Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999)
10. Thomas's Proemia: Logic as the Art of Arts and Its Division by the Three Acts of Reason
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[0:04] Yeah, it's probably the best way to translate it into English. Premium paving the way, right? And Plato gives a premium to his discourse on the universe in the dialogue called the Timaeus. And almost every work of Aristotle has a premium to it. But Thomas, when he writes a commentary on Aristotle's works, will not only explain Aristotle's premium, but he'll give a premium himself. Like we had the premium here to the Nicomachean Ethics.

[0:37] Now, usually Thomas's premium, you know, stands back a little bit further from the work than Aristotle does. He's kind of situating it in the whole of our knowledge or taking a wider perspective. Now, there are only two works of Aristotle's in logic that Thomas wrote a commentary on, and one is the Peri Hermeneias, which he didn't complete his commentary on. Cajetan completed it, and then he wrote a commentary on the Posterior Analytics.

[1:11] So the first of these two premiums is taken from the beginning of his commentary on the Peri Hermeneias, and the second one from the beginning of his commentary on the Posterior Analytics. The second one is much broader and deeper than the first one. Okay.

[1:31] So let's look at the beginning here of the major premium. He says, as Aristotle says in the beginning of the Metaphysics, the human race lives by art and reasonings, and we saw that in the premium to the wisdom. In which the philosopher, now Thomas, very often refers to Aristotle as the philosopher, and that's say what? Yeah, antonomasia, right? Okay. He often refers refers to Saint Paul as the apostle.

[2:12] Peter and Paul are called the apostle by antonomasia. Okay, so you'll see sometimes he uses the word Aristotle or the name Aristotle, sometimes philosopher. So he says, in which the philosopher seems to touch upon a certain property of man by which he differs from the other animals. For other animals are led by some natural instinct to their acts. Man, however, is directed by the judgment of reason in his acts.

[2:45] And hence it is that diverse arts serve to perfect human acts easily and orderly. Now he gives a kind of common notion of art,

[2:59] as Monsignor Dionne point out. The word art in Latin and the word techne in Greek, they first referred to these practical arts, these mechanical arts that transform matter in some way, like the art of carpentry that made this table, or the art of metalworking that made this chair, and the art of the glassblower who ever made this glass, okay. But Thomas here is taking art in a broader sense,

[3:31] and this is what's this broad sense of art that he takes here? He says an ordering of reason by which the acts can reach, determine ends through several means. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And this sense, this broad sense of the word art, is going to apply even to logic, right? Okay. So when I was coming up here, I was using the art of driving an automobile, and the reason has figured out how to use your hands, and your eyes, and your feet to drive a automobile, right?

[4:10] Okay. And I can do it in an orderly way now, and easily, right? In fact, sometimes I'm hardly aware of the fact that I'm doing from here to there because I'm thinking of something else, but I do it, you know, almost habitually now, okay. Now, in the second paragraph, he makes a very interesting distinction, though. He says in all the other arts, reason is directing the acts of some other part of man than reason, like in my example there, the hands, the feet, right?

[4:44] In the sense, the carpenter and the plumber and the metal worker and so on, they know how to use their hands and sometimes their feet too, to make things, right? And their eyes and so on. What's unique about logic is that reason is going to be directing, not the acts of the hand or the feet or some other part of man, but the acts of reason itself.

[5:09] Okay. And how is that possible? What's possible because reason can not only think about the hand and how to use it to play the piano, wherever it might be, but reason can also think about what thinking, okay? In some way, knows its own act, comes back upon itself, okay. And that's why the famous words of the seven wise men of Greece, the gnothi sauton, know thyself, huh?

[5:40] They could be applied to reason in particular, because reason is the only part of man that can know itself. The hand doesn't know what a hand is. The hand doesn't ask what a hand is and how a hand differs from a foot. But reason asks not only what a hand is, but what reason itself is. And you see that reflected in certain interesting things in logic that you talk about, for example, definition in logic.

[6:09] Not only can you define, say, square like you do in geometry, or define man as we did earlier, but reason can even define definition as a definition of definition. And there are statements we'll see about statements, and there is reasoning about what reasoning, right? And that reflects the idea that reason can come back upon itself, huh? Okay.

[6:38] So that's what he points out in the second paragraph. Reason, however, is not only able to direct our lesser parts, but also directs its own act, for this is a property of the understanding part that it reflects upon itself, which means it comes back upon itself. For the understanding understands itself, and likewise reason is able to reason about its own act. If, therefore, from this that reason reasons about the act of the hand, there has been found the art of building, let's say, or of metalworking, through, which man is able to perform acts of these kinds easily and orderly.

[7:18] For the same reason, some art is necessary which directs the act of reason itself, by which man can proceed in the very act of reason orderly, easily, and without error. I notice he's been using the words orderly and easily, right? And now he adds the word without error, right? Okay. Now, if you think back upon the art of carpentry or the art of plumbing or the art of cooking, right, the person who possesses this art, they go about doing something in an orderly way, don't they?

