Logic (2016)
28. The Post-Predicaments I: Opposites, Distinction, and Speaking of Nothing
Class of 2017-02-23
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/028-the-post-predicaments-i-opposites-distinction-and-speaking/

[0:00] Of The Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. God, your enlightenment. Move us, God, to know and love you. Help us, God, to know and love you. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. Help us understand all that you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Just reading Thomas there in the De Veritati, you know that the the saints, you know, they don't see everything that they can see in seeing God, right?

[0:37] But they see everybody who's asking them for their prayer. So that's good to know, right? So usually when the commentators talk about the post predicaments, they point out that they're the names of things that are found in more than one category. So if someone asks you, you know, what about motion, right? Because things in motion sort of catch the eye and whatnot stirs. That's a pretty important thing, right?

[1:12] An old man Aristotle says that motion is the first meaning of act, right? In the ninth book there, so on. And what category is that belong? Well, it's found in substance. It's found in quantity and quality, and it's found in where. See, so it's found in four, right? Not, no, because not not motion of motion, right? Okay, it's a very subtle thing, right? Yeah. Okay. But it's found in in four categories, right?

[1:45] So you can reduce it to the categories, but not as if it's going to be in just one particular place, right? Or opposites, right? Well, there can be opposites in more than one genus, right? Because opposites are very important for distinction in general, right? And in every category, you have a before and after, and a what together, right? Because in every category, the genus comes before the what species.

[2:12] When you divide a genus into two species or three species, they are hama together, right? Hama, right? Okay. So distinction and before and hama together. See in English, these are found in all the categories, right? Okay. And then we start to talk about to have, right? You first start with the categories, right? You can have a virtue or you know some knowledge. You can have a certain height or size, right?

[2:47] You can have what your clothing. So we've been talking about that, right? So that's first thing they point out, right? Okay. Now, second thing you'd say though is that. We don't learn the categories to stop there in the life of our mind, right?

[3:08] But as you go into the the various parts of philosophy, which logic is only a tool, right? You can be like Aristotle in the

[3:19] second book of the soul, right? He says, "Oh, substance is one genus, right? " And then he divides substance into matter and form and the composite. And which one is the soul, right? Because the soul is in this genus, right? Or Thomas is in the prima secunda, right? And he's going to take up the virtues and the vices. Oh, there's a genus called quality, and under that there's a species called habit or disposition, and under that comes, you know, you see.

[3:47] And now we're in the part of the study of the soul. There on Wednesday nights, there we're we're starting to get into the powers in particular of the soul, right? Oh, that's in a genus there called quality, right? It's in the second species, right? So, but you don't stop. Then you're going to, you know, continue to what divide or subdivide these, right? And then you will what use opposites maybe to divide, and you'll be ordering them, you know, before and after and and hama together, right?

[4:17] Hama. So the I think you can say that the post predicaments are not only to show you how you can lead back to the categories things that are found in more than one category, but these they're laying down the kind of the basic what

[4:36] things for subdivide these things, right? Especially the first ones, right? Distinction seems to be formal distinction be based on opposites, right? And so, and then of course, in general, to me, these things are of universal importance because you know the definition of what of reason, right? And we recognize that to look before and after you have to look for distinction, right? And opposites are important for distinction and before and after senses there, right?

[5:13] So it has universal importance for the the life of the mind, right? I was thinking, you know, about the the these words too being equivocal by reason, right? And going back to Shakespeare, you can say that how does reason come to understand a word that is equivocal by reason? How does it?

[5:45] Well, you could say to begin with by a large discourse. First of all, discourse going from one sense of to be n to another sense of to be n to another sense of to be n, and all the chief senses. And you can say that to go from one sense to another, you've got to see the connection between one sense and the next sense, right? But also the distinction between the first and second sense, right?

[6:12] And it's a large discourse because these words that are equivocal by reason, they tend to be very what universal, right? Like the word in or the word be, you know, that these are very universal, right? So it's by a large discourse, in the sense of discourse about the universal, but about the very universal, right? That you are coming to understand these, huh? And then insofar as you're seeing their order there, right?

[6:40] You can say, you know, in in the famous text there in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, the so-called Physics, right, huh? Where Aristotle takes up place, right? He distinguishes these eight senses, right? So by a large discourse, he distinguishes eight chief senses of to be in. But then Thomas looks before and after it to see the order of the eight there, right? Aristotle has already said that to be in place is the first sense, right?

