Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999)
16. Genus, Difference, and Lowest Species Reviewed: Why the Division Is Exhaustive, and Are There Lowest Species?
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[0:00] Let's come back now to where we were yesterday, our last class, rather. And everybody knows what genus is now. How many parts are there in the definition of genus?

[0:18] Five. The first part is the genus of genus, which is the name. Second part is what said with one meaning, right? They also say said univocally, which is means one meaning, which said with one meaning. The third part of many things, yeah, okay. And the fourth part is what other kind? Those many things, other in kind. And the fifth and last part is what it is, signifying what it is, right?

[1:07] Now, because it's said of many things, other in kind, right? But it has only one meaning; it can only say in general what each one of those is, and that's why you need this other name called the what difference, right? To complete your understanding of what this or that particular kind of thing is. Now, the definition of difference again has five parts, right? And the first four parts are exactly the same as in the definition of what genus: the name said with one meaning of many things, other in kind, huh?

[1:55] But the fifth and last part of that definition of difference separates it from what genus, huh? It signifies not what it is, but how it is what it is, right? And not just how, because that may be something accidental, but how it is what it is, right? Okay.

[2:18] Now, with the word yes. Would you say that you define three types of difference? Would you say that that third type is the most important principle type? Because you also definition. Yeah, since they call it three definitions, but this last definition is defining difference as a name said of what many things, right? Okay, name said with one meaning of many things. Okay, that's what the five are in a sense, right?

[2:52] But I have to be careful with the next name here: the the name species, right, or form, right. Because it's only what Porphyry calls the lowest species, and that is a got another definition, right, of a name said with one meaning of many things. But he also gave a definition of species as you know the name of a particular kind of thing under a genus. Okay. Now, how is that

[3:32] meaning of species and the other meaning of species, lowest species? So how is that meaning of species and the other meaning of species lowest species

[3:38] Of many things, other only individually, right? Not other in kind, signifying what it is. How those two definitions, those two senses, there of species related? Would you say? Not they're just one particular kind. Yeah. You could say that every lowest species is also the name of a particular kind of thing under genus, right? But not every name of a particular kind of thing under genus is a what lowest species.

[4:21] In other words, you have you know more general and less general, right? More particular, less particular, and you have a whole series, right? And only the lowest species that has nothing below it, other in kind, only other individuals. That is that second definition, right? But it and all the higher ones, right, which are species of what is above them and genera what below them, they're all the names of what particular kind of thing under what genus.

[4:53] Yeah, yeah. So when we say that the same name can be both a genus and a species, right? What do we mean by species there? Not the lowest species. A lowest species cannot ever be a what genus, because it's said of many other only individually, not other in kind, or the genus is always said of many things other in kind. So no genus is a lowest species, and no lowest species is a genus, right?

[5:28] But if you take species in this broader sense, being the name of a particular kind of thing, well then there are many genera that are what species, right? In comparison, what is above them as opposed to what is below them, right? Except when you get to the what highest genus, and that's a genus and not a species, huh? Okay. It's a genus that has no genus above it, just as the lowest species is a species that is not a genus, right?

[6:02] And has no species what below it, right? Okay. So when you take you know the five they're called often in from the Latin the five predicables, right? Genus, difference, species, property, and accident. If you take them as five names, an exhaustive division of names said with one meaning of many things, using the word species there in the sense of what lowest species, huh?

[6:34] Oh, as applied to the predicables. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because any species above that, right? Compared to what's below, it would be what Genus. a genus, right? Okay. So you got to stop and think about those things, huh? Okay. Um.

[6:53] Now, again, just coming back and looking at it another way. Um. There's only one difference between genus and difference. Okay. They have the same first four parts of their definition, right? But they have one difference at the end. Ah, be which is that one is signifying what it is, the genus, and the difference how it is what it is. There's also one difference between genus and lowest species, which is.

[7:33] Many other in kind or individuals. Yeah, yeah. The genus is said with one meaning of many things other in kind, right? Signifying what it is. The lowest species is said of many things other only individually, right? Okay. But it also signifies what it is. So circle said of many circles, right? Signifies what it is, right? Okay.

[8:02] So notice you need both of those differences of genus there to separate it from both what. Species and difference. Yeah. Yeah. Now, how many differences are there though between difference and lowest species?

[8:24] Two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the difference, like the genus, is said of many things other in kind, right? So it shares that difference, right? And signifies how they are, but they are, right? The species signifies what it is, right? So species and difference are further apart, right, in meaning, in sense of two differences, than species and genus or difference and what genus. Okay. Species and genus have in common they signify what it is, right?

[9:08] Difference and genus have in common that they're said of many things other in kind, right? But difference has both of those differences of what lowest species, huh?

