Prima Pars
Lecture 165: The Logic of Names and Divine Signification

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It's just a frame of self-confidence to the man. Now, let's just think a little bit about names. This might seem to you as, this must be a come-down. We're just going to talk about names. But notice, as Augustine says, in the Our Father, he not only teaches us what to ask for, but what to desire and which desire they have. What's put before all the other petitions? How long did I name it? However you understand how long did I name, you can't get name out of it. And so that makes it an extremely important name. And I know when the Second Vatican Council revised the orderly revision of the Curitian of Indulgences, right? They singled out, in addition I have, the first edition, six litanies, right? One for all saints, one for Joseph, one for Mary, and three for Christ, right? One of them is the litanies of the Holy Name, right? And you may have heard this book of Dionysius, that Thomas seems to admire a lot. It's about the divine names, right? So the names are very important, right? Okay. Now, this is fundamental, the logic of names. In fact, the beginning of logic is really the logic of names. So the isogogia, as Thomas explains, genus, different species, part, and accident, can be taken as a complete division of the biblical name. I mentioned that before. Now, you've heard it said that two is often not enough, you need three. And the first great example that Aristotle is, it's in logic, but it's more explicit in the first book of Natural Hearing, where he says the change is between opposites, between contraries, and then he argues that the two contraries aren't enough to explain change. There must be a third thing, and that's the subject of the two contraries. But then he stops and says, three is enough, you know? Well, you can find many examples of this. But in understanding names, you have to have three things in mind. And that is what? The names signify things through... The names are vocal sounds, which relate to something sensible. And the first things we name are sensible things. But these thoughts are kind of hidden, right? And so just like you realize the change between contraries, and then, you know, more hidden is that third thing involved, right? Well, this third thing, right, the last thing, it's kind of hidden, right? Okay? But there are three things, therefore, right, to understand the names. Vocal sound itself, the thing it signifies, and that too much it signifies. Now, the best, the easiest sign that thoughts are involved is that you have names like, not just Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle, but names like man, and dog, and cat, of course. You have these universal names, right? And there's no man or dog, cat, but it's just this dog, this man, okay? So you can see that the thought is involved there, and these are names, right? Now, I'm going to look at something very universal about this, huh? I'm going to divide it into two. Now, one name can signify one thing through one thought. No big deal, right? So when I study geometry, I have a name like square, right? It signifies one thing, one particular figure, right? And through one thought, which is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, right? Okay? And if you have many names, right, the most obvious thing is you can have many names signifying many things through many thoughts. So I have the name square, I have the name circle, triangle, right? That many names signifying many things and through many thoughts, right? Those are kind of obvious, decent, right? Not that hard, I can't expect, but, okay? Now we get to the more complicated, right? Can one name signify many things through many thoughts? Is that possible? Well, like the word to see, right? To see can signify the act of the eye, right? And Hamlet says, I see my father now, you know, as if the ghost has appeared again. He says, in my mind's eye, right? Meaning his imagination. And my mother used to say, I see, said the blind man, but he couldn't see at all. Meaning he understands, right? So here the word to see signifies many things. The act of the eye, imagining, and understanding, right? But the thought is different in each case, isn't it? Don't have in mind exactly the same thought. And we actually have a name for this kind of name. What's the name? Equivocal. Yeah. Which then is subdivided to equivocal by chance, and equivocal by what? Reason. Reason, yeah. I was reading this in this little guidebook to England. But I don't know if this is the origin of the word sirloin. But St. James I was in Lancaster. He had a very nice piece of beef. A loin of beef, right? And he humorsly called it sirloin! So I'm going to check in that logic of each day and see if that's the origin. So, we call it, this name here has got a name. We call it an equivocal name, right? And sometimes it signifies many things or many thoughts by chance, right? Sometimes there's, like in the word to see, a connection. We call it equivocal