[7:08] So the first sense of to be in is to be in this room, right, huh? Second sense would be my teeth are in my mouth, right? And it's kind of like being in this room, isn't it? My teeth are in my mouth, a little bit like we are in this room, but you're not really part of this room, are you? You're not glued to the to the wall or glued to you to the seat, right?

[7:33] But my teeth are in my mouth is a what part, right? See, but if you hit me in the mouth and you're not going to go, then it's in my mouth just as in a place, right? So long as it's attached, right? I know these these let's go out. You can see they're kind of part of the room, couldn't you? See, and you're not really part of the room, but you're in the room, right?

[7:57] So I can see a distinction between the senses, right? So it's by a large discourse I come to what understand these things, right? Now some people, I guess, you know, the one of my students is in Boston University now in philosophy. Of course, you read some of these modern guys, you know, they want to have, you know, everything difficult, you know. And do we need equivocal words?

[8:21] You know, words equivocal by reason. If you didn't have these words, you couldn't talk about things except the things you can what you know note with your senses, right, huh? You couldn't talk about God or the angels or even about the soul, right? You'd be you'd be really you know. Gabriel Marcel had I think I just realized a reaction to that tendency. He used to call he called it time and place in these senses of univocal only.

[8:50] Yeah. He said he said he called them twin forms of absence because it's. I can never be any place except here in my senses. Yeah. I can be any other time except right now, so that there's no universality there. They call it a consensus absence, and that's, I think, his critique of some of this.

[9:10] These words that are critical by reason, in just common speech and discourse, they have different senses, right? Yeah, no, it's natural that we do. Do we extend these words, right, huh? In the mind, in just common discourse, people use in in those different senses.

[9:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not like you can, yeah, yeah, destroy language. Yeah, you're going against language. You're going against, you know, it's natural to us to do, right?

[9:42] I read uh, you know, Shakespeare's plays, all of them. I finally did that in my freshman year in college. I'd read some in high school, you know, maybe five or six, something like that. but I read all of them. and kept on rereading them. I've read the modern philosophers, right? But it seems to me, you know, that Shakespeare is wiser than any modern philosopher. I've read Now I wouldn't say that Homer was wiser than Aristotle.

[10:05] No, I don't think that is. so, but I think Shakespeare is wiser than any modern philosopher. I just rereading him a little bit of his poems, you know, and one he calls time a tyrant

[10:20] And then in another one I was just reading the other day, he calls time's our master. Well, I'm recalling what C. S. Lewis said, you know. And C. S. Lewis said, you know, what do you mean you have time? Time has you, says.

[10:40] Well, I remember you know when we were studying time in in the fourth book of Natural hearing, right? Usually we call it physics, but the fourth book there we have place and time and we started on time there. And Aristotle raises the question: Is time more the cause of things getting better or getting worse? And what's the answer to that? Getting worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[11:07] In the course of time, if things just let go, you know, they're not going to get better. They're going to get what? Yeah. I remember saying to DeConick, you know, saying, "Well, you could apply this to the question, you know, of the nature is acting for an end. " Because the evolutionists, you know, are kind of denying that nature acts for an end, but things get better in the course of time, as contrary to what the poet would tell you, right?

[11:33] See, why did Shakespeare say that time is a tyrant, right? Well, time or a master, you know, like you're a slave of it. Because the tyrant rules you not for your good, right?

[11:47] And it's actually harmful to you, right? Well, time is more the cause of what? Falling apart. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. And so things, you know, my car just I'm trying to ruin the car, but it's getting worse as time goes on, right? The house is getting you know you don't keep on painting and all that sort of stuff, right? It gets pretty shabby looking, you know. Money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:13] And so time, you know, has us in its power, right? And it's not for our good. And so yeah, Shakespeare's wiser in these things he says, right? Even than the modern evolutionists, the modern philosophers, huh?

[12:33] Okay. Now, as a student of Shakespeare's definition of reason, right, and looking before and after, and when you look before before and after, you see have to see distinction, right? Well, then I'm struck by the fact that he begins with opposites, right? And then he goes to the senses of before, and then he goes to what the senses of hama, right? The universality of this together, right?

[13:01] Okay. Now, the way he proceeds with opposites here is, gotta be careful now, right? Because the order in which he gives the opposites, he says it's said in what, four ways, right? Huh? Okay.