[9:35] See now. You're referring to the difference between what? Difference as distinct from lowest species, and difference as distinct from genus. I'm saying there's there's one difference between difference and genus, right? The genus signifies what it is. Difference signifies how it is what it is, right? There's one difference in the definition of genus and lowest species. The genus is said of many things, other in kind, and the lowest species of many other only individually, right?

[10:17] Okay. But now if you compare lowest species with difference, there's two differences, right? Yes. It it shares with genus that it signifies what it is, which it separates it from difference, right? And it shares with what? Um, uh,

[10:46] has a subtle difference that separates both genus and difference from lowest species that said of things other in kind. So there's one difference that separates genus from what? difference and always do the same thing Yeah, another difference that separates it from difference, right? Okay. The difference is

[11:19] what? Two differences, right? In comparison to lowest species, but one comparison to genus, right? Okay. So you know what what Porphyry does? He compares you know genus and species and difference and what they have in common and how they what differ, right? Okay. So I might give sometimes a genus and answer the question, "What is it? " Right. I might also sometimes give a what lowest species, right?

[11:53] Okay. But likewise, in the book called "The Topics" there in English, Aristotle puts together the dialectical problem of genus and difference, Because they both signify what something pertaining to the nature of the thing, right? And but not in a convertible way, right? In a more general way. Okay.

[12:25] Now we mentioned how in a definition there's only going to be one genus, right? But there tends to be what two or more differences, right? Okay.

[12:40] And this is a very difficult thing, but Thomas raises a question there in the commentary on the Posterior Analytics, huh? That if the difference, huh, is taken from form, and the genus is taken from matter, and the unity of the thing requires the unity of form, right? Shouldn't you have a difference that is what? one. Yeah, like the lowest species, right? Okay. And Thomas says, well, if we didn't know the natures of things in an outward way, we might have differences that are what convertible, right?

[13:21] Okay. So the definition of difference that is common to more than one what kind of thing, right? That there is no difference to speak of, anyway. That is convertible with the thing being defined, right? And therefore, that you need a combination of at least two differences to specify something, right? That's Thomas says in the commentary on the Posterior Analytics,

[13:53] to the fact that we know the nature of things in a kind of outward way, right? That also fits our knowing things in a confused way before distinctly, because if no difference is really convertible with the thing, right? Then you always need a combination of differences to go from a confused knowledge to a distinct knowledge, right? See, if you had only in your definition, say of genus, take an example of this, what we're using here, right?

[14:24] If you only had your definition of genus, the difference that it signifies what it is, you wouldn't have distinguished between genus and those species, would you?

[14:35] Okay. If you only had in it the other difference, that set of many other in kind, you wouldn't be separating genus and difference, would you? But you put those two together, and it separates it from both difference and from those species.

[14:54] But the same thing you see in geometry, right? When you define the square as equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, no word in the definition, neither the genus quadrilateral, obviously, but neither the differences equilateral or right angle, fits just square, because the rhombus is equilateral as well as the square, and the oblong is right-angled just as the square, right? But the square is the only quadrilateral that is both right-angled and what equilateral, right?

[15:33] Okay. So you go from the confused to the distinct when you put those two together, right? So that each name in the definition, even the the names that are differences, right? Each name still represents a confused and somewhat indistinct knowledge of the thing you're defining, right? It's only you bring them together that it comes into to borrow a metaphor from the eyes into focus, right? And now it's what distinct, right?

[16:06] You see that Thomas raises a problem because the things Aristotle says in the Metaphysics about you know how genus is to difference, like matter is to form, and time with the unity of form, but when Aristotle is exemplifying defining there in the Postanalytics, he takes difference that is not what convertible, right?

[16:29] And so you'll see that. There's a rule, anyway, that you need a combination of differences, huh? Okay. Now, notice once you understand these these five names,

[16:53] then you can see sometimes how when we don't have a name for a thing, sometimes we don't have a name for a thing, huh? And then instead of a name, we use a what? Speech, right? Give an example of what I mean. The names we have names for the species of quadrilateral, square, oblong, rhombus, rhomboid, right? And trapezium, huh? These regular ones. The first four actually parallelograms.

[17:31] We also have a word for parallelogram, right? Okay. But now, do we have names for the species of triangle? Like scalene and isosceles and equilateral triangle. Do we have a name for that? Is equilateral triangle a name?

[17:54] Yeah, that's not really. It's it's really what speech, yeah, okay. But nevertheless, we could say that equilateral triangle is one species of triangle, and isosceles is another one, right? Okay. Because it it plays and has the same what role you might say that square has for quadrilateral, okay, Our rhombus our rhomboid, right? Okay. So don't be tied necessarily to always what having one name. Sometimes the thing doesn't have a name, right?