by reason, right? We call it, right? We call it, right? I'm not going to go into that, you know, I'll spray that today, but, you know, I go into the distinction of the various ways a name becomes epilical by reason, right? Now, likewise, is it possible for many names, can they signify, instead of many things, one thing through one thought? Is that possible? Can many names signify one thing through one thought? Yeah. In fact, we have a name for these names, right? We call them synonyms, right? So, you know, when you translate from one language to another, right, you have many names, right, signifying the same thing, but through the same thought, as Aristotle says in the Peri-Hermeneus, right? The sound is different, right? So, what I call man, they call homo or something, right? Okay. And sometimes even the same language you have, right, drying up and desiccation, right? They signify the same thing, okay? They signify one thing through many thoughts. Now, I'll give you an example. Take geometry, they say it's easy science, right? So, Euclid defines a point as, which has no parts, and perhaps it could be more complete, but has position, right? Okay? It's kind of the definition of the point. But now, we also say that the point is the beginning of a line. We also say the point is the end of a line. And sometimes, you know, when a student, you know, would ask me, you know, the points really exist, and I'd say, well, aren't there bodies that don't go on forever? And then I get, you know, the idea is surface, right? And there is a, which has length and width, but no depth, right? And I say, does the surface go on forever? No. Then there's a line, right? Link without width. And then does the end of the line go on forever? No, it's got an end, so that's what the point is. Okay? So, here I have many thoughts of one and the same thing, right? The point is that which has no parts, but position only in the continuous, right? It's, I can also think of it as the beginning of a line, or the end of a line. I get three thoughts, one thing. See? So, I say, so, boy, I mean you're smart, huh? So, I use the word point, I signify one thing, two, three thoughts, okay? Take an example from what we made it, huh? Science of numbers. Euclid defines even number, right? As a number that can be divided to equal parts, right? Or a number that has a half. That's what we're saying, right? Okay? But then when he turns to odd number, he gives two definitions of odd number. It's a number that doesn't have a half, and it's a number that differs from an even number by one. And sometimes he reasons from that second definition, right? So, he has one name directly, you know, phrasing, place the name. Odd number, right? Signifying one thing, right? Through what? Two thoughts. Many thoughts, right? Okay? That's unusual, right? Okay? This is the most unusual cases so far, right? Let's take the example from logic, from the first book of logic that he is. It's a goal game, porphyry, right? Porphyry, you know, takes up genus first, and then he takes up, what, species, right? Then he takes up, what, difference, right? And he gives us a definition of difference, if you take it as a name. It's a name said with one meaning, right? Of many things, other in kind, signifying how they are what they are. So, like equilateral is said of many, what, kinds of quadrilateral, right? Like the rhombus and the, what, square, right? Okay? Signifying how they are what they are, right? Okay? But then he gives a couple other notions of difference. Difference is the name of what the species has in addition to the genus. And then he gives another notion of difference. A difference is a name separating species under the same genus. So, notice the differences of, say, square, equilateral, and right-angled. Equilateral is a name said, right? One meaning of many things other in kind, like square and what? And rhombus, yeah? And the right-angled is said of square and oblong, right? Said of many things other in kind, signifying how they are what they are, right? Okay? Genus says basically what they are, but the differences say how they are what they are, right? They're four-sided, you know, and so quadrilateral, but how they are. They're equal, and what's the angle they meet at, and so on. Okay? So, you've got three notions of what? Difference. See? So, I have one word, difference, signifying one thing through three different thoughts. When Aristotle takes up the continuous in the categories in the chapter and quantity, he defines the continuous as that whose parts meet at a common boundary, like the parts of the line meet at a point, parts of the, say, a circle, or two semicircles of a circle, they meet at a line, and the parts of the body meet at a, what? Circles, yeah. Okay? But then, when he gets into the sixth book of natural hearing, he recalls that definition that he gave in logic, but then he works out another definition of continuous, that which is divisible forever. Okay? So, here you have one word, continuous, signifying one thing, the