Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999)
22. The Art of Definition I: Definition of a Thing vs. a Name, Full Definition and Encircling, Cause and Effect
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[0:00] oxen, so on, right? That's desire, right? Yeah, it's a division to three, yeah. Used in confession sometimes, or in the thought, word, and deed, right? Desire, word, deed. So you divide them into two or three to eventually get. the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider much. So today we're going to talk about the second part of the art of definition.

[0:34] But we also talk about division. Definition is the chief tool there for understanding what a thing is, and division is a secondary tool. And division is also partly a way of arriving at definitions too. So we call this whole thing the art of definition, but we talk mainly about definition. Just like in the logic in the third act, we often say that chief subject is the syllogism.

[1:06] But the syllogism is not the only kind of argument. There are other kinds of argument that are considered there as well. Okay. Now we mentioned two things here in the little proemium there: the definition and division. Are two ways our reason goes from a confused to a distinct knowledge,

[1:32] and two ways we do so in every form of reasoned-out knowledge. So you, gentlemen, have considered a little bit of Euclid, for example, right? And you must have seen that he began with a number of definitions, right? And with a number of what divisions, right? And every reasoned-out knowledge does that, son. So Aristotle, in the second book of the Nicomachean Ethics, he's going to define moral virtue, right?

[2:04] And then he's going to eventually divide moral virtue. So we saw also the natural road that one before and after along the natural road is that we know things in a what confused way before we know them distinctly. And the classical text for that is in the beginning of Aristotle's eight books of natural hearing, the so-called physics. When we do a little natural philosophy, we'll go more deeply into the fact that we know things in a confused way before distinctly.

[2:43] But every student's experience of studying should tell them that that is in fact the truth, son. And so these are two ways that reason uses to go from the confused to the distinct: definition and what division, huh?

[3:05] And he says also in the proemium, we must think out definitions and divisions before we reason out conclusions, son. I think I've talked here before a bit about those key words: thinking out, right? And reasoning out is one form of thinking out, right? Reasoning out is thinking out a conclusion, huh? But there's maybe at least seven different senses of thinking out, corresponding to seven different senses of the word out, corresponding to seven senses of the word in, right?

[3:41] Actually, there's eight senses, but maybe the eight senses of thinking out, huh? But clearly, in reasoning out now, you're going to find at least these seven different senses of thinking out.

[3:56] And the definition, of course, is especially important for what we call the syllogism later on. Most people don't see that connection. It's interesting when Aristotle is remarking there. I think it's in the Metaphysics. He's remarking that Socrates was trying to syllogize, huh? And he gives as a sign that Socrates was trying to syllogize the fact that he was always trying to define, because definition is the beginning of a syllogism.

[4:31] Now, in the first section here, the two kinds of definition. We distinguish between the definition of a thing. And the definition of a what, name. And what we're chiefly concerned with is the definition of a thing.

[4:52] But sometimes you have to define, a name. You have to use some words to make known what the word or name means. But that's not the main kind of definition. A very strange statement there. I guess in John Stuart Mill's it, he says all definitions are of names that are names only. I can't imagine where they get this idea. What we're chiefly interested is in knowing things, right?

[5:24] And not the meaning of names. It's important to know the meanings of names. You're going to use names. You got to use names. So you have to stop sometime and see what the words mean, right? If it's not clear, what does that mean? But to say that's the main? That's the only thing. It's laughable, right? But you find that thought. I remember reading one time in Heisenberg's different lectures.

[5:48] Now Heisenberg is one of the greatest scientists. Some people say he's next to Einstein, right? But Heisenberg is very wise man. I have tremendous admiration for Heisenberg and learned a lot from him. But you know, in alluding to Plato, you know, he speaks of the dialogues, and if Plato or Socrates is mainly concerned about the meaning of names,

[6:13] well, you know, somehow that idea got into the modern mind somewhere, and it just makes definition something relatively secondary, right? When actually the definition of a thing is what we're chiefly interested in, and the definition of a thing

[6:34] is very often a major what accomplishment, and it takes sometimes a long time to arrive at a good definition of a thing, and very few arrive. And even those who do arrive at a good definition, it takes the rest of us a long time to understand that.

[6:58] Descartes quotes the definition of motion, which is very important in natural philosophy, in a garbled fashion, and he says, "Who understands that? That's it. "

[7:15] Doesn't realize, you know, that's really a major work there to think out the definition of motion, and even to understand the definition of motion when someone else has thought it out. We have a good example of that in the definition of what reason, right? As ability for large discourse, looking before and after, it took a long time for us to understand what discourse means or large means, and so on.