[18:37] When Aristotle gets into the virtues and the vices, right? He says that some vices don't have a name, and one place it comes up, for example, is when you're talking about the moral virtues and the moral virtues in between two extremes, right? And so temperance or moderation is in between the man who goes to excess and sensual pleasure, right? And the man doesn't enjoy these things at all, right?

[19:05] But Aristotle says the man doesn't enjoy these things at all. He's such a rarity that doesn't come into our experience, and so we don't really have any name for the vice. I mean, because they have intemperance or you know, gluttony, you know, these things are common things, right? You know, glutton, drunkard, you know. So, so Aristotle says we can coin a word if we want to, and he coins a word, you know.

[19:34] I mean, the guy is without sensation. It seems he doesn't enjoy sensation at all, right? Doesn't enjoy his food at all. Doesn't enjoy any of these things. It seems to be lacking sensation, right? But I mean, there's no name for it, right? In common speech, so you have to use a speech or try to coin a name, right? But okay, I don't know if any point for us now at this late stage to coin a name for equilateral triangle.

[20:02] Do you call an equilateral or something? Try make it. And sometimes later on, we don't have a genus in the strict sense. We might have a word that's equivocal by reason, right? Was kind of functioning as a what? First part of the definition. We'll see examples of that. Okay. Now, second, someone was defining looking as trying to see, right? And somebody might say, "Well, to see has many what meanings, right?

[20:43] " So, in a way, looking has three meanings, right? Because to see has three meanings. So we got one definition there, or not? So sometimes we use a speech in place of a name. We don't have a name for something, right? And sometimes we,

[21:08] you know, like there's a problem with with drama, right? There seems to be some kind of drama in between tragedy and comedy, and in the Renaissance, they would call it tragicomedy-comedy, you know. And now they sometimes use the word romance, right? But it has many meanings too, right? That's common now you'll see in. In addition to Shakespeare, the last plays are called the romances, right? But not not in the romantic sense, in a different sense.

[21:36] So I mean, but in the original edition of Shakespeare, they didn't have a name for it, right? Okay, But you recognize this. Okay? So,

[21:54] the differences that are in one definition be related as to themselves as matter form. No, related to the genuses formed a matter. And to each other how they're. Well, sometimes there's an order among them, right? Because one tends to be made more general or something than the other. So I mean, you have to pay attention to why we we put these things. Like we're defining genus, right?

[22:28] We say it's a name. Said with one meaning, right? Of many things, right? Other kind. Seem like what it is, right? And there is a reason for that order among the differences, huh? Some seem to be more general than others, right? Okay.

[22:54] Okay. But you have to be careful, huh? One thing I notice, for example, like in the in the Poetics of Aristotle. In the beginning of the Poetics, he distinguishes among the imitative arts, right? And he says that they differ by that in which they imitate, right? Or what they imitate, right? Or how they imitate, right? Okay. But the most basic differences are in that in which they imitate, what they imitate, right? Okay, so the painter might

[23:41] might represent a happy man. The poet might represent him in words, right? And the painter would represent him in line and what color, right? Okay. And then you have to say, well, what is representing though? Is it a happy man or a sad man, a courageous man or a coward, or whatever it may be, right? Okay. Now, why does Aristotle give the difference of that in which they imitate before what they imitate, and before how they imitate?

[24:17] He says how they imitate is thinking the difference in fiction between epic and drama, you know, where you act it out or you narrate it, right? And Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and his Rape of Lucrece—they're called narrative poems, right? They're not considered to be dramas or plays, right? Okay. But Aristotle puts that kind of difference, huh, between whether you you know you act it out on the stage and so on, or you narrate it, right?

[24:48] As a how they imitate, right? He puts that third and last, right? But why does he put first that in which they imitate before what they imitate? When he's distinguishing the imitative arts. It's the same order as the predicables

[25:06] things too. What it is first, and then it's closer to that. Yeah, and when you distinguish the imitative arts, is the first distinction you make by what they imitate or by that which they imitate? Oh the subject, so to speak. Okay. Well, what do you mean by imitation Now, it's now it's Mozart, huh? Can represent sadness in the melody, right? And Shakespeare can represent what sadness in the words of his character, right?

[25:45] Okay. Is it going to be the same art that's going to be about representation of sad things? Would it be in harmony and rhythm and so on, or would it be in words? No, no.

[26:00] But the same art, like Mozart's art, will write happy melodies, joyful melodies, and what sad melodies, right? The major key and the minor key and so on, huh? And Shakespeare writes both tragedies and what comedies, right? So the unity of the arts and distinction of them is first in that in which they imitate, right? Okay. You see something like that in the mechanical arts. Is there one art of making chairs?

