Logic (2016)
6. The Ten Categories in Aristotle's Text and Thomas on Being Divided by Ways of Predication
Class of 2016-11-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/006-the-ten-categories-in-aristotles-text-and-thomas-on-being/

[0:00] The Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightenment, help us, God, to know and love you. Guardian angels, move in the lights of our minds, and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand what you have written. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:33] So we are coming to the last part, I guess, of the antepredicaments, right? And Aristotle, what enumerates the highest genera, and he gives their names, and he gives what examples of them, right? Okay. So we're going to look at what Thomas says in his other thing there to understand a little bit better.

[1:04] So he says, "Of those, let's look at chapter four there. Of those said, those things said, according to know what intertwining, right? No, symploke. Each signifies either what substance, right, ousia or posan. huh.

[1:30] Now, you can't really translate posan in English, huh? It's like how much or how many. It's a kind of concrete thing, huh? But I guess posan in Greek can cover to some extent either kind of quantity, huh? I was talking to one Marie on the phone there. He was saying that in French, combien? you can do it for both. So apparently posas in Greek, you know, could cover both how much and how many, but we don't have really one thing in English, huh?

[2:04] Although sometimes we have a word in English that you could use for both discrete and continuous quantity, huh? And that would be the word size, right? So we can speak of the size of a man or the size of a mountain, and you're talking about continuous quantity, but you could talk about the size of the crowd, right, or the size of the family. We got a lot of children, right?

[2:27] And that's a discrete number, right? Okay. So my daughter's got ten children, so that's a that's big size, right? A family, right? And so, but notice Aristotle is using the concrete word, right? He's not using the word quantity. And so in Latin, they'll translate this "quantus," right? Maybe that can cover both too. I don't know, but it's concrete, huh? And it gets more the character of a what, accident.

[3:03] Because an accident is something exists in another, right? Well, you say quantity, you kind of, you know, or a substance, right? Quantity is one kind of thing, you know, and you know, a dog is another kind of thing, and you kind of give it kind of a name that, you know, maybe fits better, a substance, huh? And so it's significant that he takes the concrete word, the kind of denominative, you might say, right?

[3:28] And then poion, we translate that as how, right? Okay, posas would be how much or how many, right? Not one word. And then the fourth highest genus is in Greek pros ti, right? Now in Albert the Great's paraphrase of the categories of predicamentis, he calls it ad aliquid, right? Okay. So he doesn't use the abstract word relation, right? Okay. I don't know what he'd think of the word relationship.

[4:04] You know, that's a that's an abstraction of an abstraction, okay? But my first grade teacher there at Kasurik, there an undergraduate, huh? He used to point out to me how Aristotle was using these concrete words, right? Huh? Rather than the abstract word. And as I mentioned before, that put me in good stead when I started to read the Gospel of Saint John, right? I don't really translate the word correctly, maybe, huh?

[4:36] So in beginning was the word, and in the Greek says, and the word was toward God, right? Pros, the same word that Aristotle uses here. So if you read, you know, Aristotle and Augustine and so on and Boethius, you know that the persons of the Trinity are distinguished by what relations, right? Okay. But you have that word pros, you know, right there. If you if you know this, this has been, you know, put into your head, you're struck by it right away, you know.

[5:09] So he says the word is toward God. God is standing for the Father, right? So the Son is the Son towards the Father, and the Father is the Father to the Son. So they're distinguished by what? Yeah, but it's very concrete, huh? By how they are towards each other, right? Okay.

[5:33] Now the next two categories, they sometimes mistranslate too. The Greek is what, pou and pote, which we translate in Latin by what, ubi and quando, right? And in English by where and when. And it's especially dangerous here to translate it as what, place and time, because when you get to the category of quantity, we'll see that place and time are in the category of quantity. So this is something derived from place and time by denomination, as he says in the first chapter, right?

[6:16] But so if you translate where by what, place, you're really making a mistake there, right? Okay, it's got to be where and when. But I know it's in the English, you know, that you'll find that, right? If you look at the notoriously bad translations, the

[6:46] you'll see examples to speak, but an outline. It's a bad way of saying an outline. Examples of substances are man and a horse. Of quantity, he's got the abstract word, right? Two cubits long, three cubits long, and the like of quality, right? Huh? Okay. And then he has what terms such as half, double, greater. how to denote a relation, right? See, so you lose that, huh? In the marketplace, in the Lyceum, and Lyceum and certain phrases mean place, while times intended by phrases like yesterday, last year, and so on.

[7:38] Well, that's a mistake there, right? Huh? I used to paraphrase Plato, you know, until philosophers are kings or kings are philosophers or have bad government, right?

[7:51] So I'd say until translators are philosophers or philosophers are translators, you'll have bad what translations? Yeah, yeah. They don't succeed, huh? We still we find some passages in the in those ones where they actually succeed in translating it into the opposite meaning of what Aristotle's saying, right? But this isn't bad enough, I mean, you know. So. drives you where it agreed Yeah, yeah. That's why my I told you my Kasurik, right?