[13:21] Aristotle's good at giving distinctions of what, four, right? Huh? What distinction of four was among the, anti-predicaments? Which distinction of four? Universal substance. Yeah. Substance universal accident. Yeah. And that distinction was based upon opposites, right?

[13:45] Some are said of another, others are not said of another, right? Some exist in another, and not exist in another, right? Okay. So said of another, not said of another; exist in another, not in another, right? Not exist in another. Okay. And so it's pretty easy to see how you got the the four, right? Huh? And so I sometimes say this like crisscrossing two distinctions of four, right?

[14:11] Huh? So if you wanted to, you could put the two substances on one side and the two accidents on one side, right? Or you could put the two universals on one side and the two individuals on this side, right? Okay. Now,

[14:28] Aristotle has another famous distinction there of the four kinds of cause, right? And does he divide would you divide the four kinds of cause into one and three or two and two? What would you do? Yeah. But probably first into two and two, right? Huh? causes that are intrinsic and causes that are extrinsic. Yeah, yeah. So matter and form are intrinsic causes, and mover and end are what?

[15:02] Yeah. Yeah. So when God says, "I'm the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end," he's talking about himself as a mover or maker and the end, right? He's an extrinsic cause, right? He's not the matter out of which these creatures are made. He's not the intrinsic form of them, right? But he's the maker, the mover of them, right? And he's the what end, right?

[15:26] Huh? So that's a pretty good what distinction, right? Huh? Okay. Um. Now, sometimes you know, and I get to talking about the four kinds of causes, and I'd say to the students, you know, and how many senses of cause is God a cause, right?

[15:50] Two and a half. I sometimes say two and a half, yeah, because sometimes Aristotle distinguishes form into the intrinsic form of things, right? And the model or exemplar that they're they're modeled after, right? Huh? So in that sense, God is a cause in what? Three ways, right?

[16:12] And last night they were talking about the vegetative powers and so on. And Aristotle talks about how the soul is a cause in some way of the what body, right? But in how many of the four senses of cause is the soul a cause of the body?

[16:34] Yeah, it's it's the first act of the natural body and the substantial form of it. So it's a cause in the sense of form. Yeah, it's a mover of the body, right? Yeah, and it's also the end of generation. Yeah. So it's three of the four, but it's not the the matter of of the living body, right? It's not a cause in that sense. Well, that shows that those three causes something in common, right?

[17:02] What separates those three, whether it be in the soul or when we say God has something of those three, right? But or two and a half of those three. Um, what is that? What's the contrast between that and and matter?

[17:26] It goes back to another famous distinction of being and to act and what potency in the passive sense, right? So matter is what the ability to be formed, right? But form is an act, right? And the agent of the mover moves other things in so far as it's an act itself. And act is the end or purpose of ability and so on, right? So they have what in common: the idea of being an act, right?

[17:55] The end is an act too. So that's pretty important that distinction of ability and act, right? Even for understanding the causes, right? So sometimes you can divide, distinguish the four into one and three, or into into two and two, right?

[18:16] Um, you take Shakespeare's plays, right? There's about what 37 plays, right? that they have in a complete edition of Shakespeare, and you could set aside ten of these plays, which they call even the original edition. They set them apart separately to the history plays, right? Because the history play has got a little bit of an intrusion there, right, upon the poet's imagination, right? Because you can't entirely neglect the historical data.

[18:51] You write a history play, right? And you know things you want to emphasize, you know, cheering, you know, patriotic audience and so on. Although it still, it was Shakespeare takes a few, you know, you know liberties, you know, with the historical stuff. But you have to kind of, you know, so set those ten plays apart, you know. It's involving special problems because of that, right now. If you take the twenty-seven remaining plays, right, how would you divide those twenty-seven plays?

[19:23] Well, I would divide them probably at first into three, right? Have the ten tragedies and the five comedies, and then the plays in between. They're not quite tragedies or exactly pure comedies, right? In Renaissance, they were, you know, realized there's some kind of play in between tragedy and comedy. Didn't know what to call. They called a tragedy-comedy. You know what they called? You know. Do

[19:52] you see words like that? You know, Shakespeare's blacker comedies, or you know, something or it's, you know, something. that implies. There's something in between, right? Okay, and then you subdivide what's in between. I divide into two, right? You have the love and friendship plays, which are closer to comedy, and then the mercy and forgiveness plays, which are, you know, the six of each of those, right? Okay. So there, I first divide the four into what?