[26:30] This room is well set up for what I want to do because would one art make this chair here, which is a metal chair, and those wooden chairs over there? And then another art would make a metal table and a wooden table. No, but rather we know from experience, right, that the carpenter will make both wooden chairs and wooden tables and wooden houses and wooden bookcases, right, and so on.

[26:59] And the metal worker will make metal chairs and metal tables, and the plastic workers will make plastic chairs and plastic tables, and so on, right? See, so that what he's making is a chair, a table, or a door. It's not the first way you distinguish these arts, but by the matter in which they do it, right? And that's found also in the imitative arts. The first distinction is whether they make in words or they make in line and color or make in melody and sound and so on, right?

[27:31] Okay. And then the second difference really is what. What is it? To some extent, you might find a poet who can write as Aristotle says tragedies, but not comedies or vice versa, right? But nevertheless, you're going to be more able to have a man unite the writing of tragedy and comedies, and a man who writes tragedies and and requiems and so on, right? Is it okay?

[28:00] Doesn't he do the same art? No. But now, when Aristotle defines tragedy, right, Aristotle to define now the thing made by the poetic art, tragedy, he defines tragedy as an imitation or a likeness, right, of a course of action that is serious of some magnitude, right, and so on. And then he says, in sweetened language and so on, right? There he gives what it imitates before that in which it imitates, right?

[28:41] And see, why does he do that? That's that's the reverse order of the order which he gives them when he distinguishes the imitative arts.

[28:53] We saw the reason why you distinguish imitative arts, right? That in which imitate is a more basic distinction. Okay. Shakespeare could write sad and joyful plays, right? And Mozart could write sad and joyful melodies. You don't have one man who, you know, can write sad plays and sad melodies, and another guy writes joyful plays and joyful melodies, right? See, okay. But when you talk about the thing made here, and it's an imitation or likeness or something, then why does he reverse the order?

[29:43] Imitation is imitation is an imitation of something. Yeah, you know, in other words, the genus in tragedy or in any of these works of the imitative arts is imitation. Or, name yourself and say likeness now, because imitation has suffered a diminution in dignity as a word, right? You know, because of our commercial customs, right? Imitation means a cheap or inferior likeness, right? But I often use the word likeness, right?

[30:13] Okay, but an imitation is a likeness, so it's natural in starting with saying it's a likeness to say what is a likeness of. Oh yeah, it's a likeness of this in this matter, right? Okay, so when I define a Shakespearean sonnet,

[30:35] I say it's a likeness of thought and feeling, right? In fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, divided into three quatrains of alternate rhyming, and completed by a rhyming couplet. That's my definition of a Shakespearean sonnet. But I begin by saying it's a likeness of thought and feeling, right? And then in fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, et cetera. In the same way, when Aristotle we define comedy, we begin by saying it's a likeness of the what of a course of action that is laughable, right?

[31:14] Okay, as opposed to the tragedy, which is a likeness of the serious, right? And then we go on to say in sweetened language as Aristotle says, right? Okay Language is sweetened by meter and metaphor and images and so on.

[31:34] But when you distinguish the imitative arts, you are talking now about the ability to make something, right? And the ability to make one ability to make is first distinguished from other ability to make by the matter which it makes, right? And you are more able to make in this matter different things, like a chair, a table, and a door in wood, right? The carpenter, and he's going to make a metal chair.

[32:02] He'd have to acquire a whole different set of tools, right, and a whole different way of working with his what, his matter, right? It's a little bit tricky when you talk about exactly what is the order of differences, right? Right Yeah I think it's A good example of that, right? How careful Aristotle is there in the poetics, huh? When you ask what is the genus of the predicables you say name.

[32:38] No. But more you can say than that. You can say its name said univocally, right, with one meaning of many things, right? Okay. I mentioned how how Thomas Aquinas gives you kind of a clue to this because in the Summa contra Gentiles, in the first book, there, first volume, he's taking up whether any name is said univocally of God and the creatures, right? And he's reasoning that no name is said univocally of God and what creatures, right?

[33:14] He's going to eliminate that. He's going to eliminate the other extreme position that says every name said of God and creatures is purely equivocal. equivocal by chance, right? Yeah. He's going to come to middle position, right? That there are some names said of God and creatures that are equivocal by reason. Okay. But anyway, when he's eliminating that There's any name said univocally with the same meaning of God and creatures.

[33:39] He gives many arguments for this, right? But one of them is an either-or argument, right? That every name said univocally of many things is either a genus, or a difference, or a species, or a property, or an accident. And then he goes and eliminates each one of those five, right? And therefore, there's no name said univocally of God and creatures, right? No, so that argument to be good, that has to be what?

[34:09] It has to be exhaustive, right? See, so that's what gave me the clue, right? That in a sense, what he's done for us in the Isagoge, right, is to give a complete division, you might say, right, of name said with one meaning, or a name said univocally of many things, right? Okay. And that's kind of a clue, right? Okay.

