Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999)
18. Lowest Species and Highest Genera: Why Being Is Not a Genus
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/1-philosophy-1999/018-lowest-species-and-highest-genera-why-being-is-not-a-genus/

[0:00] You, used to work with one guy who back on Thanksgiving, you know, he picked up a case of beer, right? And some days he'd come to work, he'd be up all night just drinking. But he didn't have any, didn't eat to excess, right? You know, he didn't drink too much.

[0:23] The so, although you know, one vice here might contribute to another one, right? They seem to be a little different. One guy knew who drank too much. I said to him one day, "Which is better, a woman or a bottle?" He says, "A bottle."

[0:43] Well, see where his problem is. So maybe temperance is not a lowest species. Temperance, in general, is about was you know pleasurable to the senses, especially touch and taste, taste and kind of touch. But maybe it has you know different species. Then maybe courage is a lowest species. At least Aristotle speaks of courage, or limited, you know, to the battlefield. But that's kind of interesting thing because you might think as you divide a genus, you know, finally you get down to the bottom, you get to a lowest species, that all those on the same level would be lowest species.

[1:30] Is that so? Well, I was mentioning there, you know, triangle, right? You divide triangle into equilateral, isosceles, and scalene, right? Equilateral, I think, is a lowest species. Isosceles, there could be different kinds. Kinds, yeah. And you might have to get down to the ratio of the equal sides to the unequal side, right? You know, like two to one, and then that would have all the same shape, but at different sizes, the same shape, right?

[2:05] So maybe equilateral triangle is a lowest species, but not what? Yeah. And maybe square is a lowest species, but not what? Oblong, right? Okay, you see that? That's kind of you know a surprise, right? That as you divide, you don't reach the bottom. All across the board, maybe.

[2:34] If you divide animal into man and beast, suddenly man is maybe a lowest species, but not beast, right? I mentioned how how when you divide

[2:54] plays are tragedy and comedy lowest species. Well. It seems to me that there are really two kinds of comedy, which I call the good-natured comedy, and then the what satire, right? And I think the good-natured comedy is a more attractive, a better, or healthy form of life. But you have to have a lot of experience of satire and good-natured comedy before you'd be able to decide that there are different kinds of comedy.

[3:35] And if you take a tragedy like like Macbeth, let's say, and a tragedy like Othello, right? Well, Macbeth seems to to choose evil knowingly, right? In a way that Othello doesn't, right? And so there are King Lear and so on, right? So they're really tragedies in exactly the same sense.

[4:02] So the logician is going to leave to the student of drama, right? To the student of comedy, to decide when you've come to lowest species, right? And to the zoologist, when you get to lowest species, is a dog or is it

[4:23] a golden retriever or a Labrador retriever or something, right? And the same way with with plants, right? I'm a tea drinker, and I, you know, I'm not sure there's one kind of tea plant here or not. It's very different.

[4:42] Okay, so there are definitely lowest species, right? But now it's clearer when you've come to lowest species, and you may have to what a great deal about a subject, right? Aristotle in the Greeks, you know, they divided government into monarchy and oligarchy and democracy and so on. But is there really only one kind of oligarchy?

[5:13] And you know, if you compare the American government to British government, at least you know there's some differences that everybody knows about between parliament and prime minister. You know, you see it on TV, and it's kind of funny to watch because the prime minister comes in, and anybody wants to ask a question, right? It's kind of back and forth, and having good-natured, kind of kidding each other, right?

[5:36] Now these guys get very what quick on their feet, right? I'll just take an example there of Wilson, I think, as prime minister. But you know, I tell the story. He was at some kind of rally. He was speaking, and how some guy there was yelling, "garbage." Did I tell you that story? No. And how do you handle it, right? You know, you're giving a speech, and you get some scrupulous guy saying, "garbage."

[6:02] every few minutes." You know. Well, he he turned the guy says, "I'll come to your specialty in movement, sir." Shut him up, right? I would not have had like that. I, you know, probably be talking louder or quicker or something, right? And winning by speech, say, but he knows how just to. I'll come to your specialty in movement, sir. He did it so quickly, though. He's a fun punch.

