Logic (2016)
Lecture 28: Quality, Character, and the Continuous Foundation of Analogical Language

Transcript
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And therefore they say that it is the fourth species of quality, right? Because this configuratio, which a character expresses by its name, implies the unity of the figure, which is in the fourth, what, species of quality. And some say this figure is the cross of Christ. It said, Hoc dan potas stare. This can't stand up. That's a beautiful way to tell us. It said, Hoc dan potas. What's he doing to say? So, Hoc dan potas stare, right? Because either figure is taken, what, properly, right? Or metaphorically, right? If it's taken properly, thus it implies the termination of quantity, dimensial quantity, which means continuous quantity, right? Dimensional quantity, you might say. Which is clear, is not in the, what, soul, right? If, however, it's said metaphorically, right? Then it is necessary, right, that the metaphor be led back to something, what? Proper, not figurative speaking, right? Because the thing is not placed in a genus through that which it is said of it metaphorically, right? Just as it is not said that the, what, are in the genus of quality. Because it was said in Matthew 5, 14, you are the light of the world, right? Nor can it something in the fourth species be found that is in the soul, secundum proprietatem, right? Only metaphorically. Whence the character about which we speak cannot be founded upon quality of the fourth, what, species, huh? And therefore, some say that it is in the third species of quality. This doesn't seem to be much improvement. In that, what? Yeah. A certain sweetening, I guess, huh? Passion, huh? Insofar as it, what, ornates, huh? I like to say, and decorates the soul, right, huh? But this, again, cannot stand, huh? Because, as the philosopher proves in the seventh book of the physics, the third species of quality is not except in the sensible part of the soul, right? But a character by no one is placed in this part of the soul, but in the understanding part of the soul, right? Just like we say, you know, we speak of the will as being in the understanding part of the soul, right? Power. And moreover, these qualities are the third species of quality, always have an order to some bodily change, right, huh? Which they either produce, right, or by which they are, what, caused, huh? And therefore, others say that it's in the first species of quality, and it's kind of a middle between disposition and, what, habit, right, huh? Insofar as it's, with difficulty, change movable, it comes together with a habit. Insofar, however, it's not the ultimate perfection, but it disposes for grace, huh? It comes together with disposition, right, huh? But this cannot stand, huh? Because according to the philosopher in the second book of the ethics, a habit is that by which we have ourselves to passions, well or badly, right, huh? And universally, into one university considering, there appears this difference between habit and power. Because a power is that by which we are able to do something without qualification, right, huh? Habit lover, by which we are able to do that well or, what, badly, right, huh? Just as the understanding by which we consider, but by science by which we consider, what, well, right, huh? The cubist was that by which we have cubist senses, but temperance by which we do so well, right, huh? In temperance by which we do so badly, huh? And likewise is about disposition, because disposition is nothing other than a certain incomplete habit, huh? It's not stabilized yet, huh? Since therefore character is ordered to something simpichitare, not to that thing well or badly, because the priest can, what? Yeah, it means consecrate, right? Or it could be any of the sacraments. Yeah, yeah. He does them. Yeah. Bene valmale, right, huh? Okay. It cannot be that the quality upon which is founded, the relation of the character, be a habit, but more a what? Yeah. So, I guess, what is it? Is it, what the sacraments, the, the, baptism, you get a character, don't you? And then confirmation, holy orders. Yeah, I don't think you get for matrimony, I don't think. And you don't get to the Eucharist, because you're over and over again. And, and confession, you know, see? Yeah, yeah. So, um, the priest, by his consecration, has a power, right, huh? But that power doesn't show he's going to use it well or badly, right? He might use it to make money or something, right? Or to reward his, his, his, his nephews or something. So, okay. Whence it remains that it is not in the first species of quality, but it's more reduced to the second, as some others say, right, huh? And this, in this way, becomes clear. Just as if anything existing in some nature, there are some operations that are proper to it, huh? So, also, to those regenerated in the spiritual life, as Dionysius says, huh? Some operations. Wherever there are operations that are proper to something, private to it, you might say, it's necessary that there be, what, proper beginnings of those operations. Whence, just as in other things, there are natural powers or abilities for their proper operations or private operations. So, to those reborn to the spiritual life, they have certain powers according to which they are able to, what, do certain things, right, huh? Now, nothing says here, to the second it should be said that it's reduced to the second species of quality and is a different mode or way than the one which the philosopher there lays down, because that's what's a natural ability or inability, right? Because the philosopher did not know except the natural operations and not except the, what, natural powers, right? So, we were talking about the emphasis there, there's a word natural