[34:39] The other one is sometimes his argument on universal. Yeah, yeah. Now you can see that his division is exhaustive because either it signifies something inside the nature or something outside the nature, right?

[34:57] No, what? Crisscrossing divisions, right? Okay. And you could say, you could say, signifying what it is, or signifying how it is what it is. Now, is there any

[35:47] possibility besides those two? If a name signifies something inside the nature, right? By the nature of the thing, we mean what it is, right? Okay. So either it's got to signify what it is, or at least how it is what it is, right? It signifies neither what it is nor how it is what it is. How does it signify something pertaining to what it is? Those seem to be the only two possibilities, right?

[36:22] Okay. Okay. Now, of many things, other in kind, or many things, not other in kind. Okay. Or, in other words, saying that only individually, right? We'll get not to say that. I mean, first only individually.

[37:07] I guess any other possibility besides those two. No. Okay. Now, if it signifies what it is of many things other than kind, that gives you the genus, right? Okay. If it signifies what it is of many things, not other in kind, that gives you lowest species, right? Okay.

[37:40] If it signifies how it is what it is of many things other in kind, right? Then you have quite a difference. Now, why isn't there a fourth thing? Remember we saw before sometimes, right? Crisscross divisions.

[38:05] In the parts of a what play before not before after and not after you get only three and not four things because it can't be any part of a plot that is either before anything or after anything because I have no connection with anything right okay this is more difficult to see why isn't there a difference here which in a way is convertible with a what proper species right okay like rational seems to be with man right I see Porphyry when he gives examples he he's using Platonic examples right because he's a Neoplatonic school right and the Platonists thought that there were what immortal rational animals okay so they define man as a mortal rational animal and then there were these kind of aerial spirits

[38:59] like Shakespeare has and Ariel there and the Tempest and they were what immortal rational animals right so neither what rational right or mortal would be convertible with man right you have to see both right now though the example might be false in the sense that there are no what it exemplifies the the definition of difference right as being said of many other in kind right now Thomas when Aristotle explains you know how definition is a beginning of demonstration right the middle term of demonstration in a way Aristotle in the second book of the Post Analytics he talks about how to investigate definition and so on but he speaks there as if the you know one way of doing is to start with the genus and

[39:54] then try to add the differences right Aristotle seems to be speaking there as if you need a combination of differences right that are convertible with the thing being defined right and that Aristotle seems to be speaking as if differences are as Porphyry was to say later on right said of many things other in kind right and only a combination of differences right okay and Thomas raises a question about that in the Post Analytics because as we learned in Wisdom in metaphysics the genus is taken more from what is material thing like animal man right and the difference more from the form but if the thing really is one thing it's got to have one what form so why shouldn't there be a difference that corresponds

[40:44] to that right well the answer Thomas gives to that question in the Post Analytics is that we don't know things inwardly very much and we know things outwardly because our knowledge is our senses. and that's why we have to do what I was using the English phrase there think about something right okay. And when you're trying to define something, you're thinking about the thing, right? And you're trying to get inside to the nature of the thing, what it is.

[41:16] And we'll speak to the definition as bringing out what the thing is, right? Why do we use that phrase of bring out what the thing is? Because the nature is inside and hidden to us, right? The central thinker in philosophy there, human thought, Heraclitus said, nature loves to hide. That's his famous saying. Nature loves to hide. And the main reason, the first reason why nature loves to hide, is because it's something within, right?

[41:49] And we know things through our senses, and therefore the outside things, okay? And so to a certain extent, we tend to what? To guess at the interior from the what? Outside, right? You know, we often guess about people, right? From the outside. Sometimes it gives a reason why we don't have differences about what convertible, right? You know, thinking in an outward way. But this also, I think, could also say it also fits the third thing we're saying there, remember?

[42:24] The order in in knowing the same thing, remember? In the natural world, a thing is singular in sense, universal understood. And we know things in an outward way before inwardly. And in English, outward is almost a synonym for sensible, right? The outward appearance of something. And then we know things in a confused way before distinctly. It also fits our knowing things in a confused way that no part of the definition is really a what altogether distinct knowledge species.

[43:00] No part of the definition is convertible with the species, right? Every part of definition, in some way, is common to the species you're trying to define, and at least one other thing, right? And only a combination of the differences brings you from a confused knowledge to a what distinct knowledge, right? If you had a difference in there that was already peculiar to the species, you'd already arrived before you had gone from confused to the distinct, right?

[43:33] So by definition, definition is a way of going from a confused or indistinct knowledge of what something is to a what distinct knowledge, right? And sometimes I ask my you know my colleagues about this. What is reasoning? And I said, don't you reason in your class? You know, what is reasoning? And they can define what reasoning is, right? Okay. Now I define reasoning as coming to know or guess a statement through other statements, right?

