Introduction to Philosophy & Logic (1999)
43. Seeing Likeness and Proportion, Then Q&A on Places and Comedy
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/1-philosophy-1999/043-seeing-likeness-and-proportion-then-q-a-on-places-and-comedy/

[0:00] now the fourth tool and kind of it goes with the third tool because it's the opposite side, is the ability to what see a likeness between things

[0:13] okay now Aristotle says in exercising the mind with these last tools you do so in a different way because the mind is exercised in seeing differences when it considers things that are close together where it's hard to see their difference huh but the mind is exercised in seeing likeness when it sees likeness between things that are further apart right so in seeing the likeness say of a dog and a cat that have the same genus that's not too hard because it exercises the mind too much right okay but the kind of likeness that we exercise the mind is the ability to see a what proportion right proportional likeness huh okay

[1:05] so like when you're talking there to take an example from logic then you go back to the Meno there you're talking about the art of defining and the art of reasoning right and introduced to the art of defining in the first part of the Meno and the art of reasoning in the third part right what's the middle part about right about what's common to defining reasoning right and in both you what come to know what you don't know through what you do know right okay now if you see in the case of either defining or reasoning that you can't have continuous definitions or continuous arguments going back forever because then you'd have to go through an infinity of definitions to get to anything right if

[1:55] you realize that there must be some statements that are known not to other statements right then you must real you realize now obviously right yes you begin with but there must be parts of some definition that are known without definition

[2:12] see So, Euclid defines, say, square. He puts quadrilateral in the definition of square, right? But quadrilateral was defined before that, right? And before quadrilateral was defined, rectilinear plane figures defined. And before that, plane figures defined. And before that, figures defined, right? But does that go on forever? That every part, every definition, needs to be defined. If that was so, you could never come to know anything by definition.

[2:43] There'd be an infinity of definitions before you could define anything. Now, notice that's analogous to what? If every statement, if every premise, and every syllogism was in need of proof, you'd have to go on what? Forever, right? Because every statement and every syllogism would have a proven by syllogism before, right? And statements of that proven before, right? And you couldn't begin to even syllogize because any statement you try to begin with to syllogize, people would say, "Well, prove that before use it."

[3:20] And then the premises I would use to prove it, prove them before use them. So you couldn't really start, right? Okay. In the same way, you know, you know, some people say, you know, before you define square, define quadrilateral. Okay, makes sense, right? But if every part of every definition had to be defined before it could be used, you couldn't begin to define anything, right? Because anything you use to define anything, someone would say, "No, can't start there.

[3:53] You have to define that first." You see, you see the analogy there, right? The likeness, huh? Okay. So that you know the what we call the highest genera, right? The ten categories are in a way to defining what the axioms are, right? And the statements known through themselves are to reasoning, huh? So you see a certain likeness there. So the mind is exercised in seeing a likeness between things that are what?

[4:26] Further apart, right? You have a likeness that this is to that as that is to that, right? Or sometimes I compare what we just said about defining reasoning to words, right? If every word had to be explained by other words, could you ever explain any word? If you knew no words without

[5:01] other words, right? You wouldn't know any words. I couldn't begin, right? Say. You know, I just you know start the dictionary, and I say, well, in the dictionary, you know, you look up a word and explains that word by other words, right? Well, now maybe some of those words you don't know, so you look them up. But if every word was of that sort, then, then what?

[5:25] You couldn't begin to use a dictionary because you come into this world knowing no words, right? And baby comes into this world, the speculation is going to say mama or dad at first, right? And my brother Richard said daddy first, my brother Mark I said mama first. I said to my mother, what did I say first? She said you seem to say both of it at the same time.

[5:48] So I was the diplomat of the family, right? But the point is, you wait and see what the other say first, right? But the point is, they come into the world knowing no name, not even mama and dad, right? And

[6:04] so the first words we don't learn from what other words, right? And the first statements we reason from, we. not. that's things we had to reason to.

[6:22] So the mind is kind of stretched, you might say, right, by seeing the likeness between things that are further apart. Or in the case of the tool of difference, the mind is stretched by seeing the difference between things that are closer together, right?

[6:46] Now, the third, the fourth tool is useful for definitions too, right? Because seeing the likeness of things enables you to what? Find the genus, right? Okay. Aristotle says it's also useful for what? Induction. You have to have like things to induce, huh? And induction, as we mentioned before, is the other tool, tool, the other argument, the the dialectician. And he says, and this thing is most interesting in some ways, it's useful for if then or hypothetical syllogisms.

[7:33] Because we often reason from one ratio that's more known to us to a what? Another one, right? And when you have four terms that are different, how can you have the regular syllogism? Because that has three terms.

[8:04] So I might reason from saying, right, that something known without defining is to defining, right? What something that is known without reasoning is to reasoning, right? And if I saw this in one of these, I could reason to the other from it, right? Okay.

[8:33] If reasoning begins with something not reasoned to, then defining begins with something not what? Define, right? Okay. And more specifically, if reasoning begins with statements not reasoned to but known, right? Then defining, right, begins with things not defined but known.

