Logic (2016)
8. Being Divided into the Ten Categories: Thomas's Exposition of Metaphysics V (and Why Being Is Not a Genus)
Class of 2016-11-10
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/008-being-divided-into-the-ten-categories-thomass-exposition/

[0:00] Of The Father and the Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment. Help us, God, to know and love you. Guardian angels, enlighten the lights of our minds, and illumine images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Great grace. Help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. I got a letter from a philosopher there, and he asked me, you know, does the soul of a man and soul of woman differ?

[0:39] And so I give a nice text from the prima prima pars, and one from the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Huh? Where Aristotle saying that just as the soul of a man, right, differs from the soul of a dog or a cat, right? Huh? So likewise, the my soul differs from your soul, right? Huh? And it's because you know the soul is, what, it fits the body, right?

[1:13] They're like relatives, huh? You know, they're proportional to each other. So the soul of a man couldn't enter into the body of a dog, right? Because the tools would not be the right ones, huh? And one art can't into another art for tools. Just take the example of my my wife and my my brother in law, right? And brother in law would be a carpenter, right? And so he had a hammer and saw, and my wife would have a thread and a you know you don't and he she he can't sew together the wood pieces, you know, and and she can't use a hammer, you know, to put the dress together, you know, so and so since the living body is a body composed of

[1:52] tools, right? One kind of soul fits these tools, another one those ones, right? Okay, but then it makes a comparison, right? Huh? The just as but my soul, the the human soul is to the man's body, right, as the soul of the dog is to the dog's body. So my soul is to my body as your soul is to your body, right? And so that when God created your soul, He did it to fit that body that your mother and father had begun, right?

[2:25] And so there is some difference between your soul and my soul, right? So I couldn't, my soul couldn't be put in your body now and animate your body and put your soul in my body, you know, and but the first place where Aristotle is attacking, you know, Pythagoras and those who said that, you know, stop being a dog you know I recognize recognize so and so that my friend who has left his body, this body was now in the in the body of the dog, right?

[2:50] Aristotle says it's impossible. Just as you were talking about the soul of a dog and the soul of a human brother dog came right over. the room Yeah. Oh yeah. he's saying that. He must be interested. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I so I said to him. In the other, I said the body of the man and body of the woman differ, right? Huh. So the soul of one doesn't fit the soul of the other, right?

[3:12] I mean the body of the other, and the now there aren't as much differences as it is between the soul of the man and the dog because the soul of the man has got powers that the dog doesn't have, right? Understanding and and reason and will and so on, and that's not the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of woman. They all have the same powers, right?

[3:35] Huh. But but there's some difference there, right? Now these be more individual, right? Huh. And I just gave two things: like the woman is by nature more merciful than the man, right? Why the man is by nature more just, huh? And so Mary, who's the you know chief woman, the she's called the mother of mercy, but not the mother of what justice, right? It's her nature. And then I give the example.

[4:06] I still always talk about what's the difference between a man, a woman, regard to the children, right? Well, the woman sees the children as a kind of what fulfillment of herself, right? Why the man sees the children as a continuation of himself, huh? Okay. And therefore, the man makes more the the so-called selfish mistake. He wants a boy, you know, or something, right? I remember I went to the to the hospital, you know, and when our second child was being born, right?

[4:39] And so I was an experienced man, I you know, do this, and this young guy was there, you know, when where his wife was from the first child, right? And so he he I could he's a little bit nervous and so on, and so I said, "This is my second." They said, "What was your first?" You know, he he said, and I said, "It's a boy." You got what you wanted?

[4:57] And I said, "Yeah." But you never kind of come to see two girls, right? You know, you know, you know what was your first? you know, it was a girl. They wouldn't say you got what you wanted, no, because she sees as a fulfillment of herself, right? Huh. And why the man sees more as a continuation of himself, so he can get somebody like Henry the eighth, you know, trying to get a a you know boy Ostenberg, you know, so he can have a continuation of himself.

[5:21] Same thing about mercy and motherhood because the word in Hebrew for mercy comes from the word for womb I know and I'd be working in my father's factory down there in summer, and sometimes my father would come through with a business friend, you know, and so on, and and they stop and see talk a few words to me. Now they're working down the factory, you know, and and the business friend my father would say, "running it from the ground up, you know," but you kind of assume that the son's going to kind of you know succeed the the the father, you know, in his occupation, you know, but a woman would be looking for that same sort of thing, you know.

