Logic (2016)
Lecture 10: Equivocal Terms by Reason and Theological Applications

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because that's obviously negation of perfect right i said does this escape the rule that we we know what god is not more than what he is well then i was thinking about that and then i said well how does he show that god is perfect well the middle term is the great middle term right for lazy people like me because you can show all these attributes from this one little term and what is that yeah but what is the word pure there's no no ability to be actualized right but it's been actualized no ability so it's negation right wow that's what i knew that'd be negation somewhere but in the other way attribute you've got a double negation right now you're showing from god is pure act to show that he's not composed right you look at the arguments right and uh you can show from god being pure act that he's infinite and so on right okay you can show from god being correct that he can't be moved right because motion is the act of what is able to be it's a part it's able to be but there's a negation in there right because we start off from these things down here and they're a mixture of act and ability right reason out that god is what the first being and so on then you realize that he has to be what pure act but that's after we've done the ninth book of wisdom right because after aristotle distinguishes ability and act in the first two parts then he shows the order right he looks before an actor right and then he says although although and the thing that goes from the ability to act ability is before act it goes from ability to act because of something already in act so my water for tea you know goes from being cold right being able to be hot therefore to actually being hot but because of something already actually not so some teacher there he says hot looks right from greek act is before ability and therefore the first being must be what pure act see and then all these other activities have got full in place but there's a negation there right you know the the the things we know are a mixture of act and ability but at one end there's pure ability the first matter if the other end there's pure act the universal division he's looking before and after and he shows the order of these things and in knowledge right in goodness and being right that act is accepted before ability and ability is known only by the act it's an ability for so act is before ability and knowledge right and the ability is for the sake of act so act is better it's before and goodness when there's four in the well let's let's review a bit of it huh thomas first distinguishes it doesn't distinguish into ten right away does it he distinguishes into how many three yeah okay now the first of these three is not subdivided right there's only one highest genus there right the second now is divided into what yeah but does he divided you might say immediately into three or he's divided into two and one absolute and what towards another right and then so that's a division into two right and then he divides the absolute into two so that's two divisions of what two right so he had a distinction of three and then the first of those three is not subdivided but then the second there's two divisions of two right and now he gets to the third right now and he divides that into what here two two the first four he speaks of against the last two right okay and the first and here the distinction he's making is the last two or what there's something in the subject right right the first four is holy outside right that's a distinction of two right and of course acting upon undergoing is the distinction of two right and then those four distinguishes them into what three and one right and so you have three that are tied up with an extrinsic measure right because an intrinsic measure would be the category of quantity or size yeah and then the one that is man right okay there's an affinity with those ones um you know that's why when you go to get clothes or shoes you you talk about the size right you know you try to get you know it's more like that so so how many divisions are together two or three are there okay i gotta i gotta you know we get i gotta see you know he say he first divides for 10 and then to what three the first one he doesn't subdivide it all so there's you know that one there right the second he divides into what two and one of those he subdivides right so you have two divisions there right and then the fourth he divides into two the four of the two right and the first one he divides into two divides one of them so he had into two okay let's put it into two right and then he has three and one two two right one here right i'll get you this one here too right this here this here and this here there's two here a division into three and a division into two he's following the rule of two or three right i notice when he divides um the substance of god into these five right he doesn't divide into two or three right which of course bothers me greatly of course if you read the text carefully you're going to see that he he ties up what the infinity with the perfection of god very clear when you get into