[20:20] Three, right? Huh? Things kind of naturally do that, right? And then, you know, because Aristotle just divided the plays, you know, in the in the book on the poetic art into tragedies and comedies they hadn't distinguished anything in between, but as the Renaissance people considered the things, there's something in between that's not quite together, right? And then they what? They,

[20:46] in Shakespeare, can find maybe two kinds of plays there, you know. Okay. So, how would you divide the four kinds of opposites into two and two, or one and three?

[21:11] Probably one and three. Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of different, right? Because one opposite tends to exclude the other opposite, but in the case of relatives, right? If I'm shorter, someone else must be taller, right?

[21:30] Um. If I'm a son, someone else must be a father, right? And so on, right? So one opposite kind of involves the other, right? Okay. And that's very important, you know, when you talk about how in the Trinity, right, distinctions has to be by the opposites, not what relatives, right? Father and son, and not by the other ones. But notice the order in which Aristotle gives it here, right?

[21:59] It's kind of strange, right? He gives the what? Relatives first, right? And then, what does he give second? Contraries. Yeah. And then having and lacking, right? And finally, the contradictories, right? Okay. He probably begins with, uh, towards something or an origination, because that's one of the ten categories, right? Okay. And then he takes the one that is closest to that, which would be contraries, because in contraries you have opposites that are what species of the same genus, huh?

[22:42] So they have in common a a common subject and a common what? Genus, right? Okay. So virtue and vice, right? They're both habits, right? And they both have the same subject, right? So justice and injustice are both in the will, right? Okay. And they're both in the same subject. Or genus rather, habit right? Okay. So they're more alike, double and half, right? Which are in the same genus, you know, based upon quantity and so on.

[23:17] And then it comes to what acting upon. I mean, act I mean, having and lacking, right? And they don't have a common genus because the lack is the non-being of something, but they have a common what subject, right? So, blindness is not just not seeing, which would be the contradictory, but it's what non-being of sight and something that by nature is able to have sight and and should have sightness in the first sense, right?

[23:50] Okay. And finally come to contradictories where there is no intermediate common, right? And so with contradictories they say one of them must be true, right? You either see or you don't see. Period. No, there's nothing. No alternative, right? Um. And so either you either see or don't see, but even the stone either sees or doesn't see. In case the stone, it would be it doesn't see, right?

[24:19] But now has sight or blindness. Does everything either has sight or blindness? Say. Well, the eye, the stone doesn't see, but it's not blind either, right? See. But in you and I, you have sight or you're blind. And

[24:41] so, which is more opposed, right? Of which is most opposed of these opposites? Yeah, yeah. So sometimes Aristotle orders the other way around, right? But because he's talked about the ten categories, and one of them is relation, right? He starts at that one and then takes the one that's closest to relation, which is contraries, and then further away, having and lacking, and last of all what? Yeah, yeah.

[25:11] On some of those texts, I guess you had the ancient Aristotle or Thomas Aristotle or Thomas ordering, you know, the reverse way, right? Now. But the

[25:24] if you don't see, you can't be seeing, right? And if you're blind, you don't see, right? And if you have sight, you're not blind, right? Okay. And if you're good, you're not bad, and if you're just, you're not unjust, and so on, right? But in the case of relatives, they seem to demand that the other one be, right? Okay. If double is half must be, right? Okay.

[25:52] So no, secure the Aristotle writes in the order, right? Huh. But you can see there's another order that's maybe more important than this one, right?

[26:04] Okay. Why can't you have the distinction of the divine persons based upon what? Contradictories. Well, one would be in terms of being or non-being. Well, every person is is God. God is I am who am, right? Huh? So you can't have what? That right? You can't even have, you know, having and lacking, because lacking is a kind of non-being too, right? And even contraries, though they're both species and therefore not something to give what's not some indication, right?

[26:40] One contrary always seems to be lacking something in comparison to the other, right? Like cold seems to be lacking something, very hot, right? Or black seems to be lacking something in comparison to white or something like that, huh? Okay. So.

[27:05] Now we said that there's a connection between the four kinds of opposites and what? Distinction, right? And we saw Aristotle using the opposites, right? So when he distinguished between universal substance and individual accident to universal accident, individual substance, right? What kind of opposition did he use? What? Contradictions. Yeah, yeah. Said of another and not said of another. Existing another as a subject, not existing another as a subject.