[5:57] But okay. So you got your page five here. We're going to look at the other text where Thomas divides it. It's uh for us. page four. We have different page numbers. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah. Just so you're not reading the going left, right to left. Okay.

[6:22] So in the fifth book of the metaphysics. Now the fifth book of of the metaphysics, or the fifth book of first philosophy, as Aristotle calls it, now the fifth book of wisdom, is entirely devoted to what names, right? That are equivocal by reason, huh? And names that are used most of all in first philosophy or wisdom. But are also used in the what axioms, huh? Like the whole is more than the part, right?

[7:01] The whole and part of words in the fifth book, right? Something cannot both be and not be at the same time, and so on. Well, but words like being, they have many meanings, huh? But they're equivocal by what? By reason. There's an order among the meanings. Um. So the whole fifth book is taken up with that, huh? Okay. So that's a nice dialectical question, you know. Whether it's necessary to understand words equivocal by reason.

[7:31] I was talking to Warren Murray on the phone the other day, and they say Warren, in reading the modern philosophers, did you ever run across a guy stopping on a word and saying this word is equivocal by reason, and then distinguishing the senses and the order? No. So they don't understand the words they use every day, huh? Because to some extent they're used every day because they're common, huh?

[7:51] I said I didn't. I couldn't find it myself. I couldn't find anything. Maybe I'd missed something. I said you find one. He says no. I told you the story when I was when I was in graduate school. There, we sometimes go to the library and read a doc doctoral thesis. You know that there's had copies of every doctoral thesis. There's a copy of it in mine someplace in the library, right?

[8:12] And the at that time we're interested in Marxism because of the Cold War and so on. And some guy wrote a doctoral thesis on on Karl Marx, right? Huh? Well, the name of Marxism as a philosophy is dialectical materialism. That matter is the beginning of everything, but things develop through the what conflict of opposites, right? So opposite is at the very center of Marxist thought, huh? And but they don't distinguish.

[8:41] Marx never distinguishes the senses of the word opposite. And so this guy Murray had a section there, you know, it's touched upon you know distinctions you'll meet here in the post predicaments, right? I mean, this is the key thing. This is not just any word. This is the. The center thing, yeah, but they'll use the word contradiction, or you know, it is for you know any kind of opposition, right?

[9:07] They never distinguish the senses of the word opposite, which is equivocal by reason. And Aristotle will distinguish it here in the fifth book, and you'll be here in the post predicaments too. That's kind of a fundamental thing, you know, that they seem to to miss, right? huh And they're even though they miss Yeah. So I say that's a nice thing. Whether it is necessary to understand words equivocal by reason?

[9:36] Well, the axioms are these statements to which you know all other statements, because they're known through themselves, right? But they're all expressed with words that are equivocal by reason, so you can fail to understand these, even the axioms. So it's necessary, right? But even the word necessary is what equivocal by reason, huh? So you know how I used to. Imitate my master there, Aristotle, and say: Is it necessary to understand the word necessary?

[10:06] If you say it is, you better understand it, right? If you say it's not necessary, you are going to have to explain why it's not necessary, right? In which case, you are going to have to understand the word necessary, right? So,

[10:23] now we find out in the earlier books of the wisdom there that the subject of wisdom is being in one, right? And so you get to one place there in book five there, where he's going to distinguish the what? He's got the Latin text: the modes of being per se, right? Okay, as opposed to what? Accidental being, right? Like, for example, example of accidental being is I am a what?

[10:55] Christian geometer. Well, is there such a thing as Christian geometry? No. And does Christianity and geometry come together and make something? No. But it's because to be a Christian belongs to me, and to be a geometer belongs to me, right? That you can say, per accidens, right? That I am a Christian geometer. For. That now you can say I am a white geometer too, right? That's accidental being, right?

[11:31] So Aristotle distinguishes accidental being from being per se, and now in this text, Thomas is laying out what Aristotle says here, right? Now, so he distinguishes the modes of being per se, and about this he does three things. First, he distinguishes being which is outside the soul through the ens per se dividitur in decem praedicamenta Predicamenta. That's the Latin word for the categories, huh?

[12:05] Which is ends what? Perfectum, right? Secondly, he lays down another way of being, according as it is only in the mind. Well, now, as my dear teacher there, Kasurik said, you know, philosophy is the only subject we can get paid for talking about nothing. He said, huh? And is nothing something? No. You can say nothing is nothing, huh? What does is mean there?

[12:40] Because nothing isn't, is it? So how can you say nothing? You can say nothing is nothing. Nothing is more true than to say what that something is itself, right? So you can say nothing is nothing, right?

