen a man philosopher who seems to know about substance, quantity, quality, or about act and ability, right, huh? You know, they find those things very difficult to know, right? They don't understand the good. They don't understand one. You know, it's very difficult to distinguish between the one that is the beginning of number and the one that is convertible with being and universality. You don't get, you know, it's very difficult, right? So in some senses these are most difficult, right? Because the furthest from the senses, because the senses know the, what, singular, right? So if the senses, which is the beginning of our knowledge, the knowledge is singular, right, and this is the easiest, and wisdom is now the most universal, that's as far away as you can get from the starting point, right? Okay. But he says perhaps, because the knowledge of the first clause is even more difficult, right, huh? Okay. It's interesting that he argues from that because he's shown that the wise man in some way, you know, knows all things, and then that he knows things most difficult for men to know, and that he can follow from that, right? He doesn't have to go to the clause yet. It's so difficult here, right? And the most certain of sciences are those most of all about what comes first. Now why is that, right? Because you need to consider fewer things. Take the example whole and part, right? Which is easy to know a whole and part, or to know hydrogen and proton-neutron. You can't know many more things to know that, right, huh? By whole and part you can know what? Yeah. Yeah. In some sense the more universal is easier, right? It's more known to me that a whole is more than a part than it is that the, what, more certain than that hydrogen is more than, than that water, let's say, is more than hydrogen or more than oxygen or whatever it is, right? H2O they say, huh? And those from fewer things are more certain than those about, from addition, as arithmetic, than geometry, right? Now, I see this in my study of Euclid, which I got from a search insisting I go on about Euclid. I go to the county house here on Monday night, and there's some parishioner whose name is Euclid, huh? I said, I'd like to meet this guy, you know? And I brought up with him. And so one of the guys said, well, I know him. He said, he's in my neighborhood. He's a Filipino, he says. I said, I wonder how you got the name Euclid. I wonder how you got the name Euclid. I said, yeah, I'll meet this guy someday, you know? But in geometry, you see, if you take what's simplest in geometry is the point, right? And what's simplest in arithmetic is the one. Now, they're both indivisible, right? But the point has got position, which the one doesn't have, right? So you have to worry about the position, right? So if you have the three ones in the number three, you don't have to ask, are they in a straight line, or are they, you know, like a triangle, you know? No, they're not in, don't have any position, right? But in geometry, the points have to be in a straight line, or they have to be in a triangle or some other pattern, right? And so the geometry requires more things, right? Well, sometimes in Euclid's theorems, you need more than one case, they call it, right? Because the thing can be situated differently, right? And if you give a good addition like Heath, you know, you'll give a focus to somebody, you know, who distinguishes the cases, right? And they see that Euclid will take the most difficult case, and then leave the lesser, easier cases if you are, it's dumb goes, right, to figure out, right? And Aristotle does this sometimes, too, you know? But I suddenly say with the theorem, I'm not quite so sure, you know, do I have distinction cases here, or, you know, you know? And I realize it's not as certain as with Medicaid because of the fact that there's more things involved, even in the point, right, than in the one. And that's position, right, huh? Okay. Then you go from geometry, let's say, to... what? Natural science, right? Well, body has not only length and width, but it's got all kinds of other things, right? In addition to what you have in geometry, right? And so the more things you have to consider, the less certain you are. And you get into ethics or, you know, and into politics, right? Then you really got, what? You got too many things to consider, right? Okay? So it's kind of showing, right? Why it's more certain. And the science which considers causes is more fit for what? Teaching, huh? He's more able to teach the wise man. For those teach who give the causes of each thing, right? Now, what about this knowledge being what? For itself, right? And not for the sake of doing, right? Understanding and knowledge for the sake of themselves especially belong to the knowledge of the most what? Knowable. For the man who desires to know for itself will most desire what is most knowledge. And such is that of the most, what? Knowable. And most knowable are the first things and the causes. For other things are known through these and from them, but not these through what comes under them, right? This is a famous distinction Aristotle makes elsewhere that come up in the second book, you know, but comes up in the beginning of the physics too, right? That what is more known to us is less, what? Knowable. What's more knowable to us is less knowable. Okay? And you'll see this better when you get to the ninth