[7:48] Okay. Now, in the second paragraph, here I give two definitions of definition, right? And one is speech signifying what a thing is. Now, as we mentioned here many times,

[8:09] logic is chiefly about three speeches, and we define speech as vocal sound signifying by custom or by human agreement having parts that signify by themselves. That five-part definition, and logic is mainly about three speeches: definition, statement, and syllogism. And definition is speech signifying what a thing is.

[8:59] Just as statement, which we'll be studying after definition and division, is speech signifying the true or the false. Okay. And the syllogism, which we'll be studying after statement, is speech in which some statements laid down, another follows necessarily because of those laid down.

[9:25] Now sometimes I'm tempted to stick another word in here and say it's speech signifying what a thing is distinctly, right? Because a name can signify what something is too, right? But the speech signifies distinctly what it is. So if I say, you know, what is this? You could answer, well, that's a square, right? And the word square would signify what this is. That's what this is: is a square.

[10:00] But not as distinctly as the speech. Well, it's a quadrilateral, right? That's equilateral and what right angle, right? So square and equilateral right-angled quadrilateral signify the same thing. They both signify what this is, but the one signifies more distinctly than the other.

[10:28] Okay. But then sometimes I'm drawn back and say, well, you know, nothing too much, right? If a man understands what a speech is and the difference between a speech and a name, then he should see that a speech that has parts that signify by themselves, right? The speech as a whole, being composed of those many names, right? Necessarily will signify more distinctly, right? What a thing is than one name is.

[11:05] Square is an example of a name. It's a vocal sound signifying by custom. No part of which signifies anything by itself, right? Why the definition equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral is a speech having parts that signify by themselves, and therefore it can kind of what. Blow up, you might say, expand, let you see more distinctly. But the thing is, okay, so maybe it's superfluous, right, to say speech signifying what the thing is distinctly, because a speech is going to do that, because it is a speech, more so than a name, right?

[11:47] Okay. Nevertheless, you should see that that a definition is signifying distinctly what the thing is, but it can do so because it's a speech and not just a what, name.

[12:04] If if the definition of speech and name are the first definitions of logic, then the first postulates would be, no speech is a name or no name is a speech, and every speech is composed of names.

[12:25] Now, a second definition of definition. Aristotle often compares definition with syllogism or definition of demonstration, and when you meet the definition of demonstration later on in the Logic of the Third Act, Aristotle would define the demonstration as a syllogism, right? Making us know the cause and that of which it is a cause, and that it cannot be otherwise. But he puts in the definition of demonstration that's a syllogism, making something known, right?

[13:04] And so sometimes, in a kind of imitation of that, I define definition. I'm talking about a definition of a thing, right? I just say definition period. I'm thinking a definition of a thing, right? I'm not a modern in that sense, I'm a Greek, okay? So sometimes I define definition as speech

[13:29] making known what a thing is. So clearly, we're talking about a definition of a thing here. We use the word thing definition here. Speech making known what a thing is.

[13:53] So I ask my students sometimes, what in arithmetic is a perfect number? And I know they kind of know what an odd number is or an even number is, but none of them seem to know what a perfect number is, right? Okay. How would I make known to them what a perfect number is?

[14:16] I can give examples. Six is the first perfect number. Twenty-eight is the second perfect number. But what is a perfect number? They don't know. But I can make known. To them, what a perfect number is, just as what it is was made known to me by Euclid's definition. A perfect number is a number, right, equal to the sum of everything that measures it. Measures now in the strict sense, measures it evenly, right?

[14:49] So four is not a perfect number. Four is measured by one. It's measured by two. That's it. And one plus two don't have to four, do they? Five or three or two are measured only by one, which doesn't have to them. So the first perfect number is actually what six. It's measured by one, by two, and by what three, but not by four or by five. And one plus two plus three equals what six, right?

[15:23] So when Augustine or Thomas Aquinas talk. About creation in six days, right? They see a meaning in the word six, there, right? Is the first perfect number, and the things it measured are perfect in order: one, two, three. You see this in Plato's great dialogue, the Symposium, right? Where there are six speakers: three rhetoricians, two poets, one philosopher. One, two, three. You go around the table from the lesser to the greater, right?

[15:58] But notice, I'm making known what a perfect number is, right? Through a definition, right? When I give them Shakespeare's exhortation, I tell them it's written in blank verse, and I don't know what blank verse is. Once in a while, you have one student who knows. Most of them don't know, right? So I say, "Well, blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter, right? " And now I've made known what it is.