[8:24] He was the wisest man at the College of Saint Thomas in those days, and he says, Duane, where's your Greek? My Greek? Yes. Why aren't you taking Greek? And I said, I think there are other days. He says, that's no reason. You're going to be a philosopher, you take Greek. So whatever little Greek I know, it's because of my teacher Kasurik right my brother Richard was looking for me, out for me, because he was four years older, right?

[8:49] So he arranged for me to have a private meeting with Kasurik before I went started college. And Kasurik gave me some fatherly advice as to what I should do. He said the wisest man in the college, but the man who said compared to Aristotle, I've got the brain of an angleworm he said. My first great teacher. Then he introduced me to both De Koninck and Dion. So it's a fixed thing you can see.

[9:24] And then Kasurik or being what positioned right, huh? Okay. Or echein to have right, huh? Good names of things. And then poiein and paschein well, how do you translate those? Huh? Sometimes in Latin they translate them by axi and pasio. But in English. I translate them by acting upon and undergoing. Okay.

[9:53] Now, in the book on places, which is another book in logic, Aristotle gives exactly these same 10 in exactly The same order, except instead of saying Lucia, for the first one he says tiesti, what it is. Okay.

[10:16] And he's thinking there about the fact that, as Thomas will say here in in these things, how do you distinguish these highest genera of being? Well, you go back to the distinction we had before in the anti predicaments here, distinction of universal substance and singular substance or individual substance, and universal accident and singular accident. And then Aristotle points out that everything else is said of or exists in individual what substances.

[10:55] Well, if everything else exists in or is said of individual substances, that suggests that you could distinguish the what highest genera by the way something is said of individual substances, like Michael or Robert. And

[11:14] but now some things are said of Michael or Robert by reason of what they are, and that's what man, more generally animal, and all the way up to substance, right? So you can see why he calls it tiesti, right? Okay. But when you get into wisdom, you know, you also find out that

[11:37] substance can be defined in a way that accidents cannot be defined, and by a way that is more proper to what the word definition means. The word definition comes from what?

[11:52] Yeah, limit. Again, yeah. So in a definition, by the very you know meaning of the word almost, you shouldn't have anything in there that doesn't belong to what the thing itself is being defined.

[12:08] Well, if someone asked you know what is health, take an accident like health, you'd say something like, well, it's the good condition of the body, right? But is the body health? No. But you have to define it as something of another because it's something that exists in another and is therefore something of another. It's something of another of something other than itself. And so you got to bring in something outside of health, right, to define it, right?

[12:38] That seems to be contrary to the meaning of definition. So you have definition in kind of a secondary sense when you get to the other what nine categories, yeah, yeah. Even myself, when I start saying you know, wisdom is the name of the highest perfection of reason, right? The greatest knowledge that reason has. Well. Defining it by reason, right? That's something other than what wisdom.

[13:08] Okay, so he calls it tiesti there, right? Now, but he gives them, he gives the ten in the same exact order, okay? And we'll see that a little better when we go more into them, right?

[13:24] Now, what does he give as an example of a substance? A man, then a horse. Now, as De Koning said, you know, if a modern philosopher gave examples, I wouldn't look for any particular order in them or anything like that. But when Aristotle or something like that or Thomas gives examples, they what? Show some order, right? So why does he give man as the first example of a substance, and then horse as the second example?

[14:03] He doesn't give stone as an example of a substance, does he? He doesn't even give tree. Why does he give man first? huh Experience them being one thing Yeah Yeah, it's most known to you, right? Yeah, it's your one substance, huh? This is part of me, you know. I hate to lose an arm or a hand or a leg or something, right? Then I've lost part of myself.

[14:35] You know, you ever seen that movie there where Ronald Regan, you know, he's playing a guy who has his leg cut off? You know, where's the rest of me? You're putting these things out to him when he's running it himself in these old movies, you know. But oh, where's the rest of me? And he discovers that his leg is missing. Oh my God, it's terrible, terrible. I mean but uh I don't know how great the acting was!

[15:03] But scared it puts out of me, you know. Just didn't hit the thing that. So my teacher, Kastriek, used to say, he can tell man's understanding by the examples he chooses, huh? And the horse is closer to man than the what? Tree or the stone, right? You're not too sure if the stone is one thing anyway, right?

[15:30] And trees, you know, you can you know you can graft a branch or some other kind of tree in there, right? Huh? And so it doesn't seem to have the same unity, right? So he's chosen very good examples, right? Smart guy, this guy. It's a sign of Aristotle's understanding, right?

[15:50] And then of how much he has, what? Two cubits, three cubits, right? Huh? Okay. Now, what does he have of of how of quality? What does he have?