book, you know, because Aristotle argued that act is more knowable than ability, right? So the more in act something is, the more it's what? Knowable. But things in motion sort of catch the eye and what not stir us. So as if motion is most known to us, right, but it's not most knowable because it's hardly there. It doesn't really exist, right? When does my walking home exist? Well, part of it's gone by and part of it is to come. What's there now? Any of my walking home in the now? What kind of thing is that? It's in the past and doesn't exist anymore. It's in the future. It doesn't exist yet. And in the now, it doesn't exist. How do you understand that? So the cause really explains the effect, doesn't it? The effect doesn't explain the cause. But we tend to know the effect before the cause. So what is more known to us is less knowable, right? It's a very profound thing as we leave it to the almost the last. And that is the chief science and more willing than the subordinate, which knows that for the sake of which each thing ought to be done. But this is the end, right? And the good of each. And as a whole, the best in all nature. I know what the best in all nature is. What's the best thing? Because that'd be most of all the end. From all the aforesaid, the name sought falls in the same science. For it is necessary that this looks at the first beginnings and causes. For one of the causes is the good, and that's the sake of which. But notice where the end is a cause, it's the cause of all the other causes, right? So sitting is what, what the carpenter was aiming at, something to sit on, right? And that's why he gives the back here a little bit of a, what, a tooth angle here, right? To the seat, right? It'd be made in a cute angle, it'd be, you know. It wouldn't be a successful chair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sitting is why he makes a chair, right? And it's because he makes a chair that the wood becomes the wood of a chair, and why the shape gets into it, right? But sitting is really the reason for everything, right? Because God is good we are, as Augustine says, right? And Aristotle will be saying the same thing, right? So this is still, in a sense, emphasizing most of all that wisdom is a knowledge of causes, and a knowledge of the first causes, okay? But we're also hinting that it's going to be a knowledge of the most universal too, right? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Dios, gracias. God, our enlightenment. God, help us to understand and love you. Guardian Angels, drink the lights of our minds, order and open our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Interesting, he's got the word understanding here, right? Okay? Now, let's recall a little bit what he did in the first, what, reading. What does he base himself upon, right? What he wants to say about wisdom. And just before we get into that for a second, would you distinguish between knowledge and wisdom? Okay. Well, how would you distinguish between the two? It's, you know, knowledge is the matter, the tools. Wisdom is the judgment as far as how to use it, how to put it together, how to understand it properly, how to understand it rightly. Yeah, but isn't that part of knowing? It is, but knowledge, I was thinking is, knowledge is, you know, the tools, but the wisdom is God's use of the tools. Doesn't Aristotle in the text here say that wisdom is knowledge, and that the wise man, you know, or he says, you know, leading up to it, that the man of art or science knows more than the man of experience. And he gives a very good reason why he knows more, because he knows the cause, right? And he's able to teach is a sign of it, right? Okay. It's a little bit like, you know, this distinction we make between, is loving and liking to be distinguished? Or is loving something liking it? At the risk of further embarrassing myself? Yeah. Loving includes liking, but liking doesn't necessarily include loving. Yeah, yeah. So it's a subset of liking. Now, to quote my daughter, really, you know, she says, I don't like this, I love it, you know? And the point is that loving is more intense thing than liking, right? So you could say loving is an intense liking, right? Okay. And therefore, you've got to be careful with those words, right? You know, as Aristotle says in the book on statistical reputations, the book on fallacies, right? The most common mistake is that of what? Equivocation, right? And so, in one sense, you would divide loving against liking, like in the words of my daughter there, right? But in another sense, you could, of the word liking, you could say in general, that loving is a kind of liking, right? See? And like in the categories there, when Aristotle, you know, will say that habit is a, what? Firm disposition, so that it comes under disposition, it is a disposition. In that case, it's not distinguished from it, right? Except general from the particular. And then you'll sometimes divide habit against a, what? Disposition, right? Because a disposition that's easily lost keeps the name disposition, but a firm, you know, thing that's ingrained and kind of natural, as Cicero says, right, is called a, what? Habit, right? So a habit is like a second nature, right? Okay? If I'm moody today or something, I'm a little depressed today or something, you know, that's not, you know, second nature to me, you see? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you've got to be careful there, right? When you distinguish disposition and habit, right? Or liking or loving, right? You've got to know what you're doing, right? And so likewise with knowledge and wisdom, right? So knowledge and wisdom, wisdom in some senses is some kind of knowledge, right? But it's the most, what? Perfect knowledge, the most complete knowledge, right? Okay? Now, Aristotle wants to talk in a premium, you know, among other things, among the goodness of what he's going to be concerned with in this book, right? And he begins by pointing out in the first paragraph, if you recall, that knowledge is something really good, right? And the sign he gives that something really good is that we naturally, what? Desire it, right? Okay? The good is what all want, right? And if something's naturally desired, then that's a very good sign that it's something really good, right? And then he starts to talk after that, right? About the order in our knowledge, right? We talk about the order in the natural road in our knowledge, the road from the senses into reason. And at the beginning of this road comes sensing itself, of course. And then after sensing comes memory, remembrance of what you have sensed, right? And then after memory comes experience, when you bring together many memories of the same kind of thing. And then finally out of memory comes some kind of knowledge of the universal. So when you see, you know, Minnie, you see your first dog, let's say, right? You say, you know, mummy says, mummy says, a dog, you know, it's a dog. And then the next day there's a dog in the yard too or something. You say, look at the dog, yeah? And then finally someday the little child says, mummy, there's a dog in the thing. And he's, you know, separated out what's common to his experience of dogs, and he now sees the universal, right? Okay. But then he brings out, what, the difference here between this universal knowledge and experience. And he's using the word art for this knowledge of universal. It's not art that's distinguished from science, but it's art. And so in the beginning of the first complete paragraph in page two there, he says, nevertheless, we think that knowing and understanding belong more to art than experience. And we hold that the artists are wiser than experience, right? So that wisdom follows knowledge and all, right? The idea that wisdom is a kind of knowledge, but the ultimate knowledge. And it gives a reason why we think the artist is, why isn't the man of experience. This is because they know why, huh? They know the cause, which the others do not. The experience know that it is so, but do not know why it is so, right? But these know why it is so and the, what, cause. So the idea is, you know, husbands know that their wives are upset about something, right? You know, from experience, if they do this or don't do this, they'll be in trouble, right? But, you know, why, why, why, why does that bother the woman, right? And sometimes, you know, you see on TV or something like that, another guy's psychologist there who just goes to explain why people are annoyed by this or are annoyed by that, right? And they look to the psychologist and say, in some way, why is it right? Because he knows the, what, universals, but more precisely because he's supposed to know or is thought to know why people are actually annoyed by this, right? The husband just really knows from experience that it is so, right? And he's devoid that, right? And the objection is that, well, everybody knows that. You can't demonstrate that. And the guy says, if you have an ass in the field and he's in this corner, the food and everything is not going to run down there and there. And then the answer to the objection was, well, yes, the ass knows it's the shortest list but he doesn't know why. Now he goes on in the next paragraph to speak of the man who not only knows the cause but knows the cause of the cause, right? So not only do we think that the man of art who knows the cause is wiser than the man of experience who really knows that it is so, but we also think that the chief artists about each thing are more honourable and know more and are wiser than the handicrafts men. because they know the cause of the things made, right? So the chief artist knows the cause of the cause. For the latter are like inanimate things. They do not know what they make. It's fire burns. And he gives a sign in the next paragraph. On the whole, the sign of knowing is the ability to teach, right? Now, the next one touches upon the universal again, as opposed to singular. Further, we think that no one of the senses is wisdom, although they are the chief ways of knowing singulars. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, your memory sometimes is, what, fallacious, right? And so you go back and look, right? And then you see, you know, that your memory was or was not correct, right? So the senses are more, what, definitive, right? They're more certain. But the senses don't say why it is so, right? How do you think, right? Okay, then the next paragraph, he says, It is probable that the first one finding any art beyond the senses common to all was admired by men, not only because of the things found were useful, but also as being wise and distinguished from, what, others. Now, he points out a distinction here among arts. Many arts having been found, some being for necessities, like the art of cooking, the art of farming, right? The art of carpentry, right? And some for passing the time pleasantly. And these would be like the poetic arts, right? Always the finders of the latter were considered wiser because their sciences are not for practical use. Now, that's especially true for the Greeks, right? Because, like Homer says, I mean, Plato says, Homer is the teacher of all the Greeks. You don't say some carpenter or some cook or some, you know? And even, we probably think of Shakespeare as being wiser than the carpenter or the cook, right? Once all these sciences haven't been built up, those sciences were found that are neither for pleasure nor for, what, necessities, huh? But Shakespeare said, we'll strive to please you every day, right? At the end of the epilogue there in the plays. And first in those places where men had leisure. Hence the mathematical sciences first began around Egypt. But there the priestly class was allowed leisure, huh? Okay, now he gives the conclusion here in the first reading. But that for the sake of which we have now made a discourse, right? And we learned some things that are very important to know. That all knowledge is good, right? And the order in the first road in our knowledge, the road from the senses into reason, right? But as far as the priming's purpose here, right? That for the sake of which we have now made a discourse is this. That all hold what is called wisdom to be about the first causes and beginnings, right? That comes out of what's been said before, right? If the man who knows the cause is wiser and more knowing than the man who just knows that it is so, well, wouldn't the man who knows the cause of the cause be considered even wiser? Okay, and therefore wisdom would have to be about the, what, first cause or beginnings, huh? Okay. So as has been said before, the experienced man seems to be wiser than any of those having mere sensation, right? So even the young person might have better senses than the old man, right? Doesn't have experience. Doesn't seem to be as wise, right? The artist seems wiser than the experienced man because he knows why, right? The chief artist and the handicrafts man. And even the looking sciences, huh? More than the, what, making. And then he kind of backtracks and says, thus it is clear that wisdom is about beginnings and causes, as if he hasn't shown us about the first causes, right? See how careful Aristotle is, right? And then he kind of takes up, you know, the question, okay, it's about beginnings and causes. Now let's say, let's say like we didn't know there was about the first causes. Let's say about what causes is it? So, since we seek such knowledge as thought to be considered in the beginning of the second reading, about what sort of causes and about what sort of beginnings is wisdom the, what, knowledge, huh? Perhaps, he says, philosophical modesty, as Thomas would say. It would become clearer if one took the thoughts we have about the wise man, right? And now Aristotle makes out a, what, six-part description of the wise man, right? Describes this in six things, huh? So see if we can enumerate those six things, huh? We think first that the wise man knows all things so far as possible, not having a knowledge of these in, what, particular, right? So he knows the, what, universal, right? Which covers a multitude of things, right? Now, let's talk about that for a moment, right? Because there's two kinds of universality that Aristotle is touching upon here, right? And one in Latin used to call it the universale in causando, universal cause, universal in causing, and then the universale in predicando, the universal that is said of many, right? Now, is there a connection between these two universals? Well, let me take a very simple example one to point out what the connection is. Suppose there is a kingdom, right? Where the king rules, right? The whole kingdom, right? And under the king, there is a general in charge of the whole army, right? General of the army, we'll call him. Now, who's the more universal cause, the king or the general of the army? Yeah, and the king commands the general of the army and says, you go to war, you don't go to war or something, right? Now, the causality of the general of the army extends to everyone who is a soldier, everyone of whom a soldier can be said, right? But the causality of the king extends to what? Every citizen, right? Okay. Now, which is more universal, citizen or soldier? In taking a simplified example here, right? Every soldier is a citizen, right? In a citizen army. But not every citizen is a what? Yeah. So the more fundamental, the cause of the cause here, right? Which is the king, right? Because he commands the general of the army, right? His causality extends to something that is said of more, right? It extends to all citizens. And the causality of the general of the army extends only to those that are, what? Soldiers, right? So, if the wise man knows all things in general, then the wise man in the fullest sense would be the man who knows what is said of all. How that corresponds to this being about the first gods. It's a different kind of causality, right? But they go together, right? Okay. If you want to understand the king's causality, you have to realize it extends to all citizens. If you want to understand the general's causality, it extends only to those citizens that are