the text right and then um when he takes up what one right it's connected with the simplicity of god so you get divided into god being unchanging and then his simplicity and what and unity and his perfection and infinity right he's being perfect and infinite huh it's interesting in the compendium of theology that he wrote for his his confessor and his servant there kind of his helper um the unity of god is part of the consideration simplicity of god and then he starts he actually takes up the infinity of god before his perfection right and talks about the infinity of god is not something like the material infinity which would be imperfect like aristotle says but it's titled perfection right so it kind of shows god being infinity before he's being perfect right just moments with the other so so confirmation of my you know fanaticism about two or three right the mind is a hard time understanding a division or distinction into more than three yeah It's interesting, too, you know, the way we divide sometimes by crisscrossing through divisions of two, right? It gives you four things, right? But sometimes that's a way of getting three, right? Because one of them is not real. So I take two examples there. One from Aristotle's book on the poetic art, where he's distinguishing the parts of a, what, plot? And he praises Homer for teaching other Greeks to say that a plot, a plot's unity is not being about one man, what happened to him, but it's about a course of action that has a beginning, a middle, and end. That's what the great Homer saw. He taught all the Greeks that's what it's got to be. Well, how you define those, right? Where Aristotle takes what? He takes two divisions into two. He says a part of the plot, it's either before another part, or before. And it's either after another part, it's another part. Now, isn't it clear to you, right? Because of, you know, it's a bit out of time, right? Any part of the plot is either before another part, or not before another part. It's got to be one or the other. And it's either after another part, or not after another part. Other alternatives, right? Okay, now we're going to crisscross them, right? Now, what's before another part, and after another part? Now, what's before another part, but not after another part? That's the beginning. Now, what is after another part, but not before another part? It's what is neither before another part, or after another part. Is that a real? So that's, that's, right, right? So Aristotle divides the plot into beginning, middle, and in the end, right? But you might say he's crisscrossing these things, right? And getting these three, and then realizing this is not one, right? Now, another example here, right? This is the beginning, you know, so you read, kind of, a film mythos before you're a philosopher, right? So this is an example from, the film mythos is going to be a question, right? Okay, now we go to the highest thing now, theology, right? And you say, the members of the blessed Trinity, right? How are they distinguished now? By relations of preceding, right? How many times of preceding, say, you proceed from another, or you do not proceed from another? And one yet, right? So a divine person either proceeds from another, or he does not proceed from another. He must be one of those, huh? And another proceeds from another, or another does not proceed from another, or another does not proceed from a verb. Oh, I didn't do it right here. I get my four boxes, right, huh? Okay. Now, who proceeds from another, or another does not proceed from another, or another does not proceed from him? The Father. That is the Father, right? Now, who proceeds from another, but another does not proceed from another? What? The Holy Spirit, yeah. Now, who neither proceeds from another, but another does not proceed from him? Well, if the divine persons are, what, distinguished, right, by the relation of what? Proceeding from, or another proceeding from him, relations of proceeding, this is, there's no possibility, right? So it can only be three persons, right? Well, it's the same way as the plot, right? So sometimes, by crisscrossing a division of affirming and negative, right, huh, you get four slots, but only three of them are, what, real, right? Now, in Aristotle, in the anti-pigments, what kind of a division did he have? Well, this is the way we, we can speak of one of the anti-pigments, right? Hmm. Now, you draw the shot here, and, what is said of another and exists in another? Universal accident. Exists in another, but is not said in another. Yeah, singular or individual, huh? What is said of another, but does not exist in another? And what does not exist in another, is not said in another? You or me? Singular substance, right? As you can see from those two that I did before, right, you don't want to leave out, like, you just assume that they're all real, right, huh, see? Well, is there such a thing as a singular substance? Get to know yourself. Know thyself, right? What am I? Oh, I'm singular. Yeah, I'm with these things, yeah. Yeah, yeah, okay. Is there such a thing as universal, is there such a thing as universal substance? Well, let's be careful now. Be careful. you might think there's a world of forms right