[6:34] One time in Parliament, there where Churchill was speaking, see, and he was being opposed by a lot of people writing his ideas, right? And finally, says, but he says, "I'm not going to cast my pearls." And everybody's expecting him to say, and the whole the whole part is froze. He says, "Before those who don't want them," he says. No, no, no, loud! It's it. So, so

[7:10] I mean, is the American form of government and the and the British form of government really different kinds of government? A little bit obscurely, right? Huh.

[7:24] Aristotle speaks, you know, of the best government for most men, considering the virtues that most men capable of as being middle class government, right? And in a way, the American government has been that to some extent, but it kind of swings a little bit, you know, towards the oligarchic and then towards the democratic, and but never completely gets unbalanced, you know. So those things are not as clear.

[7:58] So we need maybe the political philosopher to say whether the British government and American government differ only accidentally, right, or is an essential difference, right? But there certainly are lowest species, right? But in the sense that there weren't, how do you get to the individuals? But this, yes, not always clear when you come to lowest species, you come to a species as still genus.

[8:30] But the reverse is the question the logician is going to answer more universally. Right? Does every genus have a genus before it? Well, if that was so, would you ever really know anything?

[8:51] Because I have to know what a quadrilateral is, what it is to be foresighted before I can know what a square is, right? And if quadrilateral is a rectilineal plane figure, it's another genus we don't have a name for, right? I have to know what it is to be contained by straight lines before I can know what it is to be contained by four, as opposed to three or five or six, and so on, right?

[9:21] So you have to know the genus before you can know the species. So if every genus had a genus before it, you'd have to know an infinity of things before you could know what anything. You wouldn't know anything, right? Is that true? Don't know anything. Even the man who says we don't know anything, he claims to know that we don't know anything, and therefore he claims to know what knowing is, right?

[9:49] And you couldn't know what that is, correct his position, right? Okay. So. Again, could you ever come to know anything by definition? First, because you have to define quadrilateral, say, before you define square, if it does, and you have to define rectilineal plane figure before quadrilateral, right? There'd be infinity of definitions in this case, right? Before any definitions, so you would never know anything by definition. And yet, we all know we've come to know what an odd number is, what an even number is, even what a perfect number is, and what a square is, and what an oblong is by definition, right?

[10:34] And what blank verse is, right? I came to know that by definition. But you would never come to know anything by definition if every genus had a genus above it, There'd be an infinity of definitions, we suppose. This is very much like the argument in the logic of the third act, that not every statement is what a conclusion, right? Not every premise is a conclusion. Many premises are, maybe most are, right?

[11:03] But many, but not every premise is a conclusion. Always have an infinity of things before, Could even begin to know anything, right? Now, there's also an argument that you give that's peculiar to the genus, and that is that the genus is always said of more than the species, right? So, if every genus had a genus before it, or a genus above it,

[11:31] then there'd always be a name said of more than any word or name, right? In that case, you would never come to a most universal name, would you?

[11:43] Would you? But do we come to most universal words or names? Yeah. And examples of those, the most best examples would be words like being or thing or something.

[12:09] Can there be something that is not a being? Can there be something not being? No, if being is even the word to be itself, right? Okay. So whatever is in any way whatsoever, right, is a being, right? So can there be anything anywhere that isn't a being? No. So there's nothing more universal than being, is there? Can there be something that isn't something? No. No.

[12:44] There'd be nothing, right? Nothing that isn't something, right? So something is completely universal, right? Yeah. So you'd never come to most universal names if. Every genus had a genus above it. If every genus had genus above it, there'd always be a more universal name than any name. There'd always be a more universal name, right?

[13:13] Now, the fact that you come though to these most universal names is a sign that there must be a highest genus, right? But it doesn't really tell you whether there's one or more than one, right? And someone might say, if you have these most universal names, you have one genus of everything, right?