continuous, through two, what? Definitions. Okay? One about how the parts come together, meet at a common boundary, and the other one in terms of how it's divisible into parts, and divisible, divisible, divisible forever, right? Okay? And when I reason out that our understanding is not a body, it's not something continuous, sometimes I reason because the parts of the definition don't meet at a common boundary, and sometimes I reason because thoughts are not divisible forever. So, I reason from both definitions to the not continuous, the mind being not continuous. So, that's a student example, right? Let's see. Next, I'll look over here. Can many names signify one thing through many, what? Thoughts. I want to take one more example of this thing here, it's kind of interesting. And Aristotle's talking about definition and demonstration in the second book of the Posture Analytics. And he says that a definition can be the beginning of a demonstration, the end of a demonstration, or a demonstration in a different order. Okay? And what he does is the demonstration itself, is he defines demonstration from its end, the first. And then he defines it from its matter. And he demonstrates the second definition from the first. Well, I can do that with definition, right? I can say definition is speech signifying what a thing is. Or speech... ...making known what a thing is, huh? And these are defined by its end, huh? I can say it's speech composed of the genus and differences of the species. And then I define it from its matter, right? So first I'll define the demonstration first from its end. It's a syllogism making us know the cause of that, which it is a cause, unlike otherwise. Later on, they'll say, say, what, syllogism from necessary premises and so on, right? And you say, I'll give you a second, basically, for the matter, right? So you can have two definitions of the same thing, right? So demonstration is a name signifying one thing through, what, two definitions, or you can combine the two through three different thoughts. Now, can many names signify one thing through... Let me make an example of that. Transcendental. Did you say, there's many things? Yes, yeah. Transcendental, yeah. Being in one. And I mentioned before, I was looking at the Parmenides there in Plato, the big dialogue on being in one, right? And kind of metaphysical dialogue in terms of the subject. But he's saying, you know, that being partakes of one, and the one partakes of being. Is it to be one and to be being are two different things, right? And so, if being is one, it must be partaking of the form of the one, right? And if the one has being, it must be partaking of that. And Aristotle will say, no, no, no, those aren't two things signified by, what, two names, right? But they're one and the same. That's how can that be? You know? How can that be? And Aristotle will show that it can be. And Thomas is more explicitly. That one means what? Undivided being, right? So it adds a negation. But a negation is a being of reason. So it adds nothing real to being, right? Yet it adds in thought. And that extremely subtle, right? Or a good means what? A desirable thing. But to be desired, is that something real in the thing? So I desire something, and because I desire it, we can say that it is desired. So that's a relation of reason. So that's very hard to understand, right? That's a really subtle case. Now perhaps you have another case of that in the third book of Natural Hearing, when Aristotle talks about acting upon and undergoing. So if I kick you, is my kicking you and your being kicked? Are they really two different things? But, you have two names here, kicking and being kicked. Signifying the same thing, but not by the same thought exactly, right? Because kicking is from me to you, and being kicked is in you from me. It's two different experiences as a being. I'm not talking about pain or something like that, right? And Aristotle argues that acting upon undergoing, we do the same thing as motion, right? So, I'm pushing the glass along, right? So, the glass is changing its place, right? But is the glass changing its place, and it's being pushed by me to two different things? Or is the glass changing its place, and my pushing it, two different things? Or is the glass changing its place, looking at the change in itself, right? And calling that pushing, is talking about what? The fact that it's from me to it. And it's being pushed that's in it from me. So maybe acting upon undergoing are what? Many names signifying the same thing, but two different five. Aristotle speaks as the road from Athens to Thebes, the road from Thebes to Athens, yeah. Or is the distance from A to B the same as the distance from B to A? It's probably not exactly the same, right? This is from A to B, and this is from B to A. So, two thoughts are the same thing, right? So, there can be many names signifying one thing through many thoughts, right? Now, crisscrossing these patterns, you've got two more possibilities to consider, right? But are there real