95. The Multiple Senses of 'Before' and Causation

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Four Senses of ‘Before’ #

1. Before in time: Temporal succession (e.g., yesterday before today, writing individual letters before a complete word)
2. Before in being: One thing can exist without another, but not vice versa (e.g., bricks before a brick wall; the letter C before the word ‘cat’)
3. Before in the discourse of reason: Logical or epistemological priority in human understanding
4. Before in goodness/perfection: What is better, more excellent, or superior in being

The Central Problem: Equivocation #

The most common mistake in philosophical thinking is confusing one sense of ‘before’ with another. One cannot validly reason that because something is before in one sense, it is therefore before in another sense. For example:

• Chaucer is before Shakespeare in time, but Shakespeare is before Chaucer in goodness/perfection
• Breathing is before philosophizing in the second sense (being), but philosophizing is before breathing in the fourth sense (goodness/perfection)

Application to the Soul’s Powers #

Thomas Aquinas uses the distinction of ‘before’ to resolve how one power of the soul can proceed from another while all powers emanate from the soul’s essence:

• In the order of perfection and nature: Understanding is before sensation (as end and more perfect cause)
• In the order of generation: Sensation is before understanding (as matter/subject that disposes for reason)
• These are not contradictory because they represent different kinds of causation

Key Arguments #

The Breathing vs. Philosophizing Debate #

Berquist’s Pedagogical Method:

• Asks students: “Which is better, to philosophize or to breathe?”
• Most students answer: breathing is better
• Their reasoning: If you’re not breathing, you can’t do anything else; you’ll be dead
• The error: Students show that breathing is before in being (second sense) but then conclude it is better (fourth sense)
• The correction: One cannot validly reason from one sense of ‘before’ to another

Strengthening the Argument:

• Students suggest: “The opposite of the worse is better”
• It is worse to lose breathing than to lose philosophizing
• Therefore, breathing should be better
• Berquist’s exception: When the lesser good is before in being, the loss of the lesser good is worse than the loss of the greater good, because the loss of the lesser entails the loss of the greater (but not vice versa)
• Example: Breathing is before philosophizing in being; losing breathing means losing philosophizing too, but losing philosophizing does not mean losing breathing

The Resolution:

• The purpose of life is not to breathe; rather, one breathes to live
• Just as one eats to live, not lives to eat
• Therefore, philosophizing (the end) is better than breathing (which serves the end)
• Breathing is more necessary (second sense) but not better (fourth sense)

The Theological Analogy: Faith, Hope, and Charity #

• Charity is the greatest of the three virtues (best in the fourth sense—perfection)
• But faith is before hope and charity in being (second sense)
• Loss of faith entails loss of hope and charity
• Therefore, the loss of faith is worse than the loss of charity, even though charity is better
• This demonstrates the importance of distinguishing senses of ‘before’

The Principle of the End #

• Universal principle: “The end is always better than what is for the sake of the end”
• Medicine is for the sake of health; therefore health is better
• Studying is for the sake of knowing; therefore knowing is better
• Applied to powers of the soul: sensation exists for the sake of understanding; therefore understanding is better
• When the same attribute belongs to two things, but to one because of the other, it belongs more to the cause (Thomas’s principle: propter quod quodque, et illud magis)

Important Definitions #

Cause and Its Multiple Senses #

Thomas distinguishes two primary ways the soul is a cause of its powers:

1. As an active principle and end (causa agens et finalis): More perfect than its effect
2. As a subject or matter (causa materialis): Less perfect, receptive of perfection from other causes

These different causal relationships ground different orders of ‘before’:

• The mover/end is before the effect in perfection
• The matter/subject is before in generation and the order of coming-to-be

Being vs. Necessity #

Berquist carefully distinguishes:

• More necessary (in being—second sense): Something cannot be lost without losing something else
• Better (in goodness—fourth sense): Something is superior in perfection and worth
• These are often confused but represent entirely different concepts

Examples & Illustrations #

Linguistic Examples #

The word ‘cat’:

• Writing the word letter by letter: C is before the word in both time and being
• Using a stamp to print the whole word at once: C is before the word in being but not in time
• Same letter, different senses of ‘before’

Shakespeare’s wordplay (in All’s Well That Ends Well):

• The Countess forces the doctor’s daughter to profess her love for the Count
• The daughter kneels “before the Countess” (spatially) and says “before you [in high heaven], I love your son”
• Shakespeare puns on ‘before’ in place versus ‘before’ in goodness and being loved

Exempla of Natural Causation #

Sweetness:

• Sweet belongs to both sugar and coffee
• To coffee, sweetness belongs because of the sugar
• Therefore, sugar is more sweet (the cause has the attribute more than the effect)

Heat:

• Hot is said of both fire and the surrounding air
• The air is hot because of the fire
• Therefore, fire is more hot than the air

Wetness:

• Wet belongs to both water and a dishcloth
• The dishcloth is wet because of water
• Therefore, water is more wet

Saltiness:

• Salt is said of both salt and French fries
• French fries are salty because of the salt added
• Therefore, salt is more salty