[16:24] If they know what unrhymed is, iambic is, and pentameter is, they don't know what iamb is. I'll make that known by definition. It's two syllables with the accent on the second. Okay. So it's speech making known what a thing is, and that fits into Shakespeare's definition there of reason, right? It's the ability for discourse, right? Now remember the definition of discourse. It's coming to know what you don't know through what you do know, right?

[16:59] And the two kinds of discourse that are especially studied in logic are defining and reasoning, right? And in defining, you're making known, as Albert the Great says, the simple unknown that something is, right? And in reasoning, you're making known the complex unknown statement, right? Where you affirm or deny one thing or another. So this fits in very much with what Shakespeare is saying there, right? Defining is a form of discourse, son.

[17:36] So I make known what something is through the parts, right? Now, perhaps we want to give a third definition of definition of a thing.

[17:50] If you go back to the words of the great, Heraclitus there, the central thinker in human thought, he has a beautiful statement. He says, "Nature loves to hide. " okay? And when you find Heraclitus saying something like that, I always think of what Aristotle says. I believe in the Politics there, where he says, "We should try to say some things better than our predecessors, right? " And other things as well as they said them.

[18:25] And sometimes, you know, a thinker says something so well that you don't try to improve upon it, right? This is one of those examples, right? Nature loves to hide. Nature loves to hide. Now, if you study the word "nature," and the most full study of that is in the fifth book of wisdom, the fifth book of the so-called metaphysics, right, where Aristotle distinguishes the basic central meanings there of the word "nature," but all of them have the idea of something within, and therefore something that is hidden to us at least in the beginning.

[19:10] So the first meaning of nature is birth, right? Well, birth is from within, right? And the baby, at least before some of those devices, right? The baby was what hidden. You didn't know it was going to be a boy or a girl. Until

[19:29] the baby what comes forth, right? So it's the idea that the hidden is is that first meaning, and then later on in natural philosophy, nature takes on the sense of a beginning and cause of motion or change that's within a thing, right? And eventually, the word "nature" takes on the sense of what a thing is—the nature of thing—a very broad meaning. But even there, the nature of thing or what it is is within it, right?

[19:59] And therefore, it's somewhat hidden, right? So you might define definition then as speech bringing out what a thing is. Notice we sometimes use that phrase on talking about the mind, right? To bring out something, right? That's a form of what thinking out, right? Okay. And when you thought out, or as result of thinking out something, right? When you thought out something, you've brought out that thing, whatever it is, right?

[20:47] Okay. So it's speech bringing out what a thing is. So Aristotle must have thought a lot about what motion is before he was able to bring out what it is.

[21:09] And that's true of all the great definitions. Boethius thought out the definition of eternity, right, in the Consolation of Philosophy. If you look in the Summa there Thomas has a question on the eternity of God, right? And it's kind of beautiful the way he proceeds. You know, Thomas has the objections, right? He objects to every part of Boethius' definition, right? Which he was going to accept, right?

[21:34] It explains the definition in the body of the article, and then replies to each objection. Right. So it concentrates your mind on every single word. Right. See, why is being slow? Right. An innocent definition, brevity. We also have the definition of person, right? That Boethius thought out. Thomas does the same thing with that, right? It takes a while to attend. So it's speech bringing out what the thing is.

[22:02] That's another way to define the definition of a what thing. Yeah. Now give it a little tongue twister, right? Notice how how logic here, in a way, in definition here, it reflects the nature of reason that Thomas spoke of in the premium there, to logic, the major premium, that reason can think not only about other things, about and how to use your hands, your feet to do things, but reason can also think about its own act.

[22:39] Reason can reflect. We say it means to come back in a way upon itself. But there is something like that when you have a definition now, not of other things, but a definition of definition, right? And you can make statements about cats and dogs and all kinds of things, but you can also make statements about statements, right? You can reason about all kinds of things, but you can also reason about reasoning.

[23:04] Okay. Now my tongue twister is the definition, right, of the definition of a thing, right? Is the definition of definition, right? Is it a definition of that definition?

[23:28] Yes. I would say no. The definition of the definition of a thing, right, is not a definition of what definition of the definition of a thing.

[23:49] No. In other words, this is the definition of definition, right? Because the thing is not a speech. Okay. But this could be said of the definition that gave a little example of a square, right? Okay. So the definition of definition is not a definition of that definition in particular, is it? It's a definition of any definition of a thing, right? Now, as I defined definition as speech signifying what a thing is,

[24:25] the definition of square, right, is speech signifying what a thing is, right? This is in a way common, isn't it, to all definitions? I want to do something more general. There, you know, you can have a thought about a thing, right? And you can have a thought about your thought, right?

[24:52] But can you have a thought that's about itself? Can you? Yes. As far as it's common to all thoughts. Yeah, yeah. You have a thought that's common to all thoughts, right? But can you have a thought that's just about itself in particular.

