Reason Knowing Itself: The Distinction of Distinction and the Fallacy of 'Simply' and 'Somewhat' (Induction, Rhetoric, Descartes, Hegel, Certainty vs. Dignity of Knowledge)

Orientation #

He says this is “kind of a conclusion here to our study of logic,” and that “right now we’re talking about the fallacies.” The previous class treated the fallacy of accident and the simpliciter/secundum quid distinction; the next takes up potency and act in Metaphysics IX and the same simply/in-some-respect error. Verified sources indicate the class reads from two handout pages, “Foreword to Logic” p. 2 and “Reasoning and the Four Kinds of Argument” p. 2 (about ten minutes each).

The class, in order #

1. “Know thyself” is addressed to reason (“Gnothi Sauton Know thyself”) #

Point: the Delphic saying is addressed to reason, and this is reflected in logic, which studies its own tools.

1. Not addressed to God (he knows himself naturally and all else through himself), nor to angels (they know themselves first, naturally), nor to dog or cat (they cannot know themselves): so to man.
2. More precisely, to what part of man? Eye cannot know what an eye is, hand what a hand is; only reason knows itself.
3. Reflection in logic: there is a definition of square, of soul, of tragedy, and also a definition of definition; a division of division (division = distinction of the parts of a whole, divided into division of a composed whole and of a universal whole). Shakespeare’s definition of reason (seen earlier) is reason knowing what reason is.
4. Since division and definition are both distinction, the question arises: what is the distinction of distinction?

2. The distinction of distinction: material and formal (“what is the distinction of distinction”) #

Point: distinction divides into material (by division of the continuous) and formal (by opposites), a division he takes from Thomas’s treatment of the Trinity.

• Material distinction: from division of the continuous, e.g. an apple pie cut into six slices, a circle cut into two semicircles. Touched on in the Categories chapter on quantity; even number arises from division of the continuous; you and I are distinct this way, “there’s enough flesh to go around to make up six bodies.”
• Formal distinction: distinction by opposites.
• Thomas on the Trinity, “in a very logical way”: (1) no material distinction of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, since nothing continuous in God (not a body; measured by eternity, not time); (2) yet there must be some distinction, since it is heretical to say they are merely different names of one person or different things he does (as “philosopher” and “grandfather” are of him); (3) so it is formal, and he goes to the four kinds of opposites of the first postpredicament: not being/non-being (God is “I am who I am”), not privation/having (privation is a kind of non-being), not contraries (involves a lack in one of the pair plus a difference of form, giving two gods); so by relatives — “and maybe father and son suggests that too.” “So you can see how ordered this Thomas is.”
• Aside on the Categories: commentators (Albert the Great, Cajetan) use “predicament” for category; antepredicaments are distinctions needed to understand the ten genera; then the ten (mainly substance, quantity, quality, relation); then six well-ordered postpredicaments, the first three opposites, before, and háma (together).
• Formal distinction in mathematics: odd vs. even by contradictories (even is divisible into two equal parts); prime vs. composite (composite measured by another number besides one, which “is not really a number”; prime measured only by one).
• The first antepredicament’s famous distinction — universal substance, singular accident, universal accident, singular substance — is by two contradictories: said of another / not said of another; exists in another (as in a subject) / not.
• Aside: to understand Shakespeare’s definition of reason he went back to the second postpredicament, “before.”

3. Kinds of mistake answer to kinds of distinction: words equivocal by reason (“do we need words equivocal by reason”) #

Point: to each kind of mistake corresponds a kind of distinction; the most common mistake, mixing up senses of words, corresponds to distinguishing senses of a word, and this shows why words equivocal by reason are necessary.

• Imagined disputed question, “do we need words equivocal by reason?”: Objection: Aristotle observes the most common mistake is mixing senses of a word; one is apt to do this when the word is equivocal by reason (connection and similarity among meanings), not by chance — he does not confuse his student Richard, his brother Richard, Richard I/II/III, Richard Nixon. So get rid of such words, have only univocal ones. Counter: we must have equivocal words, but only by chance; and, in fact, people purposely make words equivocal by reason to deceive.
• His resolution, from Shakespeare’s definition of reason as the ability for discourse: (1) there is a natural road in our knowledge from the senses into reason; we first name what can be sensed; (2) the further from the senses, the harder to name and think; (3) so without a way of carrying words from sensible things to non-sensible ones, “we ain’t gonna know none of those things.” Hence the necessity of names equivocal by reason.
• Examples: Thomas explaining why the first meaning of “in” is to be in a place (this room); Aristotle’s first meaning of “act” is motion, since (Shakespeare) “things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs,” other acts like form being less sensible; the word “sensible” itself carried over; his mother’s “I see, said the blind man.” Discourse is coming to know the less known through the more known; the five words of Shakespeare’s definition of reason are all equivocal by reason.
• Seeing the mistake shows the importance of the distinction, “and vice versa.”