[16:08] Lukan, right, which is white, huh? And grammatican, huh? Well, he takes the sensible example first, right? Lukan is a derivative of white, huh? Whiteness, yeah. And grammatican, the one is a bodily quality, and the other is more, more what? One in the soul, right? Grammar, right? Okay. I'm a grammarian, or I'm a geometer, or something, right? Huh? Okay. I'm white. Okay. So, because sensible accident is more manifest there, right?

[16:46] Huh? But he's an agent that he takes lukan grammatican. One in the body, one in the what? Soul, right? Huh? So you have kind of a broadness there in your examples, huh? Rather than taking two from the body, you know.

[17:06] Now, in pros ti, which is towards something, huh? He has double and half and what? Yeah, they're all taken from the most obvious examples of towards something in quantity, right? Okay.

[17:25] Now, pou, right? He has as in the Lyceum, I guess, which is his school, right? The Lyceum. And do devotion to all the moderns. Yeah, yeah. Now the French have, you know, they have a Lyce they call that a school, right? Now, so the Lyceum is named from Aristotle's school, right? But the academic world is named from whose school? Yeah. He didn't take his academy. More famous, you know.

[17:55] When I grew up, you know, we had a movie theater downtown. It's called the Lyceum. So Aristotle's school has declined. Yeah, that's his school now.

[18:09] Yeah. More rad is a book on you know how we're influenced by the movies, right? How we're movie made, you know, it's it's terrible.

[18:21] Okay, and then in the agora, right, which would be a very public place, right? Huh? So you got a private place and a public place, huh? And then what? When? What does he have for that? Yesterday. Yeah. And what? Last year. Okay. Yesterday is the more clear, right? Last year.

[18:50] Okay. Keisthai is has his what? Lying down, sitting, right? Okay. A kind, a kind to have. Needs to translate it in the Latin, in the English dictionaries or logic books, I should say. Call it habit, you know, because to have the word have, right? I suppose. And it's to be what?

[19:20] Yeah, got the shoes on, right? Huh? Getting shod today, you get shod today. Okay. Discalced Yeah Clothed and so on. Poiein in the Greek acting upon to what? To cut, to burn, I guess.

[19:44] Okay, that's okay. Aristotle was the son of a doctor, right? A very good doctor, right? Huh? Okay. Court of Macedon. So he became known to the court of Macedon. Got to be chosen for the teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle wrote a book just on Homer for, for uh Alexander, yeah. Okay. And then he turns around, right, for the undergoing, right. Okay. I usually give an example, kicking and being kicked.

[20:19] But obviously had a traumatic childhood. Mozart was kicked down the stairs by some nobleman, you know, some dastardly nobleman poor man. Somebody had no respect for you know from out with the, with the help, you know.

[20:54] Okay. He says each of the, foresaid, right. Itself by itself, is not said in any what. Affirmation, right, huh? Okay. But by the intertwining of these things, you can get a what. Kataphasis, huh? Okay. Oh that's what it means Affirmative Kataphasis, yeah. Yeah said right? Okay. I used to call these ten things the ten saids right?

[21:36] You know they they talk about these names that are said of all ten, right? You know what they call them in the books? Call them the transcendentalists.

[21:47] Because they transcend any one of these five genera, right? Well, I call them the saids. Aristotle discovered that the syllogisms are syllogized equivocally by reason, right? Okay. Well these genera, are said univocally of what comes under them. And he says every what. Kataphasis, right? Huh? Seems to be either true or false, right? And says that what is is, you're being true, right? And what is not is not, and be true also the negative, huh?

[22:34] And the opposite would be when you say that what is is not, or what is not is, then you're being false, right? Huh? But if those things said by no intertwining, they're neither what true nor what false, huh? Okay. As example, man, white. Runs, wins, and so on. Okay, it's interesting, right? I was reading the twelfth book of wisdom of Aristotle the other day. and he's talking about God's knowledge, right?

[23:08] Huh? And he's trying to ascend to God's knowledge, you know, from our understanding of our own understanding, right? And he he he says trouble with us is that we have to understand what something is, and we have to put together or separate these things. So there's a certain motion, right? Huh? So God can't have any motion at all. So when God understands what something is, and primarily understanding what Himself is, right?

[23:42] He understands everything at once. Doesn't have to go, you know, from one to second. He's kind of pointing it out here, right? Okay. So this is the end of the what? First of the three parts of the categories, huh? Now in the Latins they called the categories the predicamenta, right? So they divided it into three parts. The book. These first four chapters they called them the ante predicamenta because it's before he takes up them one by one, right?

[24:15] And then the predicamenta, right? The chapters five here starting with substance first, and he mainly takes up substance and quantity and quality and relation, right? And says very briefly about the last six, and then he has some things called the post predicamenta, right? We'll talk about what they are when we get there, right? Huh? Okay.