[9:01] And if nothing is known without defining, then nothing is known. You don't know what anything is. And we don't even understand statement, you know, about defining, right? We don't know what to say, right? We don't know what to say. What do you think? If no statement were known without reasoning, then no statement would be known, including the statement just made.

[9:27] You ain't got nothing to say, huh? You ain't got nothing to say, right? John Duffy, one of my brother's friends, said to me about some professor, "He don't know nothing." John got

[9:48] himself in trouble, you know. One one exam, you know, final exam. I guess it was the, that was a stupid exam." So he walked up to the professor. He says, "This is the stupidest exam I've ever seen." He ripped it off. I walked out. I don't know what the professor did, but probably got him a grade in.

[10:15] Doesn't doesn't Molière you know, you know, comedy about the man who's perfectly honest all the time. Nothing gets you in more trouble than to be perfectly honest, you know.

[10:37] Now, why does he give the tool to see differences before the tool to see a likeness? When it comes to perception, it seems like it's easier to see a difference than likeness. Perhaps, perhaps. Not sure about that though, huh? Because people often see the likeness among things without seeing their difference, right? And that's why they're often deceived, huh? You know, Plato speaks of how likeness is the cause of what deception, right?

[11:16] And he warns you about likeness. But you know, if the good didn't resemble the bad, sometimes or vice versa, or the true resembled the false or the false the true, people wouldn't mix up the two, would they? And likeness seems to be, in general, the cause of deception.

[11:38] So if you see the likeness between things but not their difference, then you will be what deceived, Joe? Just like we were saying in proportion, right? You know, someone says, you know, well, two is to three as four is to six, right? Okay, and two is what an even number. Three is an odd number, so this is an odd number. This is an even number, right? No, no, no.

[12:05] The likeness is not in that, right? Okay, if you don't see the difference between these things, you might overextend the likeness, right? And so.

[12:17] Perhaps he gives the tool of difference before the tool of likeness because it is what, because of the danger of seeing a likeness without seeing the difference. Okay. It's interesting, you know, how when they, you know, like in modern science, even when they go from

[12:41] water waves to sound waves to light waves, right? You know, t here is an analogy between these things, but there are differences, right? And t here is different ways that the waves are propagated, and so you might carry over and assume t here is more likeness than there really is, right? So if you see the likeness without the difference, you are apt to be what deceived, right?

[13:08] Okay. Okay. Tend to make these homosexual unions called marriages now you know marriages now, you know. There is something like this. There is two people, right? There is a lot of difference between this and legitimate thing, right? I mean, that's a gross example. I mean, people, you know, they see the likeness without seeing the difference, right? Without seeing the difference, right? And so t here is a danger there.

[13:46] But also, the ability to see a difference is more like distinguishing the senses of a word, right? Then this, of course, the ability to distinguish the senses of a word is very close to probable statements because they're all expressed in words, right? So there may be a reason why the third tool comes before the fourth because it's closer to the second, right? Which is immediate to the first tool, but also in terms of avoiding deception.

[14:32] One time in the in the senior seminar, you know, I did it on the fourth tool, right, and on the ability to see a proportion, right, and how important this is, huh?

[14:47] And each student did one part of philosophy. One looked for proportions in logic, and one looked for proportions in ethics, and other looked for proportions in natural philosophy, and other looked for proportions in the book on the soul. It's amazing how many proportions run through those books, right? How many things you can't understand without seeing a proportion? It's amazing how important that is.

[15:17] And incidentally, it's very important in experimental science, right? Pierre Duhem, who was a famous physicist around the turn of the century, and he worked in thermodynamics, but he also was a famous historian of science, very famous historian of science. And then he finally wrote books on the nature of science, which are still, you know, republished fifty years later, right? And he speaks that the ability to see a proportion—that this is the most important thing in the discovery of a physical theory.

[15:53] That most physical theories are discovered by seeing proportion. And Albert Einstein, in his book *The Evolution of Physics*, talks about the importance of that, especially in discussing wave mechanics, right, in the twentieth century, how Louis de Broglie saw these proportions, right, and how he developed the theory out of that. And this often happens, he says, in physics, right? That's a very strong thing. You know how the first inverse square law.

[16:24] was? Found in gravity. Go back to the history of it. The inverse square law is saying that if you double, say, the distance between two bodies, the force of gravity will be not a half of what it was, but what, a fourth, right? If you triple the distance, it'll be what, not a third as strong, but one ninth. So they call it inverse square law, right? It's one over what, x squared, right?

[16:55] So you double the distance, it's two squared, one fourth. Triple it, one ninth. Okay, so how would you discover that? Is it? Well, you go back to Newton and his contemporaries, and it's based on a proportion between this and light, huh? Because gravity seems to be like light spreading out evenly, right? And if I have let's say a square on the

[17:28] wall there, and I double the light source, the single light source, how much light is falling compared to what was before? A fourth of the light, huh? If I triple it, a ninth. It's falling the same area. And this can be shown very simply because you know the square that you that makes there will will increase in that way, right? And that's the way Faraday would demonstrate it, you know, for the popular lectures in the 19th century in the British Museum, right?