now but we're in logic now right now okay and logic you know talks about things as they are in our mind right so do you have universal substances we talk about the cat and the dog right that's universal right that's the substance right but it's universal right instead of another one so dog instead of our friend down here who's trying to get in the lecture right okay so that's that's real right in the mind right okay in wisdom you'd say a little different but you know it's outside the mind right remember that distinction again right being in the mind right so universal substance is substance in the mind maybe not out in the real world there like take those man himself and dog himself and cat himself and so on right okay so we have that in our mind don't we man you know generally animal etc now uh singular accident huh there's some knowledge in my head right and that's my knowledge of geometry right that's singular accident right yeah my knowledge said i'm pretty healthy he doesn't agree that i turned to be an old man he said we can see you're an old man at 60 he says what do you mean i mean i've been an old man for 20 years i didn't know it he says you're pretty you're pretty you know he's pretty impressive my health you know so my knowledge right huh but then can't you think of knowledge in general right so geometry or something right okay distribution of my knowledge of geometry right so they're all real at least in the mind right they're all beings in the mind right so ah see that's they get these four now what order did aristotle enumerate them right he didn't take the one where both of these were affirmative right one where yeah that being a substance right he takes one where one of these is affirmed one negated right and he does those two first right and then he takes the one where both are negated or both are affirmed right why does why does the master do that well because he doesn't want you to confuse said of another and exist another method that's kind of the same thing right they're kind of similar aren't they right instead of another exist another right you know yeah it's both of them you know like your kind of synonyms right but this is sort of another but it doesn't exist in another and this exists another but it's not sort of another then to exist in another instead of another quite two different things right and maybe aristotle would say you know look perquis you dummy why just start talking about uh the middle first right because that's before something and after something right why don't you take something that's before something and not after anything and something this after something but not before anything and then find the one that's both see then you'd be doing like i was doing there in the anti-pregnance right you dummy burgers you know i'd say well my teacher told me that compared to aristotle i got the brain of an eggworm right so but i've been enlightened by you more can you ask for aristotle but there's other examples i gave you you know when you crisscross two divisions from the negative you get only three real so we say possibilities right but still it's a rigor of the mind there right to see those four combinations you get right and then examine this four and see hey you're all real you know is it really a part of the of the drama that's not before anything or after anything we'll be part of we stood there right no you really remember the blessed trinity that is neither proceeding from anyone or does anyone proceed from him he's kind of a loner yeah he's kind of over by himself there you know the god of solipsis yeah yeah so would you agree that thomas has followed the rule of two or three right coming those ten but aristotle just gives you the ten there right now but maybe in his lectures in class he he might have done that but uh i mentioned that place you know you know the beautiful uh equivocal word by reason the word in or to be in and aristotle in the text that we have it just gives the aid to what senses and he doesn't what order them right well as you see in the categories to get to the chapter on before that i gave you before with the with the um shakespeare's excitation right and what does it mean to look before and after right aristotle not only distinguishes the main senses but he gives the order right now on the text we have in the fourth book of the physics aristotle doesn't uh order the eight senses right although he indicates that to be in places the first one right and uh thomas then what orders them perfectly right now now what kind of a word equivocal by reason is before right how does this word become equivocal by reason and i i spoken about that you know the different ways in which a word becomes equivocal by reason and aristotle says you know in the uh politics i guess other places that the man who sees how something you know comes to be you know will get a clear view of it right well how does the word become equivocal by reason well i can think of at least three different ways that a word becomes equivocal by reason sometimes a word that is said of two or more things with more or less the same meaning right is kept by one of them as its own name and the other one has to get its new name and now the word has two