[24:40] So let's stop here now from the text of Aristotle and look at this text of Thomas now, huh? Okay. Now Thomas doesn't have a commentary on the categories of Aristotle, and I mentioned how where the word category came from. Came from the courtroom, I guess. I accuse you of murder, or I accuse you of embezzlement, or I accuse you of adultery, or I accuse you of theft, or something, right?

[25:15] But if I am going to accuse somebody, I got to say something of you. So my friend Warren Murray, you know, refers to these ten categories as the ten supreme accusations. That's a really sound interesting you know, but the word has that concrete, right? And if you read through the Gospels, when they accuse Christ of something, right, you have the word category, It's the Greek word that you have in the Gospels, right?

[25:45] Okay. Unlike, and they'll say, you know, predicamenta, right? But? In English, you'd say predicaments right? The ten predicaments But you've got to be more explicit than that, huh? It comes in that word, huh?

[26:04] Now there is two places that I know where Thomas gives the distinction of these ten, and one is in the commentary on the third book of Aristotle's Physics, right? In three Physicorum The actual title of the book is Natural Hearing, right? The third book of Natural Hearing, and the reason why he he does it in that commentary at that point is that Aristotle in the third book is talking about what motion is, huh?

[26:37] And then he has a consideration of how motion involves acting upon and undergoing, right? So that's the occasion for Thomas to explain well, those are two categories: acting upon, undergoing, right? And why motion is in the categories of quantity and quality and where, right? So you got to kind of explain the categories there, right?

[27:01] That's the reason why it comes up there. We'll look at that text first, and then the other text is from his exposition of the fourteen books of, actually the first twelve books and the last two, of wisdom, right? First philosophy, right? And Aristotle in wisdom, he's points out that the wisdom is about being in general, right? Okay. And why does wisdom talk about being in general?

[27:48] See, yeah, what he what he first shows is that wisdom is about causes, right? And then the wisdom is about the first cause. Okay.

[28:01] And we we looked at that order of the knowledge there, the natural knowledge, right? Kind of see why wisdom comes at the end, right? Being a knowledge of the first cause. But why should a knowledge of the first cause be also about being in general? Why?

[28:26] Yeah, because the first cause is the cause of all in some way, right? So it's natural that the science that is about the cause of all would be about what is said of all, right? And I use a simple example to try to bring out that a little bit. Say suppose you have a kingdom, right? And the kingdom is run by the king. He he moves everybody around, huh?

[28:51] But under the king you have a general, right? Who's responsible for wars and so on, right? Now, does the causality of the general extend to everything? No, but the king's causality extends to everything. Like ah, same way, okay? So, um, uh, you could say that the general's causality extends to everyone who is a soldier, right? But the king's causality extends to everyone who is a citizen. Now, how are citizen and soldier related?

[29:30] Every soldier is a citizen. But not every citizen is a soldier, right? So citizen is said of everybody in the city, right? Soldier only of some, right? Citizen is said of more, right? That's the point, right? So if wisdom is about the first cause of all things, then it's going to be about what is said of all, right? That's most universal. But Aristotle he realized that these names said of all, as well as all the names used in wisdom and in the axioms too,

[30:07] are equivocal, right? And equivocal by reason. So he has a whole book, namely the fifth book, devoted to what? Distinguishing the chief senses of these words and bringing out the order, right? So when Thomas gets to the commentary in that fifth book, right? Then he what? Again, talks about the distinction of the ten, right? Huh? And it's very similar to the one in the in the what do you call it?

[30:44] The one in the physics, right? Huh? But if you see the other text in here, it's from the book. Fifth book of wisdom, right? Fifth book of the metaphysics as they call it, huh?

[31:04] Now the other main division of being is the division of being into what? Act and ability, yeah, and that's even more universal. But the division here that we're concerned with is a division of being into the highest genus of being, right? But act and ability are found in every genus.

[31:31] It's even more universal division, right? Even God is not confined to any genus, right? You can speak of God as being pure act, right? Some may extend your knowledge there.

[31:48] So it's interesting that Aristotle sees those as the two most universal divisions of being as such, right? We can talk about accidental being too, you know. But

[32:05] that's kind of understood through this thing. Like I'm a Christian geometer right? Okay. But Christian by being a Christian, by being a geometer, are not really one thing, are they? Because Christian is said of me, and geometry is said of me that you can say that I'm a Christian geometer, right? Or I'm a white geometer, right?

[32:31] Yeah, I'm a geometrical grandfather. So on, you know. That's accidental being, right? But being as such, right, huh? Is divided either according to the highest genera of being, or by act and ability, huh?

[32:48] That shows the importance of logic for wisdom, right? And the importance of natural philosophy for wisdom, huh? Because you meet act and ability, most of all, natural philosophy, huh? Okay. When Aristotle begins his consideration of act and ability in the ninth book of wisdom, huh? It's divided into what three parts, huh?