[18:01] So they they knew that light decreased inversely as a square, right? So I'm shining a light in your face, right? And if I double the distance between, I flash it in your face, your face will be receiving what, not a half of the light, but a fourth of the light will be receiving. If I triple my distance, you'll be receiving one ninth of the light, huh? Okay.

[18:30] That actually goes back. That actually goes back to the theory of geometry. You study Euclid and the theory of proportions, huh? Places would be different, I guess.

[18:44] But so the proportion light received by proportion to geometry, gravity proportioned to light, huh? So it's the most useful thing going to do anything, right? Einstein said very often, science is to see, right? He says to see a a likeness, you know, superficial likeness that's nothing, but to see, you know, one hidden under there, right? All these differences, right? That's really very important scientific work, huh? I remember reading one thing by Einstein one time, and he's talking about the fourth dimension, right?

[19:21] And he says, well. Our knowing the fourth dimension would be like a what two-dimensional creature discovering that really his world is two-dimensional. It's that interesting proportion that he he gives, right? And how how would a two-dimensional creature, you know, falling in this two-dimensional ground, where he thinks it's a two-dimensional world, how would he discover that he's really in a three-dimensional world. Right, interesting proportion that he's got.

[19:49] Yes, but when you read Plato and Aristotle, you see that they're just filled with proportions. If you look at the Republic, you know it's one of the most famous works of the great Plato, right? It's generated out of books. He's talking about you know a just soul and an unjust soul in Book One, right? And he he very convincingly shows that you know the just soul is better off than the unjust soul in itself, you know, apart from punishment or rewards and

[20:27] so on, right? And they can't really answer the argument. That's not as clear as it could be, right? And then Socrates says, "Well, I don't mean to blow it up, right? " And then he uses proportion, you know, of three parts of the soul to three parts of the what city, right? And then you see what in the disordered city, right, what a disordered soul is like, right?

[20:48] It's like blowing up. It's based upon in proportion, right? But there are simpler proportions than that one in the Republic. There, there he's comparing what reason and the irascible appetite and concupiscible appetite to what the rulers and to the army and to the the mob the common citizen, right? But I mean, sometimes Plato compares. He'll say reason is to emotions like a man is to a horse.

[21:17] The man gets on the horse and the horse tries to throw him off, right? And the man can give up and let the horse do what it wants to do, right? Or he can continue to get back on the horse, and eventually the horse is what tamed and obeys the man, right? So in a sense, you can say that reason is to the emotions like a man is to the horse, right?

[21:41] It's very helpful to understand these, huh? I mean, the great Aristotle is talking about the rule of reason over the emotions, huh? He raises the question: Should reason rule the emotions, like a master rules his slave, right? Or should reason rule the emotions, like a father rules his son?

[22:07] Of course, he concludes that reason should rule the emotions as a father rules his son, right? But notice the difference there: the master rules the slave for the good of the master, To hell with the slave, right? But the father rules the son for the good of the son, right? And so when reason rules the emotions, it's for the good of the emotions, huh? And and they're better off, right?

[22:37] If reason doesn't rule the emotions, the emotions are all jagged and ragged and so on, right? Now sometimes there's another proportion that we use, you know, and especially talking about the the concupiscible appetite, right? Thomas calls some of these vices there in the concupiscible appetite forms of intemperance, he calls them childish vices, right? Okay, and especially in analogy, you see these things, right? Because if you don't correct the child, right, eventually the child becomes what?

[23:13] As he gets older, unruly, right? And you can't control the child, right? You get to a point where you can't do as a parent, and the state has to step in, right? You know. And

[23:28] but notice, huh? Those households in which the parents, you know, discipline the children as a parent should discipline a child, not as a master a slave, but as the father should discipline the son. In those households, the children are actually happier and more contented than the households where they're not given the discipline that they what need, huh? And you can see that in the classroom too, right?

[23:56] You know, I mean, you know, in grade school, you know, or even high school, you know, that the teacher who can't really control the students, right, the students are more unhappy in that class, right, than they are in a class where they get the proper discipline, right? Okay. So you can kind of see by that, right, huh? That just as the children who are given the proper discipline by the parents are happier as children, all right, not just the parents have less problems with them, but the children themselves, you know, are happier.

[24:28] So likewise, once emotions are what better when they're ruled as a father should rule a son, right, huh? Once emotions themselves are not ragged, you know. So let's

[24:51] compare, you know, a man with his concupiscible appetite and sense appetite, they're out of order. It's like working in McDonald's or some place like that where you have a million people yelling at you that they want their their order, and you're running ragged there, you know, from satisfying one customer to another one, and then while you're down this guy, this guy's like, "Where's mine? " You know, I got to get out of here, and so.

