Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999)
21. Names Carried Over: Dropping Meaning and Ratios, Analogy, Metaphor in Scripture and Poetry, and Examples
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[0:00] Now, the other way that a name becomes equivocal is by being carried over from one thing to another. Now, perhaps there are two ways that this comes about.

[0:38] Sometimes it's carried over by being, as a word generalized, okay. You know, it's by dropping part of its meaning, right? So you can apply it elsewhere, right? Okay.

[0:57] So the way by dropping, huh? Part of its meaning, and the other way, you could say in general, is by ratios. Okay, the word is carried over is by ratios.

[1:36] Now, the most famous example of this in philosophy is the word "passio" in Latin, or the Greek word "pathos." And it's difficult to translate this in English. See, originally the sense of passion in Latin or the Greek equivalent is suffering. Okay, but the word "suffering" in English is stuck on its first meaning.

[2:10] Would you say, for example, that your understanding something is a form of suffering? Well, the word "suffering" doesn't seem to have been moved that way. Speaking more metaphorically or accidentally, you said that, huh? Perhaps the best word in English to get something of the idea of this movement would be the word "undergo."

[2:37] And see, suffering in its first meaning implies that you are being acted upon by something, right? And secondly, that you are being changed, right, by being acted upon, right?

[2:52] But most of all, you are being changed to the worse, right? So the passion of our Lord, right? The suffering of our Lord. You are being acted upon something that is changing you for the worse, right? Okay. Now, the English word to undergo probably has originally the a bad sense, right?

[3:19] If we say about somebody, he's undergone a lot. What is that? Probably taken that. Negative. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's under the weather. See, the weather, the the air, and so on, has acted upon him, right? In a way that has what changed him, right? For the worse, right?

[3:47] He's undergone a lot. Had a rough life. Okay. It's almost that sense of suffering, right? Now, you could drop the idea of being changed for the worst, right? And just say that you are acted upon and changed, but not for the worse. So, if I have a piece of clay here, let's say in the shape of a sphere, and I mold it into a cube, it's undergoing something, right?

[4:25] It's being acted upon, and it's being what changed, right? But you wouldn't say for the worse. It's not real suffering, is it? Okay. Then Aristotle says that what is sensing? Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting.

[4:48] Well, when you study the the various abilities of the soul, the various abilities of an animal or a plant or man, we distinguish these abilities by their acts. Okay.

[5:06] So we distinguish, let's say, the ability to hear and the ability to see by hearing and seeing, right? Okay. But we distinguish the acts by their what object, right? Because hearing and sensing, hearing and seeing are both sensing, but hearing is sensing sound, and seeing is sensing color. So sound and color distinguish hearing and seeing, and hearing and seeing distinguish the eye and the ear, the ability, right?

[5:36] Okay. So ultimately, we distinguish the abilities and powers by their object. But one very fundamental distinction is: does the object act upon the power, or does the power act upon the object? Well, now in the case of my digestive power, right, the power seems to act upon the object and transform it. The object being food, right? And so I chew the food and acting upon it, and then they tell me all these digestive juices that are, you know, attacking it and breaking it down and so on.

[6:20] Okay. But now in the case of seeing and hearing, is my eye acting upon color, my ear acting upon sound, or sound acting upon the ear, color acting upon the eye? Which is

[6:36] the latter? Yeah, yeah. So sensing then is a kind of what undergoing, right? It's a result of being acted upon, right? Okay. But is seeing or hearing a suffering?

[6:56] No, no. Is it really a change, or is it a fulfilling, a perfecting of the eye of the ear? It's being perfected, right? Notice how far the word has moved now, right? Okay. But still, because the senses are in a way a body organ, right? The eye and the ear and so on. The object can, if it's too bright or too loud, can actually what harm the body, right?

[7:27] Okay. But then finally we come to the reason itself, and is reason originally, huh? Acting upon its object, or is the object acting upon it?

[7:45] Object acting upon yeah But here you're you're altogether free of that idea of suffering at all because, to use a famous comparison, there in the Deima, if you hear something very loud, you're kind of deaf for a while afterwards, right? At least temporarily. See something very bright, you know, blinding, you know. But if you understand something very understandable, other things are not less understandable, but more so.

[8:15] So it doesn't seem to be at all any kind of suffering there, but still you're being what acted upon, undergoing. So the word "undergoing," they say in its original meaning, huh? It involves being acted upon, changed, right? To the worse, right? And then you start to move it by dropping out the idea for the worse and just saying you're being changed. And finally, you even drop the idea of change.

[8:48] Strictly speaking, seeing and hearing is not so much being changed, but being fulfilled, right? And it seems like coming to understand is not being changed so much as being fulfilled, perfected, right? So it's moved from a meaning where it's really something bad to something that is not only good, you know, free of bad, but is a being perfected, coming good, right?