[13:40] Well, now you can see the importance of of knowing definitions, right? Now, if the word being or thing was said of everything univocally, that is to say, with one meaning in mind, right, meant exactly the same thing, like quadrilateral means exactly the same thing instead of square and oblong and rhombus and rhomboids, then you would have one genus of all things, right? But if being or thing is not said with one meaning of everything, right,

[14:22] then you don't have one genus of all things, right? Now, Plato's somewhat anticipatory, but mainly Aristotle who saw that the word being and the word thing are equivocal, and there is this going to point out they're equivocal by reason, but nevertheless they're equivocal. Now,

[14:50] take a very simple example to manifest this. Example we always use. Suppose you have a man and a dog in a room, nothing else, right? We'd say we have two things in the room, right? A man and a dog, right? Now you take the dog out of the room, right? And you're left with one thing, right?

[15:17] Now suppose someone came back and says, "No, you've got two things in there. You got the man, and you have the shape of the man,

[15:28] or you have the man and the health of the man. Are they the same thing, the man and his shape? No. No. Sometimes his shape changes, right? Left just eyes and dies. And is a man and his health the same thing? No. But now are the man and his health two things, like the man the dog are two things? No. At first you wouldn't think of them as being two things, would you?

[16:02] Okay, because the health of the man or the shape of the man is something of the man, right? While the dog is really what another thing, right? It's nothing of the man, huh? Okay, and yet you wouldn't want to say that the health of the man is not nothing. That when a man is concerned about his health or a woman is concerned about her shape, that they're concerned about nothing, right?

[16:29] Or if you took the, you know, take the working man, right? Huh? And you say to him, now, is my nose and my ear the same thing? What would he say? No, two different things, right? Okay. How about my nose and the shape of my nose? Are they two things too? What do you say? Probably first. First inclination, yes, but. Or it'd be no. Maybe more no.

[16:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if he doesn't admit that they're two things, we'd say, "Well, want me to flatten your nose? " Huh? You know? Oh yeah. There's a difference between the nose and its shape, right?

[17:12] But the nose and its shape don't seem to be two things like the nose and the ear are, do they? You know. The nose and the ear are more like the the man and the dog, right? Okay. This is the distinction the philosopher makes between what we call a substance, right, like a man or a dog, and an accident, like the health of the man or the shape of the man.

[17:34] Okay. Um. So is a substance an accident? A thing in the same sense? No. Um. Now, man gets up on the stage and he says, "To be or not to be, that is the question," right? What's he thinking about?

[18:01] Sense. Primary sense. Whether they will exist or not. Yeah, yeah. He's thinking of suicide, right? Hamlet, there, right? Huh? Going on living or not, right? Huh? Right. Yeah. To be or not to be, that is the question, huh? That's been said on the stage for centuries now, right? And people understand that to refer to his living, going on living, or dying, right? Okay. Um. Now, if he had meant, you know, to be married to Ophelia or not to be married to Ophelia, right?

[18:43] Or to be a student or not to be a student, you'd have to what? Qualify it, yeah. If you just use the word "to be," period, we're going to think of his substantial being, his very life, right? Huh? Okay.

[18:59] If I say to the student now, "If you leave this room, you will cease to be," that sounds like a what? Threat, right? Okay. Now in this lit

[19:14] against society, right? You know they charge me as threatening the student, right? I said, I say to the judge, "Well, I meant, Your Honor, that if so and so left the room, he would cease to be in the room." He said, well, nobody would have understood that what you said, Mr. Berquist And I said, "You'll cease to be." That sounds like a threat on your life, right?

[19:40] Okay. In other words, when you say to be without qualifying it, right? You think of substantial being. In the case of a man, his very life, right? Okay.

[19:56] If you ask me. When did I come to be? Right. I was born on January eighteenth, nineteen thirty-six. But I guess I came to be somewhat before that time, right? The year nineteen thirty-five, right? My mother's womb, right? I came to be. Um.

[20:18] I wouldn't talk about when I came to be in Massachusetts or when I came to be at the monastery, right? You wanted to know when I came to be in Massachusetts or when I came to be at the monastery here. You'd have to add Massachusetts and the monastery, right? He said, "When did you come to be, Mister Berquist?" In the same way, if you say when why cease to be, I don't know.