[7:54] And they can do it much more easily than we can, right? And they avoid the mistakes that the neophyte, beginner, makes all the time, huh? Okay. So if something goes wrong with the plumbing, right, you can try to fix it yourself, but you don't know exactly what to do first or what to do second. You try this, you try that, right? And you have, you know, difficulty, right?

[8:19] And you make certain mistakes, you know, that have to be rectified, huh? I sometimes do a little carpentry down in the basement there, you know, and my brother-in-law, who was a professional carpenter, says, "What did you do that, for Duane You know, you stood on this, done that, see? " And it's kind of interesting to see the way the carpenter, the plumber, he right away comes in, he does things in what one, two, three way, in the same way the cook, right?

[8:43] Cooks things in orderly way and with ease and without error, right? And perhaps the order there is interesting. Orderly first, huh? As you see, know what to do first, second, third. It becomes kind of what. Easy, right? And then you also tend to avoid errors because you're proceeding in an orderly way. Okay.

[9:07] And so he says this art is going to direct the acts of reason. He's called logic, an art which is named from reason itself, logos, right? Okay. And he says it's named from reason in a special way. Every art does something of reason. The reason is figured out, right? But what's peculiar to this art is that it's also about reason or about the acts of reason. And therefore, he calls it the what?

[9:35] Art of arts. Right. Because it directs reason in its own act, and all the other arts, the hands or the feet or the eyes, are being directed by what? By reason, right? But here, reason is directing itself. Therefore, it has a right to be called the art of arts, right? It directs the director, you might say. of All the rest. And here you see. a. likeness of logic to what?

[10:02] To wisdom, right? The art of arts. Okay. Now, in the fourth paragraph here, next to the bottom there, paragraph, he's going to now divide logic, right? Okay. And you'll find out that most arts or sciences, most wholes, in fact, are divided usually into two or what, three parts. We'll talk about that rule of two or three, but you saw it in theology a lot, right? Geometry, for example, is divided into two parts.

[10:50] Geometry as a whole, plane geometry, and what? Solid geometry, right? So the first six books of Euclid there are plane geometry, then you get the solid geometry later on. But even those first six books, you wouldn't divide them into six books. You divide them into the rectilineal books, the first two books, the circular books, the third and fourth book, and the proportion books, five and six. They tend to fall into two or three.

[11:23] When you get into natural philosophy, the basic division there is into two parts: a general consideration of change, and then the particular consideration of change. And the particular consideration of change is divided into three parts: change of place, change of quality, and growth. And that's the origin of physics, chemistry, and biology originally. Though most people forgot the original reason for it, since they get kind of confused now about it, but it goes back to that.

[12:00] Theology is divided into how many parts? It can be divided into three parts. Yeah. Consider God in Himself, right? Then God is the what? Maker, right? And the Lord, and then God is the end and the provident one, right? So you consider God in Himself. God is the beginning of other things, and God is the end of all things. Like in what was it, Psalm eighteen? Now note the Lord is God He made us Here we are His people the flock He tends That's the three parts No the three parts of theology You're being said or told in that song right

[12:48] know that the Lord is God. He made us, His we are, His people the flock He tends. That's the three parts. Know the three parts of theology They're being said or told in that Psalm, right? Can we repeat that Yeah. Know that the Lord is God. and he made us, his we are, his people of the flock he tends. You consider God in Himself, God as a Maker, and God in His Providence.

[13:01] And then the three on natural philosophy is place quality Well, no, in natural philosophy natural philosophy, you divide it into two: consideration of change in general, then in particular. But the division in particular is into three: change of place, change of quality, and change of quantity in the sense of growth. Yeah. Okay. And say that's the basis of the division we still use in high school and college and to physics, chemistry, and biology, because physics was originally a study of change of place, chemistry of quality and substance, and then biology, the study of things that grow.

[13:40] Okay. But that tradition, that division became customary, and people have forgot the reason for it. Okay. And so, really, something like atomic physics belongs with chemistry, not with mechanics. So, if you look at Heisenberg's division Gifford for lectures, he puts atomic physics with chemistry, right? Okay. But the original basis of that was place: the kinds of change.

[14:10] Now, Thomas divides Aristotle's logical works and therefore logic itself into what three parts, right? According to three acts of reason, that come in a certain order, and you could say more precisely that these are three acts of looking reason. Okay. And the first act is going to be presupposed to the second, and the second to the third. Now you can name these acts in various ways. I like to name the first act as

[14:48] understanding what a thing is. Okay. So understanding what a triangle is, right? Understanding what a man is, right? Understanding what reason is. Understanding what a dog is, right? Understanding what a stone is. This is the first act of reason.

[15:19] And the second act, I call understanding the true or the false. And this involves putting together in an affirmative statement or separating in a negative statement the things you've understood by the first act. So if I understand in some way what a man is, and understand in some way what. If I understand what a stone is, I might separate them in a negative statement and say, "Man is not a stone," right?

[16:06] And that'd be understanding something what true, right? I could also understand the false opposed to that, right? "Man is not an animal," or "Man is a stone," right? Okay. So you can see how this first act is presupposed in the second then. If I didn't understand in some way what a man is, and I didn't understand in some way what a stone is, I wouldn't understand the true statement that man is not a what stone, right?