possibilities, right? Now, you see, sometimes when you crisscross two different things, like if I crisscross man and woman and good and bad, right? Like at four squares, right? And I think there are good men in the world, not too many, but there are some. And there are good women in the world, right? And there are bad men, and there are bad, what? Women, huh? So you get four real possibilities. But if you crisscross, like when Aristotle does the parts of the plot, right? It's either before something or it's not before something. It's either after something or not after something. Well, if it's before and after, it's the middle. If it's before but not after, it's the beginning. If it's after but not before, it's the end. But is there a fourth one that's needed before nor after? That wouldn't be any part of the plot, wouldn't it? So it's not a real possibility, right? So sometimes you get, what, only three real things from crisscrossing to, you know, it's kind of, you know, amazing. I don't think there's something like that, right? But this is a real possibility. Can one name signify many things through one? Can one name signify many things through one thought? I'm not talking about the angelic mind or the divine mind. Who through one thought can understand many things distinctly, right? I've got to be careful here, because one name can be said of many things, right? Like animals instead of dog, cat, and horse, right? But are dog, cat, and horse three meanings of the word animal? So you don't want to confuse what a name signifies with what it can be said of, right? Animal signifies a living body that has senses. And when it's said of dog, that's what animal means. When it's said of cat, that's what animal means. So those are different kinds of animals, right? The word animal itself doesn't signify dog, cat, and horse. You know, a whole lot of meanings of it, too. So sometimes people get, you know, I know some people get mixed up, right? They think, well, animals can mean many things, dog, cat, horse. No. It has one meaning there, right? But it's said many things, right? But if I want to think about dog in particular, and cat, I've got to have, and horse, I've got to have three more thoughts. Okay? So is this a real possibility? Signify many things to one thought? No. No. In other words, three is enough again, right? With one name, taking into account these three things, right, that are found, you've got really maybe just three real possibilities. You have one name signifying one thing to one thought. And you have one name signifying many things to many thoughts, right? The biblical name, right? And then the odd, the oddest animal, right? Where the many, one, one, instead of that, you have one many, right? Now, what did Plato say or Socrates say? If I can find a man who can see a one and a many, I will walk in his... It's very important, right? You see a one and a many. This is a very unusual example of one and a many, right? So one name can, what, signify one thing through many thoughts, huh? That's a very interesting one and a many. But this one here, what they say in the angels, right, you know, from one thought they can see distinctly in things, but it's a different thought from our thoughts, huh? We need a new thought for anything to try and go distinctly. You kind of get a famous article on the calculus, you know, and it's saying how our mind is striving to back an angel, right? Because it's trying to define the polygon, let's say, as, what? The circle is a limit of polygons. You know, you have a circle like this, you have a square, right? And you're bicep, right? And you keep on seeing the circle. You never quite reach the circle, right? You divide forever, the continuance, right? But you're seeing the circle as a limit of the polygon, right? So you seem to be knowing the circle and the polygon together distinctly, right? And they're, in fact, one there reaches the other, right? You see their distinction. So this is, you know, we're not struck by this as a sign of our intellectual decadence, right? Our mind is striving to get an angel, right? It's trying to have in one thought a distinct knowledge of two things, right? It's trying to know two things distinctly by one thought. Because we really can't do that, but we're striving to do that, right? But God knows everything distinctly by one thought. The angel's got many thoughts, but we've got to have, we're at the bottom of the whole, you know, intellectual understanding. Some of us have been in a separate thought for everything non-distinctly. That's why we have this problem with specialization on this. And you can't get in there. Okay. What about the fourth possibly down here? Can many names signify what? Many. Many things by what? To one thought. Is that possible? Many names. Can many names signify many things by one thought? That's the same problem as up here. So that says no here. But down here. It'd be what? By one thought, you'd be knowing many things. I've got to be careful. You can say, when I know what an animal is, in a