[33:17] In the first part, he considers, he distinguishes the ability of reference to motion. That's the whole one of the three parts. You can see how tied up with natural philosophy, right? Natural philosophy is about things that move, right? And then in the second part, he talks about act generally, right? Where even form is said to be act, but you see that in natural philosophy too. And then finally, he talks about their order in the third part.

[33:50] So, natural philosophy and logic are very important for what? Wisdom, okay. There wouldn't be any wisdom distinct from natural philosophy if there were not immaterial substances, and you reason to them from motion, right?

[34:16] First time I met Monsignor Deon, right? The philosophers who studied under Monsignor Deon there in St. Paul, there, Christy paying his way down to St. Paul. See what's on Monsignor's mind now, you know? So,

[34:29] Cassirk says to me, you know. Monsignor Deon is is talking about how logic is so necessary for for wisdom, you know. Isn't natural philosophy more important for wisdom than logic? And you know, you wouldn't even know what the immaterial substance is about natural philosophy, right? Natural philosophy, you argue that there's a motion and that there's an unmoved mover, right? And the unmoved mover is immaterial, right? You argue that the human soul is, has an operation, that's not in matter and so on, understanding.

[35:10] So isn't natural philosophy preparing the way, right? So on the phone, this right knocks into my head again, right? So I go over to Sergio Deiana the first time to meet this guy, right? I say, isn't natural philosophy more important than logic, you know, because I'm used on this thing? That's right away Deiana pointing out, you know, the difference in the way that you prepare, right? Because he was talking about the fact that what logic is like wisdom in being about the immaterial, and therefore in one way it's preparing us for wisdom, right?

[35:43] Considering immaterial things in a way natural philosophy does it, huh? Natural philosophy goes from what the general to the particular, huh? And it goes towards matter, right? It goes towards matter twice, right? But wisdom goes towards what the immaterial, right? So in some ways, in other way, wisdom, I mean, logic disposes for wisdom in a way that natural philosophy does not, huh?

[36:11] That's why you find the modern natural scientists sometimes, even the physicists, right? The most intelligent of them probably. I mean, they're so down into matter, right, that they can't. They kind of tend to be atheists or something, you know, or have doubted or

[36:28] polytheist like Einstein was or something, whatever he was, you know. It doesn't kind of dispose your mind for those things, right? But actually, both of them are very important, right? And just one example is in terms of you know having a distinct knowledge of being in general, right? There's two main divisions of being as such. Being according to the figures of predication, the highest genera, and you distinguish these by the way they're set of something.

[37:00] We'll see that in here, or else act and ability. That's natural philosophy that's leading you into that. So a lot of times, up at Laval, De Koninck would teach the natural philosophy all the time and they have to do some of the logic, right?

[37:19] Okay, there's two guys, yeah, very good man, yeah. Okay. So Thomas begins here in the chapter here, Lectio 5. Being is divided into the ten predicamenta, huh Okay. Non univocae. I'm looking at the Latin here, so.

[37:47] It's not said of univocally. As a genus is divided into species, huh? What was our definition of genus that we gave before, huh? What's a name said with one meaning, right? Of many things other in kind, rather than species, they'll call those kinds. Say, but said with one meaning, right? Of many things other in kind, signifying what it is, right? Well, since there's only one meaning, it can't say distinctly what each one of these kinds are, but only in general, right?

[38:29] So Aristotle discovered that being is not said of all things, what, with exactly the same meaning in mind. You can kind of see that, right, huh?

[38:47] If you leave this room, you will what? Cease to be. Sounds like a threat, doesn't it? You leave this room, you'll cease to be. Your Honor, I said to the judge, I only meant that he would cease to be in the room. But no one understands that from you, Mister Burke West, huh? He said cease to be, you know. Talking about something much more serious than being out of the room.

[39:17] So being is not really said in the same way of your substance, right, huh? You're being alive, right, huh? And you're being in the room. Okay.

[39:32] If you take your clothes off tonight, you cease to be. Well, you cease, you'll cease to be in some diminished sense, right? You'll cease to be clothed, right? But you won't cease to be, you know.

[39:54] So Aristotle discovered that the that the common words, right? They're all like the word before we talked about the word before and the word before, right? That they are what, all equivocal, but equivocal by reason and not by what? Chance, yeah.

[40:20] Did I speak last time there about the probable argument that led one to suspect that being is not equivocal by chance, but equivocal by reason?

[40:34] Well, something is by chance. Would you think it to be always so? No. But being is said of everything, isn't it? Being means what is. So whatever is in any way whatsoever is a being, right? Isn't that the way a name equivocal. is going to be said of everything, huh? That doesn't make any sense, doesn't it?

[41:07] I had this student coming to my house there on Tuesday night. His name is Richard. Now, see, he got the same name as my older brother, Richard. Same thing as the manager. He worked in the package store, right? His name was Richard too.