[16:38] Okay. Now the third act presupposes the second act. If you understand at least two statements that are what might be true, might be false, right? You can put them together sometimes and reason out or reason to another statement. And this is the third act now, which could be called reasoning. Okay.

[17:11] Thomas is going to mention other names of these acts, some of them, but this is the way I usually name the three acts, right? Okay. So if I understand the statement that every mother is a what woman, right? And I understand that no man is a woman, I could reason from those two statements, right? To the Conclusion that no man is a mother, right? Okay. Or if I understood that no animal is a stone, and every man is an animal, I could reason to no man is a what stone, right?

[17:49] So this obviously presupposes at least a couple of statements in which you reason. So that's the third act, right? Now in both Proemia here, he will distinguish the same three acts.

[18:11] Look at the proemium there from in the Peri Hermeneias It goes back to what Aristotle talks about in the third book on the soul, where he talks about these first two acts.

[18:27] As the philosopher says in the third book on the soul, the operation of the understanding is twofold. Calls these first two acts both a kind of understanding, right? And the third he calls reasoning, one which is called the understanding of indivisibles,

[18:47] understanding in other words, man or animal or stone, rather than man is an animal. Which is a complex, composed thing, by which the understanding grasps the nature of each thing in itself. So sometimes they call this first act simple grasping. But grasping is another word, almost for understanding.

[19:13] But it's a very suggestive word. I can't grasp the center of this table. Why not? I can grasp this glass because I can separate the glass from the air around it. But I can't grasp the center of this table because I can't separate the center of this table here from the rest of the table. I took out my saw and sawed out that piece. Then I could grasp it, right?

[19:38] You see, that's important in grasping what something is. You have to be able to separate it from everything else. Okay, so it's a interesting word that we borrow the word for the what act of the hand grasping, and then we apply it to the mind.

[20:02] And the other, he says, is the operation of the understanding, putting together and dividing. Here he's thinking now of an affirmative statement or a negative statement, right? And the affirmative statement you put together, like say, man and animal, and say, man is an animal, right? And the negative statement, the way you separate things, you say, man is not a what stone, right? So Thomas usually refers to that second act as where Aristotle speaks of it in the third book of the soul, putting together or separating, right?

[20:34] Okay. I like to call understanding true or false because the words putting together and separating have other meanings besides this, right? But this here needs a very accurately understanding the true or the false.

[20:55] And then there's added, however, a third operation of reasoning by which reason proceeds from the known to investigation of the unknown. And that's very characteristic of reasoning. And that's later on look at that text of Aristotle where he talks about that in the proemium to the Posterior Analytics.

[21:18] Okay. Let's go on to the second paragraph there in the Peri Hermeneias. He says the first of these operations is ordered to the second because there cannot be a putting together and division except as simple as grasping. Unless I've grasped in some way what a man is, right? Unless I've understood in some way what a man is, and I've grasped also in some way what an animal is, right?

[21:46] And understood in some way what a animal is, unless I've done that first, I couldn't really what. Put them together and understand what it means to say man is a what animal, okay.

[22:02] If I tell my students that a perfect number is a composite number, they don't understand that very much. That they don't know what a perfect number is, right? Maybe they don't even know some of them what a composite number is, right? See, so I'd have to grasp, I'd have to understand what a composite number is and what a perfect number is, and then I could see that a perfect number is a composite number, okay.

[22:33] So that first act in a way is ordered to the second act. The second, however, is ordered to the third, because it is necessary that from some known truth to which the understanding assents, one proceeds to getting certitude about something unknown. As Thomas says more explicitly elsewhere, you need at least two statements, right, in order to get a what third statement. Just like in calculating to add, subtract, multiply, or divide, you need at least two numbers to get a third number.

[23:08] Since he says however, logic is called the science of reason, it is necessary that its consideration be about those things which pertain to the aforesaid three operations of reason. And now he divides Aristotle's books, but not as completely as he does in the commentary on Posterior Analytics. Aristotle therefore determines in the book of the Categories about those things which pertain to the first operation of the understanding.

[23:38] That is about those things which are conceived by a simple understanding. So that's the first book in logic that's come down to us from Aristotle. If you get the so-called basic books of Aristotle, like in Random House, the one that McKeon edited, right, the very first group of books are gathered together. They're called the Organon, right? And Organon is a Greek word. Where we get our word organ, by the way, huh?

[24:07] Organon is simply the Greek word for tool, okay? And logic is called the tool of philosophy, huh? So they put Aristotle's logical works together with the title Organon, meaning the tool, and the first book you'd see in the basic books of Aristotle would be a book called the Categories, and that pertains to the logic of the first act. Okay. The second book you'd find is this book called the Peri Hermeneias, translated Latin, de Interpretatione, so it's really about the statement.

[24:54] That corresponds to the second act, right? Now, all the rest of the books that Aristotle wrote in Logic, even the title of the father of logic, are dealing with the third act, right? But Thomas doesn't subdivide those books in the proemium to the Peri Hermeneias because he's going to explain the Peri Hermeneias, right? So he just goes so far as to separate these three, right? But in the Posterior Analytics, he's explaining one of the books down here, so he subdivides these, right?