[27:43] Okay. When he distinguished in, now he didn't distinguish the species of what substance, right? Because it can be a wise man to know that there are material and immaterial substances. But if you divided substance into material and immaterial, that would be what? Contradictions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The philosophers call the immaterial substances so separated substance, right? Being separated from matter, right? Okay. But when he divided quantity into discrete and continuous, how did he divide it?

[28:19] Contradictions. Yeah. Yeah. When you got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you get into qualities, right? You get into habits, right? You might divide them into what?

[28:35] Yeah. Virtue and vice, right? Huh? Okay. Hot and cold, right? And the third species and so on, right? Okay. So these opposites are important, right? Now. Relations kind of the odd, odd animal, is it, huh? I know when you read Thomas, when he's talking about how the members of the, how the persons in the divine Trinity are distinguished, right? He'll he'll give the reason why it can't be by contradictories or by contraries or by having and lack, and it's by elimination, there's only one left, right?

[29:24] Which is relations, right? And that's the way the Father and the Son might suggest that by that, you know. But we don't have the names, you know, for the Holy Spirit so well to name it right now. Okay.

[29:41] There's also distinction there of relatives. That's what I remember Go before I Yeah knew what it meant. There was an axiom I read in a theology book. that said, "In God, all things are one, except where the there's the opposition of relation Yeah Oh okay Yeah. Yeah. So you have to you have to admire Aristotle's ability to see relation as a kind of what opposition, right? But it's kind of a unique one, right now.

[30:09] You kind of distinguish that from the other three. I tend to to do that, right now. I wouldn't try to divide the opposites into two and two, would you? And there's a real order among contradictories.

[30:27] Yeah. Yeah, exactly that order they go, right? Okay. You're going to put a relation in the same order. You'd probably pick it fourth, right? Maybe it demands its correlative, yeah, yeah.

[30:49] Kind of interesting. So, any question about opposites? I guess one of the texts, sometimes you know, he gives this other order, right, which is more sapiential, right now. But this one isn't kind of in accord with the order of the categories, right? Relation is one of the ten pairs we talked about. Now he kind of starts with that, right? Kind of subtle guy Aristotle. Or

[31:26] contradictions only exist in the mind. Exist. Well, you can say in a way that negation is a what a being of what reason, reason, yeah, yeah. And sometimes

[31:46] Thomas will take after substance and accident. He'll put next as what motion is a next kind of being, right? And then you get what negation, right? Huh?

[32:01] So, you know, the Greeks all said you can't get something out of nothing, right? My friend Warren Murray says, you know, finding some of these crazy modern scientists, say the universe, arose from nothing. Yeah you can say that, right? So really behind these these Greeks, huh? But if you said to somebody, you know, did the Greeks mean something when they said you can't get something from nothing?

[32:33] Do they mean something by the word nothing? It means something, then. Yeah, yeah. It's not the same something as something. Yeah, yeah. So kind of by your mind making nothing something to talk about, right? And I told you my my historic joke there you know it's Philosophy is the only subject where you get paid for talking about nothing. This is a joke, but remember, as a little boy, you might say, "What if there was nothing?

[33:09] Absolutely nothing." I don't figure that one out I'm saying now, I know there would be nobody around to know that there's nothing here, but would there really be nothing here?

[33:26] Actually, actually, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when you're looking for something, you know, I mean, suppose the house is not yet furnished. You know, well, there's nothing in that room. I mean, because the air doesn't seem to be anything. There's nothing in that room, right? So you're using the word "is," right?

[33:46] And you know, is nothing something? What would you say? Yeah, but at first you'd probably say nothing is not something, right? Nothing is nothing. But when you say nothing is nothing, right? You're using the word "is" there, right? That's what it is. That's the bottom line. Just says that that's how our mind is impressed with exist to be. Yeah. We can't even think of non-being except in terms of being.

[34:17] Yeah. Can't think about it. Can't think about it. Yeah. So, contradictories are only in one? Well, it seems so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, I often used to quote Shakespeare. There, he says, "To be or not to be, that is the question." Right. And I'm taking out of context, right, for my my use of it. I say, "Why is it a question?" You see.

[34:46] Yeah, because you can't both be and not be, right? And so all these, you know, disputatae that you have in the Aristotle and in the what's his name Heraclitus' dispute, he says. And you have reading the disputed questions about the potentia and I'm reading the the veritate and bonitate and really really impressive stuff, you know, putting objections against truth, you know, delicious narration, you know. But you know, when you raise a dialectical question, it's we use the the word "whither," right?