[44:08] That tells you more distinctly what reasoning is than the word reasoning does, right? Okay. But it's calculating. It's coming to know or guess a number to other numbers, right? Okay.

[44:34] So it's only the definition as a whole that gives you a distinct knowledge of what the thing is. But each part of the definition corresponds to a confused knowledge in some way of the thing. The point of bringing together it enables the mind to go diffuse to distinct knowledge to bring the thing into focus in the sense of distinct, right? Okay. So this here is not really in practice a what alternative because of our knowing things in an outward way and knowing things always in a confused way before distinctly.

[45:18] So these are the only three possibilities, right? So it's more difficult to see how these exhaust the possibilities than the property and accident, right? Because they're odd and even, right? Either. Follows the nature or doesn't follow the nature, right? Follows upon the nature or doesn't follow upon the nature. It's got to be one or the other, right? You're in a definition or reasoning again. You say coming to know or guess.

[45:46] Coming to know or guess a statement. A statement. Through other statements. By calculating, adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing. It's numbers. It's coming to know or guess a number through other numbers, right? I say, why do I say yes, right? Well, sometimes when we add, subtract, multiply, or divide numbers, even if we add, subtract, multiply, or divide correctly, we're not always sure of the numbers we're adding, right?

[46:19] So when somebody you know, starts to talk to you, how much is going to, you know, we're gonna have a party or something, right? How much is it going to cost, right? Well, How many people are going to be there? Well, about twenty-five, right? You know, I'm not sure about the number, right? Okay. And how many beers would each person drink? Well, I think about, you know, I don't know, four beers a person, okay?

[46:43] Four times twenty-five is a hundred. A hundred beers, right? Am I sure about the number? No, I'm not sure. There'll be twenty-five. It might be more than that. I'm not sure that there always be four beers. They might drink more, right? You see? You see? And and the same thing happens on reasoning, right? Sometimes you're not sure of the statements from which you reason, right? In which case, if they're only probable, it's a guess, right?

[47:11] But other times, even if you're sure about the statements which you reason, the conclusion doesn't follow necessarily. It's not a syllogism. Okay. So if I'm sure I had a lousy you know meal at restaurant X last week, I might reason from that that I shouldn't go out there this week, right?

[47:34] And if I'm sure that I that I had a lousy meal, question was lousy question was lousy. I can't doesn't follow necessarily that was lousy last week. That has

[47:43] to be lousy this week, right now. Okay. So it's not a syllogism, right? So I'm reasoning from last week to this week, but it doesn't follow necessarily, right? But you can reason necessarily from only probable opinions, right? Just like you can add, subtract, multiply very rigorously numbers you're not sure about. Can I just the genus then is coming to know or guess, or is that actually not true?

[48:14] No, no. This is not reasoning. This is defining, right? But it's resembles reasoning, right? What defining and reasoning have in common is that there are ways of coming to know what you don't know, to what you do know, right?

[48:34] I'm thinking that if coming to know or guess a statement through other statements is the definition of reasoning, then there, in this definition, there should be genus, no? I was wondering what the genus is. Coming to know, coming to know or guess, yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking Yeah

[49:00] Sometimes I just say coming to know. Period, you know, but then using knowing in a kind of looser way, right? Yeah. Um. You might know by experience. Something hits you in the head. You don't reason that. Yeah. Yeah. Albert the Great as, I mentioned before, huh? That's the way he divides logic, right? Into the art of the simple unknown, right? The art of defining, and the art of the complex unknown, the art of reasoning, huh?

[49:30] And that's in a way anticipated by Plato and Meno where he talks about, you know, the art of defining first when you're trying to define what virtue is, right? And then in the third part, we're trying to reason whether virtue can be taught or not, right? And then the middle part of the dialogue touches upon what's common to the two, huh? How can you investigate what you don't know, right?

[49:54] How can you come to know what you don't know, right? Okay. Oh. Now, going back to where we left off last time. You take now species in the sense of what the name of particular kind of thing under genus. We pointed out that the same name can be both a what. Yeah.

[50:34] And that shows that in a way the distinction there is not an absolute distinction, but a what. Yeah. Okay. And every science has these relative distinctions, right? So in mathematics, you have double and what half, for example, right? Okay. In biology, you have father and son, or mother and daughter, right? Okay. And the same person or the same thing can be both, but in relation to different things, right?