[41:23] Some reason why you guys all the name, same name. So we look at the three of you and say you all got the same shape nose. We'll call you all Richard or something. No, I don't think anybody but me has known all three of you. And I certainly didn't call you Richard. Your name Richard before I came to the world, before I existed. So it's by chance that these three guys all the same name, Richard.

[41:49] You know, don't you expect everybody in the world to be called Richard and everybody to have the name Richard instead of them? It's by chance. Things happen by chance. They happen all the time. They happen rarely, right? You know. Isn't it rare? Is it usually that we always have the same name? We always have the same name.

[42:12] That destroys the very purpose of naming, right? You know. So Aristotle discovered that these names are equivocal, right, by reason. And my other great teacher there, Charles De Koninck, said every respectable word in philosophy is equivocal, right, by reason, huh?

[42:39] So Aristotle was distinguishing the senses of what these words, right? But also thinking out their what order, right? So we saw that a little bit the text on the categories and the word before, which is in the post predicaments, right?

[43:03] Modern philosophers never do that, you know. They don't understand the words that they use. huh? They don't possess the wisdom they talk about. Heraclitus says, you know, I mean, men don't understand things they meet every day, right? But some of these words that they meet every day, they don't understand them, right? On the street here, nobody's going to be giving you the ordered senses of being or the ordered senses of before or anything like that, right?

[43:37] Yet the most common mistake in thinking is mixing up these words, huh? Okay. And even substance there, which is the name of the first highest genus, right? The word substance, not when it's functioning as a genus, but the word itself has many meanings, right? We'll see that in things that you're going to reproduce.

[44:04] Okay. So being is divided into ten predicamenta, and we used to always say, you know, how come there's ten of them, right? Aristotle had ten fingers, right, and he couldn't count beyond that or something, you know. We might make a little joke about that now. We ran into an odd text there in the twelfth book of wisdom there.

[44:37] Aristotle saying that sometimes the Platonists said the numbers go on forever, right? Always have a greater number, right? Other times the Platonists said the numbers go up to just ten, and then you repeat yourself. Right, There's some truth to repeat yourself, right? But you could have maybe a system of six, you know. They say you know some of the Near East people had that, I guess, Babylonians or something like that.

[45:07] And so, so do they have any reason why why you go up to ten, and that seems to be it? Apparently, the reason is something like this: you start with one, and then you get two next, right? Then you get three next, right? And then you get what the first square number, four. Now, one plus two plus three plus four is what? Yeah, that's it. That's the reason But why you should go to the first.

[45:43] square. Yeah, I don't know there was no reason given for that. But you know, somebody was asking me at the college there years ago. Now, why is that number ten? I don't know the reason, but I understand the reason, you know. It is, huh?

[46:06] I've been thinking about you know the etymology of substance here, we stand under right now. And I was thinking of the Saint Thomas's prayer there before communion. One of the prayers

[46:26] begins by saying, "Adoro te devote latens deitas, quae sub his figuris vere latitas." That prayer has got what? How many? It's divided into quatrains, huh? And each quatrain, the first and the second lines rhyme, and the third and the fourth lines rhyme. So each of the quatrains, huh? How many quatrains are there in that prayer? Seven Yeah, I said what's that's twenty eight So what's that's it?

[47:04] Yeah, and I said seven. It took me seven times four is twenty-eight, which is the second perfect number, right? That's how, if you didn't know about ten, that's how Saint Bonaventure divides his treatment of grace. He says there's grace is one, grace is one chapter. There's two effects, two chapters from that. Three branches of virtue against vices, three chapters there, and there's the fourth part is on four exercises mentioned before, which was ten chapters.

[47:38] Helps you remember it too, doesn't it? Okay. Now the second thing he says here: the modes of being are what. Proportional to the modes or ways of being said of, predicandi.

[48:06] Now, I think I mentioned the other text of Thomas there, where he's talking about Aristotle. Sometimes in wisdom, he will lead you from one of the lower sciences, right? He takes you by the hand and leads you up, you know, to wisdom. And in wisdom, you sometimes lead somebody by the hand from logic, right? And sometimes you lead them by the hand from natural philosophy, huh? But with the brevity of wisdom, huh?

[48:38] That Shakespeare talks about, huh? Thomas says the way of natural philosophy is by way of motion, and the way of logic is by way of predication. Okay. So nature is defined by motion, huh? It's beginning and cause of motion and of rest, so on. And the way we know things, their natures, is through their motions, right? Come to know that. And we're talking about act and ability, right?

[49:13] Motion is going to be defined by act and ability. And as my friend Shakespeare says, things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, right? And motion is kind of fundamental for us.

[49:30] But one thing is said of another only in mind, in the reason, right? And so, when I was at Laval, there we were in logic. In the beginning, there we were studying two books of the great Albert the Great, right? One was called De Predicabilibus, right, about the predicables, genus, difference, species, property, and accident, as we say Latin. And then the book on the categories, which was called the Latin De Predicamentis, right?