meanings right you say that's kind of a strange thing to do isn't it well there's a couple ways in which this takes place right sometimes one of the two things that it's said of right has nothing noteworthy in addition to that what common name while the other one has something very much noteworthy right so sometimes we say animal of man and dog and cat without insulting man right other times we distinguish man against the animals don't we my mother was shocked when i call man an animal but notice as i applied to my mother well he's not just an animal see so the animal that is just an animal meaning he has nothing noteworthy in addition to being a living body with senses and so on he keeps the name animal as his own now right you give me a new name man why because i've got something really noteworthy in addition to what the animal has i've got universal reason and will right wow so give me a new name and call me man right okay you'll see aristotle when he talks about habit and disposition in the category of quality right but sometimes he'll distinguish between habit and disposition right but he'll call sometimes habit a what firm disposition right where disposition is easily lost keeps the name disposition as its own name right and habit has something noteworthy right habit you know you really got a good or a bad habit probably a bad habit habit you know you really got a bad habit you know you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit you got a bad habit You're kind of stuck with this habit, right? So, but now the other way is that sometimes one of the two things keeps the common name because it fully or perfectly has the common meaning and the other has imperfectly, right? So if someone says to me, you know, if a little kid calls a kitten a puppy, I say, no, no, that's not a puppy. A puppy is a dog. And a kitten is a cat, okay? But sometimes we distinguish between a kitten and a cat and a puppy and a dog, right? Because a cat is a fully developed cat, right? And a kitten is an immature and not fully developed, right? You can fool a little kitten more easily than a cat. A cat is no more shell. In the same way, you might say that a boy is a man and a girl is a woman. And another time, you might distinguish a boy as a man, right? He's only a boy, you know? He's still a girl. I found a woman who liked to be called girls, you know? Men don't like to be called boys, you know? My mother used to have, you know, she was, you know, the parish station would read scripture or something. You knew some kind of spiritual reading or thing, you know? And I said, the girls coming in today, and they'd like to be called the girls, right? I noticed that, you know? See, why would my students say, when, you know, my men's students coming to the house, I wouldn't say, you know, the boys here tonight, say, gentlemen, you know, gentlemen. I call them gentlemen. But those are two ways, huh? Aristotle calls wisdom theology, you know that? Now, we usually distinguish between, what, philosophy and theology, right? And between what Aristotle also calls at first philosophy, right? Well, now, does the word theology become equivocal? In one case, you say, philosophy is not theology, you know? And, you know, when I was teaching in college, we had a philosophy department and a theology department, let's see. But Aristotle calls philosophy theology, right? So philosophy, theology is a knowledge of God. Well, Aristotle is a knowledge of God, you know? But we feel theology is a much more perfect knowledge of God, right? Much fuller, right? It's not just the goal of theology. It's a very subject of theology, right? But it's subject to first philosophy as being. He's dividing, right? And so, revealed theology keeps the name theology, right? And then we distinguish the other and call it first philosophy or maybe wisdom. Even wisdom is more said of theology, right? Revealed theology than, but Thomas gives, you know, wisdom as a synonym for philosophy, right? But I take the word theology there, right? So, it is more fully what is meant by theology, right? Knowledge of God, right? Those are the two ways. Aristotle, when he talks about property and definition, right? Well, property is speech that is convertible with the thing, right? So, definition is a property in that sense, right? But speech that is convertible with the thing, sometimes, although being convertible with the thing, it doesn't bring out what it is for me, right? So, we'll give that a new name and call it a definition, and then we'll call it the other thing a, what? You see the idea? So, Aristotle says it explicitly, right? In the book on the places, huh? So, those two ways come under one way, right? That when a name is said with the same meaning of two things, right, or more, sometimes it's kept by one of them, right, as its own name, and then the other one gets a new name, right? But it takes place in these two ways, right? So, now the word becomes, what? Equivocal. So, you know, they sometimes say, Thomas, I have an article, I think I'm down to Summa, even, doesn't he, where he says that man's understanding is his reason. Understanding is the name of his power, right? The power to understand, right? But then sometimes they say, yeah, but