[51:15] Okay. And the same thing can be a cause and a what? Effect, but not of the same thing, right? And in particular, we talk about the same thing can be a mover, mover and what? Moved, right? So if I line up my books here, you know, usually in class, you know, I have a series of erasers and I'll add them up, right? Um, but

[51:47] the pope speaks there, right? Is that a mover or moved? Yeah, it's moved by this, and it's moving this over here, right? So it's a moved mover, right? It's moving something else through being moved itself, right? So the same thing can be a cause and effect. It can be a mover and a moved. Okay. Now, as you know, reason looks before and after, right? And the cause is before the effect in the fifth or crowning sense, right?

[52:26] So when I look, you know, does every cause have a cause before it, right? Or do eventually come to a what? First cause, right? Or is every effect also a cause, or do come to an effect that is not right? You're looking before and after the crowning sense there before, aren't you? Okay. And it's in the second book of wisdom that Aristotle speaks universally of this, huh?

[52:54] Okay. But in particular, he talks about this in natural philosophy and ethics and so on, that there's a first cause, a cause that is not an effect, right? It's very important to look before and after in this sense of the crowning sense of before, right? Okay. Now, when you talk about the genus and species, is there before and after there? Yes. Yeah. Which is before? The genus.

[53:23] Yeah. The genus is before the species, huh? Okay. Now, what sense of before is the genus before the species? Third sense. The third sense, yeah, in the discourse of reason, right? Okay. Notice how that, in a way, resembles the second sense, right? Second sense was in being, right? And you could say it seems to resemble that because animal, it seems, can be without dog. You can't have an animal without a dog, but you can't have a dog without a what?

[53:57] Animal, right? Okay. But in the discourse of reason, animal comes before dog, right? And you said naturally, you know, if you ask a student out of the blue in class, what's a dog? Come on, tell me. Well, it's an animal. It's what he'll usually start with by saying, right? Okay. What's a dog You know, What's a sign You know It's a sign Okay You see, You know they'll naturally begin with the genus before the species, right?

[54:26] So we're going to look before and after in the what third sense of before, right? Okay. In ethics, you know, we look at the goods of the soul and the goods of the body and outside goods, and we ask which are what better, right? And we reason that the inside goods are better than the outside goods, and among the inside goods, that the goods of the soul are better than the goods of the body, right?

[54:57] And then in the ethics, we go through the goods of the soul and we see that some are better than others, right? Okay, so we're looking before and after in the what fourth sense of before, right?

[55:13] The Greeks wondered whether time, what every time had a time before it, or whether there's a beginning of time, right? Aristotle says he didn't know, and he gives in the Topics there. He's talking about probable reasoning. He gives as an example there something that we long to know whether the universe is eternal or not, right, or whether it had a beginning in time, huh? And Thomas, you know, in the Middle Ages, he considers arguments that people gave down through history for or against the eternity of the world, and he says none of them are what conclusive, right?

[55:50] None of them are certain, huh? And that we know only by faith, right? At least, you know, it wouldn't be arguments up to his time anyway, right? That would show this, right? Yeah. People wonder at the Big Bang and that sort of stuff, you know, whether you know time didn't have a beginning, right? You know, okay, but we know it more by by faith than by reason, right?

[56:13] But notice reason is asking that, right? The time, you know, today and yesterday, right, and tomorrow, are those absolute distinctions? Because today can be yesterday, and or and tomorrow, you know, could be today, and so on. But does every day have yesterday, right? Or is there a first day? And does every day have a tomorrow or a someday? Well, we know it in terms of our life that there's a first day, right?

[56:46] You know, we've got grandchildren, first day for them, right? And and there's a last day for us, right? And mortal life anyway, huh? Okay, but as time as a whole is is having a beginning or end. Well, we find out in Genesis that did have a beginning, right? Okay, time wasn't always. And in the Apocalypse, it speaks of the end of time. We see in the Apocalypse, time will come to an end.

[57:13] Okay, so there you're looking before and after in the first sense of before, which is after time, right? Okay. See how important Shakespeare's definition is, right? How it fits.

[57:28] So we ask now: Does every genus have a genus before it, right? Or another way of saying that is every genus a species of something before it, and is every species a what genus or something after it, right? Or do you come to something that is a species only, right, and not a genus? Or do you come to something that is a genus and not a what species, right?

[57:58] Okay. Now. Are there, in other words, lowest species and highest what? A highest genus or a genus? Of course, we gave a definition of lowest species, didn't we? And are there lowest species that we we know? Yeah, yeah, circle, square. And it's easiest to see this in the case of what? The mathematical examples, right? But there doesn't seem to be different kinds of square, right? There are different kinds of quadrilateral.

[58:41] but not different kinds of square, right? So if you're thinking of the shape, right? Okay. Or different kinds of what? Circle, right? Or different kinds of seven, right? There can be seven men and seven dogs and seven chairs, but that's man, dog, and chairs kind of accidental to what seven is, right? Seven seems to be a lowest species, right? Okay. Now, natural science is not as clear, right?