[20:45] Okay. Then you ask me why I'm going to die, right? I notice with a univocal word, right? You don't think of one necessarily before the other, right? If I say, for example, we have a pet at home, right? Okay, he is an animal. Do you think of dog before cat or cat before dog or bird before you know? Because it's said equally of those, right?

[21:18] I got a habit. Do you think of it as a good or a bad thing? Would be good or a bad habit, right? You know, because they're equally a habit, right?

[21:30] But to die and leave this room is not to cease to be equally, is it? So he says, "To be or not to be." He's using "being" in the sense of life or death, right? Substantial being, right? So obviously, the word "being" and the word "thing" are not said univocally. Substance and what accident, right? Okay. So although there is therefore one word which could be being or a thing or even something, although there is one word said of all things, it's not said of one meaning of all things, right?

[22:12] Therefore, it doesn't fit the definition of what genus, right? And if you were to call being a thing a genus, you've used the word genus in another sense, right? Not in the sense in which we first defined it, right? Sometimes we do use the word in that looser sense, but in the strict sense of genus, being or thing or something is not.

[22:36] So this leaves us now with the conclusion that there's more than one highest genus, right? The fact that there are most universal names shows that there's not always a more universal name, and there always had to be a more universal name if every genus had a genus, because a genus is always said of more than the species. Yeah.

[23:02] To never come to a most universal name But you don't have a most universal name. Therefore, there must be, you know, not every genus is a species, right? But then, is it one or many, right? Well, then you examine these words that are said of all things, and you see they're not said of all things individually or with one meaning. And therefore, there's got to be more than one what?

[23:25] Two highest but genus. Now, the first book that has come down to us from Aristotle, who's called historically, the father of logic, right? The first book in logic that's come down to us, the Categories, is about the highest genera.

[23:44] You know, you can say the highest genus, you can say highest genera. The genera—that's the plural genus, obviously—that have no genera above them, right? A highest genus is a genus that has no genus above it, or you could also describe it as a genus that is not a what? Species. Okay. Okay. Just like the first father, if he's Adam, let's say, right? You could say he's a father who doesn't have a father, right?

[24:12] Or he's a father who is not a what? Son, right? Just like you could say the first cause is a cause that doesn't have a cause, or say cause that is not a what? Effect. Yeah. See, those are ways of speaking, but it's the same thing.

[24:38] So the highest genera are genera that are not species, right? And they're not; they don't have any genus above them. Same way of speaking, right?

[24:50] Now, how should the highest genus be distinguished? That's the question. And see, we've spent you know a whole semester talking about Aristotle's book, the Categories, huh?

[25:10] But how do you think Aristotle distinguished these? But in in general, how do you think he goes about distinguishing the highest genera? That's kind of an interesting question, right? We got we got down to point now where we say that there are many,

[25:49] many meaning what? More than one, right? There are many highest genera. There are many genera that are not. Species of any genus, right? There are many genera that have no genus above them, right? Okay. But how would you go about distinguishing these?

[26:14] One way might be to try to examine meanings of most universal terms. Well, inductively, you mean, huh? Or what? Yeah, because well, like you were saying that being or something is different when it's said of substance or acts. Then you'd say, well, is it is it said in every case of substance? Okay. Notice that kind of interesting thing here, right? If you look at this in terms, also, what's gone before, right?

[26:56] We're looking for a distinction that is both a distinction of many kinds of things, because a genus is signifying a general kind of thing, like a species is a name of a particular kind of thing, right? Okay. We're going to be distinguishing a number of kinds of things, right? And at the same time, we're going to be distinguishing meanings of the word what being or thing. Okay.

[27:28] That's kind of interesting that those two should come together. Now I'm going to contrast that. When I distinguish, however, now when I don't, when Euclid distinguishes quadrilateral into square, and you've done this right, huh? Into square and oblong and rhombus and rhomboid and

[27:54] trapezium, right, huh? And later on we find out these first four are parallelograms, right? But doesn't know enough at that point to know they're parallelograms. Or the doctrine of parallelogram comes up later on in the first book. Okay.