[12:55] What is that is? It's only in the mind. Outside the mind, there is no what. Being corresponding to nothing, right? I was a little boy, you know, thinking about that nothing. I said, that's strange, you know. What if there was nothing? You know, of course, nobody would know that there was nothing. Would nothing be in some way? You know, little boy, I'd never, you know, had this size idea, but this sense of being.

[13:24] But it is a strange sense of being, right? Instead of saying nothing is nothing, would it be correct to say that nothing isn't? That would be correct too, but you can't say that nothing is not nothing. If it's not nothing, then it's something, right? And then you'd be in a contradiction, right? That's an odd kind of being, right? That's why my teacher, Kasurik said you can get paid for talking about nothing.

[13:54] Philosophy is the only subject you get paid for talking about nothing. But suppose I say, you know, the man that our Lord later on cured, right? He's blind, right? Is that a kind of being to be blind? It's an unbeing of something, right? But yet we speak as if, you know, he's he's white and he's he's blind, right? Huh? You know, he's young, he's healthy, or whatever it may be, right?

[14:18] But you can say he's blind. That's true, isn't it? The true and falsity are in the mind. It's true to say he's blind. Otherwise, Christ didn't.

[14:33] Strange, strange kind of being, right? Aristotle, he talks about accidental being and this being that is only in the mind, right? Huh? Then third, he divides being by, and I usually translate that in English by potency and act, but I translate it by ability and act. Huh? He

[15:01] knows what he says about this division of being into ability and act. And being thus divided, huh, is communius huh, more common than ens perfectum, the division by divisio praedicamenta. So in every predicament, there is act and ability, huh? And then there are things that aren't in the predicamenta, like God, who's pure act, right?

[15:33] So it's kind of curious, huh, that in the later books of wisdom, when he takes up being, he takes up being according to the figures of predication before he takes up act and ability, going from the less universal up to the more universal, right? Just the opposite of the way natural philosophy goes, from the general to the particular, huh? Strange, huh? Natural philosophy goes from the general to the particular and towards matter, and wisdom goes from the less universal to the more universal and towards the immaterial.

[16:14] Just the opposite of these two ways, proceeding. So Thomas is really laying out the text. Now, you know, they call Thomas's work sometimes commentary, right? That's what they call it. That doesn't really, you know, it's like making comments on, right? The technical word they use is exposition, right? But how would you translate exposition? It's the laying out, right? He's laying out the work, right? He's really making it plain now, laying it out so can see clearly, right?

[16:50] And plainly what Aristotle is doing, huh? Okay. Okay, but now I just give you the part where he's going to talk about that first division, right? Which is relevant to our study of the categories, huh? He says first, therefore, that those things are said to be secundum se, whatever signifies signify the figures of what predication, huh? Now,

[17:21] he doesn't elaborate too much. If only Aristotle uses the term figure predication, but the word figure, of course, is equivocal by by reason, right? And where do you find figure first in with science? Geometry, Yeah, geometry, yeah, yeah. And figure is what is contained by a limit or what limits, huh? So remember in the anti predicaments, you know, we talked about how the higher genus can be said of the one below it and everything all the way down, right?

[17:57] There's a whole order there, right? And it turns out to be a highest what genus here and a lowest what species. It's like a figure, right? What is contained by a limit or limits? In this case, by limits, right? Very precise that Aristotle does, huh? Okay.

[18:17] I told you how at the Christmas time at Laval there, when they'd have a little Christmas party, right? And this one guy, friend of my brother, Marcus, is he was very good at impersonating the professors. With every professor got little ways of speaking, you know, they're kind of quirks, you know, so and so he'd come and he'd start, you know, and everybody recognized what professor he was, right?

[18:43] But they would, you know, do little funny things, and they would give the logic professor, you know, you know, tree of porphyry, right? Because that's the way it is, right? Huh? It has a kind of a shape, right? Because you divide the genus into species, and then those species, they have species below them, into more. So it spreads out like a like a Christmas tree does, you know, rather than some other kind of tree, right?

[19:05] So they give up the tree of porphyry, but used to call it, you know, even you know, in the Latin, they had the lines drawn, you know, like that. They call it the tree of porphyry, huh? Because it looks like the tree a little bit. So it's very concrete that Aristotle uses the word figures of predication.