[25:19] Are you talking about a particular instance of the thought? Because if you reflect on a thought that you had, you're bringing that one thought back again. So you're reflecting on that thought, but If you're talking about, a thought at that very instant, no. Okay.

[25:38] You have a thought about a thought. Is it the same thought? Is the first thought? It isn't. You know, is it even the same in kind?

[25:49] Suppose I have a thought of a triangle, right? And then I have a thought about the thought of a triangle, right? Well, the thought of the triangle is about what? Triangle, right? And the thought about the thought of a triangle is a thought about a thought. That's never really exactly the same, is it? God

[26:15] gets closer to this, but he doesn't have any thoughts. So that's a little aside there, huh? Just just to make you think a little more. The definition of a definition. We define definition of a thing, right? And and I gave three definitions of it in a sense. But this is not said only the definition of a thing. It's so the definition of square and definition of circle and definition of motion and so on, right?

[26:51] Each of them is a definition in a sense. Then I define the definition of a name, and that's speech making clear the meaning of a name. So much less rigorous thing.

[27:17] Now, what is the order of these two kinds of definition? Definition of a thing and the definition of a name. The definition of a name seems to be before in the first sense of before. Okay.

[27:45] In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle has a famous discussion there, the second book of the Posterior Analytics, which is perhaps the greatest book in logic, where he speaks of four questions, right? And the questions are:

[28:04] Does it exist? And then the question what is? it? And then, whether this is that. or want to say, is this? That, and then the question, why is this that?

[28:47] So I might ask the question, does the atom exist? Right, and if I answer yes to that question, right, then I'll say, what is the atom? Right. I might ask, does man laugh? And the answer is yes. Then I ask, why does man laugh? Right. Okay. Is the light of the sun cut off during the day? Yes. And then I say, why is it cut off? Right.

[29:14] Okay. Was the government of Saudi Arabia overthrown? The answer is yes. Why was it overthrown? Right. Okay. Um. He sees an order among these questions, right? The question does it exist comes for the question, what is it? And the question is this that before why is this that right? Okay. Um.

[29:43] Now, when you ask, does something exist? You can't just use the word it or the pronoun it. You've got to use what, the name of the thing, right? Huh. And so you have to have some meaning in mind for the, the name, right? And there may be something out there corresponding to it, right? There may not be, right? Huh. Okay. Do vitamins exist? It's not obvious if vitamins exist, right?

[30:11] Well, what do you mean by vitamin? Right. Do atoms exist? Right. What do you mean by an atom? Right. Okay. Now, in that sense, the definition of the name would come before even the question, does it exist? Right. Do unicorns exist? Right. Okay. Do Santa Claus exist? And so on, right? Huh. Do mermaids exist? Right. In the account of Columbus's first voyage, there there's a sighting of mermaids, huh?

[30:45] if you may know exactly what they had in mind. What did you mean that you saw? Right. Huh. One of the mysteries of history, right?

[30:58] Um. In theology, when you ask, does God exist? Right. You got to have some meaning to the word what. God, right? Okay. Um. So that's one way that the, definition of the name comes what, before, right? You don't really have a definition of a thing. In the strict sense, as such, until you know that the thing in some way exists, right, and then you seek to know what that thing is.

[31:31] But you can have a definition of a name even if there is no thing corresponding to the reality. So as I mentioned, the word unicorn there, or mermaid, and so on, even if there is no such thing in the world, right? As a unicorn with a you know horse with a lance coming out of its forehead? And a mermaid, a half you know woman half fish. Even if there is no such thing, you still have a meaning for the word, right?

[32:00] Okay. Do you see that? But there would be no definition of the thing. There is no thing corresponding to that. It's a figment of the imagination. I guess, to the best of my knowledge right, mermaid and centaur and unicorn and so on.

[32:23] Now, another reason why you might have to define a name before you define a thing is that the definition itself, like every speech, is composed of names, right? So if you didn't know the meaning of the name, I might have to what explain what that word means, son. Okay.

[32:46] So you can see something of the order there, right? Now, when Aristotle gets to the Posterior Analytics and he's talking about episteme like geometry and so on, then you come back to the definitions of say Euclid there in Book One, right? And when he first defines these things, those definitions of things are some of them just definitions of names. How should you understand those, son?

[33:20] Well, if you looked at the first theorem, Euclid is the construction of a what? Equilateral. triangle. Yeah, Yeah. So in a way, the existence of equilateral triangle was not presupposed to Proposition One, right? Okay. So in that sense, when you first define right angle, I mean equilateral triangle, right? You are not yet what talking about a thing, okay? And then you show that there is such a thing by what constructing an imagination.