ability or inability, huh? But it stands for, among us, it's necessary to lay down that there are, what, spiritual powers as the power of, that's consecrating, I guess, can teach you in the, and then sin, absolving, and he is modi, and that these are reduced to the second species of quality, right? But you've got to be careful, there's no way to do counter, right, huh? No, not being reduced to them as natural powers, right? You know, but, like that. Just as the infused habits are in the same species of quality with the natural habits of the acquired ones, huh? Okay. You kind of saw this before, I think, the division of the chapter of quality here on the last page, huh? Divided into three, right, huh? I think I mentioned, didn't I, last time, about one thing that I picked up, at least in Thomas, from the, I guess, the first question of the disputed questions on potency. He gets a little more precise than he is, say, in the, I remember him, at least, in the fifth book of wisdom. And Aristotle, when Thomas is explaining these words equivocal by reason, that Aristotle is distinguishing the senses and wording them in the fifth book of wisdom, Thomas, you know, makes the famous statement that we name things as we know them. And then he alludes to the fact that our knowledge starts with our senses and goes forward from there, right, huh? Now, when he's talking about something very high in theology, the procession of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, and even before he gets into the details of the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit from processions, he asks, is there a procession in God? Is there a going forward in God, right? And so he's got to stop and talk about, well there are texts, you know, in Scripture, right, speaking of the Son proceeding from the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeding. Then Thomas makes an interesting point, and he says that he speaks as if our names equivocal by reason, as if they start from the continuous, right? And what is in the continuous? I think I mentioned that last time, didn't I? Did I? Yeah, you know, you don't take, you say, okay, the natural road is from the senses into reason, right? But do we really use the names of private sensibles, like red and green and so on, make them words equivocal by reason? They don't seem to be, they're too, yeah, and they're too immersed in the sense of all right, okay? But we do take names from the continuous, or what is in the continuous, huh? And Thomas emphasized that, huh? Well, Nick Connick was always fond of the word, equivocal word, in or to be in, right? Because he was teaching physics, you know, from the 1930s. And I told you, you know, he was having his course in place, right? He had a whole semester in place. And I remember coming down from the class, and I was standing in the hall there. He came up to me, he looked up at me, he's kind of a short man, he kind of says, isn't this wonderful, he was saying, you know? He was just a fill of the wonder, you know, more than even the whole class, right? He's been teaching the same thing since the 1930s, right? You know? And really, you know, he gets you interested in the text, you know? And, but what is that taken from, huh? It's taken the first sense of, you know, is to be in this room, right? To be in some place, right? And place, if you recall, in the chapter on quantity, it's a species of what? Quantity, of continuous quantity, right? So here's eight senses, right? You know? To be in place, to be a part in a whole, right? Huh? Genus in the species, species in the genus, and so on. Form in matter, right? Huh? The whole in its parts. I got you in my power, and I left my heart in San Francisco. Eight meanings of to be in, but they all start from what? The continuous, and from place in particular, right? Okay. That's just kind of marvelous, right? Huh? Okay. We had looked at the word, what, uh, before, right? And we'll meet again here in the text I give from before, the fundamental one is not from the fifth book of metaphysics. I think it should be the one in the categories, right? And therefore, Aristotle distinguishes the four central senses or chief senses of the word before, right? But the first meaning is what? Yeah. And time is given as a species of what? Continuous quantity there in the chapter one. That's interesting, right? Huh? Okay. And so, uh, Thomas talks about how, um, Puchesson, Puchessio comes from going forward, right? Which first names, they, what, change of place. But when I go forward to your place or my house, that's a continuous, what, motion, right? Huh? Unless I stop to get amber or something. Which is a good reason to stop. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, uh, so you first name it from continuous things, right? Huh? So you can see this in other words, too. Um, I was thinking, you know, about what is the first meaning of, uh, form, right? Huh? Yeah. Yeah. And that's something in the continuous, right? Huh? And then from there you go to, you know, other forms and eventually do substantial form and so on, right? But you start from the continuous, right? That's a really marvelous insight that Thomas had into those things, right? Huh? So it makes it a little more precise, you know, you start from the senses, right? But exactly what do you start to get these words, huh? So I was thinking about that. Now, uh, as you know, there are two definitions of the continuous, huh? And the one given in logic is, is that it's a quantity whose parts, right, meet at a common boundary, right? But there's another definition of continuous given in natural philosophy, which is that the continuous is that which is divisible forever, right? Now, you go to natural philosophy, Aristotle will talk about how, uh, magnitude