Sensory and Biological Examples #

Eyes and glasses:

• My eyes are not for the sake of my glasses; my glasses are for the sake of my eyes
• Therefore, eyes are better than glasses

Body and clothing:

• My body is not for the sake of my clothing; my clothing is for the sake of my body
• If it were reversed, humans would be like mannequins in department stores

Automobile and human:

• Am I here for the sake of getting my automobile to school?
• Or is the automobile there for the sake of getting me to school?
• The latter; therefore the human is better than the automobile

Mind and notebook:

• Is your mind for the sake of your notebook?
• Or is your notebook for the sake of your mind?
• The latter; therefore mind is better than notebook

Living and living well:

• Living well is better than merely living
• Yet one can live without living well
• One cannot live well without living
• Therefore living is before living well in being (second sense)
• But living well is before in perfection/goodness (fourth sense)

Historical Examples #

Socrates and the Athenians (Apology):

• The Athenians want to silence Socrates because he points out their unreasonable lives
• Socrates observes: if they kill him, they make him a martyr and his example will outlive them
• His unintended consequence illustrates the principle of caution in foresight (prudentia)
• 2,400 years later, we are still examining what was wrong with Athenian life through Plato’s writings
• Had Socrates died naturally, they could have simply forgotten him

MacArthur’s Incheon Landing (Korean War):

• The Incheon landing was militarily dangerous and strategically unconventional
• MacArthur’s insight: the enemy would not expect it and therefore would not defend it sufficiently
• He invoked the precedent of General Wolfe at Quebec (French and Indian War, 1754-1763)
• Wolfe found an unexpected route up the cliffs when the French expected him elsewhere
• This illustrates practical judgment (prudentia) involving multiple contingencies and unintended consequences

The Feuerbach Error: Equivocation with ‘Infinite’ #

The argument:

• Man’s mind is infinite (in the sense that he can always learn more; infinite potential)
• The infinite is God (in the sense of absolute perfection, lacking nothing)
• Therefore, man is God

The error:

• Potential infinity (always incomplete, always able to learn more) is confused with actual infinity (universally perfect, possessing all perfections)
• These are entirely different senses of ‘infinite’
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels accepted this confused argument and claimed: “We reject anyone who doesn’t admit the human mind is a high divinity”
• This demonstrates how equivocation is used to produce absurd conclusions

Notable Quotes #

“The most common mistake in thinking according to the father of logic [is equivocation]. You can’t reason from one sense of before to another sense of before.” — Berquist (emphasizing Aristotle’s identification of equivocation as the root of philosophical error)

“Which is better, to philosophize or to breathe? Well, nobody makes breathing their end, right? Even if they make eating their end. So therefore, breathing is for the sake of something else, that something else has to be better, right?” — Berquist (demonstrating how the principle of ends resolves the apparent dilemma)

“The end is always better than what is for the sake of the end.” — Berquist’s foundational principle (underlying the entire analysis)

“Two different senses of before, clearly there. Because it’s just the reverse. Chaucer is before Shakespeare in one sense. And in the reverse sense, Shakespeare is before Chaucer.” — Berquist (illustrating how the same pair can be ‘before’ in opposite senses depending on which sense is employed)

“Every respectable word in philosophy is a word that’s equivocal. But not by chance, equivocal by reason.” — Berquist (attributing to Aristotle the insight that philosophical vocabulary is necessarily multivalent)

“The sense is a certain deficient partaking of what understanding is.” — Thomas Aquinas (explaining why sensation is before understanding in generation but after in perfection)

Questions Addressed #

Central Question #

Q: How can something be simultaneously ‘before’ another thing and yet not ‘before’ it?

A: Because ‘before’ has multiple distinct senses. One can be before in time but not in goodness, before in being but not in necessity, before in logical discourse but not in perfection. These senses do not reduce to one another; distinguishing them is essential to avoiding equivocation.

The Breathing-Philosophizing Question #

Q: Is breathing better than philosophizing because we will die without it?

A: No. The fact that we cannot live without breathing shows that breathing is before philosophizing in being (second sense), not that it is better (fourth sense). Being necessary is different from being good. Philosophizing is the end, and breathing serves that end; therefore philosophizing is better. The mistake is reasoning from one sense of ‘before’ to another.

The Exception to “Opposite of Worse is Better” #

Q: If losing something is worse than losing something else, doesn’t that prove the first thing is better?

A: Not always. When a lesser good is before a greater good in being, the loss of the lesser entails the loss of the greater, making the loss of the lesser worse. But this does not make the lesser good better. Breathing is worse to lose than philosophizing precisely because breathing is the condition for philosophizing, not because breathing is better.

The Order of the Soul’s Powers #

Q: How can understanding be before sensation if sensation is necessary for acquiring knowledge?

A: Understanding is before sensation in the order of perfection and as a final cause (sensation exists for the sake of understanding). Sensation is before understanding in the order of generation and material causation (sensation disposes the soul to understanding). These represent different kinds of causation and are not contradictory.