way I know dog, cat, horse, and elephant, but not distinctly, right? Strictly speaking, I know dog, cat, and horse only in ability, right? In potency. But I know actually it's animal in general, right? Simply speaking, I don't know dog, cat, horse, and what an animal is. Just like I know what an odd number is, I don't know all odd numbers, right? Except, you know, they couldn't quit, right? So these are not really possibilities. So again, you have three here, and three right here. Well, this is fundamental to the whole of our thinking, right? This kind of universal view of the logic of names. It started out seeing that you've got a few things involved, right? If you didn't realize that third thing there, right, then you wouldn't be able to see all these strange, especially strange possibilities, right? Now, let's look back over the whole study here of God. In question two of the Summa, right, those of you who were there for the ones where Thomas takes about the existence of God, right, huh? Okay? Now, what does he do there, right? He's trying to prove that God exists, right? And he's got five proofs that God exists, right? Okay? So he's trying to prove the existence of one thing, namely God, right? But the first proof shows it by showing that there is a what? Unmoved mover, right? Okay? The second way, by showing there's a first efficient clause, that is to say, a first maker, right, huh? The third proof by showing that there is a being necessary to be to itself. And the fourth one, that it's like a most perfect being, a most complete being, and so on. So, the word God there is signifying one thing, namely God, but to one thought or many thoughts, that he is the unmoved mover, that he's the first maker, that he's the being necessary to be to itself, right? I have many thoughts on one thing. So I have one name, can signify one thing, through many thoughts. When you go into the substance of God and so on, we say God is, what, simple, he's perfect, he's unlimited, he's unchanging, he's one, right? Okay? Now I have many names, not one name, right? But now are they signifying, are they many names signifying many things, through many thoughts? One thing, through many thoughts. There are many things, many names signifying what? One thing. One thing. Through many thoughts. Through? One thought? No? Through many thoughts. Yes. So it's this hot thing, right? Okay? And Thomas says that these are not, what, hot synonyms. Why? They signify the same thing. It's why aren't they synonyms. Yeah. To be synonyms, you have to signify what? Yeah. So when many names signify one thing, through one thought, then you have synonyms, right? But in these names, you have, what, many thoughts, right? So simple means what? The thought is not composed, not put together, right? Okay? Unchanging is a negation, not a composition, but a change, right? Okay? So the thought is not the same. You're not negating the same thing, right? I mean, you're knowing God negatively, right? But you're not negating the same thing. You see? When you say God is unchanging and God is eternal, are you saying exactly the same thing of God? No. So you've got many names that signify the same thing. I think that's the way St. George we're talking about. The changeable eternity of God and the eternal unchangingness, you know? So, you know, I mean, it's kind of good if you're doing it in a sense like that, right? Because you're saying that we do the same, what, thing, even though the thought is, like, different, right? So you speak of the perfect eternity of God, or the eternal perfection of God. So that's what you'll think, you know. I like to get the new justice thing. I'm interested in your medications. I'm interested in your righteous actions. So you see how important this is for the names that you have in theology, right? But, you know, unless I've got to order these from the one which is kind of the most obvious case, right? It doesn't need too much. You kind of expect one name to signify one thing through one thought, right? And that that's a possibility. And many names signify many things through many thoughts. Okay. That seems harmonious, right? But then you have, oh, that's one name signify many things through many thoughts. Well, that's a little more. Some of you want to go away with the pivotal words, you know. It's going to be difficult, right? And, you know, that's, in between the end, you know, that boy in there, you know, you probably read that story when he was teaching sacraments, right? Of course, in those days, you had the great authority of John of St. Thomas, right? And John of St. Thomas makes a mistake, really, of making the word sign be univocal. I mean, you know, separate names for each thought, right? And not have a separate name for each thing, right? Avoid those problems, you know? But the big reason why you can't do that. So this is a universal importance for philosophy and for theology. But I end up with this note here of how in the second question there, he's using one name, God. ...signify one thing, but it