[19:24] Now he says it ought to be known, sciendum, that being, what ends? That's the word for being, is not able to be contracted, huh? To something more what? Determined, huh? More particular, in the way that a genus is contracted to a species by differences, huh? Why can't you say that you know being is a genus, and then you have some differences, and you get some species of it, right?

[19:56] Everything's under one big genus, and so on, right? Well. What is there about genus and species and differences that doesn't allow you to do that with being, right? Well, he points out something from what we know from Porphyry and from Aristotle. For a difference does not partake of the genus; it is outside the essence of the genus. Okay. So if you define man, say, as a two-footed animal or something like that, is animal in the definition of two-footed?

[20:37] Is animal in the definition of two-footed? Yeah. To have two feet is to be an animal. Must take a foot. Okay. Um. Or is animal in the definition of reason? Man is a rational animal. So it's outside. But can you divide being by something that is not a being? Can you divide it by nothing? No.

[21:16] So being is said of everything that is in any way whatsoever, right? So it's impossible to contract being like a genus is contracted by its differences to its species. You can say the same thing about other sets of alls, as I call them, right? Take the word something, right?

[21:39] Well, everything is something, right? So if you know the difference between something and nothing, you know everything. I told them, right? I'm gonna go home and tell my father that.

[21:52] But could you divide something by nothing? No. You have to divide something by something, right? That's not what a genus and a difference do, right? A difference is something else, right? Okay. The genus signifies what a thing is, and the difference signifies how it is, what it is, right? But not what it is. Okay.

[22:22] So Thomas is stopping there and laying out the text there that being cannot be contracted to something more particular or determined in the way that a genus is contracted, right? For a genus, for a difference does not partake of the genus; it is outside the essence of the genus. But nothing can be outside the essence of what being, huh? Or nothing can be outside of something, right?

[22:49] For what is outside of being is what nothing, right? And is not able to be a what difference, huh? Whence in the third book of of wisdom, third book of the metaphysics of this book, the philosopher. Now, who the hell is that? It's not Donald Trump Yeah. Well, see, Latin is a is a defective language; doesn't have the article, right? So, they can't say the philosopher, right?

[23:21] But at least he capitalized it, right? Okay. So, this is an example of what figure of speech. Yeah. Okay. And that's the one that the Bible is very fond of, right? So, the Bible and Gospel and Christ—are all named by what? The Church. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[23:45] Whence the philosopher proves in the third book of this thing that being is not able to be a what Genus, Huh? Marvelous man that he figured that out, huh? Okay. Plato called him the mind of the school.

[24:06] Whence it is necessary that being be contracted to diverse genera, right? To diverse highest genera, we can say, according to a diverse way of being what set up, huh? Which signify, which follows a diverse way of being, right? Because, as Aristotle says, "quotiens in many ways as being is said, right? That is, in as many ways as something is said of something, right? totiens in so many ways is being what signified, huh?

[24:47] So, there's something proportional, right, between the ways that beings are or kinds of beings are and the way something can be said of something, right? Okay.

[25:00] An account of this, those things into which being is divided first are said to be in Latin predicamenta, right, or categories in Greek, huh? Because they are distinguished by diverse way of what being said of, right? Okay. Now, from our profound study of the antepredicamenta, right? You remember Aristotle distinguishing between what universal substance and individual substance, and universal accident, particular or singular accidenta, and there's more than one reason why he makes that distinction, right?

[25:44] Because one highest genus will be substance, and then the other nine will be accidents, right? But it's also necessary before you see this here, right? Because These ten highest genera will be distinguished by the diverse ways that something can be said of one of those four, namely individual substance, right? So we'll take individual substance like you or you or me, huh, and see the different ways something can be said of you or me, okay?

[26:23] Okay, Thomas didn't spell it out there, but it's clear from the text, right? As Aristotle points out everything else is said of or exists in individual substances, right?

[26:44] Philosophy is said of this kind of philosophy and that kind of philosophy, and exists in individual minds, right? Yeah, not too much that, but I mean there's some minds around, you know, Socrates and Plato and Aristotle at least, huh?

[27:05] Because therefore, because therefore of those things which are said, some signify what an individual substance is, right? They signify what it is. Aristotle, I've mentioned, sometimes calls this category "ousia," which we translate by substance and sometimes he calls it," which we translate by substance, and sometimes he calls it "ti esti what it is, quid est. Some signify quality. That's what, concrete word for qualities, quidem quantum, right?