[35:24] Whether the human soul is immortal or not, right? Whether the angel can naturally see God or not, you know. Well, you can't be both, right? This is kind of the you know that's metaphysics there, right? That this is the fundamental thing, huh? Fundamental statement. Now, it's it's Aristotle says it's by nature the what beginning of all axioms, the axioms of the statements known. Through themselves or by themselves, by all men, right?

[36:01] You know, but the first axiom that invites all the rest of them is something can either both be and not be at the same time in the same way, right?

[36:14] So you know, it's kind of axiomatic that an odd number can't be an even number, right? But if an odd number were an even number, then something would both be and not be divisible into two equal parts.

[36:31] So can something be nothing? But nothing can be something. See, but you're forced, right, with these common things to to admit that the words are equivocal by what by reason, right?

[36:52] Something is nothing is something in the mind, right? Something to think about. But it's only a being of reason, right? That's a strange kind of being, right? But Aristotle was the guy who could see the distinction of these things. Having and lacking, would that also having and lacking would also just mean having having and lack of privation and the other kind of contrary. Well, you see, the contraries they can both be, right?

[37:26] The contrary of having privation. Yeah, yeah. Well, the the lack is the non-being of something in a subject able to have it, and in the fullest sense should have it, right? And wouldn't should have it, you know? So the so the lack is in the subject. So that's a kind of non-being, though.

[37:49] The lack is a kind of non-being, yeah. So it's not real in the way that one contrary, you know. So that if I have a vice, it's not just the lack of of the virtue, but it's I got a real inclination to do what I shouldn't do, right? And so if I'm really a coward, right, you know, I really inclination to run run away when I should stay and fight or defend the country, you know.

[38:26] Sometimes when they divide beings of reason, they divide them into negations and things of that sort, and then relations, right? There's relations of reason and there's negations.

[38:45] Kind of forced, you know, to say that they are in some way, right? Because the mind makes them to be in some way. You know, my my friend

[39:02] said that nothing is more true than you say something is itself, right? Socrates is Socrates, right? And nothing is what nothing, right? That's that's true, you know.

[39:18] If nothing is not nothing, nothing must be something. You get some problems saying that, right? But you'd be in contradiction, I should say, the word "something" has got what many meanings by reason, right? You've got to get to distinguish those, right?

[39:44] But Hegel kind of denies that, right? And for Hegel, you know, becoming is what kind of a mixture of being and non-being, right? As if I have the two together, right?

[39:59] And so. You know, in Hegel, you know, being and then comes an unbeing and then boom, becoming. You know, it's kind of uniting being and unbeing, right? You know, so Shakespeare, as I said, is wiser than all the modern philosophers. To be or not to be, that is the question, right? But for Hegel, this is okay, right?

[40:23] Yeah, yeah. I would say would have been in German. Well, Hegel was most in German when he writes about fiction and things like that. Sorry, you know, it's kind of it's an appreciation, you know, and I used to argue with my colleagues here. You know, some of them wanted to maintain that painting was higher than music. I said that's ridiculous.

[40:50] And Hegel obviously puts music, you know, before before painting, right? Now, you know, they're trying to argue, you know, that well, music is too emotional, you know, or it's or it's it's not all at once, you know, and so on, you know, and.

[41:10] But music is music is really closer to drama right now, than than painting right. There's really kind of a plot in music, right? You know, takes Mozart. You know, my wife's favorite concerto, Mozart, is the twenty third concerto, the major concerto. Her brother Mark was his favorite concerto. You know, Mozart, I think Warren Murray's favorite one too. You know, it's one of my favorites, right? The greatest of the concertos.

[41:49] You know, but it it's written in A major right now, but even harmonically in the first movement, there's some underlying, you know, touch of sadness. You know, it's it's kind of hidden, you know, but there's something there, you know. And then the second movement is what comes out, you know, it's some kind of a minor key that's very tragic, you know, and so on. But it's kind of resolved at the end, you know.

[42:11] It starts going to C major, and then you have this kind of unalloyed joy in the third movement. So it's kind of beginning, middle, and end. You know, beautiful, beautiful concerto, that twenty third. You used to

[42:28] used to have a writing out of the plot of the thing, you know. Well, I was kind of influenced by Shakespeare by Aristotle there in the Poetics, right? They say, why is the the twenty third piano concerto one piece of music, right? Why isn't it a concert of three? You know, what's got to be that the three movements in some way form a beginning, a middle, and an end, right?