[9:18] Best thing I ever seen in Gabriel Marcel, which is a little passage there where he's criticizing Jean Paul Sartre, right? And Sartre is saying anything acted upon is bad, right? Because the other is imposing itself upon. Ah. On

[9:36] itself, right? That destroys friendship and kind of real, you know, the teacher, the student, kind of thing like this, right? Huh? But you're harming your friend, you know, acts upon him in many ways, right? Huh? And and your mother and father did and so on, right? Huh? The teacher does and so on. So I mean, but for him, all being acted upon, right? Is bad. It's it's you know what's the famous word there?

[10:00] It's ultra right? Hell is the others. You know, he's stuck on that first meaning, huh? That all undergoing is what suffering, yeah, yeah. I was quoting that teacher, right, Professor Richards, huh? You know, say, you know, this is upon. So they say, why are you doing this to me, right?

[10:24] And sometimes it's either way to us, right? You know, why are you inflicting this upon me, right? And some sometimes you know the kid will will see, you know, you know he's made to read some good literature, something like this, maybe Shakespeare or something, or he's had a music appreciation class, he's got this, you know, and he kind of resents this, you know, or finds this, you know.

[10:50] But the point is, there's a reason why the first meaning of undergo is something bad, right? Because it's more sensible, and that's where knowledge begins with the senses, huh? So if I was to stick a pin in you. You'd be more aware of the fact that I'm acting upon you than I am. You know, when you see me, I'm acting upon your eyes and acting upon your ears.

[11:13] You don't really think about that very much, do you? Because it's pleasant to see and hear, right? And so you're not painful, right, huh? But if I was shining a bright light in your face, that's actually hurting your eyes, you know. Or I was shouting your ear, you know, with a bang-bang sound that was really kind of hurting the ears, right? Then you'd be very much aware of the fact that you're being acted upon, right?

[11:34] Because the contrariety to your what nature, that pin or that knife that's sticking in your ribs, right? You're very much aware of the fact I'm acting upon you. So that's that's why that's the first meaning, right? We name things as we know them, right? And this is very sensible, right? It's very clear that this is acting upon that, and it's contrary to the nature of the thing being acted upon, right?

[11:57] And actually destructive or on the way to destroying it, huh? You see? And notice that even like in the weather, you take you know talk about being under the weather and so on, but but you know sometimes if it's if we're too hot in the room or or it's too cold, or you know, then people will what talk about it, right? It's cold in here, you know.

[12:22] It's hot in here, you know. You know it's. And but then if it's too cold for your body or too hot for your body, you're being acted upon in a way that is what contrary to the good of your body, right? Comfort of your body, and you're more aware of it, right?

[12:43] Notice how you're dropping part of the meaning, right? So that's that's the most famous example of this, huh? But sometimes take take the word genus, right? The word genus there, as we define it, is a name said with one meaning, right? Of many things, right? Of one kind, signifying what it is. And difference was also a name said with one meaning and so on. But sometimes you'll see that even Aristotle or Plato or Thomas will use the word genus or difference for a name that said maybe equivocally by reason, right?

[13:29] Of many things, right? And yet, kind of like the genus, right? And they'll call it something as a genus, right? Okay. Well, it seems to be this kind of equivocation, right? There's something of the meaning there of genus, right?

[13:52] Okay. But not every part, huh? I saw a little bit of the word property there, right? A property in the full perfect sense, there, right? Is. A name is something following upon what nature, right? But the name of what belongs to only one species, to every member, and always, right? Like half of four is a property of two, right? Only two is half of four. Every two is half of four.

[14:25] Always two is half of four, right? But then we could call less than ten a property of two, too. Why? Every two is less than ten. Two is always less than ten. But you dropped out. Now what? Only, right? Okay. So someone might say that half of four is a property in a different sense of two than less than what? Ten. Ten, right? But is it purely by chance that we call less than ten also a property?

[15:03] No. But you've dropped part of the meaning of the word, right? Okay. Maybe I have to mention an example here, right? Again, the examples give me a genius, right? We drop the idea of if you're difficult, right? Okay.

[15:45] I think I was define. If I define seeing, I mean, excuse me. If I define looking, right, as trying to see, right. Well, to see there is a part of the definition now, but is it really univocal there?

[16:02] What to see can mean what the act of the eye or imagining or understanding, right? Looking has three meanings, right? So sometimes we'll define something, and a way we have three definitions there, right? But another way we have one definition because we can state it in one word. The words are not exactly like what we said. The genus or difference we have just one meaning, right?

[16:30] So that's one way that a name becomes equivalent. It's carried over, right? How do you carry it over to other things? By dropping part of the meaning, right? In a sense, by generalizing that.

[16:46] There's a question here when you speak of, let's say, Othello or King Lear is a tragedy, and then you speak of Macbeth or Richard the Third is a tragedy, right? See, well. Othello and and King Lear don't seem to knowingly choose evil, right? And so their downfall is really more pitiful, right? But you know, some people want to say that Macbeth is not a what tragedy, right?

[17:21] Because he knowingly chooses to kill the king and knowing it's bad, right? He's a monster. No, they don't want to say that, right? Richard III, I mean the way he's portrayed in Shakespeare, anyway. Um But? It has something of the character of tragedy, right? It's a serious work. It's not purely maybe equivocally, but it loses some of that meaning, right?