[27:38] Okay, and situs, right, huh? Okay, where, when, and so on, right? It's necessary, therefore, that what to each way of what being said there signified some kind of being, right? There's something proportional here, right? It's a likeness, huh? It's a likeness of proportions. As when man is said to be an animal, it signifies substance, huh? And when man is said to be white, it signifies quality, or quality, right?

[28:17] To be kind of as Aristotle is et situs, huh? Okay. So now in the next sentence, standing by itself, if I let it stand by itself, right? Thomas is going to begin to point out the what distinction, the way something can be said of you or me. Okay. It should be known then that a predicate is able to have itself in three ways to the subject of which it is said, huh?

[28:49] Okay. In one way, when is that which the subject is, right? As when I say Socrates is an example of a individual substance. When I say Socrates is an animal, right? For Socrates is that which an animal is, right?

[29:25] And this predicate is said to signify first substance, which is a what particular substance about which or of which all things are what said. I

[29:39] know those two ways of speaking there. First substance and what? Yeah. We met the term particular there when we talked about universal substance and particular substance, and universal accident and particular accident. But in the chapter on substance, we'll meet the term first substance and what second substance. See. but. First substance will signify the same thing as the individual substance, right? And then second substance would signify the species or the genus in which first substance is, right?

[30:12] Okay. So these are the same thing, but a little different in the way they're what named, right? You say first, you are talking about order, right? Uno, and I was going to point out when you get to the chapter on substance that first substance is what is primarily substance, right? And most of all substance, right? Substance It stands under, right? Okay. He's going to argue that the species in which a substance, individual substance, is is more substance than the genus, right?

[30:51] Okay. Because it's closer to you or me, right? So man is more substance than animal, yeah. And man kind of stands under animal, right? Animal's under it, but under man is what, and closer to man than animal is man, and under he's closer to you or me, right? Okay.

[31:22] Now, what's the second way that it can be said, right? Well, not signifying now what it is, right? But something in it, right? Either which will be subdivided into absolutely, right, or towards another, right. In the second way that the predicate is taken according as it is in the subject, right? Which predicate is either in it per se and absolutely as following upon matter, and thus it is quantity.

[31:55] Everything material has got quantity, or is following upon form, and thus it is equality, right? So maybe you won't have quantity in the sense of size in an angel, right now. Where my guardian angel is right now, right? Does he have any size?

[32:16] Does he have to worry about getting overweight? or anything Exercise But does my guardian angel have certain qualities? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Much wiser than I am, I bet.

[32:34] More clever than I am. Okay. He's my guide, huh? Remember the sisters of Saint Joseph? Now, leave room for your angel, you know, on the bench. Because we're talking kind of seriously, you know, and you leave no room for the angel to sit too, you know. And the sisters had ways of, you know, inculcating things in you, right? Huh? You know. Children use their imagination a lot.

[33:11] I still remember, you know, the sister talking about that the priest in this one parish had a drinking problem, right? And people were talking about it and making a scandal about it. And he came over to the church and put kind of a curse on them. And he said, "I was talking to somebody from that place, and they said, 'You see, it's surprising how many people are dying now.

[33:32] ' You know? Wow. That teaches me respect for a priest. You don't, you don't gossip about a priest. Just had their little ways. It wouldn't be the most orthodox ways. But

[33:47] they get results. What? They get results. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the old pastor says, Duane, he says, "How'd you get baptized? That's not a saint's name. "

[34:03] Well, I was actually baptized Hugo Dwayne, so there was a Saint Hugo, but there's no Saint Dwayne, you know. And the name's got, you know, it happens a lot of times to people, you know. And so I don't know. I was just baptized. We baptized that

[34:19] poor little kid. But you know, he was he was a good pastor, though. He would he would come sometime, you know. We'd have a you know a mass for the whole school, right? And then he'd get up in the pulpit afterwards and declare a holiday for the day, right? Yay! Of course, the nuns would pretend to be, you know, like they had twice as much fun for us, you know.

[34:41] If they were they were disturbed, they probably needed a day off more than we did, you know. But he was a good good man.

[34:52] Okay. So those are the two ways: are absolute, or in respect to another, right? Huh? And notice the ad aliquid, right? Huh? And Aristotle's word, as I mentioned before, was pros ti, towards something, right? Huh? Okay.

[35:11] So four is double towards what? Two, right? And four is half towards what? Eight. But in itself, is it double or half? Four. It's neither, right? Yeah. It can only be double or half towards something, right? Huh? You know.