[25:15] And if you've ever been in that kind of a situation, you know, the poor guy, you know, in the pizza place, you know, and there's somebody, you know, and they're sweating there, you know, and people want their pizza and so on. Well, it's kind of like being enslaved, you know. To your emotions, huh? You see, so these proportions are very important, right? When Aristotle is developing the what moral virtue is, right, and how moral virtue is a habit in the mean between two extremes and so on, right?

[25:45] And he makes a proportion to art, right? Huh? When you cook, you know, a piece of meat or you season a food or something, right? You can ruin it by what putting too much seasoning on, right? They still talk about the time when Daddy put too much pepper in the soup. at home It's a it's a standard family joke, right? And but then sometimes you don't have enough, right?

[26:10] You need a little bit more, right? So you should have put some salt in the water when you cook something, you didn't, right? And it's lacking something, right? But the idea that what, or when you're cooking a steak on the grill, right, you can cook it not enough, or you can cook it too much, right? And the good is between too much and too little, right? And that's that's true, right?

[26:32] About a all these things in art, right? You know, if your nose is too short or too long, right? You know, Cyrano de Bergerac, right? The nose is too long. And he's he's but then somebody can have a nose that's too short, right? And that's not beautiful, right? So so art consists in the golden mean, right? And that's maybe easier to see than that virtue consists in the golden mean, huh?

[27:01] Mozart is always talking, you know, about the golden mean, right? Now it's not understood fully, you know. Well, that proportion helps you to see, right? That that in in eating or drinking or whatever it might be, you've got to avoid too much. But also, but also, too little, right? Huh? So there's all kinds of proportions in in all the parts of philosophy, as we said, it dominates science too, huh?

[27:37] You know. It's also extremely important in what theology, right? Right. Notice notice this proportion that that Second Vatican Council was using a lot there, and it talks about the Word of God. Remember that? You know. The proportion there between the Word of God in the sense of of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God became flesh, right? Became human, huh? Right. Took on that.

[28:15] When the Bible, the Word of God, becomes what human, it takes on human language, right? Expresses itself in a way that man, you know, does, right? In words, huh? You've made that proportion. Very interesting, huh? And they they develop that proportion and kind of reason from it, right? You know, it's very important that. The Lord is my shepherd, huh? That's based on a what? Proportion, right? When you say you know, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

[28:54] You even have a parable about that, you know, the servant who was forgiven and so on. Well, notice there you have a what we call continuous proportion. Huh? God is to you who have offended Him, right? As you are to what? The person who's offended you, right? Okay. So if you don't what forgive the person who's offended you, then God will not offend forgive you for what?

[29:23] You tend to offend him, right? Okay, but it's based that that petition of the Our Father and the parable, right? That's about that petition, really, right? It's about that petition. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. That proportion there, it's based on a proportion, isn't it?

[29:45] When you say you know we call him Father, you're saying God is to us like a Father is to a Son, right? Or sometimes you know the Lord is my Shepherd, God is to to us as a Shepherd is to His flock, right? Okay.

[30:00] You find that same proportion in Homer, right? Because Homer speaks of you know Agamemnon the Shepherd of the flock, right? Shepherd Shepherd of the people, right? That's based upon a proportion.

[30:15] Of course, the most beautiful what metaphors when aristide was talking about? the metaphors in in fiction poetry. He says the most beautiful metaphors, similes, and so on, are based on what proportions, huh? So Pericles, right, when during the war when so many young men had died, right, and he said since it's spring it had been taken out of the year. That's beautiful, isn't it? You know, you lost all these young men, right?

[30:44] Where are they? You know, they all dead. And you know, one of the ways quoting from Romeo and Juliet, right, when Juliet is found dead, apparently on her wedding day, you know, your only daughter, this supposed to be most happy day, right? And so the father says, "Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field. " It's a perfect what way of saying it, right?

[31:12] Who knows it's based on what proportion. Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field. So all the way from the most beautiful metaphors to what discovery, right? In science and in philosophy, this ability to see a proportion is very important, right? And it's not easy to see sometimes when the proportion becomes even what a more necessary argument, right? You know?

[31:51] Aristotle, you know, when he when he speaks of these, he speaks of consideration here of likeness, right? Because you got to be very careful of proportion. In what way are these two what ratios like, right? And not to try to make them like in a way that they're not odd, right?

[32:15] So these are the four tools for the dialectician. Not the basic tools, the ability to select probable opinions, but. In order to understand those opinions and to avoid equivocation in proceeding from them, it's good to be able to distinguish the senses of the word, right? But you can multiply in way the probable opinions if you have different what, different senses of the word, yeah. And then, but these last two tools are very useful for what, arriving at definitions, for syllogisms about difference, for induction, right?

[32:55] And then for this, seeing proportional likeness, and therefore for syllogisms based on these proportions. We talked about Shakespeare's exhortation right? Now it's based the first part there upon a what proportion, right? The chief good of man is to man is the chief good of the beast is to the beast, right? And then alternating the proportion, right? Is the chief good of man is the chief good of the beast, so is man to the beast, right?