man doesn't understand very well. And he has to go with a lot of reasoning and thinking about a thing, and he gets a little bit of understanding, you know? So, let's keep the name Intellectus, right? Understanding. For what an angel has, right? What my grand angel has, right? Or what God has, right? And the mind is full of forms, as Dionysius says, right? You know? You know? My son Marcus there, you know? Why do we have to run all these things? Why can't we just be born knowing everything we need to know? I said, you want to be an angel rather than a human being, you know? It's disgusting. Yeah. So, what do you get called? So, they call, sometimes they say, man has got an Intellectus Abum Bratus. Which means, say what? Cloudy, overclouded, darkened understanding. You know? It's almost like, it sounds like it's all said. But, so, we're going to give, we're going to let the angels keep the name understanding for what they have. And we'll give, man, I don't need to reason. You've got to try to reason out things and get a little bit of understanding. You know? You see what I mean? So, I mean, this runs through all of our things. And people get, you know, confused because they don't realize that this is one way that name becomes equivocal. Now, another way, right? And then it becomes equivocal is by what? Dropping out part of its meaning. So, when Aristotle talks about the sensing, right? He takes the Greek word, you know, for understanding, right? For passio, right? Okay? And that first meaning is something bad, right? It's being acted upon in a way that's harmful to you, right? Now, why is that the first meaning of, well, when I take a pin, I'm sticking you with this pin, you know? Torturing you, you know? You know? It's extremely clear to you that you've been acted upon, right? You know? Okay? When I walk around the room and I bump into something, and, oh, okay, oh, okay, I'm very much sure that I'm undergoing something, right? That I've been acted upon, right? And if I've got a broken arm or a leg or something, you know, as a result of this collision, you know, I very much know that I've been acted upon. But, um, when I, what, hear something, isn't the sound of Mozart's music acting upon my ear? But it's a beautiful sound, right? It's perfecting my ear, you know, in a noble object like this, huh? Carpego motet, as John Paul II said about Mozart's habea vera corpus, right? So I'm dropping out the idea of, what, you're receiving something, right, but not in a way that's contrary to your nature. It seems to be very much in accordance with the nature of my ear, right? As I often say, no one knew how beautiful a woman's voice could be until Mozart got a, what, aria for it, right? And we have some of these, you know, singers, you know, besides their wits, but the beauty of the aria that Mozart has given them to sing, and they're going to come up, and everybody's going to be, oh, you know, you're hoping to be going crazy about these things, you know, huh? You know, you know? We seem to have a lot of talent in our era series, you know, the women singers, right? And singers from the masses, you know, and even, you know, some of the girls here in high school, right? And I have to go up there and say, you know, where'd you get this? But, I mean, you sing Mozart, you know, how beautiful his voice is. So this is the way that you, what, you drop out part of the meaning of it and kind of generalize it, right? You see? So Aristotle takes the word undergoing in the bad sense, right, and drops out the, you see? And then says his sensing is undergoing, but it's still undergoing in the body, right? And finally it carries it over and even drops the body, and the mind undergoes something. what it understands, right? It's acted upon, right? By the age and intellect, right? That's a beautiful way, right? Now, another example of this is the word row, right? I said to my son, Paul, when he was a little boy there, he was going to find him with the first toy car I bought him, and he didn't know what to do with it, you know. So I got down on the floor and I said, vroom, vroom, vroom, and oh boy, vroom, vroom. So I said to him one day, Paul, what do you think of the basic road in human knowledge? He says, there are cars and trucks on it, he says. So he stuck on the first meaning of road, right? But when I carry the word road over and speak of the first road in our knowledge and the private road of each science and the road of reason and so on, I drop out the stone or cement or tar, whatever it is that the road is made out of, but I keep the idea of a before and after, you know, see? So what is a road in our knowledge, right? It's a before and after in our knowledge, huh? So what dropped out part of the meaning of road, right? The concrete meaning, take a pun on that, right? But I keep something of the idea of road, huh? What's the physicist there, Eddington, you know, new pathways in science, you know? So that's a second way, right? The word becomes equivocal by reason, huh? Now, a third way is by a ratio or ratios, right? So sometimes a name, right, that is said of one thing is carried over to another, right? By reason of the ratio of the second thing, right, that it has to the first