[33:51] huh? Okay. In. The same way with right angle, right? Is it possible to draw a straight line in a straight line, such as to make equal angles?

[34:05] Well, later on, Euclid is going to have a theorem there for the construction of a right angle. So maybe some of the definitions there, when they're first given, they are definitions of names, right? Later on, it might become the definition of the thing, right? But there has to be something that you start off with that's existing, like the point or the line or something of this sort.

[34:30] Okay. So that's some subtle things there, right? So in order to understand even Euclid fully and perfectly, you have to know some logic, right? Although it's such an easy science, you know, as Thomas says, even the boy can learn it, right? You know, in high school to some extent, familiar. Okay.

[34:59] So we're going to be concerned now principally with the definition of a thing from now on in our discussion here. And we're going to give here actually three fundamental distinctions among definitions of things.

[35:24] And the first two are very similar. All right, but they stated a little bit differently, and it's good to. Outward knowledge of the thing, right? Okay. And notice how that order reflects the natural world, right? We know things in an outward way before inwardly. That was one of the. It's a second before and after there, and the order in which we know the same thing. And the reason why we do that is because our knowledge starts with our senses, and the senses are a kind of outward knowledge of things.

[36:06] And so, outward in English is almost a synonym for sensible, right? The outward appearance of something. So, and secondly, the third thing we said about the order in which you know the same thing, we know it in a confused way, right? Before distinctly, and the encircling gives you a very confused knowledge. When I say that wisdom is the best knowledge, it gives you a very confused and indistinct knowledge of what wisdom really is.

[36:33] So, because we know things in a confused way before distinctly, we tend to encircle things before we define them fully, right? And you know, someone asks me, you know, what is a dog, right? I say it's an animal. I say, well, so is a man. Well, it's a four-footed animal, not a two-footed animal. In fact, so is a cat, right? And then my mind breaks down, and I say, well, the dog is a four-footed animal that barks, right?

[37:04] And the cat is a four-footed animal that meows. That's as far as my mind is able to penetrate. See, well, it was kind of an outward knowledge of the dog, right? Somewhat, huh? And the cat, but through something that is what sensible, the barking or the meowing. So that's the way we tend to know things. And when I define virtues, it praises the quality. Notice, as a child, you know, certain things you know your parents frown upon you doing, right?

[37:30] And you can learn about that. You don't do that, right? But you see, not what is intrinsically bad about it at first, right? But just that it's what something you're going to be blamed for or criticized for doing, right? And other things you're praised for, right? You know, if you're generous and you share your candy with your brother or sister or something, you know, you're praised, you know, huh?

[37:51] Okay. One of my little grandchildren there. she's got it was her birthday, and she's got some presents, right? And one little package had two things in it, right? And she said, oh, one for me and one for Sarah. She gave one to her sister right away, And everybody's so pleased with that, you know, that kind of generosity, right? And it's just, I think he's good, right? So you're praised for some things and other things, you know, you're spanked or people frowning at what you're doing, right?

[38:18] And that praise or that frown or that blame is something outside, right? But more known to you than the inward goodness or badness of the thing, huh? The later on, you try to bring out the inward goodness or badness of the thing, right? So this is a very important distinction. But notice also, as they say, with the use of the word, right? See, something might say, you know, we say, "What is wisdom?"

[38:48] I say, "It's the best knowledge." And someone may come back and say, "You really haven't told me what it is, right?" It's only in a very imperfect way that I told them what wisdom is. And so you might, in one sense, say that's not really a definition. Oh, no, we'll call it. Let's call it drawing the line around. But a very important distinction, and it's a mistake, you know, except perhaps in geometry or arithmetic, maybe where things are very, you know, superficial, being on the surface of things, right?

[39:17] To try to begin with the definition in the full sense, to have certain things first, and then gradually, as we're filled in with something more, we're inward, right? To penetrate.

[39:34] Okay. Now, in the next section, there come back here upon these, as we mentioned before, if the first definitions of logic, something very close to the first thing, are the definition of speech, right? Because logic is about these speeches, and the definition of name. Then perhaps the first statements that are kind of obvious from these definitions are that no speech is a name, or vice versa, right?

[40:07] No name is speech. And then the other one, a little more subtle, that every speech is composed of names. Okay. Now some speeches are composed of other speeches, but eventually get down to to names.

[40:22] So in the next section, we talk about the names that you have in these two, right? And in the definition in the full sense, you have the genus, and what they call the differences, or to use the fuller phrase, the species making differences, okay. While in certain, instead of the what species making difference, you have something in the way of a property, right, or some combination of common attributes, right, that separates them.