[33:28] So if the chief good of man is no more than the chief good of the beast, then man is no more than the beast, right? And then we all know man is more than the beast, then.

[33:42] So therefore, his chief good must be something more than the chief good of the beast, right? See, yeah. So very important to be able to see the proportion. So we stop about quarter to five, okay? I mean, we'll talk a little bit more about about the material logic next time, a little bit more into sophistry and so on, right? Okay. But you want to go on to some natural philosophy then, or do you want to?

[34:20] I don't know. I didn't ask them if they want to that or love and friendship or do love and friendship. Or you can do a lot in French if. You want to do it?

[34:50] Okay. okay. So maybe some natural philosophy. Yeah, love and friendship. That's something really fascinating. Okay, right. Just some just some natural philosophy then, okay? I think the sophistry course is really interesting. Well, no, we'll do some sophistry next time.

[35:14] In fact, when I start natural philosophy, I always, you know, give a little syllogistic argument there, you know, and challenge you guys and see if you figure it out. But they all see it, right? They all.

[35:27] I've got one for the one on certitude and right opinion. Yeah. Right opinion seems to have a hope about it. Yeah. And hope is good to have, so it seems better to have right opinion than certitude.

[35:48] What would a modern Schopenhauer say there? It's more how they convert at the end, you know. Thousands of anyway, he said. He thinks the possession of truth is better than the than the search for truth, right? He says, "I'm not incurable romantic." He says, "I think possession of truth is better than the search for truth." But some people, you know, they like the search, right? And they think that's better.

[36:13] Better Yeah. than once you find the truth, you want something else, right? The Search for truth is for finding the truth, right? For? Knowing the truth, the end is always better, right? What is the sake of the end? So knowing the truth must be better than searching for the truth. But some people, you know, want to make pain searching. is better, right? More exciting than

[36:48] Well, no, the thing you were saying about the colleagues and you know voting favors and all that. Oh yeah. You worked out unemployment, but just reading here, G. K. Chesterton, he said the opposite of employment isn't unemployment; it's independence. Yeah. What was funny was the happened to be on these two different committees, right? One, one to have a different thing, and so the academic came to both of them, right?

[37:15] And asked their opinion, and we actually had a vote in both, right? And that left them free to do what he thought was just, right?

[37:23] Now everybody voted one way. I just found funny that the city's very liberal professors, you know, they're up there fucking monkeying up. They know the whole's greater than the part. Yeah. Thank you so much.

[37:43] Thank you all. See that? Oh, what was the other? I read this other interesting thing. Chesterton said, he said the the architecture of New York City is continual destruction.

[38:00] 1928. But Chesterton say, you know, something's worth doing is worth doing badly. Oh yeah. Have you seen these Gilbert magazines? Oh, yeah. They got a lot of good quotes in there. Can Can you explain a little on places?

[38:22] Okay, what you know, the stock example of a place is the a fortiori, right? You know, if a predicate belongs where it's less apt to belong, right? They don't belong where it's more apt to belong, right? So an example of that would be Socrates is reasoning that the soul is immortal, right? And he he says, well, which is more apt to be destroyed, the composed or the simple, right?

[38:54] Simple, right? And we seem to be the composed, right? Well, people would think of the soul as being simpler than the body, right? So, but then he goes and gives some other arguments where he says that the body through the senses knows this chair or something like that. He takes an example, but this dog, right? But this chair and this dog are corruptible, and eventually are destroyed.

[39:22] right? But the soul, through reason knows what a chair is, what a dog is. That seems to be indestructible. What a dog is, right? So that shows that the soul, the reason, is more is more affinity with indestructible than the body, the senses, right? So if the body survives death, then the soul will survive death, right? Okay. But then, in fact, the bones at least of the body survive death, right?

[39:58] And the mummies down Egypt, right? Even the flesh is in some way preserved, but it's at least the bones, right? With any fortiori, the soul will survive death, right? So you look at what is what

[40:16] something is less apt to belong to, right? And belongs what's less apt to belong than the other, right? Okay. So if if fornication is bad, then adultery is bad, right? You know, if stealing from somebody is bad, then taking his life is even worse, right?

[40:54] So that's another example. Or opposites have opposite causes what opposite causes, right? So now it's first thinking about comedy, which Aristotle doesn't we don't have it the part where he spoke about comedy, but I said, well, comedy and tragedy seem to be contraries, right? So if tragedy purges us of pity and fear, then comedy has to purge us of what the contraries of pity and fear, right?

[41:30] Which would be joy and what confidence, right? Okay. Well, there's some probability, there, right? But then you know, as I got more learned, I learned about the principal passions, right? Which are joy, hope, fear, and sadness, right? Well, then I said maybe comedy is really concerned with joy and hope rather than joy and boldness. I said because hope is not the opposite of fear, Boldness is, right?