[35:40] What am I, a father or a son? I'm a father towards this and a son towards me. No, Victor Burkequist, Parkes Prairie, Minnesota. Sweet. They had some nickname for the Swedes and the and Worcester, but I forgot what it was. No, there was a name they had for them, some kind of, you know. Well, yeah, different different nationals had each had their derogatory name. Something talking, but I forgot what it was.

[36:16] No. So am I a teacher or a husband? Well, I'm a teacher towards you, right? But I'm a husband towards Rosalie, right? I'm a grandfather towards Lady Wisdom. Other ones is.

[36:51] But what am I myself? Am I myself? I'm taller than some people. I'm shorter than some people, right? Is that my size taller or shorter? Which is my size taller or shorter? That's what I am towards. Towards a basketball player, I'm maybe shorter, right? Towards some. Yeah, I'm taller, right?

[37:29] My student comes on Tuesday night. There he's. I'm shorter than him, right? At my classroom seven to nine, I figured he was also going to be in until after nine. So we're frozen after

[37:48] two o'clock. But knows he calls towards something, something in us, though nevertheless, right? But something in us towards another, right? I am something in me towards another, right? To be a son, to be a teacher, to be a husband, to be a father, so on, right? To be taller than. So now we got four highest geniuses so far, right? Okay.

[38:25] Most times, there he's using the the abstract word quantity and quality, huh? Okay, but before he used the term quale and quantum, right, which is like what the Greek has, okay? And not alio there, right? He doesn't use that abstract word relation. Alone, the torr terrible word relationship, right? That is absolutely. In

[38:51] the third way that the predicate is taken from that which is outside the what subject, right? And this in two ways. This is a little different from what he said in the other part. He makes a little connection here. In one way, they'd be entirely outside the subject, right?

[39:19] And then he distinguishes that into what four, but he distinguishes one against the other three, right? In one way, they'd be altogether outside the subject, which, if it is not the measure of the subject, is said as something by way of what habitus, right? That's what they use the Greek word Aristotle has echein to have, right?

[39:43] As when Socrates is said to be what calceatus huh? Yeah. So what are they Discalced, huh? Okay. Or vestitus, right? Clothed, right? Vested. Okay. That's man's. Categories which they kind of need to get a lecture on Okay. If our it be the measure, since the extrinsic measure is either, and he says extrinsic measure, that's as opposed to quantity, right? Where you have a intrinsic measure. Which extrinsic measure is either time or place, right?

[40:27] Now, if taken from time, it will be not time but when, right? Okay. Because time, we'll see, is put in the category of quantity, right? But this category is what when, right? Or from place, and he subdivides that into two.

[40:50] Either ubi, which means what where in English, where one doesn't consider the order of parts in place. But if one considers the order of parts in place, then it's what situs or position, right? Okay. So where am I? I'm in this room, right?

[41:12] But that says nothing about how my parts are arranged. Am I laying down or am I sitting or am I standing, right? Okay. My parts are arranged a little bit differently, right? In place. But time already has the idea of order, right? Except for a sense of order before and after, right? So you get just one, right?

[41:38] I hope you're keeping track of how many distinctions of time. two and three there are here, right? One. So that gives you altogether four more, right?

[42:01] Another way that that from which the predicamentum or category is taken, according to something, is in the subject, right? Now he doesn't want to put that back in the second part of the main division, right? But there's a beginning of it, right? Okay. If I kick you, right? You hold me responsible for kicking you, right? Because the source of this activity of kicking you was in me, right?

[42:28] So it's practically in me, right? That's what you're going to hold me responsible for kicking you, right? Yeah. For the beginning of the action or the acting upon, like I like to call it in English, is in the subject. But if you're on the receiving end, it'd be according to the term of this action of kicking, right? Then it's what undergoing, right? Or being acted upon, right?

[43:01] You're being kicked. For undergoing, right, is terminated in the subject undergoing, Now the word" is where you get the word passion and so on, right? And when you speak of the passion of our Lord or something like that, right, you're being acted upon in a way that is what harmful, yeah, yeah. And so actually, the word in English would be suffering, right? But the word suffering has not, you know, been moved much, you know, to a later meaning.

[43:41] So I like to use the word undergoing, huh? Because undergoing can have a little bit of the sense of something bad, right? If we say about somebody he's undergone a lot, you know, well, it's probably not good what you're talking about, right? You know. But I mean, later on Aristotle will even use the word undergoing, you know, saying the senses undergo, right? You know, so they're being perfected when they undergo, right?