4. Simpliciter and secundum quid: simply vs. somewhat (“simpliciter and secundum quid”) #

Point: turning to a mistake “not from words, but from things,” he translates the pair as “simply” and “somewhat”: something said simply vs. said only in some incomplete or imperfect way.

• Annette vs. Anne: the addition is a diminutive (“little Anne”); very often we add something. He will go through examples from different parts of philosophy where the distinction explains the mistake and the mistake shows the importance of the distinction.

5. Logic: syllogism vs. induction, enthymeme vs. example (“two kinds of argument”) #

Point: induction is only somewhat an argument compared with syllogism, and the rhetorical arguments are diminutives again.

• Aristotle: two kinds of argument, syllogism (some statements laid down, another follows necessarily because of them) and induction (from many singulars to a universal). In induction something follows, but not necessarily: every cat he has seen is four-legged; a boy in darkest Africa would conclude all men are black; his mother’s story of the Watertown, Minnesota boy telling a black boy “go home and wash your face” (not a racist, had simply never seen one). “How many instances do you have to give”: every number is odd — 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 — “a large induction,” still doesn’t follow. So simply vs. somewhat; induction is not a bad argument but “inclines the mind,” the more instances without exception.
• Rhetoric, the art of persuasion (tradition: Plato set Aristotle the task). Three means: the image of oneself as one who knows; moving emotions and prejudices; and, least important, the arguments or apparent arguments. The rhetorician’s two arguments, enthymeme and example (“example” here equivocal by reason: an argument from one singular to another of the same kind, not a singular illustrating a universal), are called rhetorical syllogism and rhetorical induction — a diminutive. Hitler invading Russia should have looked at Napoleon (argument by example).
• Enthymeme is from likelihood (true for the most part in human affairs: “boys will be boys,” but sometimes a boy surprises you) or from signs (mostly not necessary: his wife’s brain-injured patients walk as if drunk, a policeman takes it for drunkenness; staggering out of a bar may be age or illness). Still more like a syllogism than induction because it deals with likelihood.
• Return to induction with Chris Trigg’s example: someone says the snow on the moon is green — surprising, but impossible? no; that part of a stone is as big as the whole — impossible. Aside: “Al’s oasis between here and the moon.”

6. Physics proemium: more known to us vs. more known simply (“more known simply, or by nature”) #

Point: the confused is more known to us, the distinct more known simply; Descartes mixes the two.

• Is a thing more known when known confusedly or distinctly? Distinctly. Wine: “that’s a dry red wine” vs. Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir; a judge who cannot tell them apart is deficient in taste and smell and cannot judge the competition. His brother Marcus alone was not fooled when Ron McArthur, president of TAC, served different wines in saved bottles. But which is more known to us? Dry red wine. So what is more known to us is less known simply, and what is more known simply (distinct) is not more known to us. Cambridge, Massachusetts tasting: distinguished professors tasting Cabernets all evening, the hidden last bottle was dry blueberry wine (which even Warren Murray likes).
• Descartes, Discourse on Method, “father of modern philosophy” (his professor’s joke: no sons, they all disagree): accepts only what is so distinct he cannot doubt it, i.e. the distinct is more certain for us. “He’s mixing up the two”: “I am more sure that I’m drinking dry red wine than that I’m drinking Cabernet Sauvignon.” (Aside: he used to tell north from south of the bay; joke about “private selection.”)
• Aristotle concludes we must consider things in natural philosophy in general before in particular: first the Physics (Greek title “Natural Hearing”), on motion, change and natural things in general; then change of place, the book on the universe, change of quality leading to substantial change (coming to be and passing away — he corrects “reminiscence”), then growth and living things. Descartes jumps into the particular. “Order is a sign of intelligence.” The mistake is simply vs. somewhat, and it fouls up the whole order of study — “a tremendous mistake.” “That’s what you see”: the danger of the mistake shows the importance of the distinction, and vice versa.

7. Effect and cause; motion and mover; Hegel (“When is an effect most fully known”) #

Point: an effect is most fully known in the light of its cause, yet not most known to us; Aristotle starts from motion, Hegel from the most confused notion.

• Day and night vs. day and night as effect of the earth turning: he plays the skeptic to students (“a clump of dirt made into a ball doesn’t start rotating”), and they can’t defend it; yet we set our clocks by it. Day and night is more fully known through its cause, but that there is day and night is more known to us.
• So Aristotle tries to know motion first, then reasons to a mover, and to an unmoved mover: starting from what is more known to us, not simply.
• Hegel begins with what is said of all, being, the most vague and general notion, and tries to generate the whole universe from it — the other direction, as if what is more known to us were more known simply.
• Hegel also falls into the fallacy that “deceives even the wise,” the accidental: “the tremendous power of the negative” — only the ignorant can learn (ignorance a non-being; even God cannot learn). But ignorance is not one’s ability to learn; one learns a theorem from statements per se known or theorems already proved (up to the Pythagorean theorem ending Euclid I). Ignorance is accidental to learning even though necessarily there — and an accident that is necessarily present is more apt to deceive than one that is not: “you can learn if you’re a black man, but you don’t have to be a black man to learn.”