[42:11] But comedy is really concerned more with hope than with what Boldness, right? And I said you know, picking up all kinds of evidence of this, right? Because when you speak about comedy purges away melancholy and despair, that melancholy needs to right, And if you're concerned with more with joy and hope, right? And, you know the comic poet that even Thomas quotes a number of times to illustrate things, Terence, there, right?

[42:43] You know I had an edition of Terence's comedies, you know, and the guy was quoting, you know, Saint Paul about faith, hope, and charity, right? But contrary to Paul, for Terrence, the greatest of these is hope. This is obviously not a statement of theology, right? But I mean it's interesting how this Latin scholar, you know, sees hope as standing out in Terence's comedies, there, and just as you know, tragedy ends in death, which is something sad and to be feared, right?

[43:18] Kind of the ultimate thing. So you know the comedies tend to end in a marriage, right? But a marriage has idea of joy, but also idea of hope because this is, you know, they're married and they're happy ever after, right? And so you have the aspect of joy and hope, right, rather than boldness, right? So essentially I was correcting my first thinking, right? My first thinking was well, tragedy and comedy are contraries, right?

[43:44] Therefore the emotions they move us to must be what contrary. Well, pity is a form of sadness, and fear is the other emotion of tragedy, right? Even Shakespeare sees that in the prologue to *Romeo and Juliet*, right, where he singles out those two emotions. Well, then comedy must be a form of joy, which is true, mirth, right? And a form, the opposite of what fear, which is confidence or boldness.

[44:16] I don't. You see, there's some probability and some truth to that, even right? Because there's always that. But maybe it's not really boldness so much as what hope, right? See, but then you have to, you know, understand the the teaching of the chief what passions. Thomas will explain that you know in an article on why, joy, hope, sadness, and fear, right? Because you can see that in the treatises of John St.

[44:44] Thomas, right? He singles out those four. You know, you can see it in Vatican II there in the beginning of the Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, right? Because he shared the joys, the hopes, the fears, sadness, right? You know, Gaudium et spes. remember that statement? It's Gaudium spes, joy, hope, and then it goes on with fear and sadness, right? But he was thinking out those four, right?

[45:09] You know, the same reason. Reason that Saint John the Cross does, right? Rectify those four, and then you rectify the rest of yourself. You're going to be joyful about the things you should be joyful about, and sad about the things you should be sad about, right? And you fear the things you should fear, you know. You can put both body and soul in hell, as the Bible says, and you hope for things you should hope for, right?

[45:38] And don't be jumping. You know, they say in 1999 they're jumping out of the buildings on Wall Street there when the stock market crashed, right? You know,

[45:54] hopes are in the wrong place. Right now the stock market is falling, and everybody is losing money, right? You know, the common investor, right? You know, all these plans, you know. And

[46:15] so, so in a sense, with with the teaching about the four principal passions, right, I kind of corrected my first thought. It wasn't really bad in a sense, right? You know, there is some probability of that, right? The tragedy and comedy are contrary, right? And then I have the opinion of Aristotle, which you know, these are the ones that tragedy moves us to. So I guess that comedy moves us to the the opposite ones.

[46:43] Not bad thinking, right? Right? But I didn't really have it fully, right? I think didn't take me all the way. If tragedy and comedy, as they said later on, tragedy and comedy are the chief forms of fiction, they should be concerned with the chief passions, right?

[47:03] And they are joy and hope, not joy and boldness. Is the is the place like a like a major premise? Well, yeah, in that you can find the premise in a way, right? You can construct it out of it, right?

[47:34] See, I mean, you know, if you take Socrates', argument that was giving it there. If the body survives death, then the soul, right? But the body at least the bones we know survive, right? Alas poor Yorick, right? The bones, you know, in the cemetery, huh? You have the bones and relics of the saints, right? The bones sometimes maybe more than the bones survive. So one way of arguing that the soul survives death is from

[48:11] looking to see if there's something which is more apt than the or less apt rather than the soul to survive death, but which is known to in some ways survive death, right? Okay.

[48:27] So it's more known to us through our senses, right, that the body survives death in the form of bones than than the soul does, right?

[48:40] You know, when Shakespeare's play there, King John, you know that one. King John? well, the little crown prince there, right? You know, at one point he almost put his eyes out, right? So he's trying to escape, right? He doesn't know what they're going to do to him, and so he tries to jump off the battlement there, you know, to thing, and he once he jumps off, he realizes he's not going to make it, right?

[49:03] He's going to get killed, right? In the fall, he says, "Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones." But he says, "One actually said that rather than England keeping my. keep my flesh, right? Because his flesh is going to corrupt, right? But his bones, you know,

[49:24] the bones are the immortal part of the body, so that's figured. And And said, "See in the Old Testament, there we have the bones and the Ezekiel, Ezekiel, yeah. But that's in Quebec, you know. I don't care a bit in Quebec in the old seminary in Quebec there. But I used to go to kind of master after school, and they have, you know, the martyrs' bones in two cases, glass cases, they were right.