and length and so on is divisible forever, right? And then motion, which is a proper natural philosophy, the motion down the line, right, or down the road is continuous, right? And the time it takes you to move down the road is continuous, right? So these three kind of, what, go together, right? Place, you know, and, uh, motion and time, right? That's why when Aristotle distinguishes the eight senses of in there, and the first sense is to be in place, right? Thomas says, well, didn't he leave out the sense of to be in time, you know? He said, well, that's laid alongside the first one, because place and time are extrinsic measures, huh? And so on, right? Okay. But again, alluding, you know, according to what you find out, when you talk about, uh, in the natural philosophy there, in the sixth book, you know, where he shows that magnitude and motion and over the magnitude and the time it takes are all divisible, what, forever, right? Now, you know, we've arguments, right? But I'm always struck by the fact that he, he, he kills too briefly on stone, right? With the fact that one guy moves faster than somebody else, right? But the faster guy, you know, covers the same distance in less time. Now the time is being divided. And at lesser time, the, what, the, the store guy would go less distance. So that's divisible, right? And then at lesser distance, he would have done at lesser time even the other, you know? But it's a marvelous way he shows it, huh? So I was thinking about this, right? And then I got thinking about Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? Reason is the ability for large discourse, looking before and after, right? And see, gee whiz, where does the word large come from? Yeah, yeah. And sometimes when I'm explaining what the word large means there, it has more meaning, I think, huh? But the first thing I'd like to bring out is that it's a discourse about the universal. The universal covers, you might say, a large area because it's said of what? Many, right? So when I say no odd numbers even, I'm covering how many odd numbers. Wow. I say to students, you know, uh, you know what something is? It's not, it's the opposite of nothing, right? Yeah. Okay. And everything is something, right? So you know everything in some way, don't you? Oh boy, I wouldn't tell my father that. But in some way, you know, something that is said of everything, right? Everything is something, isn't it? Even nothing is something in the mind. Okay. So large is taken from the first, uh, example, right? First kind of continuous, the what? Magnitude, right? Then discourse is taken from what? Running, yeah. Yeah. That's continuous too, right? See? And finally you get that to the discourse of reason, right? Oh, I see where you're going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, last night there, Aristotle, you know, in the text there, and he's distinguishing the powers of the soul, right? When he comes to the reason, right? Now, with the understanding, he has two words there at one point there. Nus, right? Now, which never is, you know, kind of an obscure word in some ways. Nus. The other word he has is dia nuetikon, right? So I think it kind of touches upon the idea of discourse, huh? And they, they, they, uh, compare it in the dictionary to latin, kuchitari, you know, and so on, which is kind of a sense of that. of discourse rather than of understanding, right? And interestingly, Aristotle does that, right? And then the definition continues with looking before and after, and before starts with time, right? So you have magnitude, motion over the magnitude, and then the time it takes to go down the magnitude, right? And large is taken from one, from the other. My goodness! He included it in all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How illuminating, you know, if you bring Thomas and Shakespeare together, you know, I can see Thomas, you know, expounding that. Well said, William. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, how beautiful that is, though, huh? How beautiful it is, huh? Did you see that, huh? You struck with that, huh? Now you see, when I go to talk about act and ability, right? And this is kind of the key, I think, to be doing God, and especially the substance of God, huh? Within the existence of God, right? And so on. And, um, Aristotle gets through distinguishing act and ability, right? Then he considers, in the third and last part of Book Nine, he considers the, what? Order of act and ability, right? And he points out, you know, how act is before ability in many ways, right? But part of that is, he says that although in the thing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act. It goes from ability to act or isn't something already in act, right? So if I put the water on to make tea in the morning, the water is able to be hot before it is hot. But it goes from being cold to being hot by the heat that we have on the stove, yeah. And so, simply speaking, act is before ability. And this is going to point to the way that the first being, right, is going to be an act or be really pure act, right? God is the first act, he's called sometimes by Thomas, right? But the first act is going to be pure act, right? And you say, okay. So this is, you know, when I was, you know, I'm a lazy son of a gun, so when I was learning, you know, how can you prove that God is simple, you know, how can you prove that God is unchanging, right? How can you prove that God is perfect, you know? Well, all of this and the fact that he's pure act, right? You say, I like that, huh? I'm killing you, I don't have to kill. I mean, he can bridge it with one stone, right? And you can see Thomas, he develops it in the Summa Camacentia. That's my favorite book, yeah, because he develops it more fully