[25:25] And so we'll be looking at that subdivision movement. But the first book in this third group is called the Prior Analytics, and the books following that, as Thomas says, right? Okay, and they all pertain to the art of what reasoning, right? Okay. So there's many more books devoted to the third act there than to the first and the second act, then. Okay. We'll meet the subdivision of those other works.

[26:05] Okay. The philosopher determines about those things which pertain to the second operation, namely about affirmative and negative statements in the book called Peri Hermeneias. He determines about those things which pertain to the third operation, the book of the Prior Analytics and the books following it, which are taken up the syllogism simply, and the diverse species of syllogism argument. And therefore, by the fore said order, the three operations: the book of the Categories is ordered, the book Peri Hemeneias is ordered, the book of the Prior Analytics and the ones following it.

[26:42] Okay, clear enough. Yeah. Now let's go to the major proemium here, which is going to go more into the third act. So he says, towards next to the bottom paragraph of the first page of the proemium, it is necessary, therefore, to take the parts of logic according to the diversity of the acts of reason. There are, however, three acts of reason, of which the first two are of reason according as it is a certain understanding.

[27:16] And so I borrowed the word understanding from the first two acts. A one act of understanding, he says, is the understanding of the indivisible or the incomplex, by which it conceives what a thing is.

[27:35] Notice the word conceive there. It's taken from the woman, right? Okay. And concept, right? And you may have know that Socrates' mother was a midwife, and so Socrates described himself as an intellectual midwife. Okay.

[27:57] And this operation is called by some the forming of the understanding, or imagination through the understanding. Okay. Now you don't want to confuse imagining with thinking, or the image with the thought, but there's a certain likeness between them.

[28:17] When I imagine something, I can do so in the absence of the object, right? So in order to imagine something that's absent, I have to form an image of that. Okay. Well, thinking is like that. I can think about something in its absence, but when I think about it, I have to do something like the imagination does. I have to form a thought of it. Okay.

[28:49] That's very important later on when you try to understand the Trinity, right? Okay. And we sometimes, you know, start with our own mind trying to approach and understand the Trinity. Well, if our reason understood itself, right, there would proceed from our reason a thought about what reason is. And so, when God understands himself, there proceeds from God a thought, right,

[29:21] of what God is, right. But since in God to be and to understand are the same thing. That thought is God. Okay, the beginning was the word, right? Okay.

[29:36] So there's some comparison here. See, when I see you, you have to be present for me to see you. I can't see you if you're not here, right? See, but if I remember you and I go home tonight, right? Then my seeing can't go to you because you're not there. But I form a what, an image of you in my memory, right? See, in my imagination, I picture you again, right?

[29:59] Okay. We'll come back to that because that's going to be very important, I think, in seeing what logic is about. We're going to look again at the proemium to the Nicomachean Ethics for a big hint here. Now, page three here. The second operation of understanding is the composition or division of the understanding. Again, he uses those words there, which have more than one meaning in logic and elsewhere, but to refer to what reason does when it makes a affirmative statement, right?

[30:31] And what it does when it makes a negative statement. And when I say man is an animal, I mean, as we're putting together man and animal. He calls that composition, following Aristotle there, right? And when I separate man and stone and say man is not a stone, it's like I'm separating the two, right? Dividing the two, right? Okay. So Thomas usually calls that second act, following Aristotle in the third book on the soul, composition or division.

[30:58] But you could also call it understanding the true or the false. Okay. And for this act of reason, and and this, yeah, and for this act of reason, serves the teaching which Aristotle gives in the book, the Peri Hermeneias. Now, the third act of reason is according to that which is characteristic of reason. Now we saw in Shakespeare that what reason is the ability for discourse, right?

[31:30] And discourse is coming to know what you don't know, what you do know. So this is what to see the characterize reason, huh? So he says the third act of reason is according to that which is characteristic of reason, namely to go from one thing to another, so that through what is known it might come to a knowledge of the unknown. And sometimes you'll find the medieval logicians calling that third act discursus, almost like a synonym for reasoning.

[31:58] Okay. And the rest of the books of logic that have come down to us from Aristotle serve this act. Okay. But now, in the rest of of this, the next this page, the next page, Thomas is going to subdivide right the books in this third what act right now. And he's commenting on one of them, the Posterior Analytics. How does that fit in among all the other books there?

[32:28] Right. Now, basically, into how many parts does Thomas divide the books of the third act? Into three. Again, the rule of two or three there, right now. But if you read Plato's dialogue, the Phaedo, and if you ever had a chance to read the Phaedo, but in the Phaedo,

[33:03] the longest philosophical conversation is about the immortality of the human soul, right? And Socrates gives about three arguments in favor of the immortality of the human soul. And everybody there seems to be more or less satisfied with the three arguments of Socrates, except Simmias and Cebes, who are kind of you know whispering to each other there in the corner. And Socrates says, "Are you still thinking about you know the question, or you've gone on to something else, right?