8. Which knowledge is better: De Anima and Parts of Animals (“beginning of the De Anima”) #

Point: knowledge is better either by a better object or by greater certitude; Aristotle ranks the object first, and “mathematics is everything” confuses better in some way with better simply.

• De Anima opening: all knowledge is good, but one is better than another by being of a better thing or more certain; knowledge of the soul is better in both ways (soul the best thing in the material world; we are sure of having a soul from inward experience of being alive).
• Parts of Animals proemium (he thinks): geometry may be more certain than knowledge of the soul, but which is better? Aristotle: better to know a better thing even imperfectly than a lesser thing perfectly — number of chairs in the room vs. what the soul is; Aristotle’s example, a glimpse of someone we love means more than [unclear in recording] (his version: seeing the boss all day). So distinguish what you know from how you know it; what you know is more essential. His example: rather hear Mozart on an imperfect machine than junk on the most perfect — “hearing something better” vs. “hearing it better,” an equivocation.
• The mistake: people at public universities (recalled from a graduation at the Seton School, Washington) think mathematics is everything because it is most certain, therefore the best knowledge, and prefer it to theology, the soul, God, ethics. That takes how you know over what you know: mathematics is better in some way (more certain), but simply the knowledge of the soul is better. Found in the moderns’ respect for mathematical certitude. “Your whole course of study might be vitiated.”
• Student: St. Alphonsus’s conversion — a flawless case ruined by one small mistake at the beginning. He agrees: so a mistake of this kind “might determine your whole course of study.”

His words #

• Gnothi sauton — “know thyself,” addressed to reason.
• definition of definition, division of division, distinction of distinction — reason’s knowing itself reflected in logic.
• material distinction — from division of the continuous.
• formal distinction — by opposites.
• predicament — commentators’ word for category; antepredicaments, postpredicaments.
• háma — “together,” third postpredicament.
• equivocal by reason / by chance — connection among meanings vs. none (the Richards).
• discourse — coming to know the less known by the more known.
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics].
• simpliciter / secundum quid — rendered “simply” and “somewhat”; secundum quid a diminutive (Annette).
• induction — argument from many singulars to a universal.
• syllogism — statements laid down, another follows necessarily.
• enthymeme, example — rhetorical syllogism, rhetorical induction; example = argument from singular to like singular.
• likelihood — what is true for the most part in human affairs.
• more known simply / by nature vs. more known to us — distinct vs. confused.
• fallacy of the accidental — Hegel’s “only the ignorant can learn.”

Texts #

Read in class

• handout, “Foreword to Logic,” p. 2 (verified, ~10 min).
• handout, “Reasoning and the Four Kinds of Argument,” p. 2 (verified, ~10 min).
• Aristotle, Physics, proemium (more known to us vs. by nature; order of natural philosophy).
• Aristotle, De Anima, beginning (two ways one knowledge is better).

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Categories: first antepredicament; chapter on quantity; postpredicaments (opposites, before, together).
• Thomas Aquinas on the distinction of the Persons of the Trinity (no locus given).
• Aristotle, Rhetoric (three means of persuasion; enthymeme and example).
• Aristotle, Parts of Animals, proemium (he thinks).
• Descartes, Discourse on Method.
• Hegel (beginning with being; “power of the negative”).
• Euclid, Elements I (Pythagorean theorem at its end).
• Shakespeare’s definition of reason (from an earlier class).
• Albert the Great, Cajetan (commentators on the Categories).

His questions #

• To whom is “know thyself” addressed? To man, and precisely to reason, the only part that can know itself.
• What is the distinction of distinction? Material (by division of the continuous) and formal (by opposites).
• Do we need words equivocal by reason? Yes: discourse must carry names from sensible things to what cannot be sensed.
• In induction, does the conclusion follow necessarily? Does it follow at all? It follows somewhat, not necessarily.
• Is a thing more known when known confusedly or distinctly? Distinctly, simply; but the confused is more known to us (dry red wine vs. Cabernet).
• Which modern philosopher was deceived about this? Descartes, taking the distinct as more certain for us.
• When is an effect most fully known? In the light of its cause; but the effect (day and night) is more known to us.
• Does Aristotle try to know first the mover or motion? Motion, then reasons to a mover and an unmoved mover.
• Which is better, geometry or knowledge of the soul? Knowledge of the soul: better to know a better thing even imperfectly.
• Is mathematics the best knowledge because most certain? No; better in some way, not simply — a simpliciter/secundum quid mistake.