[17:51] Maybe you know when you when you call the Divine Comedy a comedy, right? Well, maybe comedy in the original sense is a likeness of the laughable, right?

[18:05] And that comedy, you know, will will go from misery towards what happiness, right? Okay. Well, the Divine Comedy is not a likeness of the laughable, right? But it has something of the comedy because it goes from the place of misery and inferno to the place of happiness, paradiso. So it's not called a comedy purely by by chance, is it?

[18:34] We have one letter of Dante that. explains why he calls it comedy. you know, this scholar disputes to the authenticity of the letter, right? But certainly, it's not a comedy in the original sense of the word. Most people are when they first see divine comedy. it kind of strikes them as odd, right? They shouldn't call it comedy. very serious work, right? You know,

[19:00] maybe it's equivocal by reason in this way. Now, the other way is by ratios. Now, by ratio, we mean the order relation of one thing to another, right? Okay.

[19:25] Now, perhaps there is at least three ways that this happens. One is by the ratio of the second to the first. Okay. Now, if you look at the the Trinitate for example. We distinguish between speculative philosophy and practical philosophy, right?

[20:11] And logic is not really a part of looking philosophy, right? But it is the what tool of looking philosophy, right? It's the tool for acquiring looking philosophy, right? The practical philosophy to some extent,

[20:34] then. So, if I call logic philosophy, not because it's philosophy in the original sense of the word, something pursued out of wonder, right? But because it's the tool of such knowledge, right?

[20:54] Then I'm calling it philosophy by its ratio to what is first called philosophy. You see that? Yeah. The last sentence you just said. Yeah. Logic is called philosophy, not because it's a knowledge pursued out of wonder, right? But because it's a tool for pursuing such knowledge, right? So if by philosophy you mean a knowledge pursued out of wonder, just going back to the origin of philosophy, a knowledge that's for its own sake, right?

[21:38] Then logic is not philosophy in that sense at all. But logic is necessary for acquiring that knowledge. So it has a certain order, a relation to that knowledge, right? What is the order relation it has? It's a tool for that knowledge, right? A tool for acquiring that knowledge. So it's called philosophy

[22:08] in a second sense by a ratio, by relation it has, right? An order that it has to the what? First one. Okay. Now Thomas gives an example of this in the Summa Contra Gentiles. He says if being is said of substance and quantity, right? It's said first of substance. That's the fundamental thing. But it's said of quantity because it's the what? The measure of substance, the size of substance, right?

[22:54] It's something of substance, right? Okay. We take Aristotle's example there. The word healthy, right? If my body is healthy, that's the first meaning of healthy, right? The body is healthy, right? But now the doctor says that your diet is healthy. Was

[23:18] that same thing? Yeah. Healthy is said of my diet because it preserves the health of my body, right? Okay. So it's not healthy in the same sense, is it? But it has a ratio or an order to the health of my body, right? Okay. He says exercise is healthy, right? Or my complexion is healthy, right? My complexion is a sign of my body, right? Okay.

[23:53] So that's one way that the word is said, right? Okay. Now, the second way is by other ratios to the same thing. By other ratios to the same thing.

[24:36] The example Thomas gives of this in Summa Contra Gentiles is there, in, the same text. For the first example, he says, "If being is said of quantity and quality, it doesn't mean the same thing. " Not the other way around. He says quantity and quality, but it's not purely by chance, because quantity is the measure of substance, and quality is as it were, the disposition of substance.

[25:04] So they have other ratios to the same thing, right? So there is a reason why they're both. called by other ratios to the same thing.

[25:25] Now there is one more way by which a name can become equivocal by reason of ratios, and that is by like ratios to other things.

[25:46] By like ratios to other things. An example of that was the word before, right? If you take, you know, the second meaning there, say of before, which is before in being, right? And then the third meaning of before, which is before in the discourse of reason, or more generally, before in our knowledge, right? Well, you could say that just as this can be without that, but not vice versa, so this can be known without that, but not vice versa, right?

[26:29] So there is four terms there, right? But there is a what? Likeness. A likeness of ratios, right? To other things, right? Okay. Now, the two other situations you could have with ratios would be for things to have the same ratio to the same thing, right? Okay. But in that case, it would seem to be what? Univocal, yeah. So I have two sons, Paul and Marcus, right? And they both have the same ratio to me.

[27:13] Paul is the son of me. Marcus is the son of me, right? So when the word "son" is said of Paul and Marcus, I would say that's univocal, right?

[27:27] Another one would be to have other ratios to other things, right? And that would seem to be no basis for equivocal by reason, right? They have nothing in common, right? They have other ratios to what? Other things, okay? So all is my son, and two is half of four. I don't see that. I'm not four,

[28:02] and to be half of something and to be a son, I don't think that's like ratios, is it? That's it. Okay. So you can make a box, you know, but those two, one would be too much alike to be univocal, and the other would be, you know, nothing in common, right? So you have these two ones here, where you have

[28:40] two ratios, right? But either other ratios to the same thing. So Aristotle's famous example is that in the fourth book of metaphysics, is that of healthy, right? You know, many things are called healthy, but by other ratios to health, right? So my complexion is called healthy because it's a sign of health, right? My diet or exercise is called healthy because it preserves or restores my health, right?