than he does in the Summa Theologiae. But, um, but Aristotle, in the ninth book, The Ability and Act and Ability, the ninth book of Wisdom, he points out that the first meaning of act is motion. See? There he goes, he continues again, right? He's really stuck on that. I tell you that when I was in Quebec there, you know, sometimes he'd go see one of these French movies, the movies are French, right? And, uh, as the joke was, you know, that, uh, if you go to a French comedy, you can't follow it because it goes too fast in the comedy. But if you get a sad, you know, love story or something like that, the words, you can follow it, you know, and try to work on your French a little bit, you know. But anyway, in those days, you still had the newsreel, right? You see? And, uh, we in the States, you would call it, what, the newsreel or something like that, right? And maybe this, before your time, you know. But, uh, but anyway, in Quebec, when the newsreel came on, right, they would say, Les Actualités! What's actual, you know, huh? But the news is what's going on, right? What's going on, right? You know? He would say to me, you know, what's new Berquist? I don't know, it seemed pretty old, but I was thinking, I don't know anything new. When Aristotle starts to distinguish, uh, act in general, right, huh? Kind of beautiful, the ninth book of wisdom is, you might expect, it's got three parts, right? In the first part, he talks about what? He distinguishes ability for motion. That's all he does in the first part. Different kinds of ability for motion, right? The active ability, the passive ability, right? The rational ability, the natural ability, right? You know? And, uh, and then, in the second part, he's going to, what? Distinguish other senses of act than motion, right? And one distinction that's very important is the distinction between motion and form. Motion, continuous, form is in the continuous, right? There's the meaning of form, right? So, um, gee, Thomas, you really, you really hit the nail on the head there in the, the thing, huh? And so, you're struck by that, huh? You know? That's so important to understand accurate built, yeah? But you have to realize that these words come from, what? They seem to come mainly from the continuous, right? Aristotle Begins, the fifth book of wisdom, the first word he takes up is beginning. beginning. What's the first meaning of beginning, right? Beginning of the, you know? Yeah. I was telling my students last night, you know, that curb is the beginning of my property, you know? And, but that's the first meaning, right? The point is the beginning of the line, right? The line is the beginning of the surface, you know? And the surface is the beginning of the body, right? That's the first meaning of beginning, right? And later on Aristotle takes up the word end, huh? What's the first end, huh? Well, there's the end of the table over there. If it begins here, and it ends over there, right? It doesn't go all the way down to you guys down there, right? This table, right? And, so, beginning and end, they both begin with something, what? In the continuous, right? Okay? Now, of course, if you take a point, a point is not continuous, but it's something in the continuous, right? Okay? And then, I was reading this book one time, it's called Apocalypse, right? God is kind of, you know, I am the Alpha and Omega, I think he just says it by itself first. And then there aren't nobody who says, I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. And finally he says, I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, right? And the same words that Aristotle uses, right? Arche and telos, huh? So, that's pretty important, right? As you know, Thomas, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first book is about God in himself, right? And the second book is about God as the beginning, and the third book is about God as the end, right? Okay? So, yeah, that's pretty good, pretty important to know what beginning and end mean, right? Is Bantona Masia, right? The beginning and the end. And you say, well, those words are equivocal, in the first meaning of beginning and end, in the continuous, right? And Aristotle moves it, you know, the second sense of beginning there is like, like the fundamental part of the thing, right? The foundation of the house, the beginning of the house, right? Then eventually he gets to a beginning that is not a part of or a limit of the thing, which is the beginning, right? And then you say, well, the father is the beginning of the son, right? Or the carpenter is the beginning of the table, right? In some sense, right? And you're getting closer to the sense of God and say, but beginning, right? He's not a beginning that he's the edge of things. He's not a beginning that he's a fundamental part of things, right? He's the foundation of the house, of the world. You might say, not forth he is, but strictly speaking, not the foundation, you know, the foundation of the house, right? But he's a beginning like the father is, or the carpenter is, right? The same way with, with, with end, right? I mean, the first sense of end would be the end of the magnitude, right? And then the second meaning would be the, the end of my motion, right? So I take a nice walk and I stop. That's the end of my motion. And the third meaning of the end is my, what? Intention, my purpose, huh? And the fourth sense of the end is definition. Kind of strange fourth sense, right? But Thomas says that we know a thing outwardly first, right? We gradually move inward, right? That's the end of our discourse, right? To know what we know what thing is, right? So what a beautiful beginning there Thomas has given us there in the, he may point out elsewhere, if I just happen to remember this, you know, this