[28:10] He's distinguished four or five kinds actually. There are five kinds of quadrilateral, right? Has he distinguished five meanings of the word quadrilateral? What would you say? I'm asking everybody. You distinguished, you know, square, oblong, rhombus, rhomboid, trapezium. You distinguished five kinds of of quadrilateral. Or if you just take the first four, he distinguished four kinds of parallelogram. Okay. But in the case, have you distinguished five senses of quadrilateral?

[28:56] Or in the other case, have you distinguished four senses of parallelogram? Or take another example here. When I distinguish between odd number and even number, right? Two kinds of number, right? Are these two senses or meanings of the word number?

[29:25] This is something you know that is kind of a subtle difference here. What? It doesn't mean. No, no. An odd number and even number is a number in exactly the same sense. A multitude composed of units is, Euclid says, or a multitude measured by the unit, Aristotle says sometimes. Okay. And likewise. with. Quadrilateral, right? A square and a oblong, and so on. Each of these is a quadrilateral in exactly the same sense.

[30:07] It's a plane figure contained by four straight lines. Tragedy and comedy, the different kinds of drama, right? Yeah, are they two different meanings of the word drama?

[30:49] Okay. But notice the word being, or the word thing, or the word something. Those words are equivocal. It's going to have many senses, right? And when we distinguish those many senses, we are going to be at the same time distinguishing many kinds of things, right? So at the same time, we have a distinction here of many kinds and of many what senses? Are you still thinking? I think about that this year when I was thinking again about the distinction Aristotle makes.

[31:29] we'll meet in philosophy of nature between four kinds of causes, right? Matter, form, mover, and end. And he distinguishes these four kinds of causes, but at the same time he's distinguishing four meanings of the word what? Cause.

[31:49] Interesting. Take the word seeing there, right? I distinguish between the act of the eye and imagining and understanding, right? These are three meanings of the word to see, right? My mother used to always say, you know, I see said the blind man, but he couldn't see at all. I know why she thought this was clever. She always repeated it to me, right? Always to back me, right?

[32:23] Okay, it's a kind of a play there. The two meanings of the word to see, right? But could you also say that these are three kinds of seeing?

[32:37] Take take King Lear, right, in the famous play, right? You know how I came there, but what's the father's name? The other father, Gloucester, right? Okay, you know Gloucester gets blinded, right? Through the evil tooth, right? You know, you heard it? King Lear, huh? What? I heard that. one. Yeah, yeah. Um, but anyway, he begins to understand after he's been blind, right?

[33:10] He's seeing now in what? Yeah, in what he'd never seen before, right? A much better way, right? Another kind of seeing, right? See, these two different kinds of seeing,

[33:27] as well as being three senses of the word to see, huh? If you if you see me now, right, with your eyes, right, okay, and I go home and remember me, picture me in your imagination, right, your memory, right, um, in a way, seeing me again, right, but different kind of seeing, huh?

[33:55] Comes to what I said. It's like I just said, isn't it? I see what you mean, Mister. So, how would one go about distinguishing these highest genera?

[34:27] We could ask how many kinds of being things. See what what comes to mind at first, um, and we saw this already when we were pointing out that the word "being" or "thing" didn't mean what have one meaning, right? What we first began to see was that man and dog are a thing, are things in a different way than a man and his what Hell, right now, okay.

[34:54] And this is the distinction that the philosopher makes between substance and what accident, right? And substance comes from the Latin word to what stand under, right? And accident comes from the Latin word to happen to something, right? Okay, you can kind of see why we call man or dog a substance, and the health or the shape of the man a what accident, right? Because the accidents happen to what substance, right?

[35:34] Aristotle, in his book called Categories, he points out this distinction between substance and accident. Right, accident is something that exists in another, right? As a subject, like health exists in my body, right? And you can't, it can't exist by itself. Okay. Or my shape exists in me, right? Or my virtues, or my vices, huh? Or like exist in me, right? Okay. You can't put me here in one room, and my health in the next room, or me in this room and my shape in the next room, or me in this room and my vices the next room.

[36:17] That nice, you can do that, you know. That's the way. It is, but you can put me in this room and the dog in the next room, right? So the accident is something that exists in another, and is incapable of existing except in another as a subject, or the substance does not exist in another. So man and dog would be examples of substance, and maybe the tree, right?