[42:51] And to listen to Mozart's twenty seventh concerto, last concerto. You know, his his farewell to the world, right? And of course, they always talk about the fact that the Swiss performed at the Gate of Heaven. That's the name of the place it was performed at. But you know, you can see this resignation in the second movement, right? In the third movement, he has a childlike melody, right?

[43:18] That he develops, you know. He's having a childlike thing. Unless you come up a child again, you'll never get to heaven. It's beautiful, you know. Absolutely incredible, you know. I mean, how can you make you know painting make that equal to these things, you know? These guys, you know. And Hegel was good when he was giving the order, you know, of the fine arts, right? I mean, you you put drama first, right?

[43:38] huh? And then and then you put music, and then you put painting and sculpture, you know. And would you put film within that ranking somewhere, maybe higher than painting? Yeah, but that's kind of yeah, that's kind of complicating things a bit there, you know. Because it's kind of a what play in a sense, isn't it? Right. Sort of like an opera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Made the mistake of taking my wife to see a movie version of Othello, and she was so disgusted with Othello.

[44:13] Need to see it on his face, but yeah, you know. How could that be so stupid? Anyway, yeah. Oh boy Yeah it depends on who produces it I guess Yeah Well Now sometimes Thomas gives us a distinction of distinction, right? And what's this distinction of distinction, right? What's the distinction between what they call formal distinction, which is by opposites, right? And what they call material distinction, which is by the division of the what Continuous.

[45:00] Okay? So, what is the distinction between the ones in number? What? Yeah, yeah. Number number arises. The number that is a species of quantity, it arises from the division of the what Continuous, right? So there's a what theorem in geometry. You can bisect say a straight line, right? I get two lines, right? You can bisect them, and now you get three and four and so on, right?

[45:41] And since it's divisible forever, numbers can increase forever, right? So the distinction of ones in number, the species of which is a species of quantity, arises by the what. Division of the continuous, right? But now the distinction of what, virtue and vice, let's say, right? Huh? That arises by what, a formal distinction, right? By opposites, right? The distinction we had of substance and accident, and universal and singular, right?

[46:19] Huh? That was by opposites, right? The distinction of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, is a formal distinction, right? It's not a distinction to cutting up one God and making three partial gods.

[46:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's interesting, though, is a distinction of what? Distinction, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Or sometimes they they give a you know a division of division, right? Because you have the division of the universal whole, right? Division is kind of what a distinction of the parts of some whole, right? Huh? Well, if you got the two major kinds of what distinction of wholes is the composed whole, they call it integral whole out in the text.

[47:16] I think composed whole is a better way of naming it. Composed means put together, right? Huh? Okay. And then the universal whole, right? So you have two kinds of division, corresponding to these two, right?

[47:36] And so you can subdivide it some more, but there's also another kind of whole, maybe. Potentially whole, right? Okay. But don't get into all those things right now. So there's a division of division and a distinction of distinction, huh? Definition, of definition. of definition. yeah. And there are statements about statements, right? But it reflects the nature of the mind that can come back what upon itself, right?

[48:06] Reason knows that reason is, and so reason can define itself, right? Huh? Okay. It's kind of interesting. We can define other things like square and circle, et cetera, right? But then you can also define square what itself, right? I mean, I mean, definition itself, you can do that, huh? So you can you can distinguish the kinds of opposites. You can also distinguish distinction. And you can know that you know the distinction of distinction.

[48:36] That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. Aristotle makes use of that fact. Reason can come back upon itself. You know, there there are many true statements.

[48:53] I tell you, that's what Chesterton has. He depicts the world of. England, I think it's supposed to be Oxford because there's a lot of water around Oxford. So it's just a it's an appropriate place for a university where people are doing a lot of reflection, you know, because of reflections in water.

[49:13] They're all wet. Maybe that's true. That's combined with the river. Now I don't know if we want to look at the second chapter here about opposites because there's some more particular questions there.