[40:54] Okay. So really, to be the best knowledge, say to be better than other forms of knowledge is not really the very nature of wisdom, but it's a what, like a property, wisdom, or a result of what wisdom is, son. And likewise, to bark is not what makes a dog to be a dog, but something that follows upon what a dog is. Okay. So we tend to use the genus here and differences, as we learned them in Euclid or in Porphyry, and here you have maybe the genus, but not the difference, right?

[41:30] And you have a property or something common, like. Best or something at that start, right? Okay. I mentioned somewhere in the text there, you know, you don't have to do that in math, but if someone was defining a triangle as a rectilineal thing, a rectilineal plane figure with the least sides, he hasn't told you what a triangle is.

[42:00] But they have the least sides as a result of the fact that you can't contain a space with less than three lines, right? But it'd be stupid to do that in geometry, right? It's so clear that a triangle has three sides, right? Okay. So it's superficial philosophy without wanting to pun too much in the word, but everything's on the surface, right? And other things, things are not on the surface.

[42:25] Your courage, your temperance, or your vices are what on the surface of you, right? It's kind of hidden deep down in you, right? Especially pride. Yeah.

[42:39] This word "stubborn," you know, which is tied with pride, comes from the idea of what the stub, the the root of a tree. If you ever take a tree or something out, you realize that it's pretty easy to chop the top part down, but then to get the roots out is really resist, right? Even a checkbook, you know, you have sometimes what they call stub, you know, that part would it's hard to come out.

[43:00] The other part, you know, where you're gonna pay, you know, that comes out easy because you but the stub stays in there, right? Huh? So deep down within you, there's these these virtues or vices, right? And they were hidden to us.

[43:14] Okay. So now we have the distinction of those two, and we've gone a little bit into the names they're composed of, right? Okay. And that's necessary because you have to take something apart to know it fully, right? Okay. Now in the second half of page three, we come to another way of distinguishing definitions of the things. It's almost the same as this, but it's a little bit different.

[43:43] And we might call it definition by cause and definition by effect. And the definition by cause is a more perfect definition because the causes are what makes the thing to be what it is. The effect is really a result of what the thing is. Okay. So the definition by cause is something like the definition in the full sense, right? And the definition by effect is something like the definition that we've called in.

[44:28] Okay. Instead of speaking of genus and difference or genus and Property or something like a property, we speak of definition by cause or definition by effect. Okay, and sometimes this distinction is a more natural one to use in certain contexts. And the clear example there would be taught us by Socrates in the Euthyphro, right? Where Euthyphro is trying to define what piety is, right, or what the pious is, and the definition he comes up with, finally, is the pious is what the gods approve of, right, or the pious is what pleases the gods.

[45:13] And then Socrates asks the famous question: Well, is it pious because it pleases the gods, or does it please the gods because it is pious? In a sense, he's asking: Are you defining piety by its cause or by its effect? Right. Okay. Now later on in ethics, you'll see at the beginning of ethics, we meet what is called the first definition of good, and we'll examine that at some time.

[45:45] But the first definition of good is that good is what all desire. Okay, but you could ask the Socratic question about that, right? Is it good because we desire or want it, or do we want it because it is good, right? See, that makes all the difference in your understanding of that definition, and therefore in your understanding of good, and eventually bad and so on, and better, worse.

[46:15] It all depends upon your understanding that definition. Is it a definition by cause, or is it definition by effect? And actually, it's a definition by effect, but you have to, you know, show that by interesting discourse that maybe we'll have on it. Study a little bit of Nicomachean Ethics, right? And so this distinction between definition by cause and definition by effect is a natural distinction to use or to have in mind in understanding Socrates' question.

[46:45] As Heisenberg said, right? It's the Greeks who taught us how to ask questions of principle, and they gave us the most powerful tool the Western mind has, he says. And you know, I learned to ask the question about the definition of good from Socrates and Euthyphro, right? Okay. And I was reading, I think it's in the De Vera Religione here, Saint Augustine, and he quotes the common definition of the beautiful: the beautiful is that which pleases when seen, right?

[47:18] And Saint Augustine asks the Socratic question, right? Kind of question: Is it beautiful because it pleases us when we see it, or does it please us when we see it because it is beautiful? And St. Augustine says, "I have no doubt that it pleases us because it is beautiful." Right. So that definition of the beautiful is a definition by what effect, right? Now again, you could, you know, discuss that, or probably we can understand it if you need a discourse about that.