[29:08] Okay. And then by like ratios to other things, and this is what the Greek word analogy originally meant. See, and now you see in Euclid he uses the word proportion for a likeness of ratios. Okay. But then people begin to call a ratio a proportion, right? Now, you notice the scientists can say this is a proportion, and that means a ratio. So proportion has now come to have two meanings, and that means unfortunate.

[29:42] in some ways, right? Proportion can mean both a ratio and a what? Likeness of ratios. Originally, the word "logos" in Greek means ratio. and analogous means like this likeness of ratio.

[30:08] so I think it's kind of unfortunate the language there because when proportion means ratio, then you have to, you know, proportionality meaning likeness of ratios, but it's not as good. We better keep the word ratio to mean the order relation of one thing to another, and proportion the likeness of ratios. So proportion has four terms, right? So when they when they call naming equivocal by reason analogous naming, right?

[30:37] Huh? They're naming it from one what? Part of a part of a part of, in a sense, right? Aristotle used the word analogous right from this thing down here. And what's his name? Euclid does the same thing, right? So I think you sometimes get a more narrow understanding of what name equivocal by reason is. I mean, it goes all. This is the most interesting, in some ways. It goes all the way back to, to that first we talked about, which is almost like univocal, right?

[31:16] And so at the end, we want to admit that as being equivocal, you know. But in some way, it seems to be right. Because in some sense, you can say I am an animal, in other sense I am not an animal, right? There's got to be some equivocation there. It seems, huh? But it's very close to univocal, right? this here is so far away. It's sometimes hard to tell this apart from what we call metaphor, right?

[31:38] If you go to a philosophical conference now, where people don't understand very much, they often call this metaphor, and they can't make the distinction between the two, right? It's hard to.

[31:52] A good example here of this is if you take the word to see and the word eye, right? When we use the word to see, to imagine, and even to understand, I think this is equivocal by reason, right? It's a likeness of ratios, huh?

[32:14] But I think when let's say Gregory the Great says that anger disturbs the eye of the soul, I think that's saying what more like a metaphor, huh? But sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two, right?

[32:34] But seeing is a more material sort of thing, right? And more lends itself to coming to mean to understand, right? Why eye is the physical structure that's in no way like reason, which is not bodily at all.

[32:52] So the things it's hard to tell apart, right? Because here you're stretching it, see. And the word metaphor itself is a Greek word for what carried over.

[33:10] One thing is kind of curious. You know, if you look at the Greek word and the Latin word for carried over, we take it both of word in English metaphor and translation. See, latio and fora mean what carried, and meta, over, right? Trans over. So Thomas will talk about you know the translatio nominis, huh? The carrying over of the name, right? Okay. But notice what's happened in English, right?

[33:41] Metaphor in English and translation, although no reason why they had to be done this, huh? But translation, you're not carrying over the name, you're carrying over the what? The meaning, yeah. Metaphor, you're carrying over the name, but not the meaning. I mean, etymologically speaking. They're exactly the same, right? Okay.

[34:12] But you know, if the meaning gets very distant, you know, a tremendous distance, then we start to speak of a metaphor, right, rather than a name, equivocal by reason.

[34:31] Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end. That's a beautiful proportion there, right? That Shakespeare has on the metaphor, simile. I don't think we start calling it what minutes waves, would we? Got five waves and I got to go. You

[34:56] ran the mile in six six ways. The likeness is just what too distant, right? And theology, you know, Thomas asked, should sacred scripture use metaphors, right? And of course, the one of the objections is you know he always objects himself, right? One of the objections is that to use metaphors is appropriate to the poet, right? Which is the lowest as far as the mind is concerned, parts, right?

[35:25] You know, and why should the highest use the what the lowest, right? And Thomas's answer, if you've seen the text there, he says, well, in a way, it's for the same reason that theology uses what the poet does. But another way, it's for exactly the reverse reason. In the case of the poet, he's trying to take something that in itself is not understandable, and he's trying to bring it up and make it more understandable than it really is.

[35:56] The scripture is trying to take something that's above our mind, very understandable, but above our mind, and trying to bring it down for our mind, right? So what's common to the use of metaphor in scripture and in fiction or in poetry is that it's something that's not proportioned to our mind, right? But the reason why it's not proportioned to our mind is in one case because it's below our mind, in the case it's too bright for our mind, it's too understandable, you know.

[36:24] So in a sense, it's just the reverse, right? And so, you know, you can see that that something like Dante's Divine Comedy is not really what's characteristic of fiction. He's trying to take something that's above us, right, like the Paradiso, right, and bring it down, right, to our level, the way scripture does the metaphor, right. You know, you know, this is a common metaphor for the beatific vision.