[50:06] So really, when you study those two books, you're very much aware of the fact that what the way one thing is said of another is the way that logic proceeds, right? And when I studied the syllogism, as they teach the syllogism, you know, the syllogism is based on the said of all and the said of none.

[50:30] If A is said of all, B is said of whatever B is said of. If A is said of no B, it's denied of anything. B is said of, so on. That's a fundamental thing, right? So he's going to logic, right? Here, in some sense, to get the predicamentis, the modes of being said of, right? But no, it's even one of the first things we do in logic is to point out that a name.

[50:58] Can be said of many things. Now, my teacher Albert the Great said the first thing to be considered in logic is what? The universal. Yeah, yeah. Now the great Boethius said, "A thing is singular when sensed, universal and understood." That makes sense, you know. The universal be the first thing. Now I try to be even more sensible and say the first thing to be considered in logic is name, which is something sensible, right?

[51:35] Said of many, right? And one of the first distinctions we see is that sometimes a name is said of many with different meanings in mind, and sometimes it's said of many with the same meaning in mind, right? Okay. And if it's said with many meanings in mind, sometimes there's no connection among them, like my three Richards here, I guess. And sometimes it's said with what connection among the meanings?

[52:04] Okay. Or as Thomas says, sometimes, sometimes a name is said many things with exactly the same meaning in mind, instead of each of them. Sometimes it's said of many things with entirely different meanings instead of each, and sometimes it's in the middle, and said of many things with things that are not entirely the same, but not entirely different either. Right. He divides it into what? Three, right?

[52:33] Okay. Okay. Because that's very fundamental for logic, right? Okay. And so, now studying the great work of Porphyry the Isagoge, which is more or less, you know, gathering things from Aristotle and trying to put them together, but I said to Monsignor Dionne, you know, shouldn't Porphyry have said, you know, these things are being said genetically? He didn't say that, you know. And Dionne said, "Yeah, he agreed that Porphyry should have done that."

[53:05] So he saw it, correct him. Porphyry, right? But I mean that's you know fundamental to logic, right? The way something is said of something, something is said of something only in the mind or reason. Okay.

[53:25] So he says the ways of being are proportional to the ways of being said of. What does the word proportional mean, right? What is a proportion?

[53:44] Is that a ratio What? Ratio. Well, now you're getting up the confusion of Thomas, right? I have to go back to Euclid, right? Huh? Say.

[54:01] So, a proportion means a likeness of ratios. Okay. So, four is to six as two is to, yeah. See. Or, two is to three as eight is to. Yeah. Okay.

[54:29] Two is to three as two hundred is to. Yeah. Two is to three as two trillion is to. You're talking about the dead, aren't you? They're going further and further away, right now. You know. See what you can see. There's a likeness there, right now, and the fact that you can supply the fourth item is a sign that you see the what likeness, huh? Now we carried over this idea of proportion to non-mathematical things, right?

[55:09] We say seeing is to the eye as hearing is to the eye. to the yeah. The fact you can supply the fourth term is a sign that you see the likeness of ratios, huh? Okay. So two to three is a ratio, but four to six as two to three is a what a proportion, yeah, a likeness of ratios, huh? This is very important, right now. Okay. Well, there's a proportion he's saying between the way you know things are said of something and the way they what are, right

[55:51] now. Okay. How do we know that? Well, we'll see it as you go go through this, right now. Okay. So we're going to see how the ways of being are proportional to the ways of being said of, huh? And it gives a little explanation up there in the next sentence, huh? For when we say this of this other thing, we say this to be that, don't we?

[56:22] There's some connection there between you know being and being said of, huh? Whence also the ten genera of being are said to be the ten what predicamenta, right? Latin, huh? Okay.

[56:52] Then he's going to follow the rule of two or three, right now. In three ways takes place all predication, all being said of. Because you take the Latin word in predication, right? But the idea of being said of, right? You'd have to probably say if you want to speak English, right?

[57:23] Now at this point, you know, going back to the text of Aristotle, he had this distinction in one of the antepredicaments, right, of universal substance and singular substance, and universal accident and singular accident, right? And one reason why that is presupposed to the distinction of the ten, right, is that the ten are distinguished by the way something is said of what. Individual substances, right? So you have to distinguish individual substance from universal substance, and from all the accidents, right?

[58:03] Okay. And it's because everything else is said of individual substances or exists in them, right? So that can be said denominatively at least of it, right? Everything else is said in some way, right? Of individual substances like you and me, or Habiba, what's your name or his name? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Or champion. Did you ever meet champion?

[58:33] You ever meet champion? Oh my goodness. Now the little boy there, my mother took me down to see Gene Autry bringing his show to to the auditorium downtown Saint Paul. And actually, I was crazy about Gene Autry at the time, you know, and but he brought his prize horse Champion, right? And I remember, you know, at the end there, he he brought a champion and he put just he's on top of champion, champion sides to me all around the whole thing, you know.