[49:35] But even in the first chapter, chapter ten, right? After he distinguishes the four, right? Then he says, "What? Whichever ones are said towards something, right?"These whatever they are what are they are said to be of what they're opposites right so I'm the father of a son and the son is a father the son of a father right what is a

[50:20] is sight something of blindness or blindness is the absence of sight right for something that's double and then notice he gives the example of episteme right

[50:41] and episteme is what quality right but it has relation following upon remember that distinction going back okay so he says whatever things are opposed as pros ti they are said to be of other things or in some way they are said towards what others right

[51:14] but those things that are contraries whatever they are said to be in no way are they said to be what towards others right they said to be contraries of each other right huh but the good is not said to be what the good of the bad and the bad okay he's showing these are different different sense of opposites right huh okay

[51:40] so these differences these opposites differ from one another right huh okay he says some opposites have no what some contraries have no what middle right so is there a middle between virtue and vice huh

[52:08] yeah you could say it but maybe they're not really habits in the full sense right but you might say between black and white there are a lot of things in between right He's taking out health and sickness one of them has to belong to the what body right huh okay and odd and even I guess huh A set of number right it's necessary for one of these to belong right I'm beginning the logic of the second act pretty soon right huh every number is either odd or even is that true

[53:02] See, every number is either prime or composite. Is that true? Every number is either square or cube. No, that's not true. So, what does truth mean in an either-or statement?

[53:24] See, against the logic of the second act, there we're talking about truth and falsity, right? Huh? What does truth mean in the case of a what compound statement? Like every number is either odd or even. Every number is either

[53:47] square or cube. One of those, maybe you'd say is true, and the other one's false, right? I need you guys to say every every human being is either man or woman. You got trouble now. It's all mixed up now.

[54:09] Well, they admit it has nothing to do with biology. At least the way to admit it. Yeah. Because they got a problem. They got a real problem.

[54:31] Nothing to do with what you are. Yeah. Okay. Now, in the case of if there's a middle, he says, like between black and white, there's something, right? It can come about. It's not necessary. One of these two belong to the body, right? That's pretty clear stuff.

[54:50] What about good and bad? Right now, says somebody, right? Is a little newborn baby good or bad, morally speaking? Before baptism or after? I'm a Christian philosopher. Yeah. Okay.

[55:21] This stuff is pretty easy The students last night. there, are saying, does God want us to love Him? I think so. I said, well, now is any wanting in God?

[55:51] And it's interesting that we sometimes use the word want, you know, for almost to mean lack, right? But then I read the same thing, right? But wanting is just something you need, right? And that you therefore have a lack of it. So, is there any wanting in God?

[56:17] There is love and joy in God. Is there wanting in God? In the sense of willing Well, see, if wanting implies that you, we say, you know, what's the difference in wanting and joy, right? Well, when you love something and you have it, then you have joy, right? But if you love something but you lack it, then you have wanting, right? Was God lacking anything?

[56:49] And does God get something from our loving Him? It seems like human beings, you say, we kind of need to be loved by somebody, right? Now, popular song, you know, be until somebody loves you.

[57:10] But we seem to need somebody else's love, right now. But does God need our love? You wonder what they're doing. Does the Father need the Son's love? Depends

[57:28] on which theology you talk to. Yeah. It's interesting because the the these parts of the soul are called the desiring powers, right? Huh? Or appetite, right? But appetite is more desiring is more wanting, right? It's rather, yeah. And

[57:59] why is it named from wanting? Yeah, yeah. I think which is more like motion, love or wanting? Wanting. Yeah. Which is more like motion, wanting or joy? Yeah, yeah. So things in motion tend to catch the eye than what not stirs, right? So they name, you know, sometimes this one group of emotions, the concupiscible emotions, right? But concupiscence is wanting, right? And the other one thing, named from what?

[58:43] Harassable. But isn't that you know motion more dominated by motion, right? The irascible person, right? Than any other emotion, right? Okay. You're going after somebody, right? Coming to blows, right? Getting somebody. Okay. They call it road rage, you know, stupid stuff. You know, in the newspaper every day, there's some case of somebody getting guilty of road rage, you know. Who was the one in Los Alamos there that they got him drunk?

[59:24] Yeah, he got in the fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, you get down to this next kind of opposite. You don't speak of sight or blindness, right? The blindness of sight, and so on.

[59:47] Okay. So. Now when, it gets down to affirmation, negation. There, one thirty-one, I believe, he says, "It is here and here only, indeed, that one opposite needs must be true, while the other must always be what false."

[1:00:32] Must I be double or half? Well, maybe that's enough there.