[44:10] So it's a word that can be moved more. But I like that acting upon and undergoing, right? You can imagine the cause to be above the effect, huh? Even though when I hammer something into the ceiling, it's it's not so easy to do that. You get very tired doing that. You're doing that kind of a job, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

[44:35] Well, that's the last two, right? Huh? Okay. Okay. He says because some things are predicated in which last paragraph in which manifestly is not added this word what est, right? Huh? See, some verb to be, right? You say in most of these, I am a man, right? Huh? I am five foot ten. I am healthy. I am a father, right? Huh? I am clothed, right? I am sitting, right?

[45:14] But you might say what when a man walks or something like that, right? You're not saying is, huh? Okay. And some might say within does it pertain to the predication of being? And consequently, he moves the saying that in all of these predications, to be is in some way signified, right? For the word, the verb, any verb can be resolved into this verb est and the what participium, right?

[45:45] So instead of saying he walks, I can say he is walking, right? Okay. And so he can say that in the statement there. Sometimes Aristotle would divide it into two: the noun and the verb, which you got to have for the statement, right? But sometimes he divides into three, the subject and the verb is or is not, the copula as they call it, and then the predicate, right?

[46:11] So that's the rule, rule of two or three or both, right? Okay. Okay. So he gives an example of that. Once he says it is clear, I should maybe separate that line, huh? In as many ways as predication comes about, in so many ways being is said, right? Okay.

[46:41] So a lot of things in philosophy have to be understood by seeing something that is proportional, right? The proportion is first seen maybe in math, you know. I used to say to students, two is to three as four is to, and they'll say five.

[47:05] But two is to three really as four is to what? Six. They don't see the proportion, right? So you have to see the likeness there. And Aristotle in the book on dialectic, huh? The book of places there. That's one of the tools of dialectic, right? To consider the likeness of things, huh? And especially, you know, not just likeness of things that are in the same species or genus, but the likeness of things that are far apart, right?

[47:36] Now, Aristotle is taking up act there in the ninth book of wisdom. He says you can't define act because it's too universal, right? How do you know act by seeing a proportion?

[48:05] Why does he say that again? In the ninth book of wisdom, that's a book on ability and act, huh? A favorite book in there, right? Did I tell you

[48:17] I was thinking about God again? Okay. Yeah, yeah. And Thomas, you know, when he begins to talk about the substance of God, huh? He says

[48:35] that we know more what God is not than what He is, right? Okay. Now, when he takes up the five attributes of the substance of God, in some of them right away you can see there is a negation there, right? So God is said to be unchanging, huh? Unmoving, right? Obviously, negation of motion, change, right? He's the unmoved mover, right? He says God is infinite, right? Well, infinite is negation of what?

[49:07] A limit, right? So you're knowing God negatively, right? Even you say God is one, that means He's not what? Divided into many. And then you say God is simple, though. But what He actually does is to show that God is not composed. God is not put together in any way, right? And in the Summa Theologiae, which is for you beginners, right, he goes through all the forms of composition in creatures, right, and eliminates all of them from God.

[49:40] And then that's his inductive argument. And then he shows universally that God in no way can be put together, right? But what about perfect? That's the fifth one, right? Doesn't seem to be a negation, does it? And it'd be stupid to say he's negating imperfection. Because that's obviously negation of perfect, right? So I says, I says, does this escape the rule that we we know what God is not more than what He is, huh?

[50:15] Well, then I was thinking about that, and then I said, well, how does He show that God is perfect, huh? Well, the middle term is the great middle term, right? For lazy people like me, because you can show all these attributes from this one middle term. And what is that? Yeah, but what is the word pure?

[50:42] without any admixture of anything limited or There's no no ability to be actualized, right? But it's been actualized, no ability, so it's negation, right? Ah, that's what I knew that negation somewhere. But in the other other attributes, you got a double negation, right? Huh? You're showing from God is pure act to show that He's not composed, right? You look at the arguments, right? And you can show from God being pure act that He's infinite, and so on, right?

[51:13] Okay. You show from God being pure act that He can't be moved, right? Because motion is the act of what is able to be, insofar as it's, able to be. But there's negation in there, right? Because we start off from these things down here, and they're a mixture of act and ability, right?

[51:33] When we reason out that God is what the first being and so on, then you realize that He has to be what pure act, huh? But that's after we've done the ninth book of wisdom, right? Because after Aristotle distinguishes ability and act in the first two parts, then he shows the order there, right? He looks before an actor, right? And then he says, although although, and the thing that goes from ability to act, ability is before act.