[33:33] " And they say, "We're still thinking about it. Well, share with us your thoughts, right? " And then Simmias comes in with an objection to something Socrates has said, to the arguments of Socrates, and Cebes comes in with another objection to one of Socrates' arguments. And all of a sudden, the arguments of Socrates that seemed good to just about everybody there no longer seem to be any good.

[33:57] And they fall into a kind of what? Despair. Despair, right? And the young man to whom Phaedo is narrating these things, right, has that same sinking feeling that they had, right? How are we going to trust these arguments, right? Well, Socrates did something Phaedo says, and never admired him more for it. He leads them out of this despair, right? But it makes a very interesting comparison. He says, "You might end up being a hater of arguments because you trusted an argument you shouldn't trust, right?

[34:36] " But maybe you shouldn't blame the arguments, right? Maybe you should blame yourself for not knowing the difference between a good and a bad argument. And among good arguments, between one that is necessary. And one that's only probable, right? And in order to make this more known, Socrates goes back and talks about how someone becomes a misanthrope, a hater of mankind. And he points out that men start to hate others because they trust somebody who lets them down, right?

[35:13] So the woman marries a no-good bum, right? And she begins to what hate men, right? Okay. And most people can see that something mistaken about hating everybody, and that you ought to have some smarts in order to tell the difference between those you should trust and those you shouldn't, right? But Socrates goes on. He says there's really three kinds of men. There are very few men you can trust completely.

[35:48] Men who are never let you down will stick with you no matter what happens. There are some men you can't trust at All most men are in between. You can trust them up to a point, but not completely, okay? And Socrates is pointing out what is obvious to most people from their experience that there are these three, right? Okay. And the same way with with women and men, right?

[36:19] Does some you know man you can trust a woman completely, like like John Paul II, okay? Some man you can't trust a woman with at all, like like Don Giovanni. You wouldn't trust your wife or your daughter with Don Giovanni at all, right? Or Casanova, one of these guys. Most men are in between. You can trust them up to a certain point, but you've got to know how far you can trust them at, right?

[36:39] And a woman would be kind of naive if she didn't know this, right? The priest that officiated at our wedding, he was on the marriage tribunal for a long time here in Worcester. He's dead now, but he was on the tribunal a long time. And some of these cases are so ridiculous, right? He couldn't help but say, you know, why the hell did you marry her in the first place?

[37:05] You know, you shouldn't see me with a no good, you know, bum, you know. I mean, some, you know, most women have more smarts than that, right? So Socrates is saying, if you can't distinguish between the person you can trust completely, the person you can't trust at all, the person you can trust up to a certain point, you're going to trust someone you shouldn't trust, or trust somebody more than you should.

[37:27] You'll be let down, and then you will begin to what hate men. See it all no good. Shakespeare has a famous play, Timon of Athens. Timon of Athens was a famous misanthrope of ancient times that Plutarch talks about. And in the play, Timon is very generous, and he has people at the dinner all the time. He gives them little presents when they come, and so on. He's got all kinds of friends.

[37:54] But then, when he falls into financial need, he thinks he can, you know, obviously borrow some money because he has all kinds of friends, and they keep on putting him off, right? But even his stewards knew that they were just what using him, right? They're fair weather friends, and so on. So, in a sense, Timon could blame himself, right, for not knowing who a true friend is, and so on.

[38:18] So Socrates says, don't blame arguments as if no arguments are trustworthy, but arguments like people. There are few arguments you can trust, but completely. There are some arguments you can't trust at all. Most arguments are in between. They can be trusted up to a point, some more and some less, right? But not completely. And Socrates says we need an art about arguments, and that is, to my knowledge, the first time someone has explicitly said we need the art that we now call what logic.

[38:59] What's interesting in that comparison between the two is that he's going to anticipate the very way that we divide Aristotle's books about arguments. Because the prior in the posterior analytics, these first two books that Thomas is going to talk about,

[39:20] the prior in the posterior analytics are about arguments you can trust completely. And these arguments are called demonstrations in logic from the Latin word. The Greek word is apodeixis, but has the same root, right? And comes from the word to show. The old license plate there from Missouri. I'm from Missouri. You got to show me. But you

[39:53] notice, as you go through Euclid, at the end, he'll say Q. E. D., which is kind of Latin for what was to be demonstrated. Okay. So the prior and posterior analytics are about arguments you can trust completely. The book called Sophistical Refutations

[40:19] are about arguments you can't trust at all. Okay. Simply bad arguments, huh? Now the books in between that Thomas is going to subdivide are about the arguments you can trust up to a point, right? But not completely. Okay.

[40:45] Arguments that produce something like opinion or suspicion, right? But not certitude like these. These do here. Okay. And so Aristotle, Thomas will mention the books there. The topics is the main way to translate in English, and then the the rhetoric and even the poetics to certain extent.

[41:16] Sometimes they don't put rhetoric and poetics and logic in the strict sense, but in the broad way, Thomas looking at it, he includes them, right? Okay. We'll say a few more words about these when we get there.