[36:54] That's a banquet, right? You see that a lot in the Psalms and other places. And Christ says, "You know, I'm going to eat at my. " Father's table, right? Same thing I eat. That's speaking metaphorically, right? And notice how daily life will speak that that's food for thought, right? So maybe it's an object to think about, something to think about, right? So food is the object that we first talk about in, in the soul, right?

[37:22] Talk about the plant power, and its object is food, right? It's metaphorically called the object of what, the mind, food for thought, right? The beatific vision is called what, a banquet, huh? And so the banquet has everything, right? You know, it's like the these cafes that they have, you know, so much variety, you know, that you can't do justice to it, huh? Well, since this is the way, you know, the mind has been spoken of, right?

[37:50] Only intellectual, see, I meant to. So, but those are what, something that's above our mind, trying to bring it down to our our level, right? Well, Shakespeare says, "Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten their end. " He's giving the waves; he's giving the minutes of our time more existence than they have, because if you are down by the ocean, watching the waves come in, there is not only the wave that's crashing against the shore, but there is maybe two or three other waves you can see.

[38:27] Here is a big one coming, you know. You get ready for it, and they already exist some of the other waves, right? But the next two or three minutes don't exist yet. So we're giving these things more being than they have. Like God is I am who am, right? You know, he's more being, huh? More reality. So we're bringing it down, huh? So essentially, just the contrary thing, right?

[38:53] Now you compare, as they say, the the the Divine Comedy, say, with the Iliad, right? The original of the Iliad might have been a pirate raid, you know, the coast of Asia Minor, right? When Homer gets through with it, it's say, what? It's an image of human life, right? It's tremendously does, huh? So he's giving something insignificant, right? Great significance, you know. He's giving it more meaning, and this is what the great poet does, huh?

[39:20] And it's like like you know what a great portrait painter does, right? The portrait painter, if you get Titian is probably the master, right? And Titian tries to capture the whole character of a man in one expression in that painting, right?

[39:38] And you know in real real life how most people don't like photographs, you know, of themselves, right? You know, and you get your photograph on the license, license, and so on. Doesn't look, you know, but no one expression of his, your friend's face, captures his or her whole what character, right? Huh? In other words, it doesn't have that much meaning, and you kind of need many. Many expressions of that person, right?

[40:08] You kind of an idea, the way they they laugh, the way they react to different things said, and different things that happen, right? And you start to, you know, see their character, right, in these different expressions. But no one expression captures the whole of what this person means to you, right? But the portrait painter seems to be doing that, right? With one, you know, thing. It's a kind of concentration.

[40:32] So you're giving more meaning, right? These things really have. I was reading Father Philip Hughes there, you know, the church historian, right? Reading his little popular history of the Reformation, very, very well written. But he's talking about how the historian tries to, you know, speak in a somewhat orderly way, you know, about the events, right? But you know, you've got to be warned that they didn't really, at the time, see the significance of these events, right?

[41:04] He's talking about this. This this uh interim thing there in in 1555 in Germany, you know, this would be at the end of the Reformation. Now it's being established, then you know, but they didn't know it at the time, right? Historian sees this is the end of this age, almost, and another age is beginning, right? You know, and so in a sense, he's seeing an order that the characters themselves did have done.

[41:30] I mean, when the poet puts the events, you know, in a plot with the beginning, middle, and end, that's where our life is. No, we don't see it anyway.

[41:42] Kind of a chopped up thing, right? Things have no connection, right? You know, are juxtaposed, right? Huh? But but the poet he what puts the events together, right? So it forms a beginning, middle, and end. You know, so he's giving things in order, and intelligibility that we don't really have.

[42:05] And one thing strikes us, you know, two people have often said this, you know, with Shakespeare, that these characters in Shakespeare, like Hamlet and King Lear and all these other characters, they're much more sharply drawn in our memory and imagination than people we know in daily life, right? You know, you know King Lear and Hamlet are much more different to me than you two guys are. You know, you know what I mean?

[42:29] In other words, there's a kind of an intelligibility about these characters that there aren't about people in daily life, and then you know, are kind of are more amorphous than than Lear or Hamlet seems to be, right? So you're making these things more intelligible than they really are.

[42:47] But such words are appropriate to these things, huh? The same way, you know, if you if you get you know Mozart, who's the musician, right? He'll take you know the operas, these very commonplace, almost ridiculous situations, right? And he raises them up, you know, and all of a sudden they seem to be filled with what meaning and mystery. You can't quite say what the meaning is, but I mean they they seem much more meaningful than any such thing.

[43:12] You know, it could be a domestic squabble, you know, and right within the music, you know, and takes on that, you know, you know. It's amazing what he does that, huh? But that's what the great painter, the great poet, the great musician does. They take things that are commonplace, right? And they break them up, and they have much more meaning now than they really have in themselves.