[36:45] And other things, but the shape of the man, the health of the man, and so on, would be examples of accidents. Aristotle just crosses this with another division,

[37:05] and that is between the what universal, what is said of many, and the what individual or singular, right? Universal, and then the singular, individual.

[37:31] So that's going to give you a chart with how many members, huh? Four. Yeah. Now, what would be an example of a singular individual substance? Right. Socrates. Socrates is the example of this, right?

[37:57] Or Champion? huh Did you ever see Gene Autry's horse champion when I grew up? I enamored of Genocri. This horse Champion one time I met Champion. a magnificent horse. He came to St. Paul and had a rodeo, right? All kinds of things. But at the end, you know, Gene Autry you know, got a champion, and he went around, you know, waving his head, and the horse side stepped like that all around the pole, putting you down.

[38:27] So he goes the way the horse did. And so Socrates is an individual substance, right? Individual man. Champion is a what? Individual horse, right? Lassie, there goes our famous Lassie movies, right?

[38:44] No, it's been ten, ten or something. Yeah, my time. Okay. But man. Or dog here would be examples of universal substance, right? You go even more universal. You go up to animal, right?

[39:04] Now examples of accidents. Ones you mentioned were things like health, say a shape, okay, habit, disposition. Actually, health is a habit disposition. Well, if you take the health of Socrates, right? Okay,

[39:30] the health of Socrates, or the shape of champions, of course, or the habit of Socrates, right? This would be an individual accident, right? Now the way Aristotle distinguishes these, he says that um. Some things are said of something, right? But they don't exist in something else, right? Like a man or a dog, right? Now, other things, he says, exist in something like the health of Socrates, about the shape thing, but they're not said of anything, right?

[40:21] Some things are both what exist in another and they're said of another. And finally, there are some things that are neither said of another nor do they exist in another, right? Okay. So you have two negatives to describe the individual substance, right? Two affirmatives to describe this, one negative and one affirmative to describe this, and one here. I remember. So I, you know, I've read it, and we studied Aristotle.

[40:52] He takes up these two first, then that, and then that. And I think it's kind of clever what. He does, right? Because you see the difference between being said of another and existing another. You take something said of another, but not existing another, and something existing another, but not said of another. You can't be the same thing, can they? And then you combine the two, you realize you're combining two different things.

[41:24] Said of another and existing in another don't mean the same thing, right? And of course, affirmative for negative. Okay. So he distinguishes the four, right? Universal substance, universal accident, individual accident. Sorry, can you repeat that? Man dog said of but not exist. Okay. Notice when Aristotle enumerates these, right? He enumerates first universal substance and individual accident, right? Okay. Because universal substance, you say man and dog are said of something, right?

[42:02] Man is said of Socrates and Plato, Aristotle, right? Dog like the monkey should be horse, right? Horse is said of champion. Okay. Or a

[42:14] righteous horse, or his name was a female champion, right? Okay. But but once you have man and dog, the sort of thing that exists in another isn't a subject, right?

[42:26] The health of Socrates exists in another, but's not said of anything else, right? Then universal accident. These are sort of things that exist in another, like health exists in the body, shape in the body, and so on, habit maybe in the soul. But they're said of another because universal, right? Are Socrates a champion? They are neither said of another nor do they exist in another.

[43:05] If I remember right, Danny, he talks about parts of a plot, right? Can be before something and not after something, or after something and not before, or both before and after, right? Yeah, they're doing that, and interesting. So

[43:29] you get this fundamental distinction, right? But as you point out in the chapter on substances and categories, everything else either what is said of individual substances, right? Or they what exist individual substances, right?

[43:58] So the way everything, the way the highest genera can be distinguished, is by something that, in a way, everything has a reference to, and that's the what individual substances, right? Everything else is either said of them or eventually exists in them, right? Okay.

[44:22] So we can distinguish the highest genera by the way something can be what said of individual substances. Now, that's sort of going to distinguish them.

[44:58] When you say the way something can be said of, do you mean the way a name can be said of?