[52:03] It goes from ability to act because of something already in act. So my water for tea, you know, goes from being cold, right? Being able to be hot, therefore, to actually being hot, but because of something already actually hot. So some teacher there, he says. haplos right? from Greek? Greek. Act is before ability, and therefore the first being must be what pure act, huh? See, and then all these other attributes of God, fall in place place, huh?

[52:33] But there's negation there, right? No, the the the things we know are a mixture of act and ability, but at one end there's pure ability, the first matter. At the other end there's pure act, huh? That's the universal division. Good.

[53:05] He's looking before and after, and he shows the order of these things in in knowledge, right? In goodness, in being, right? That act is simply before ability. You know, ability is known only by the act as an ability for. So, act is before ability in knowledge, right? And ability is for the sake of act. So, act is better. It's before in goodness.

[53:30] So. When there's four in the, well, let's let's review a bit. Thomas first distinguishes. Doesn't distinguish into ten by the way, does it? He distinguishes into how many? Three. Three. Yeah. Okay. Now the first of these three is not subdivided, right? There's only one highest genus there, right? Okay. The second now is divided into what?

[54:03] Quantity, quality, a relation. Yeah, but does he divide it? You might say immediately into three, or does he divide it into two and one? Absolute and what? Towards another, right? And then so that's a division into two, right? And then he divides the absolute into two, so that's two divisions of what? Two, right? So he had a distinction of three, and then the first of those three is not subdivided, but then the second is two divisions of two, right?

[54:35] Okay. And now he gets to the third, right? Huh? And he divides that into what? Here. Two. The first four, he he speaks of against the last two, right? Okay. And the first and here the distinction he's making is the last two are what? There's something in the subject, right? Right. The first four, is wholly outside, right? Huh? Okay. So that's a distinction of two, right? Okay.

[55:08] And of course, acting upon and undergoing is distinction of two, right? And then those four distinguishes them into what? Three and one, right? And so you have three that are tied up with an extrinsic measure, right? Because an intrinsic measure would be the category of quantity or size, yeah. And then the one that is man, right? Okay.

[55:35] Man has an affinity with those ones. Um, you know, that's why when you go to get clothes or shoes, you you talk about the size, right? Huh? You try to get, you know, it's more like that. So.

[55:49] So how many divisions are together? Two or three? Are there? I got. I got. you know, we got. we've got eight seats. He says he first divides the ten into what? Three. The first one he doesn't subdivide at all, so there's you know, one there, right? The second he divides into what, two? And among those he subdivides, right? So you have two divisions there, right?

[56:23] And then the fourth he divides into two, the four and the two, right? And the first one he divides into two, and then he what? Divides one of them into three, and the last one divided into two. I'm kidding. So he had into two, he had let's put it into two, right? And then he has into three and one, and into what? Two, right? So one, one here, right?

[57:03] That gets you this one here too, right? Then you have this here, this here, this here and this here, this this this, or this I should this I should say, yeah. So how many are there? There's two here. Two that's two divisions, but you got three things all together, right? Yeah, yeah, a division into three and a division into two. Complicated, right? He's following the rule of two or three, right?

[57:44] I notice when when he divides the substance of God into these five, right, he doesn't divide into two or three, right? Which of course bothers me greatly, of course.

[58:01] If you read the text carefully, you're going to see that he he ties up what the infinity with the what perfection of God. Very clear when you get into the text, right? And then when he takes up what one, right? That's connected with the simplicity of God, huh?

[58:24] So you can divide it into God being unchanging, and then his simplicity and what? And unity, and his perfection and infinity, right? Being perfect and infinite, huh? And it's interesting in the compendium of theology that he wrote for his his his confessor and his his servant there, kind of his helper.

[58:50] The unity of God is part of the consideration, simplicity of God. And then he starts, he actually takes up the infinity of God before his perfection, right? And talks about how the infinity of God is not something like the material infinity, which would be imperfect. Like Aristotle says, but it's tightly perfection, right? So he kind of shows God being infinite before He's being perfect, right? And then just molds with the other.

[59:19] So little confirmation of my, you know, fanaticism about two or three, right? But the mind has a hard time understanding a division or distinction into more than three. huh? I always give my material example of that justification for it, which is: If I had a length of wood, and I wanted to cut it into equal parts. would I cut it into ten or two? You'd probably be inclined to cut it into two or maybe three.

[59:49] I wouldn't be inclined to cut it into ten first. Yeah, Yeah. That's why I say decimal system. is not sen Yeah not sensible. First, being

[1:00:00] But. in