soldiers, right? So, later on in the fourth book of wisdom, a long way to go, but in the fourth book of wisdom, Aristotle said that wisdom is about being in one. Which is said of everything, right? Everything that is, in any way whatsoever, is a being in some way, right? It might be a real being, it might be a being just a reason, but it's a being, right? And so, it's interesting, right? That the first cause, which is the most universal in causality, right? That in some way that corresponds to that, what is most universal in being said of, right? Make sense? See? So, you've got to kind of stop and see how subtle there is here, right? The first thing he says about that, right? Okay? Do you call it a certain type of cause? No, no, I say, the, you know, in Latin, Thomas will speak of it as the universality in causando, the universal in causation, and then the universality in predicando. And you don't want to confuse those two, right? See? Now, if you want to confuse those two, you go to Hegel, right? Because Hegel works his way back to being, right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and which is the most universal thought that our mind has, right? And he tries to generate the whole reality from the most universal, and in some sense, the most imperfect thought, most confused thought, in a sense, of our mind, right? Where he's confusing the universal in what? Yeah, yeah. But to some extent, Plato did this too, right? With the so-called forms, right then? Because where we have a universal, in Predicando, right, he had an abstract, what, separate from matter, form from which these other things were partaking of it, right? So he was, to some extent, confusing the two, what, universalities, and that's a very serious, what, mistake, right? But when our weak mind wants to, you know, talk about the causality of the king, we'd have to explain, well, whom does he move, right? Well, he moves all the citizens in some way, right, huh? His causality extends to everyone of whom citizen can be said, which is the other kind of causality, right? So I take my example there of, you know, the general of the army of MacArthur, right? Well, now, the word general is like the word universal, right? But is MacArthur, or the general of the army, is he a set of everyone? Everyone in the army is MacArthur? No, he's an individual, right, whose command, whose causality extends to all these, what, soldiers, right, huh? So soldier can be said of all these people, right? But MacArthur cannot, right? So MacArthur is general in a different way in causality, right? He's not general in the way the soldier is, right? The king is general in a different way, right? Universal in a different way than citizen, right? Okay? The first cause is a general cause in a way different, right, than being in one are, right? So that's a very subtle thing, right? But nevertheless, there's a connection among them, right? So if we think the wise man knows everything in some way, now it's always just to say to class, and I'd say, now even the pejorative sense of wise guy, you know, what are you, a wise guy, you know it all? What do you, you heard that expression, haven't you? You're a wise guy, know it all? You know, that's how we say it, a wise guy, what are you, you know it all, right? See, well, that's what a wise guy is, he knows it all, right? So, see, and that would, why you'd say later on, that he's going to speak about the difficulty of it, right, huh? Then we think wise, the one who's able to know things difficult and not easy for a man to know, right? The sense is common to all, hence it is easy and nothing wise, right? So if I saw the tree out there, you'd say, oh, you're wise, I don't know. But now notice that there's something difficult about that, right, huh? But as we move from the senses, which is a starting point, you know, as we've seen in the, what, first reading, right? But it's not the most difficult thing. You know, the first cause is much more difficult to know. So those are two things he says about the wise man, huh? He knows all things in some way, right? But not in particular, right? He knows what is said of all things, and he knows things that are difficult for us to know, right? And the next two things he says, huh? We think wiser in every science the man who's more, what, certain and more able to teach the causes, right? Now, we've already manifested that he knows the causes, right, in the first reading. But the idea of being more certain, right, huh? You've got to be kind of careful about that, right? Because if it's difficult to know, how can it be more certain? Well, in knowing what's most universal, the wise man knows, what, the axioms, right? Aristotle discovered that the axioms are expressed in words that are equivocal by reason, right? And so in taking up being and one and so on, he distinguished the senses of the words, right? And the order of the words, right, huh? So he knows more distinctly than anybody else, right, the axioms, right? And they're the most certain of all. Now, another way he might have some certitude, that the surgeon comes to knowing the causes, right? But there's still a difficulty, and it's hard to be certain about the first cause, right, huh? Okay, so you've got to be kind of careful, right, huh? Okay, and it reminds me of the famous thing when Aristotle is in the premium to the Dianite, right, the three books about the soul. And