thing of the De Potencia, which is so powerful, right? You know, just in one article, one question right in there, right? You get such a powerful, what, beginning, right? The importance of understanding the continuous and what is in the continuous, right? And seeing how it lies at the basis of before and in and beginning and in and all kinds of words, you know, it's really impressive, huh? But Shakespeare's definition is magnificent because it has, you know, three different senses there, right, huh? This small talk, this large talk we're having, you see? That's another sense of large and small, right, huh? You see, American way of life. Well, now we're going to be more brief here at the next six categories, because Aristotle is kind of brief with him, right, huh? Now, you know, you'll find in editions, you know, like the Lobe edition, right, huh, that they kind of mistranslate, you know, sometimes they translate the categories of where and when by what, place and time, huh? Now, place and time were species of what? Continuous quantity, right? Well, that's kind of a bad translation, isn't it, huh? Now, Aristotle, in the anti-predicaments, right, he'd spoken to things that are named equivocally, right, things that are named univocally, right, and then he'd talked about things that are named denominatively, right? Well, it's in a way denominative speaking, right, that you talk about where and when, right, huh? Well, it's not really place and time, right, but to be in place or to be, what, in time, yeah. So they should be really translated where and when, right? And you're being, place and time are kind of extrinsic measures, right, huh? A cup of rice, you know, a cup of water, you know, and you kind of measure it, but the measuring cup is, what, outside, right, huh? You go and get a bottle of wine and they get it, what, 750 milliliters or something? Or you can get a one-and-a-half liter, right, last longer, but, or you get a, you know, yeah, yeah, barrel of wine, last even longer. But you're kind of being named from something, what, outside, right, yourself, right, huh? Okay. So for me to be a man is something intrinsic to me, isn't it? I'm not a dog or a cat, right, to the best of my knowledge. But for me to be, what, a geometer, because there's something in me, right, a little bit of knowledge of Euclid's elements and so on, or I'm a magician, right, and so on. Or I'm, what, five feet, eight, that's my height, I guess. One of the guys who comes and lose the night is six feet four. I said, I said, Richard, I said, oh, I'm telling you, six feet four. Well, I'm going to take a fight with you. I'm going to take a fight with you. I'm going to take a fight with you. But your size is something in you, isn't it? The size of your body, right? And even the relation is something in you towards, what, another, right? It has a foundation in you. If I'm taller than you or shorter than you, right, it's something in me, the reason of my size, right, towards you, right, though. But these last six ones are by reason of something. But outside, you say, well, how can you do that, right, huh? To be in this room, right, huh? So I make a joke about, you know, if you leave this room, you'll cease to be, right? But it's not going to be intrinsic ceasing to be. You'll cease to be in this room, right, huh? It's interesting, though. No, it's a little while ago where we were talking, though, about where would you put grace and where would you put the theological virtues, right? Faithful and charity, right? Where? I noticed that when you were talking about this, many times people refer you to their interior disposition. Yeah. I'm not in a place where I can do that now. That's a very complex question. I'm not in a place where I'm comfortable with that. Yeah. So you're making problems with them. You translate these where and when by what? Place and time, right, huh? Some of the species of quantity, right, huh? But here you're talking about kind of an exterior thing, right? So the inner surface of the wine bottle, right, is kind of the place, right, where the wine is contained, right? It's contained by the walls of the thing, huh? The milk carton, right? Plastic walls of where they are. So in the place itself, it's the quantities in the thing, right, huh? You see? Where and when. Now, what's the next species of these last six? The next genus, I should say. After where and when. Well, you get those last, huh? Position, yeah. Yeah. And position is given after where and when, right, huh? But position is referring to what here? Yeah. They can speak of it sometimes as the order of parts in place, right, huh? Okay. Now, if you're just thinking of the order of the parts in the man himself, right, huh? You see? That doesn't seem to be something outside of me, does it? But I just take the example, you know, of if I jump out of the airplane. You see? You see? My body's in the same position as it is now, right? You might say these parts, right, huh? Strapping down, huh? But am I standing? You see? No, right? Okay. Or if I crouch, as we say, right, huh? You know? Am I sitting? You know? See? To be sitting, I really got to really have a chair, right? I always make a joke when they say, you know, somebody comes to your house, you know, they're talking, you say, well, let's just sit down, you know? If he just crouches, I touch his side. He's crazy! You know? He doesn't, you know? He doesn't arrange his parts around, what? Yeah, something outside of him, right, huh? So I need a chair to sit down, right, huh? Another crouching would be very uncomfortable, I would find, right? Very shortly. Yeah. And, um, so when I'm standing, my parts are arranged, you know, my feet. But God has something outside me to be standing, right, huh? That's right. That's right.