I’m always ahead of the curve. That’s why, here in 2024, I’ve decided to start a podcast. I’m not doing this to conquer the world or imitate Joe Rogan. I am doing it as a vanity project, as a place for me to talk. Whatever audience comes, comes. Nevertheless, you might be interested.
If you like it, you could tell a friend.
(In which I show my origins in continental philosophy.)
Nothing as a metaphysical entity–what is nothing? Is it as simple as saying it’s not a thing? But that which says it is not a thing is a thing, so the nothing can only be referred to by a thing, by an entity. Nothing only ‘exists’ in the horizon of being. Why even say nothing?
The animals don’t have a category for “nothing”.
Nothing is experienced as a lack, as a privation of that which should be there. This is only possible for rational willing beings. Something that I desire is not there. Nothing is there!
There’s an old joke about Jean-Paul Sartre going to the café and being told that there’s no cream. Would he like his coffee with no sugar instead?
Think of nothing as a lack, an absence, a void, something missing. In that sense, the nothing nothings. Forgive me for lapsing into Heidegerrian speech! The nothing nothings, in that it breaks into your life and causes despair. What’s wrong? Nothing!
Nothing is happening quite a bit these days.
In the Commentary on the Metaphysics Aquinas drops another thought grenade, saying
“For the intelligible object and the intellect must be proportionate to each other and must belong to one and the same genus since the intellect and the intelligible object are one in actuality.”
The intelligible object, that is, the universal, is not a material thing. Think of your knowledge of the Pythagorean Theorem: is it a physical thing? Does it have atoms? Molecules? What is it made of? Certainly not anything material. And yet the mind, which, it is argued, is merely the brain, can know it.
What does “know” mean in this context? It means, according to Brother Thomas, that the mind and its object become unified. “One in actuality,” as he says it. The mind has to make real contact with the object, or there is no real knowledge.
The medievals and Aristotle thought that the mind was immaterial because it had to be for the possibility of knowledge.
Materialist objections: there isn’t anything that exists beyond the material world. Ok, fine, but this forecloses the possibility of knowledge in the sense that we used to understand it.
I’m with Aristotle on this one. Yes, the soul is the form of the body, and it doesn’t make a great deal of sense to think of it apart from the body. “We are our bodies” as Gabriel Marcel says. And yet, there is some power of the soul which is not bodily, and this is required because we can actually know things. How can this be? I don’t know. See On the Soul and tell me what you think.
I was reading Aquinas’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics and came across an interesting line in the prologue. He is attempting to determine what the highest science is, and drops this line:
We can discover which science this is and the sorts of things with which it is concerned by carefully examining the qualities of a good ruler; for just as men of superior intelligence are naturally the rulers and masters of others, whereas those of great physical strength and little intelligence are naturally slaves, as the Philosopher says in the aforementioned book, in a similar way that science which is intellectual in the highest degree should be naturally the ruler of others.
The order of the sciences is argued to be parallel to the proper order of a society, with the more intellectual ruling the less intellectual. While I don’t think he is wrong, I was struck by the casual way in which he said it. For Aquinas, it seems that the qualities of a good ruler were obvious.
It seems to me that we generally esteem someone who represents our interests much more than we esteem someone who is wise. In other words, a modern “good ruler” is one who defends my in-group and gives me what I want. Whatever my desires, that ruler needs to make sure I can satisfy them. Opposed to this is the notion of the statesman, as found in Plato and Aristotle, whose goal is the good of the people. The real good of the people, not the apparent good. It is such a ruler that is the proper model for first philosophy, not the demagogue or tyrant.
I remember as a grad student being floored by the straightforward comment of St. Thomas Aquinas that happiness is an activity. I know I should have figured this out from reading Nichomachean Ethics, but I was not very bright and it took me awhile to figure it out. Take a moment and think about what this means. Happiness, as the ancients believed and the best of the medievals followed, isn’t a feeling or a state of being. It’s not contentedness or satisfaction. It’s an activity, a doing, an energia in entelechia.
It is hard for English speakers to grok this since the word “happiness” means for us something of chance. It is related to the word “happen” and also to “mayhap”. If I happen to come across a $10 bill on the street, I am happy, because of the thing that happened to me. I am happeny. But this sort of thing is not really up to me. Chance is fickle. Fortune’s wheel may grind me to dust or lift me high. Either way it’s not my doing.
But if happiness is an activity, it’s something that I can do. I can make it “happen.” For Aristotle and Aquinas, it’s more than mindless activity or business. It’s an activity of the highest part of you devoted to the highest objects. Maybe to the Highest Object. Reason is the highest thing in the human soul, they assert, and if this is the case, we should use our reason on the highest things we are capable of. For Aristotle this is the contemplation of the first principle, and for Aquinas it’s the contemplation of the Christian God.
This is not relaxation or satisfaction, but a constant work of one’s life. If you take this seriously you aren’t going to sit around, Netflix and chill, and figure that you are happy. The pigs in the pen do as much. Rather you are going to strain yourself a bit to the highest things.
Will it be fun? Sure! Aquinas says somewhere that joy is what happens when you possess a sought-after good. The active life is the most joyful. But you don’t get to have cheap joy.
Feast Day
The wintry gusts roll through this little town
like cattle eager for some fresh new grass
Should wind attack my skin like this? –A frown.
Thanks be to God, the glory of this Mass.
A hint of fur, a nose of rosy red
her eyes peak out beneath the woolen cap
God bless you, sir! a holy day! she said.
And bless you too, hands fumbling in his lap
The Lord of Lords himself offered again
as many times for many He does often
forgiveness, joy, thanksgiving for all men
and women, hardened hearts He makes to soften
But oh your perfume wafts across the pew!
and all my prayers are only about you.