[49:54] Got the the skull, the whole thing. Everything good. A little distracting, you know. A little distracting, you know. But after all, you're used to it. But bones are the mortal, part right. And

[50:11] so, so if you can find something that you know to be mortal, but which is less apt to be immortal, right? Then you can reason that, right? So he argues that if the bones, if the body survives death, then the soul does, right? But he's got to show, you know, apart from that, that the soul was more apt to survive death than the body, right? And one reason he gives is the one I gave you that through the soul or through the reason of the soul, the eye of the soul, we're in contact with what a cherry is and what, that's incorruptible, right Why, through the eye of the body only with the corruptible, right?

[50:55] That shows a, you know it doesn't show that the soul is immortal, but there's more affinity with the immortal. And then he adds another one that the soul, in some way, rules the body, right? As God rules the universe, right? So it's more like God, the soul, in that sense, right? So it's more like the immortal. Doesn't mean it's immortal, but it means it's more more like the immortal.

[51:16] Definitely more apt to be immortal, but it's more like the immortal. It's more like God. It's more apt to be immortal, but it's not like God, or it's less like God. So in those ways, he shows that the soul is more apt to survive death than the body, right? That's no argument that it does, but now he can look and see, yeah, you know, if the soul, you don't make, you know, in the immediate, so just insulting, not saying, you know, if something belongs, which is less apt to belong, it belongs, which is more apt to, but it's based upon that, right?

[51:49] Say if the body then survives death, then the soul, I can form that statement, right? From the place, right? Okay, okay, you see that? Is the place just a more universal statement of the premise that you used?

[52:12] Well, you know, in a sense, it is. It is a statement in a way, but but it's like a place in that it can what many things can be fitted into it, right?

[52:30] Okay. This is one body can see another body, you know. It's kind of in a way contains therefore many things, right? Like a place does, huh?

[53:02] He uses the word place, there, too, and he's talking about that second tool, as I mentioned, right? Huh? You know. But but you know, approaching it kind in a concrete way, you know, using the word where, right? Where you might look to see if a word has more than one meaning. You might look at the opposite of that word, right? Okay.

[53:30] For example, does the word to see have more than one meaning? Well, does doesn't see have more than one meaning? You might say about a blind man, you know, he doesn't see, you know, he doesn't see, you know. And there we mean just have the capacity to see, right? Um. But now you might also say, you know, that

[54:02] woman complained you don't see anything around you to do, right? You don't see the the new dishes, you don't see this, you don't see that.

[54:11] And kind of funny, you know, we've got three cars, but my son goes to Boston in his car, right? My wife, you know, drives her car around. So, since you have a problem because somebody's cars, we got one car garage, so whoever's home first, man, put his car in the garage, right? Which might have two cars in the driveway, and you got to be first, so you got to move those two cars, right?

[54:38] Well, usually I'm home before us, so in fact, to the early in the morning, I may have to move two cars, right? If I, you know. So I I thought I had to move my son's car and my wife's car, so I took my son's keys, my wife's keys, I went out there and I put his car out in the street, right? I went over to their car, and it's I put the key in.

[55:02] It's Mike Mike's car. For God's sake, whatever happened the day before? In my mind, I went out and I actually put his car between his keys. Next thing I got keys, you know, and Mike's car stayed right there in front of me. I didn't see it. You know, I had Mike's car. You know, it'll be you know you know they had to move two cars. What do you know?

[55:23] And so I didn't see, but that's a different sense, right? Because I saw you saw saw it and looked at him when I got opened up for keys, and so. You know, say to say,

[55:38] he sees. Then has two meanings, right? He has the capacity to see, or he's actually what using that capacity to see, right? Act and potency in a sense, right? But the ability to see the actual

[55:59] thing, you know. So, but here you're doing an example. I was using more contraries, right? You know, like you know, wet and dry and so on, right? But maybe you still could use contraries and even contradictories, you know. So that's where you might look to see.

[56:30] So I suppose even even the phrase liberal education might be used by some people to mean this kind of education that turns you into a political liberal, right?

[56:40] But there's obviously any political use of the word, right? Another place he gives you there is to look at the word in combination, right? So we see a liberal politician of liberal arts.

[57:02] If you define the whole thing you can't do that and then drop politician and arts, you wouldn't have the same thing left, would you?

[57:10] Liberal arts are arts that are pursued for their own sake, just for the sake of knowing, right? Whatever politician is a politician of who's got other people's money? No, you know, you'd be the politician who

[57:29] follows the left, there, right? Who follows the left, and it wouldn't be the same if you dropped politician now, right? And which you had left when you dropped arts, right?

[57:47] So this is where you might look to see that the word has more than one meaning, right? Okay. Or the the places you have later on are where you might look to find an argument,

[57:59] Um, a probable argument in this manner, right? Okay. See, even independent of the places, you can see the four tools would help you to construct these arguments, right? If you're able to select probable premises, well, then you can syllogize from probable premises, right? And if you're able to see differences in likeness, you have this basis.