[41:30] So these arguments produce something like opinion or suspicion. We use opinion more for this and suspicion down here for rhetoric. But they're really, you might say, ways of making a what reasonable guess, right? Okay. We'll talk about those more particularities and go on these different texts.

[42:00] But in the third paragraph here, Thomas goes back to the fundamental thing here—that reason imitates nature, right? So far as possible. And yet the same thing in nature, huh? There are some things nature produces always and necessarily, like the rising of the sun, it seems, huh? Other things it produces most of the time, but not always, like a healthy human baby or something, right? But sometimes nature fails and produces something bad, right?

[42:34] Okay. So he compares reason in that respect to nature, huh? And that these three are also found in the acts of reason. For there, in the fourth paragraph, for there is a proceeding of reason, bringing a necessity in which a defective truth is not possible, and through such a proceeding of reason is acquired the certitude of knowledge, huh? There is another, however, proceeding of reason in which the true is for the most part concluded, not, however, having necessity.

[43:08] And the third proceeding of reason is that in which reason departs from the true because of the defect of some principle that should have been observed in reasoning. Okay. Now, why are there two books devoted to this first part, right?

[43:27] Well, in order to be sure of the conclusion, two things are necessary. One is that the conclusion follows necessarily from the other statements, and the other is that the other statements are necessarily true.

[43:48] So in the prior analytics, huh, he teaches us how to take apart this kind of an argument that we call demonstration to see if the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. In the Posterior Analytics, he shows you how to examine the premises to see if they have what's required to be necessarily true. Okay. So those two things are necessary. It's a bit like calculating in that respect, right?

[44:23] To be sure of the number I get by adding, I have to what? Add correctly, right? And I have to have the correct numbers to add. So if I get the wrong number in my checkbook, right, as often happens, I go back and I check it over, and I see that I didn't add or correct or subtract correctly, right? That's one kind of mistake. Or maybe I wrote the number in wrong decimal point or something, right?

[44:55] Or my seven didn't look like a seven but like a one or something, and I had the wrong number, right? Okay. So the demonstration has those two things to be considered in, right? And that's why he had the two books, the prior and the posterior analytics, huh?

[45:22] So he says the part of logic which serves the first proceeding, the demonstration, is called the judging part, in that judgment is with the certitude of knowledge. And because a certain judgment cannot be had about effects except by resolving the first principles, therefore this part is called analytic, that is, resolving or taking apart. The certitude of judgment, however, which is had by resolution, is either from the very form of the syllogism only, and that's referring now to whether the conclusion follows the premises necessarily. And to this is ordered the book of the Prior Analytics, or also with this from the matter, because per se and necessary propositions are taken.

[46:07] And to this is ordered the book of the Posterior Analytics, which is about the demonstrative syllogism. Now the second part here, where you have arguments now that are not

[46:26] giving a certitude but they might you might say they give you what you might call a reasonable guess, right? Okay. But the reasonable guess here is stronger. You might call it opinion, right? And the reasonable guess here are weaker. You might call it suspicion. So the book called the Topics and the book called the Rhetoric, in so far as it deals with what what kind of argument, right?

[46:52] Is dealing with these arguments that don't produce complete syllogism. And we're going to talk about those kinds of arguments when we get down to that text of Aristotle there in the beginning of the Posterior Analytics. Okay. So I won't go into detail about those arguments right now. But he puts the Poetics in there too, because sometimes a man reaches a conclusion by what?

[47:20] Representation. Representation, right? Okay. So you know Uncle Tom's Cabin, I guess, was what persuade a lot of people against what slavery, right? Um. Give you a little interesting example of this, huh? I have two brothers, right? And when we were living the same house every twenty over twenty years, next door they had one son. His name was Kenneth. Well, Kenneth's mother died, huh? Okay. And Kenneth's father remarried, right?

[48:01] Okay. And so we were told about this, you know, and that he's going to have a stepmother now, right? Well, my mother overheard us talking at the table how we're going to protect Kenneth from the stepmother. Now, where do you get this bad idea that stepmothers are cruel and they never even met them, right? Right? Yeah. You see, in the fairy tales, right, the stepmother opposed the natural mother, right?

[48:30] They treat the child very bad. And it's not what you saw. You see? So my mother quickly, you know, stopped her even doing it and explained to us, right? And if anybody needed protection, it was it was the stepmother from Kenneth, because Kenneth was kind of a joker, and he'd go to the window and yell, "Help! stop beating me!" And the mother would get you know embarrassed because she tried to do everything right, of course, because the stepmother.

[48:54] And she was the nicest woman the whole neighborhood, you know. I mean, everybody loved her, you know, but. But that's the example. I mean, you see, we are influenced by the way these things are presented, huh? You know, Warren Radler wrote a book about movie made. You know, how young people get the idea of how they should act. You know, they're persuaded to act this way from the way it's represented in the movies.

[49:16] Huh? They're kind of dangerous in that sense. Um. So let's look at the way Thomas separates these here. Another part of logic, which is called the finding part, serves the second proceeding of reason. For finding is not always with certitude. In other words, you could use there is guessing, right? Guessing is not always a certitude, right? But a reasonable guess more apt to be so than not.