[47:52] But your whole understanding of the beautiful depends upon that. You know, is that first definition of the beautiful, that which pleases when seen, right? The definition by cause or by effect, right? The whole understanding of the fine arts, right? The arts of the beautiful, in a sense, like Mozart as we call, it right? Depends upon this, right? Because if you say it's beautiful because it pleases us, then you're really not saying that the beautiful is anything in the the thing.

[48:25] It's just the effect it has upon us. If you say it pleases us because it is beautiful, then beauty is something in the thing. The same way about the good, right? If it's good because I want it, then good is nothing in the thing. It's something we say about the thing because I happen to want it, right? But if I want it because it is good, then the good is in things.

[48:49] So the whole of ethics depends upon understanding whether that definition of good is by cause or by effect. If you don't understand that, you don't understand anything, right? I tell my students sometimes when we discuss that definition. Now, you know, start to raise the question. You know, I'm going to tell your parents you don't understand good and bad, and they don't, right? Good. But sometimes when you talk about comedy in kind of a, loose sense, you say comedy is a likeness of the what, Laughable, right?

[49:28] Okay. Now is that definition by cause or by effect? Comedy is a play that makes you laugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By tragedy, you know, makes you weep, right? You know.

[49:57] So we tend to define things often by effect first, right? And many times you don't get any further than that, because, as you saw in our study of the natural road, the effect is usually more known to us than the cause. That's because the road goes from the senses into reason, and the senses know more effects than causes.

[50:25] So every time we ask the question why, we know the effect, but not the what, cause. I notice this is almost the same distinction as that, but stated a little bit differently, right? I could say to bark is a property of the dog, right? And so I define the dog as a four-footed animal that barks. I'm defining him not by its species-making difference, but by property, right?

[50:48] I could also say that to bark is an effect of the dog, right? He's not a dog because he barks, right? I might recognize him to be a dog because he barks, right? Went to mass this morning, and somebody comes to church there, and leaves their dog in their car there, right? And she has to walk by the car. Everybody's kind of laughing about this. You know, whose dog it is?

[51:10] You know, who is it? But you know, it's not a dog because it barks, really, but because it is a dog, it barks, right? So the bark is really an effect of its being a dog. It's not a cat because it meows. See, but. It meows because it's a cat. I said, "Cats do, okay." I think it's good to state both of these. It's a very important philosophy to have both these in mind, right now.

[51:39] But sometimes the great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Thomas Aquinas, sometimes they'll speak. You know, this is being encircling rather than definition in full sense. Sometimes they'll say it's a definition by effect rather than by cause, right? Okay, so when Thomas talks about the definition of the good, the first definition of the good is what all desire. You point out this is a definition by effect, right, rather than by cause.

[52:05] So sometimes one distinction is more appropriate to use than the other, right? But they're very similar. These two distinctions, do you see that? My question: the so the definition by cause and effect. This is really the third type of definition of a thing. No, no, this is this is. We have two distinctions here: definitions of things, right? One is into definition in the full sense and encircling, right?

[52:33] Right. And definition in the full sense could just keep the word "definition" if you wanted to, and then call the only encircling. The other distinction is between definition by cause and by effect, but it's almost the same distinction, right? Because the property, in a way, is an effect of the species making differences, and the species making differences are what make it to be what it is, like the cause, right?

[52:55] But it's still a little bit differently the distinction, right? And I think it's good to have both ones in mind because it's more natural, I think, if you're defining the good as the good is what all desire to not ask is that a definition in full sense or encircling. It couldn't. Some of these other language, but it's more natural to use the other language here. Okay.

[53:16] Is the second would it be any way broader than the first, or would it be would they be exactly the same? That's right. Well, explaining the first distinction, there you eventually got down to the names, right? Because the emphasis is upon the speech. The speech is composed of names. Require the names in the definition, right? And you might have a genus in both cases, but in one case you completed with the species making differences.

[53:47] In other case, you have something more like a property or something. I mean, it follows upon nature, right? More like another kind of name, right? But here you're not so much emphasizing name, but cause and effect, okay?

[54:05] Well, if you did have a definition by cause, because I can't think of an example, but if you did, that would be a definition in the full sense, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I define marriage, for example, right? I define marriage as a stable union of a man and woman by mutual choice for the sake of children. And you study the causes. You found there are four kinds of causes.

[54:34] And this definition of cause of of marriage have all four causes. Or the definition of a sacrament. I can say it's an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace right To give grace a child, an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace, right? To give grace is the cause in the sense of end or purpose. Instituted by Christ is a cause in the sense of the mover or maker, right?

[55:02] Sign is more the cause in the sense of form, right? And outward, if you refer to sensible matter, matter in the form of a sacrament is the matter. So there you have a definition by cause.