[43:34] But scripture is doing just the reverse, right? So, but the philosopher doesn't really use metaphor much, right? It's more to the theologian or the scripture or to the poets, right? Or to the rhetorician The rhetorician uses it less than the poet, but to some extent he uses these metaphors, other figures of speech.

[44:07] I just one professor you know, who was the head of the English Department. and he had all kinds of interesting things, and so they wanted to give a talk on John Dewey. So he went over to the other college where they had had opinion John Dewey, and he gave a speech, a talk, which seemed to be praising John Dewey, right? But there, so after he left, he realized he had been tearing him apart.

[44:33] And you see, sometimes in the office, you know, someone would come in, you know, and ask about somebody. Turns out you think he's praising the guy, right? And of course, he's really tearing him apart. Kind of puzzle there, you know. You know, I mean, this is not very effective, right? You know, so the rhetorical case, right? Or the case of this talking at the college, they're kind of getting mad at him now, you know.

[45:01] Yes. But name equivocal by reason—that's something that the philosopher is very much concerned with, especially in wisdom. You distinguish these words, right? But logically, does sound like the word before was taken from the categories, huh?

[45:42] So remember going to National Review years ago. Stormy weather ahead, right? You can hear it? Out there, you know. Stormy weather ahead, right? That's metaphor, right? Same talking about troublesome period coming up in in the country, right? Stormy weather ahead,

[46:04] but it appeals to imagination. The philosopher is going to appeal to imagination. As some as you mark, you know about the modern philosophers tend to give a

[46:19] example, you know, that appeals to imagination, right? Why the Greek philosophers tend to use an example that makes the thing clear, because they're using the example there to help understand something. The moderns they tend to get carried away.

[46:40] Of course, the student would do that anyway, you know. Well, teacher Casirer used to say, you know, that that tells the joke illustrates something, or you know, thing. They'll remember the story, what it was, but not the point he's trying to illustrate. But that's because our senses are kind of singular, right?

[46:59] No, sir. Our words, parables, are like kind of like a parables, like an extended metaphor, right? Expanded metaphor, right? That basically it's like teaching metaphor.

[47:23] Many reasons for doing that. So that concludes the first part of the art of definition about names, right? Okay, and we, for the goodness of the teaching, we've talked a little bit about name equivocal by reason, huh?

[47:53] And when you get into into the Peri Hermeneias of Aristotle, you have a good example of one of these equivocal ways of naming. I think I mentioned it before. Aristotle divides a statement into noun and verb, right? Huh?

[48:14] Both of these are names as being what? Finite, right? But in Greek and Latin, you don't have a different word for name than for noun. In Latin, you have nomen,

[48:33] and for verb, you have verbum. In Greek, you have whether it's rhema and you have onoma, right? So up here is onoma, right? Okay. Now you read the great Ammonius Hermaeus, right? Who we think might have been a teacher at one time of Boethius, right? Ammonius Hermaeus wrote this great commentary of the Peri Hermeneias of Aristotle, and Thomas seems to have followed it very closely, right? Usually, he disputes these guys, but to some extent, it's subtle things, even Boethius.

[49:14] but he follows Ammonius very carefully, and even uses Ammonius' examples. And I guess the scholars say that where Thomas's commentary breaks off is where one of the medieval translations of Ammonius breaks off. Very interesting, right? But anyway, Ammonius is always explaining when Aristotle is doing onoma whether he's using it in this sense as opposed to verbum, right? Or as commentable, right? Because in one sense you can say the verbum the rhema is an onoma.

[49:45] in another sense, you you divide it instead, right? Okay. And in English, though, we can to some extent call this a noun and not a name, right? Although even English has a tendency to think of a name as being a noun, right, more than a verb, right? Okay, we do have a separate word in English, so we're a little richer there in that sense, okay? But now, why is it that in Greek and in Latin there, why do you just keep the common name and this get a new name?

[50:27] A verb is going to have something more. Yeah, yeah. You see, both of them are a vocal sound, right? That signifies by human agreement. part of it signifies by itself, right? But the verb signifies with time. The noun signifies without time, right? Okay. So the verb adds something, right? Or the noun is negative, right? It doesn't seem to add anything to the common meaning, right? So this gets the new name, and this keeps. The old name.

[51:07] That's an example from the logic, second act, of this kind of what? Practical mind, reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very interesting example of that, huh? Just like for the categories, they have the word disposition, right? Where disposition is divided sometimes into disposition and habit, huh? Okay. And this adds that, right?

[51:40] You'll find Aristotle sometimes in the Physics distinguishing between doing and what making. Okay. And this is very important distinction, extremely important. And you'll see it used, you know, in it's comes up in metaphysics, but it's in ethics, right? We'll say, for example, that there are two virtues of practical reason: foresight or prudence, and art. And art is right reason about making. Foresight or prudence is right reason about doing.

[52:15] So the distinction between, doing and making is important for the distinction of the virtues there. But when you're making something, are you doing something? Yeah. So doing

[52:32] is divided into what? Doing and making, which sounds illogical, it would be if doing meant the same thing here, right? But why does making get the new name? And this other doing just keep the name doing. Why? Yeah. Yeah. In the case of making, there's a product in addition to whatever you're doing, right? See. So if I'm seeing you, there's nothing besides the seeing, right? But if I'm making a chair, apart from making, at the end it's going to be a chair.