thing, right? So philosophy is a knowledge that a lover of wisdom would pursue, right? Well, is logic a knowledge that a lover of wisdom would pursue? Hmm, it's a necessity, right, huh? So logic is really the tool of philosophy, right, huh? Bah, it's got connection there with philosophy, right? It's not philosophy, but the tool of philosophy. Well, couldn't we call it the tool of philosophy? It's a little different sense, right? Okay. So the name is carried over from the first thing to the second thing. The reason of the ratio of the second thing has to be what? First, huh? But now the most interesting name to equivocal by reason is where there's a likeness of ratios, right? And that seems to be what's going on there with the word before, right? And, you know, especially if you look at the way you go from the second sense of before and after, which is in being, right? If this can be without that, but that can't be without this, then this is said to be before that in being, right? Now, if this can be known without knowing that, but you can't know that without knowing this, then this more known is before the less known, right? You see, it's like that, right? It's proportional, right? Now, it's not as easy a proportion like four is to six is two is to three, right? But you can say, you know, what can be without another is to what cannot be without it. You see that, right? Yeah. So it's carried over, right, huh? And those eight senses of in, right, stuck in the poor, the poor, the poor, poor brother Jerome there in the Benedictine, right? And the eight senses of in there, right? So I came to the class the other day and the eight senses stole the board there, you know, because nobody raises them. You put her on up in the morning, you have to raise her on up and write something else. But there it seems to me, it's something like that, huh? You're being carried over, right, huh? I am in this room, huh? My teeth are in my mouth, so to speak. It's kind of similar, right, huh? You see? There's a little difference there because my teeth are attached to the inside of my mouth, right? If I'm not really attached to this room, you know, I can move quickly out of the room if I have to. If someone loosens one of my teeth for me, a nice blow in the jaw or something, then it would be in there just in a place, right, huh? I see. There's this kind of a likeness of ratios, huh? This is another way, right? Either by, what, the ratio of one to another or by a likeness of ratios, huh? Which we call a, what, proportion, right? So we talk about a substantial form, right, huh? The word form is what? We really meant maybe the shape of an object, right? And it's in proportion, right? Act and ability there, right? So act is known by portion, huh? I'm not walking now, but I'm able to be walking now, right? When I go from the ability to walk to actually walking, right? Or the wood is able to be a, what, chair, but it's not actually a chair until it gets its, what, form. Well, form is like walking in that sense, in proportion, isn't it? I'm able to walk, but I'm not walking until I actually start walking, right? The wood is able to be a chair, but it's not a chair until it actually has the, what, form, yeah. Oh, yeah, okay. Well, we can call the form, then, the act of the wood, right? Knowing something is the act of my ability to know, right? But it's a little different sense, isn't it, right? There's something proportional about that, right? Aristotle says that act cannot be defined as the first thing known. The first thing is known, and they're known without definition, right? But you come to know or understand act by seeing this likeness of ratios, right? Yeah, yeah, it's known by, Aristotle says in the first book of the natural hearing, that the first matter is known by seeing a proportion, right? And, let's say, the first matter is to man and dog, as the clay is to sphere and cube, let's say, right? Well, this cube is able to be a sphere and a cube, but not at the same time. And when it's actually a sphere, it's able to be a cube, right? And if it became a cube, it would cease to be a sphere, right? Well, the matter is able to be a man or a dog, right? But when the dog eats the man, then the man becomes a dog, right? So, it can't be both a man and a dog at the same time, right? So, it's a likeness of what? Proportion, right? But since man and dog are these fundamental things called substances, right? Why sphere and cube are something in the character of equality. You can say that the first matter, then, is pure, what? Ability, right? This is interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know these things by a likeness of ratios, right? An amazing thing to see. Aristotle says, you know, that in talking about metaphor, you know, the best metaphors are based on a, you know, likeness of ratios, huh? And just like the similarities, you know. Like is the way is made towards the pebble shore. So do our men hasten to the end, right? I mean, the likenesses are things that are further apart, right? You know, you've got to be careful with them, right? You know, you've got to be careful with them. You've got to be careful with them. You've got to be careful with them. You've got to be careful with them.