[55:26] On page four, I think we've touched upon that enough. The reason why the definition by effect very often comes before the definition by cause. Cause, and the reason why the encircling always comes before the definition in the full sense, if you need both, now, right? But notice the reasons we gave are not so much identical, right? Here we said that the effect is more known to us usually than the cause, so we define by cause before effect, right?

[55:55] Here I said we know things in an outward way before inwardly, therefore we tend to encircle them before we bring out fully what the thing is, or we know things in a confused way before we know them distinctly, right? You'll see the difference there in the way I explain why that is so, right? Why the orders of that sort corresponds to the is somewhat different, right? But what stands out here, right?

[56:21] Here you say definition by cause, definition by effect. Why do we define these things by effect before by cause? What stands out is well, the effects are more known to us usually than the cause, right? They're more sensible. When you say why do we encircle a thing rather than get inside and penetrate? Well, you know things in an outward way before you know them inwardly, right? Okay.

[56:42] Or you know them in an indistinct way before we really bring out distinctly what they are. Okay. This question, I think, in Greek we have this word to define horizo, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Which has its root in this about these boundary markers that they've set up around the property, which seems to be closer to the second notion of encircling. Well, I would say it goes back to the to the broad word itself, definition, right?

[57:17] Okay. You know, all of these are definitions in some sense, right? And definition comes from the Latin word finis, in the sense of limit or boundary, right? Mhm. Now in Greek, you know, sometimes you'll see the Greek word would be horos, which is exactly like limit. Okay. Right. And sometimes you'll see the word in Aristotle horismos, okay? Very close to our word horizon. Oh, horizon is a line that separates the sky from the earth, right?

[57:52] Okay. And originally these things, you know, are taken in even farming, right? Really. If I put a fence around my property, I define my property, right? And I should, you know, in that fence include only my property, all my property, right? But none of my neighbor's property, right? Mhm. You know. And let me speak of the city limits, right, and so on. And then

[58:23] the idea of limits is a very precise thing, right? So if you have the limits of, let's say, Worcester down here, the city limits of Worcester should contain the whole Worcester, right? But none of any of the other towns around there, right? The limits of the state of Massachusetts, right? You know, should you know, take in the whole of Massachusetts, but none of Connecticut or Maine or these other states around there, New Hampshire.

[58:48] And so you could say the definition, the logician will say, is convertible speech. Okay, it's not the whole meaning of definition, but a definition must be what convertible speech. Now, what does that mean? Convertible is a convertible word, right? You buy a car, it's convertible, right? Okay. But in logic, we speak of two things as being convertible.

[59:23] A and B, for example. If every A is B, and every B is A, then A and B are what convertible? Yeah, that's what it means, right? Okay. So a definition and what it's defining should be what convertible, right? Okay. So if say equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral is in fact the definition of square, then both every square should be a what equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, and vice versa, every equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral should be a what square, right?

[1:00:10] Okay. Um. And sometimes you'll see Socrates or somebody will be turning around when someone proposes as a definition, right? Mm-hmm. And it's not convertible, then it doesn't fulfill the first condition. You might say the definition that is suggested by the very name itself, right? Okay. Um.

[1:00:38] I ask students in the love and friendship class, "What is love?" And they say, well, it's an emotion?" Well, I don't think you want to say about that. But maybe there is one love that is an emotion, right? I say, but so is anger, so is fear, right? Um. so either either every love is an emotion, which is not true, but even if that were true, if every love is an emotion, not every emotion would be what love.

[1:01:01] Yeah. So we haven't defined it yet. See. I take usually an example of chair. I ask students, "What is a chair?" And they'll say, "Well, something to sit on, or piece of furniture to sit on." I say, "Well, every chair is something to sit on. Is everything to sit upon a chair? You got a bench, maybe, or a sofa, or you got a saddle on a horse and stuff on, right?

[1:01:24] See. So you can't turn it around. So that's not a definition of square, right? And so even something as familiar as, I mean, a chair. So even something as familiar as a chair, it's hard to define right off the bat.

[1:01:38] You start to add differences, right? You say, "Well, chair is something to sit on for one person or one adult, right? " Okay. Well, is that convertible? See, because maybe the saddle is one person to sit on too, right? See, and maybe a stool is one person to sit on. It's not really a chair, right? Then you say something for one person to sit upon that has legs in the back or something like that, right?

[1:02:03] And then you might be arriving at convertible speech, right? Okay. So Aristotle talks about defining in the second book of the Posterior Analytics. He talks about how you have to keep on adding differences until the speech is what convertible, right?

[1:02:30] Okay. There we have a little bit of the origin of