[53:06] When I'm no longer making, it's going to be a chair, right? Okay. So there's something, you know, in addition, right? And and this here, of course, is not something. Doesn't make it more perfect. In fact, this would be more perfect activity than this here. But this here kind of stands out because it has that exterior product, huh? That's a very important example. With habit and dis, the habit and disposition as a thing added, the firmness.

[53:39] Yeah, the firmness. Yeah, habit is a firm disposition. But a disposition that is not firm just keeps the word disposition, right? I'm ill disposed today, right? And I think, you know what we call mood in English. You know, it's a good example of a disposition. as opposed to habit. Firmness is in the sense of constant. What? Firmness is in the sense of constant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stable.

[54:04] Stable. Not easily lost, right? As if I'm a just man today, I'm not going to easily become a thief today, right? If I'm a criminal and they put me in jail today, I'm not going to turn around tomorrow and be all of a sudden a just man, right? It's going to take some time if I change at all, right? But if I'm in this mood or that mood, you know, today, you know how you suddenly start the day you're in the dumps or or vice versa, right?

[54:29] And you change during the day, right? You know, you change something quickly. Someone tells a joke and you laugh and kind of the the moodiness is gone, right? So that's a disposition, right? Yeah.

[54:44] So you see it in your yourself and your friends, and your fans, so people are seeing changes, right? Used to have you know these cocktail hours and they call them attitude readjustment. But what they're talking about is changing a person's mood after being in the office for eight hours and like that, you know, He's happy hour whatever it is, and now his mood has changed, right? So that's simply called disposition.

[55:17] So you got to find this as you go through, right? But as soon as you get to the third act, you have the other one, for example, syllogism. right? Where syllogism is sometimes

[55:32] divided into syllogism and enthymeme. And sometimes they call the enthymeme syllogism. Sometimes they call it rhetorical syllogism, right? But sometimes you'll say you'll distinguish between the syllogism and the enthymeme. The syllogism is like you know, like the boy is to the man, right? It's something of the of the syllogism, but not the full. You know, in the syllogism, you you require complete universality in one of the premises, right?

[56:05] Universal affirmative, universal negative. The enthymeme is used more in rhetoric and human action, where it's difficult to find things that are without exception, right? We can say boys will be boys, right? That's what enthymeme proceeds from things like that. But sometimes a boy acts like a man, right? You know.

[56:28] Sometimes, so there are exceptions. So it doesn't follow necessarily if he's a boy, he's going to act like a boy. It's likely boys will be boys. But the enthymeme is from likelihood, and likelihood lacks that complete universality.

[57:01] Politicians say what they do. To get elected, right? Everybody thinks that, right? Okay. But Maso de Pino, the Turdiktatis, Cicero, right? Okay. But is that true? Is there no exception?

[57:22] I was talking to a historian one time, and he said, "Who was that guy who said he'd rather be right than president? " And the historian says, "Probably some guy didn't have a chance. " I think sometimes you do have people who do

[57:36] see the truth, right? Even though it's not going to get them elected, right? So the enthymeme is based upon likelihood, which lacks the complete universality, like no odd number is even, right? Every mother is a woman, right? There is no exception, right? You need that complete universality for the syllogism. The enthymeme has something like that, right? Or or it's from signs, and most signs are, you know, more universal than what they're signifying.

[58:09] Like stagger out of the bar, right? He's drunk, right? A man might stagger because you know he has a leg problem, right, or he's old, or he's tired, right. But we jump like that with somebody on the bar, right? He's had too much, right? Take away his keys don't let him drive, right?

[58:35] So not everybody who staggers out of a bar is is drunk, right? My wife works with these brain injury people, you know, and you know some of them seem like they're drunk, and sometimes a policeman would think that they're drunk, right, or something, you know. But it's a little bit, you know.

[59:02] So I mean, there are exceptions. So the enthymeme has something of the syllogism, but it falls short, so it gets its own name. Syllogism keeps a common name.

[59:18] The same way you say induction. How did the poet get his name, Socrates? Maker. Yeah, maker. The poet means the Greek simply maker. Poiein is a common word to make. So among all those who make, he is called what the maker, huh?

[59:50] Then Aristotle, he speaks of Homer, calls him the poet. Antonomasia. Now, sometimes you have two of these figures of speech. In one, I'll give an example here. Suppose you turn the radio on, which I guess you don't do around here, or the TV to get the evening news, and the announcer says, The White House announced today that there will be. " da da da da. How many figures of speech are there?

[1:00:17] The White House announced today. Yeah, another two figures of speech there. See the White House, the White House. Yeah, yeah. Antonomasia, and then was it the White House that announced, or was it the man in the White House that announced?