[49:44] Whence judgment is required about those things which have been found in order that certitude may be had. Moreover, just as in natural things which are done for the most part, a certain gradation can be noted, because the stronger the power of nature, the more rarely it fails in effect. So also in the proceeding of reason, which is not with complete certitude, some gradation is found, as it approaches more and less to perfect certitude.

[50:12] For sometimes, though a process of this kind, although knowledge in the strict sense, meaning something certain, does not come to be, nevertheless belief or opinion comes to be, because of the probability of the propositions which it proceeds. For reason wholly turns to one part of a contradiction, although with fear of the other, and to this is ordered the topical or dialectical. For the dialectical syllogism is from probable opinions, which Aristotle considers in the book for the topics.

[50:45] Aristotle defines a probable opinion as the opinion of all men or most men or the most famous men in some art or science. Sometimes belief or opinion does not come to be completely, but a suspicion. Because reason does not wholly turn to one part of a contradiction, although it's more inclined to this part than to that, and to this is ordered the arguments considered in the rhetoric, huh?

[51:11] Okay. Now Aristotle, when he takes up rhetoric, there is a book called the Rhetoric. He points out that rhetoric is really an offshoot of logic, in a way, an offshoot of dialectic, and an offshoot of political philosophy. Because rhetoric is the art of persuasion, and you persuade people not only by the arguments you give, but also by the image you project of yourself, and by the way you move their emotions and prejudices, huh?

[51:44] And so political philosophy, ethics, and so on, they help rhetoric in that regard to projecting the right image, right? And they study the emotions and rhetoric, makes use of the emotions. So it's kind of an offshoot of political studies and ethical studies. But also of logic, right? So we don't classify sometimes the book of the rhetoric simply as purely logic, right? Aristotle uses that word in Greek there.

[52:13] The Greek word is parafues He says the rhetoric is a parafues, which could be translated as an offshoot. It's not simply or purely a part of logic, right? It's an offshoot of some part of logic. It uses some kind of arguments, right? And it's an offshoot of ethical or political studies.

[52:40] If you go back to Thomas's distinction of the four orders, right, in the commentary to the *Primum Principium* in ethics, it's an offshoot of the second and the what? Third.

[52:58] Remember the order that reason considers does not make, then the order that reason considers in its own acts, the order it considers in the voluntary acts, and then the exterior matter. What's an offshoot of the second and the what third?

[53:13] Modern experimental science is an offshoot of the first and the fourth. It's a union of natural science and technical sciences. as Heisenberg says in his Gifford Lectures, right?

[53:26] That's why the oldest part of modern science is called physics, in particular, but mechanics. Physics comes the Greek word for nature. Mechanics comes from the mechanical arts that Thomas does. So it's an offshoot of the two. It involves a kind of union of natural and technical science. So modern experimental science is not a purely natural science. And rhetoric is not a purely what logical science.

[54:01] That's why the divisions are interesting, you know, to understand rhetoric and modern science because they're not, you know, come purely under one of those four, right? But they involve what taking something from a couple of them, right?

[54:17] I kind of suspect that modern mathematical logic is not purely what the art of calculation or the art of logic. It takes something from both, but it's not the same as either one. huh? It's interesting, huh, that rhetoric dominated the ancient world,

[54:39] and even the great Christians like St. Ambrose and St. Augustine were very much into the art of rhetoric. Christ is supposed to have appeared, you know, to Jerome and said, "Are you a Christian or a Ciceronian?"

[54:56] And. But the modern world is dominated by the other offshoot, experimental science. So, one of the factors influencing the modern world, okay. And the poetics of course is even less purely a part of logic than. So, if you look at at what they call the organon there the basic works, you have the prior and the posterior analytics, the topics, and emphasis on refutations. rhetoric and poetics are put separately, right?

[55:27] Thomas was looking at this in a very broad way. So, in a broad sense, we can say that rhetoric and poetics has something to do with making people with conclusions.

[55:44] So sometimes belief or opinion does not come to be completely, but a suspicion, because reason does not wholly turn to one part of a contradiction. It definitely is so, or it definitely is not so, right? But It's more. Inclined to one than the other. Sometimes only evaluation inclines to some part of a contradiction because of some representation, in the way in which detesting of some food comes to a man, if it is represented to him under the likeness of something detestable.

[56:13] And to this is owed the poetics, for it belongs to the poet to lead into something virtuous through a pseudo-representation. Did you ever read the Illustrissime there by John Paul the First? You know, it's written in the form of what letters to famous men, right? And someone's appropriate to write about to who to about some particular matter. Well, anyway, he writes about the music or the film festival, I guess it was in Europe, to Goethe, the German poet.

[56:45] Oh yeah. And he's talking about how a work of art should be moral from what, intrinsically from the beginning to the end, and shouldn't be something you know attached onto the end. What is an immoral play, right? And he's writing it to Goethe because Goethe wrote the what, Sorrows of Young Werther, which led to suicides all over Europe. He began to realize his responsibility in a way, right?