[58:45] So that it wouldn't really be right to say that Aristotle's books on dialectic and the rhetoric when he's giving you all these places. It looked to me that he was giving you just in a more universal way. I think you would say that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but I don't know if that expresses entirely

[59:25] the use of the place, right? I think it's better to approach it concretely at first, you know, saying it's where you look to find an argument, right? And when you go there, you might not find an argument, right? Okay. And and I can you know compare it to something you know like you know people like me who wear glasses sometimes you can't find your glasses, right? Okay, or sometimes I can't find my keys in the morning, right?

[59:52] I mean, usually we hang them up, you know, we're supposed to hang them up when we come in the house, you know, and I have a slot for Duane, and then I'm the first slot, and then Rose is the second, and my son's the third right? Your keys are hung in that thing, you know, and especially if you borrow somebody else's keys for some reason, to move his car or whatever it is, you should turn that, and you get in trouble with me, you know.

[1:00:11] Okay, so it's kind of a house rule, but but people will sometimes come in and answer telephone and set their keys down someplace, right? And they're in a hurry or something. They gotta go to the bathroom in a hurry, whatever it might be, that breaks their routine, and then they can't find it the next morning, right? And and but certain places we may look, right? Where you might have left it, right?

[1:00:38] And we always say, well well, think where you might have left it. Where were you? And sometimes I might leave in my my pants, and then I change my pants or something, right? And I can't find anywhere. I go in the closet and and still in the pants, right? In the pocket there, see? So a number of places I might look where it might be, and maybe you don't even act in this case only one of those places could it actually be, right?

[1:01:14] I don't look in every place, but there's some places where I would look. So there's something like that, right? You're trying to find the logical argument, right? Where would you look? And and Aristotle actually has kind of a few more general things there in the in the Prior Analytics, right? Where you look to find the syllogism, right? So you look at the definitions of the things that you're looking to find a term for, right?

[1:01:42] And their properties, right? The things that they follow upon, the things that follow upon them, right? And you compare, and you see if there's a a what something common, right? Okay.

[1:02:10] So in a sense, he's giving some very general things about the syllogism, right? Where to find these things. But but the more proper it is to the thing you're considering, the more you're starting to go away from dialectic and towards demonstration, right? So now I was thinking that comedy moves the passions that are contrary to the ones that tragedy moves us to, right? I was proceeding more dialectically, right?

[1:02:44] But once I was taught by Thomas what the principal passions were, right? And I was closer to what demonstration, right? Huh? You know, um,

[1:03:00] and and down to something more what, um, more proper to the passions themselves, right? Huh? Because in the way boldness arises from hope, right? Um, because I have the hope of victory over my enemy, right? That I approach them boldly, right?

[1:03:29] Um, it's because I fear something that I what despair, right? Huh? Um, if you have the fear of the Lord and no hope in the Lord, you would what kind of despair, right? Just out of your fear, and your, sinfulness, huh? But if you had you know the hope without the fear, you'd get probably um more confident, um, bold, right? Security is mortal's chiefest enemy, as the witches say in Macbeth, right?

[1:04:17] But he'll he'll he'll hold his hopes above what you say above um, what about fear? About grace, different things, right? Then ends up dying. Security is mortal's chiefest enemy, right? Security there's a sense of what or confidence, huh? Boldness, huh? It's very true.

[1:04:48] Hope, hope, hope deceives a lot, huh? Aristotle says that's what young man is deceived more than the older man, right? Because he's he's full of all kinds of hope, right?

[1:05:01] All these things as a young man we we hope to accomplish, or you know, all these hopes we have when we enter this or that aspect of life, right? In most cases,

[1:05:18] things don't turn out exactly we hope they would, you know, and we were deceived, kind of you know, full of hope, you know, but.

[1:05:40] The quantum physicists, you know, after the successful completion, you might say, of quantum theory, you know, they were full such hope, and they had to go in and corrupt whole biology using quantum theory, you know, all these things, you know. I mean,

[1:05:54] you make one, you know, great accomplishment in philosophy or science, wherever it is, and then you get kind of bold, you know. You know, all the doors are going to come crashing down, you know, all the difficulties, you know, and then there's always some other difficulties, some other problem or question, you know.

[1:06:29] But it's best, you know. In the beginning, we're concentrating these four tools, you know. at the time I gave a special course, in dialectic, you know, I just worked with the four tools, right? They're just so basic, right? You can exercise yourself using these four tools, even without you know knowing explicitly all the places, right? You can remember them more, you know.

[1:06:59] I mean, I gave a whole one time a whole senior seminar there in philosophy, just on see proportions, you know. And it's amazing how important they are, and how often they come up, you know.

[1:07:18] Remember one time in the Worcester newspaper, you know, they were talking about, you know, this exams they're giving, you know, hiring people in industry, you know, you know, In business, And they're giving an example of one of the tests, and it was all based on proportions. I guess sometimes in these IQ tests too, they have a lot of proportions, right? They say A is to be as X is to you got to check off the right one, right?

[1:07:43] And because it's really you know gauge of intelligence, right? And you can kind of see it as you read through the Platonic dialogue.