[1:00:40] Antonomia, yeah, yeah, it's a metonymy. So White House there, among all the White Houses in the country, I live in a White House by the way, but you say the White House, everybody understands the president's house, so that is the White House by

[1:00:56] Antonomasia. But you say the White House announced today, then you mean the man, the spokesman, or whatever it is, right? The? Man in the house, so you're giving the name of the what container for the contained. In a way, it's almost like this when I say I'm drinking a glass of water, right?

[1:01:19] Am I drinking a glass, or am I drinking what's contained in the glass? I'm drinking a cup of tea. What is the cup? Is the tea, or is it the container that contains the tea that serves me?

[1:01:37] It's like a metonymy, isn't it? I drink a cup of tea. I drink a glass. Not literally, figuratively, but the figure of speech is a metonymy. It's very natural to use these things, huh?

[1:01:55] Let this cup or chalice pass from me, Hmm? The Lord said, "let this chalice pass. Yeah, yeah. But in a sense, um, um... Yeah, he says, he says, "This is my body, " right? And then he says, "uh

[1:02:15] the words, of consecration for me. " Not. " This is the cup of my blood, or the chalice of my blood. So, White House. You mean to analyze what that is in terms of this? You have to see. There's two figures of speech there. Yet it's very common now.

[1:02:47] I think I read somewhere that the word Pharaoh I think originally meant the the palace where it was where the man lived, you know. That's not unusual, right? We often refer to the Pentagon nowadays, right? You know, as a military matter. Pentagon is working on this, right? Well, the Pentagon is really the building, isn't it? The men are not in the shape of a pentagon, right? It's the building that's in the shape of a pentagon, right?

[1:03:18] You know, the Pentagon is the name of that building, right? But instead of saying, you know, the men in the Pentagon, we say the Pentagon is working on this now. The Pentagon recommends.

[1:03:32] The Vatican has decided. Yeah. Rome has spoken, right? Case is closed. Right. Very common, huh? Now the Pope's message is called what? Urbi et Orbi I guess. huh It means to the city and to the world, right? What the city means, but Rome, Rome, it's called this city, right? When I was in Northern California, and I taught, St. Mary's, you know, you would refer to San Francisco as the city, right?

[1:04:12] The city. It's San Francisco, right? I mean, in the hills, but also, you know, but I mean that's antonomasia, right? It's not the only city, but it is the city, right? Okay. So. My car.

[1:04:49] Okay. Suppose I jumped out of an airplane and went there without a parachute, but I'm going down with my parachute, right, like this, My body would be in the same, you know, intrinsically, anyway, right, as it is now, right, huh? Or could be, right. But am I standing? No. In order to be standing, I have to have something outside of me, and my parts are what arranged in a kind of a particular way down to that outside thing, the floor.

[1:05:25] If I were to lie down on the floor, which I'm not going to do here, but that would be a different position, right, lying down, and then my parts would be what ordered to the floor in a different way than they are when I'm standing up, right? Okay. If I stood on a chair, we do sometimes to reach something, right? I'm not sitting, right? I am standing, huh?

[1:05:49] Okay. Now Thomas points out that in the idea of time, you'll find it out when we take up time. It already includes the idea of before and after and order. So you don't have a special what? Another category corresponding to time. This goes here. So when I say I'm in this room, that says nothing about the way my parts are arranged. Am I standing in this room?

[1:06:15] Am I sitting in this room? Am I lying down in this room? Right? Right. Okay. But time itself already involves the idea of before and after. You'll see that in the definition of time. It's the number of motion according to before and after motion. But that's perhaps the reason why when Aristotle gives the central meanings of the word before, the first meaning is before in what time, rather than before in place.

[1:06:42] Before in place has led back to that as a similarity to before in time, but it's more explicit in time than you have before and after.

[1:06:53] Now with cause or effect, he has two of them acting upon and undergoing. Usually they use the Latin words action, action, but I like to use the word acting upon, undergoing, and being acted upon.

[1:07:14] Okay. So I am what? Kicking you, or I am being kicked, right? Or the fire is heating the water, the water is being heated, right, huh? Okay. Now notice the difference between saying that the fire is hot and the fire is what? Heating the water.

[1:07:39] The fire is said to be hot in itself. That would be put in quality, the sensible quality. Fire is hot, right? But say the fire is heating something, right? You got to be in something outside of it that it is acting upon, right? And likewise, when the water there in the stove, say the water is hot or is warm, is talking about a quality that it has, now, right?

[1:08:02] But when you say the water is being heated, then you're bringing in something but outside of it, huh? So you always divide it into two or three, right? Two or three, matter.

[1:08:25] Okay. You have the famous example of Christianity, ten, the Ten Commandments, right? But already, you know, the two tablets you have three and what seven, yeah. And then what the seven are divided into what? Well, the affirmative and the negative commandments, right? So you're dividing by two or three when you try to explain those, huh?

[1:08:56] And then you start to divide them into what deeds and words and desires, right? So don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't steal, right? Those are deeds, right? And don't bear false testimony. That's words. And then don't covet your neighbor's wife. Don't covet your neighbor's