[59:07] What a magnificent horse! Beautiful looking horse, you know, but a very intelligent horse, right? Champion. Okay. A champion is example. He gives a horse right, horse right. Okay. Example of a substance, right? Man, and then champion. That's the second example, right? You should see champion. One of the most beautiful horses I ever seen in my life, and the most intelligent horse I've ever seen in my life, Mm hmm

[59:33] you know. So everything exists in things like you or me or champion or Tabitha, my daughter's cat, and so on, that are individual substances, right? So you have to make that distinction that Aristotle brings out, and then you can see the basis, right, of how they're going to be distinguished by the way something is said of individual substances. Okay. So Thomas with his brevity of wisdom here, right?

[1:00:08] In three ways all predication comes about, meaning he doesn't mean everything can be every distinction about predication, no, but every what predication about of individual substances, huh? Everything that can be said of individual substances, right, can be distinguished into what three, huh?

[1:00:48] I know a lot of times you know they'll divide the categories into two, substance and the nine general accidents, right? But Thomas is going to divide them into three, right? Well, you know when I state the rule of two or three, I sometimes say two or three, and sometimes I say two or three or what? Both, right?

[1:01:20] But when you come to talk about statement, right? Sometimes Aristotle divides statement into noun and verb, right? Fundamental parts of statement. Man thinks, man walks, man runs. Okay, the noun signifies without time, but the verb with time, right? That's a distinction into two, right? But sometimes we divide the statement into three: the subject, the predicate, and then what they call the copula, the is or the is not, right?

[1:02:01] Okay, say say man is an animal, man is not a stone, right? Okay, what seems to make sense to say the subject is man, the predicate is animal, and then the copula is is, right? So you can divide a statement into two or three, or actually both. Okay, Aristotle divides the plot into how many parts?

[1:02:31] Yeah, he divides it first, you know, praising the great Homer. He taught all of the Greeks how to make a good plot. It's got to be what? Kind of a beginning, a middle, and an end. But then later on in the book on the poetic art, he says that the plot involves tying knots and then untying them.

[1:02:59] The family can be divided into parents and the kids. Nor father, mother, and the kids. Priest is kind of fudging the thing about the man, you know, the wife's supposed to obey the husband, right?

[1:03:21] And as St. Paul is saying this because that was the custom at the time, right? You know, but now we're, you know, okay, we're democratic. Well, I was thinking, you know, of the old rule, the rule of prayer is the rule of faith. So in my in creating of indulgences, right, and the prayers that are selected by the church for special mention, there is a litany of St.

[1:03:47] Joseph, right? One of the six litanies. And he's called of all things the head of the holy family. Now he had quite unusual son, and most unusual wife. And you might say that that Mary is is the more elevated; she's the queen of heaven and earth. And Christ, I mean, goes without saying, right? But despite that, he's still called the head of the family, you know. And the the rule of prayer is the rule of faith, right?

[1:04:23] I was going to come up to recent to say that, but then we go back and check to make sure that he does say they have the family. I kind of remembered that and said, yeah, they're head of family. Sunday, I might say. Yeah,

[1:04:43] Sunday. You know, I passed some some Trump signs on the way to church, and I passed a couple of Hillary signs and so on, the int condition to stop and front of Hillary s signs and say, ring the doorbell and say, why you're advertising your stupidity? I said, Dave Rose. I said, how's that hurt for a first line? Start a nice calm conversation. We'll hear about you in the newspaper.

[1:05:10] Man shot dead on the front doorstep. Why would you want to advertise your stupidity? I don't know. I am stupid. Okay. So as I say, sometimes they divide them into two, right? Substance and accident, right? And in sense before when he gave the distinction of universal substance, right, and singular substance, universal accident, singular thing, he's crisscrossing two divisions, right? But it's one of them is a division into substance and what?

[1:05:53] Accident, yeah. Okay. But Thomas is dividing into three, right? Now sometimes when you speak of of names said of many things equivocally or univocally, it's a division into two, right? Said with one meaning or many meanings, right? That's it. And then you can subdivide, right? Said with many meanings, right? Into equivocal by chance and equivocal by reason. But in the other example, sometimes Thomas divides that into three right away, you know, entirely the same, entirely different, and then partly the same and partly different, right?

[1:06:31] You know, and both make what? Make sense, right? Aristotle divides plot, right, the soul of tragedy, right, is the plot. He divides it both into three and into two, right? So that's I give as a rule, two should divide into two or three or both. Sometimes you can do that.

[1:06:58] You divide the Our Father, the petitions of the Our Father, into those about the good and those about the bad. That makes sense, doesn't it? Or that about the end, that about the means, and that's the impediments to the end. Makes sense, right? Okay. We, our mind is well, in beginning ignorant and then confused, and then if it gets far long enough, it gets some distinction, right?

[1:07:24] And we might need more than one distinction to to make any much progress, huh?