[57:09] It's a story of hopeless lovers and so on. And other people saw themselves in this place, so they commit suicide like the actors in the play, right? And so it's appropriate that he writes to him about it now. But he says he gives the example of Oedipus Rex, right? And he says, marvelous understatement, though, but perfect example. He says after reading or seeing Oedipus Rex, one is hardly enthusiastic about incest.

[57:37] You know the play, right? It's a perfect example of what he's saying. So all these he says in some sense pertain to reasonable philosophy or rational philosophy, for it belongs to reason to lead from one thing to another, right?

[57:56] Now the part of logic which is called sophistic serves the third procedure of reason, which Aristotle considers in the book of the Sophistical Refutations. Okay. So in the prior and posterior analytics, you're considering an argument by which reason is led necessarily to certain conclusion, right? In the topics and the rhetoric and so on, the poetics, where reason is not led with necessity but with probability or at least suspicion or kind of an estimation, is so.

[58:28] But here you're going to be led astray, right? But the logician studies these things to avoid being deceived and to avoid being led astray.

[58:43] So any question about this disagree? Is it the case that really rhetoric is an offshoot of from where? From dialectic, huh? Which is yeah. We'll see that when we get to the text of Aristotle. In in dialectic you have the syllogism and induction, dialectical syllogism and induction. You have something like the syllogism in rhetoric, the antistrophe something like induction. They are even called example, but we'll see the details that when we get to it, huh?

[59:14] But it's also an offshoot of of that end of ethical and political studies, because as a speaker I want to make it appear as if I'm a knowledgeable man, right? And I I'm your friend, you know. I'm your good in mind, you know. Of course, I have to talk in a way that's appropriate to what my audience, huh? If you go back and read Demosthenes' speeches, one of the speeches there he's making fun of the opponent because he scrubbed benches when he was young.

[59:49] I I said to myself that'd be very bad rhetoric today, right? See, but the fact that this man scrubbed benches when he was young meant that he's a nobody in that Greek society, right? He doesn't come from a noble family, huh? This is more aristocratic, customs, see. But today it'd be exactly the wrong rhetoric because we're democratic, huh? And we admire the self-made man, and the man who's born wealthy we don't admire so much, right?

[1:00:14] It's almost you know signs of reason for attacking him that he was born with, you know gold spoon in his mouth or that he said. I said, but if a guy came up you know the hard way, right? And scrubbed benches and did menial things and worked his way up, then the way what? Yeah, see. So you have to know the different kinds of government, right? Which belongs to political philosophy and their customs of those ones, and then you can be more persuasive, huh?

[1:00:38] Okay. And of course you know you go around and you you talk to different groups. You're talking to businessmen and you're talking maybe to labor union people. You don't talk the same way, you know. Some people make a business going around and recording the guy's speech to each group, you know, to see how it changes, huh? Okay. But the it's ethics and political philosophy that studies customs and different kinds of government and the virtues and the vices, right?

[1:01:04] And so you're trying to you know appear to be a man who's your friend, right? I used to say about the two politicians in my home state there, Hubert Humphrey, right? Who was senator and went for president one time, and Freedman, who was governor, right? Humphrey really did like people. He was a friendly guy. Freedman didn't mean like people, but outwardly he was friendly, right? See, so you have to project a certain image of yourself, right?

[1:01:34] And you want to project an image of someone who's what knowledgeable, right? Someone who's careful, someone who's your good in mind, right? And these are things qualities that are studied in ethics and political philosophy. So the art of persuasion takes in. Emotions, and then the arguments you get. If. You want to see a beautiful example of the art of rhetoric there in the work? It's when Iago persuades Othello that his wife is unfaithful.

[1:02:05] There's absolutely no real basis for that at all, right? But Iago projects the image of himself as he's really the friend of Othello, right? He projects the image of a man who who's very observant and sees into people, right? But a man who doesn't state his what suspicions lightly. So you have every reason to trust this man, right? Here's a man who's really your friend, right? A man who who understands people much better than you do, right?

[1:02:37] A man who's very hesitant, you know, to state what he his suspicions, right? So he has some basis for it. You're already disposed to believe this man when he starts, right? But then he starts to work on the emotions. He starts to rouse the jealousy of what Othello. Then, as he says in one of his soliloquies, to a man who's in this state of mind now, this jealousy, even a flimsy proof will seem like sacred scripture to him.

[1:03:03] And of course, the proof he gives—the handkerchief—here is a very weak argument, right? Of infidelity, but it's very convincing. That's all he needs, right? To a man who's already, you know, moved to jealousy, huh?

[1:03:19] So sometimes we don't consider rhetoric a part of logic, but an offshoot of one part of logic and an offshoot of ethical and political studies, huh? Aristotle talks about that, right? In the book called the rhetoric, right? But in the broad sense, you can say it has something of the aspect of argument, right? And therefore, Thomas, looking at it in a very broad way, would include that.

[1:03:47] And even the poetics, right, which is the study of the imitative arts, huh? But because men are led to certain conclusions by imitation, right, then you can, in a broad sense, say that pertains to logic. Okay.

[1:04:11] Now let's look at some of these short texts on logic here.