seems to have many what? Thoughts. That God is the unmoved ruler. In the Summa Conagintilis, he makes a separate argument for God's existence, that he's a pure act. He's proving that pure act exists, right? Because act is something before, built as our scholars show in the ninth book of wisdom. So, that's another thought of God, it's a pure act. And, uh, it's supposed to be proving that it to be itself exists, right? So, it is possible to have many thoughts of one thing, unifying that one name, right? The later on, it's other thoughts of one thing, right? Excuse me, Dr. Burk, I just want to check. So, out of those eight cases, it's just the fourth one that's invalid? Yeah, yeah. So, as I say, it's a little bit like I do with that simple example of before and after, right? Parts of the thing. The nurse always defined it, right? They say, something is before but not after. That's the beginning. Something is after but not before. Something is both before and after. And what is it that's neither before nor after? At least he realized that time he'd be a part of it. But, I used to be, you know. So, he's stuck in there, right? That's the fourth, then the eighth, right? He was asking, if this wouldn't do... Yeah, yeah, see, yeah, yeah. I'd say no for these two possibilities, right? That's an imitation of our mind, right? That we need a separate thought. But, you've got to be careful there not to mix up the fact that what a name signifies with what it's set up, right? It is not the same thing, right? It's like that other distinction we met between the meaning of a word and what it stands for. Are they the same thing? Because, when St. John says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was towards God, right? Well, you say you're towards something that you're not, but you're towards. So, therefore, the word is not God. Then Nixon says, and the word was God. How can he say that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the second statement of him, the word was towards God. God is standing for what? The father. Yeah. Now, is that, you know, is that another meaning of the word? God, you see? See, I think people would be apt to make that kind of mistake, right? If you understand that, you know, I've always been supposed to talk about supposition, right? But I think probably the best way to translate it into English is to say, stand for, right? Okay? So, you could say for me, for example, that I am the son of a man. If I'm the son of a man, then I'm not a man? This is one of the kinds of opposites, right? Relatives are one of the kinds of opposites. That's why nothing is a beginning of itself. Nothing is before or after itself, because he's a relative of a son. Beginning and after and before. So, if I'm the son of a man, then I'm not a man. Well, when you say, I'm the son of a man, man is standing for my father, you know, Victor Berkowitz. In that case, we say, I'm the father of a man. Well, a father is not what he's the father of. So, I'm the father of a man, so I'm not a man. No one's a father of himself, is he? So, if I'm the father of a man, then I'm not a man. You see that the sophists could get you into, you know? What's the proper answer to that, right? You got it? I mean, is a man there now, I mean, Paul Thomas Berkowitz, who's in Afghanistan, yeah? Or Marcus Dwayne Berkowitz, who's in Georgia? Is that what it means? No, but it's standing for one of those guys, right? It's got kind of a confused standing there, because it could stand for either one of my sons, you see? I mean, it's very soft, right? But people tend to, you know, want to make that stand for be another meaning of the word, and that's not the same thing. And likewise, the one I was pointing out here today, again, if a name is said of many, right? Well, those many could be meanings of the word if it's said of them equivocally. So, if seeing is said of the act of the eye, and imagining, and understanding, then in that case, seeing, the act of the eye, imagining, and understanding are three meanings of the word to see, right? But when animal is said of dog, and cat, and horse, it's said univocally, with the same meaning in mind in each case. That's what univocally means. So, dog, and cat, and horse are not three meanings of animal. But I know, you know, teaching all these years, that sometimes a student will temporarily at least mix that up, right? And say that, you know, what's an animal? What has meaning to mean? It could be a dog, cat, horse. Those have different meanings of the word animal, you see? And that kind of, you know, that's the corruption of modern logic in the way. They substitute class for universal. Because a class is really a multitude, right? If I get a class here, right, huh? Class can't be said of anyone that you are the class. That's by some kind of hyperbole. But I can say, you are a student. Student is universal. You are a student, all by yourself, and you are a student, you are a student, you are a student. But I'm not a class. 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