he begins, a little bit like he begins here, he says, you know, holding as we do that all knowledge is good. I remember mentioning this one time in a talk there at the Trivium School, right? And one of the fathers, you know, the question pretty afterwards said, well, but this sex education is doing a lot of harm. And that's kind of objective. He's posing, right, huh? And he's saying, well, Aristotle is speaking as such, right, huh? But it can happen, right? That something as good as such can be what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he says, knowing how to make a bomb good? Well, it depends upon what your intentions are. Knowing how to shoot a gun, good. Well, once his name knew how to shoot the president, right, huh? And, you know. So is it knowledge as such is always good? That's what Aristotle is saying, right? Okay. Is bodily strength good? It's good to be strong. Okay. I mean, I may beat you up or something, right? You know? So it's not the knowledge as such, right? But it can, for archivines, right? So again, that distinction is hard for people to see, right? So I had to try to explain that to this gentleman, right? I mean, I agree with him that this education was doing a lot of harm, right? I always tell the story, you know, with the kids there when they were little, you know, going through the commandments. And I said, what's adultery, Daddy? So I didn't think it was appropriate to give a very explicit knowledge of what adultery was. So I said, I wanted to say something. He said, it's stealing somebody's mother or father. That sounds pretty bad, right? And it's true, right? He said, that's as far as I went, right? As much knowledge as was suitable for them at that time. But Aristotle then says, Although we hold that all knowledge is good, one knowledge is better than another, right? Either because we're knowing a better thing, right? Something that's better to know. Or because we're knowing it better. That is, with more assertitude, right? Okay? And so Aristotle gives two criteria, right? For saying that one knowledge is better than another. Either because it's more certain, right? More precise, as you may say. More assertitude. Or because it's about a better thing, right? And then he says, And for both of these reasons, we would say that the knowledge of the soul is better than most other knowledge, right? Because the soul is better than the body, right? And so on. And we have this assertitude that we have a soul that we're alive, right? We assertitude of our own inward experience of life. The fee books on the soul are based on in our common and inward experience of life, right? So in some sense, we're very sure, right? I think, therefore, I am, as Descartes says, right? We're very sure about those things. But there's a distinction that has to be seen here, right? Because Aristotle will go on to say that, later on, it's one of the most difficult things in the world to know what the soul is, right? So you say, Well, how can you be more certain then about these things, right? Well, the way in which, I mean, the knowledge of the soul is more certain than many other kinds of knowledge is because we all have this inward experience of life. And that's what assertitude is, right? See, we know we're alive, right? We know something about that just from our inward experience. But as to what the soul is, it's not so easy to know that, right? Well, it's something like that here, right? Those things will gradually unfold as book after book comes down, right? All right, huh? Okay. So, the man more certain and more able to teach the causes, right? Again, you have to lead into these things, right? I mean, suppose the doctor is examining you, right? He's kind of a general practitioner, right? He suspects this or that is wrong with you, but it's something that he doesn't have. So he calls in a specialist, right? Well, doesn't he think of the specialist as being wiser about this potential? Right? Yeah. So, he's more certain, you know? This doctor thinks you might have such and such a thing wrong with you, right? But he goes, why is he calling a specialist? Because the specialist will be more certain that you have or do not have it, right? Maybe good news or bad news, right? I was talking to Warren Rue last night, a friend of his, or a friend, I know the guy too, but just got, you know, got an incurable, what do you call it? Tumor. Tumor, yeah. The doctor said, you've got two months to live, right? So, he's a professor at Laval. He's a, well, he's retired now, really. But, uh, he's a linguist, right, huh? In case the guy who said, you know, that the English language is the greatest invention of the human mind, so, like me, but, but, uh, say a prayer for me if you think of it, you know? Sure. But, uh, but you're calling a specialist in these cases, right, huh? And, uh, good or bad news, right? Um, now, there's a famous text of Aristotle in the Parts of Animals, huh? Where he explains which of these criteria is better. Is it better to have a more certain knowledge or a knowledge of a better thing? And Aristotle argues that it's better to have a knowledge of a better thing, yeah? And he gives a very simple example, you know, uh, just as we would, what, prefer a glimpse of someone we love, you know, a long view of someone we, you know, particularly. Very certain knowledge. Yeah, yeah. 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