[59:11] Is dog or cat a lowest species? Are there different kinds of dogs and cats, right? Okay. You know, a lot of times the biologist tries to take as kind of a rule of thumb, you know, reproduction together, right? As a science, we come to a lowest species, right? But it's not as clear obviously as math, right? So we ask: Is man? We're very familiar with this animal called man.

[59:42] Is man a lowest species? Huh? In other words, is the division into white men and black men and yellow men and so on is this kind of an accidental thing? Like if you're dividing circles into red, white, and blue circles or something, right? But there would not be different species of circle, right? Exactly.

[1:00:08] Well, in order to have species under a genus, those species have to have what differences, right? And those differences have to determine what's intrinsic to the genus. And so, if we take a simple mathematical example, when we divide triangles into equilateral, isosceles, and scalene, we're determining something intrinsic to the very definition of triangle, which would be something like a plane figure contained by three straight lines. And those two straight lines can be all equal, or just one of them, or none of them, right?

[1:00:45] But red, white, and blue aren't three ways of being three-sided are they? They're purely accidental, right? Okay. So when you get down to man, if man is an animal with reason, as we were defining him before, with Shakespeare. If there were species of men in a strict sense, right, would have to be different kinds of what reason, right, huh? Okay. Now, does the white man, the yellow man, really have a different kind of reason, right?

[1:01:19] I don't think you'd want to say that, would you? Interesting to see Heisenberg's talks after the war, Chris. Oh, because during the war, of course, you had the Nazis talking about the master race and all these sort of things, you know. And Heisenberg was talking to the young students. Now, of course, his background is there, right? He was talking about his his days as a student in Copenhagen under Niels Bohr, right, where men came from all over the world to study under Bohr, and they were different what nationalities and so on, right?

[1:01:50] And then finally, you had what the Japanese and so on making real contributions to physics, right? Not just learning physics of the Westerners, but you know, you know, developing new things, right, huh? And then you realize there was nothing really what different. Yeah, yeah, it's not really different reason that we have, right? You know, Heidegger says philosophy speaks Greek. Well, that's kind of common to the Greeks, right?

[1:02:15] Schrödinger, the scientist, says science is a Greek way of looking at things. But because the Greeks, you know, made great contributions to philosophy and to science and so on, but nevertheless, it's not really what by definition Greek, right?

[1:02:32] Philosophy is not in Greek or in English, you know. Even though you might see one language is is is a little more suitable for philosophy, maybe than another one. Um. Some grammar, and they study grammar. I mean, some of them have more figures, more parts of speech to explicit the language, right? Latin does not doesn't have all the parts of speech. Doesn't have the article, and you see that in medieval Latin.

[1:03:01] They're trying to stick in an article. You see, ly or something, right? I used to think that's what the word "no" in French came from, but it's a different thing. They thought it was "ile." Then they put "winipu" there. Oh, "winipu." Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had to kind of find some way of doing this, right? And you see a problem that I think the translation were mentioning there.

[1:03:28] There are "father," right, in the seventh petition, and deliver us from evil, right? But the Greek says the evil one, right? Oh, it's got the article there, right? Well, of course in Latin, deliver us a malo right? There's no article there, right? So we tend to take it as we translate it, right? Deliver us from evil, but really the Greek says more, but deliver us from the what evil one, right?

[1:03:56] It actually has, and it can go either way. Because the same form is neuter in masculine, yeah. So in that in Greek too, yeah. So the article, but then you go to some other languages, and maybe you don't even have the verb to be. You know, tell me, you know, the verb to be came last. You know, you know, evolution of language, if you wish. So it's kind of hard, you know, to express yourself as clearly, right, in some languages.

[1:04:26] But nevertheless, I wouldn't say, you know, that philosophy is by definition Greek. You know, it's not even Greek, it's not. When I was in Quebec, there, you know, it used to be kind of a joke. Because sometimes French Canadians want to send their students out to Quebec to study, and especially for for the sake of theology and religion, right? Don't do it in French, you're not going to get it correct.

[1:04:56] Okay France is the oldest, you know, dominant church and so on, right? So, uh so notice, um So, if man is an animal with reason, you have to have different kinds of reason to have what species of man, right? Now, though, someone said that men and women maybe there is some prima facie evidence, Uh, even there, you know. I don't go quite that far.

[1:05:36] So, man might be an example then of a lowest species, right? Okay. Um. When you get to to the virtues, right? Is you know, a lot of times you speak of the cardinal virtues. Now, is temperance a lowest species? I don't know if

[1:06:07] you said it's a different way of being temperate. Say, food and drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I think moderation, food, moderation, drink, and moderation in sex. These are maybe three different what. Different kinds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think to some extent, experience might tell you that, right?