Logic (2016)
31. Relations of Reason, Eternity as 'Whole at Once', Motion Among the Post-Predicaments, and an Introduction to the Second Act of Reason
Class of 2017-03-02
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/031-relations-of-reason-eternity-as-whole-at-once-motion-among/

[0:00] Let's look at one thing here on page four here, right? In short text here, page four. Moreover, from eternity, God was before the world. But the relation of priority in God was eternity. But laying down one of two relatives is necessary to lay down also the rest. Therefore, from eternity, there was the posterity of the world to God. Therefore, from eternity, there was something outside of God to which, in some way, it belonged what truth. That's the same as before, huh?

[1:02] And this next objection, right? But you say that that relation of priority and posteriority is not something in verum natura, but in reason only.

[1:14] Against this, Boethius says at the end of the book on the Consolation of Philosophy, right? God is before the world by nature. although what. Even as the world always was, yeah. Therefore, that relation of priority is relation of nature, not of reason only. Oh my gosh! Drives me crazy this distinction, huh?

[1:41] To the first, so that's the fifteenth and the sixteenth objections, right? To the fifth, the fifteenth, it should be said that since what the other genera, as such, right, quantum huius modi, place something in verum natura. For quantity, from this fact that is quantity, says something, right?

[2:09] Relation alone does not have this. From this, that is of this sort, that it places something in verum natura, because it doesn't predicate something. I thought he could, yeah, yeah.

[2:25] Whence there are found some relations that place nothing in verum natura, but in reason only, huh? Which happens in four ways. That's interesting, huh? He goes to not not only the philosopher but to Avicenna, right? We don't have a text of Aristotle where he's he's maybe fully distinguishing relations of reason. He doesn't say he didn't know it, right? After all, he's somebody.

[2:57] But in the words of Aristotle, come down to us, right? now There's there's We don't have all the words of Aristotle, obviously, right? Okay, and so he sees something behind Avicenna, right? Because Thomas brings these together, right? Now he's a pretty sharp guy, that Thomas.

[3:18] Um, in one way, when something is referred to itself, right, huh? Okay. As when something is said to be the same as itself, huh? For if this relation placed something in what verum natura, right?

[3:44] Then one would have to proceed forever in relations, right, huh? Okay. Because that relation to which something is said to be the same will be the same also with itself through some other relation, and so infinitum, right? Okay. Now, this is one of the kinds of things that Aristotle talked about as being relation and reason, right? Socrates is Socrates, right? Huh? You know.

[4:19] In the second way, when a relation itself is referred to another, this is the one that one that Avicenna just came up with. For one cannot say that paternity is referred to its subject through some what middle relation, right? Huh? Because that middle relation would need another middle relation, and so on forever, right? Whence that relation which is signified in comparing comparing fatherhood to its subject is not in verum natura.

[4:57] It's not in reality, huh? We see in reality, but then we see in verum natura, nature of things, but in reason only, right? Huh?

[5:08] Third, when one of two relatives depends upon the other, right, but not the reverse, just as knowledge depends upon the knowable, but not a converse. So this is an example that Aristotle gave again, right? Whence the relation of the knowledge to the knowable is something in verum natura, but not the relation of the knowable to what knowledge, huh? But it's in reason only, huh?

[5:40] And then fourth is the one that, again Avicenna is emphasized, right? When being is compared to what non-being, huh? As when we say that we are before those who are what in the future after us, right? Otherwise, it follows that there could be infinite relations in the same if generation extended forever in the future, right? Huh? Okay.

[6:10] Now, from these last two ones, that's why I gave them this order. It appears that relation that relation of beforeness, right, priority, places nothing in verum natura, but in the understanding only, because God does not depend upon creatures, right? Huh? Because such a priority would give us the comparison of being to what non-being, right? Whence it does not follow from this that there is some eternal what truth except in the divine mind itself, huh?

[6:44] Which only is what eternal, and this is the first truth, huh? To the sixth objection, or sixteenth objection, it should be said that although God is by nature prior to created things, it does nevertheless not follow that that relation is the relation of nature, because it is understood from the consideration of nature of that which is said to be before and that which is said to be posterior, just as the knowable is before by nature the knowledge, although the relation of the knowable to science is not something of our nature.

[7:24] Very subtle, huh? Okay. And take the text here from the powerful De Potentia, right? Okay. It was difficult to consider the generation of the son to the father as what? Yeah. An account of the accustomed of human knowledge consideration production of natural things, in which one thing is produced by another by what? Motion. But the thing produced by motion in being,

[8:12] yeah. Begins to be in the beginning before it's in the term of motion. First, yeah. It begins to being at the end with this principle or beginning, yeah, yeah. In motion. But it's an eternity that the father generates the son, right? Huh? Okay.

[8:46] Is there an eternity without movement? No movement. Yeah. In fact, you see, when Thomas takes up the eternity of God, right, in the consideration of substance of God, it's attached to the consideration of God being unchangeable, right? Now we know that God is unchangeable because He's pure act, right? And change is the act of what is able to be as such, right? Um.

[9:17] It's the act of the able to be, in so far as it's still able to be. So there can be no change in God, and that's why we say that He's what eternal, right? Okay. Now, in in the sense, I think I mentioned how when De Coning would teach the fourth book of Natural Hearing, right? That book is about what place and time, right? And De Coning in Try to do both in one semester.

[9:48] So there was one course on place and another course on time, right? But at the end of the course on time, he would, maybe in the last day or so, talk about the definition of eternity, right? Kind of a bonitatem doctrina, right? But the definition of eternity is what? What's the definition? Well, the one that Thomas uses comes from what? Boethius, one of the great Boethius. Guess it's in the Consolation of Philosophy, huh?

[10:22] Okay. So he's a great man, huh? Sometimes I'm tempted to say, you know, that the greatest mind in the church between Augustine and Thomas, right, is what? Boethius, right? Huh? Right? And of course he learned from Augustine, right? Huh? But Thomas learned from Boethius, huh? Great, great, great mind, huh? So I get the blackboard here. What's the definition of Trinity Trinity huh? That Poetheus says huh consolation

[11:00] of philosophy, I guess it is. been framed, huh? Thrown into jail, right? And eventually martyred, huh? See, okay. But anyway, consolation of philosophy, okay. You, my friend, Washington Irving, has great respect for the consolation of philosophy, right? Okay. So it's Tota simul Tota simul et perfecta possessio Possessio vitae vitae interminabilis right

[11:54] Now. Let's talk about my life. Is my life eternal, or is my life measured by time? Which is it? It's hard to see this one Yeah Is it a darker one or something? I think so. It might work, better Right

[12:25] Okay There you go. You see that? one Okay It's yellow one as opposed to white. Something. I don't know Okay, it's a bit bigger. Okay.

[13:14] You know we know God more negatively than affirmatively, right? Okay. So what do we negate, huh? It pertains to life and time, right? I was born on January eighteenth, nineteen thirty-six. Huh. Very cold weather in Minnesota in January. My mother says she didn't mind going to the hospital. She says it makes it warm in the hospital I guess. And if I was born in January, nineteen thirty-six, I assume I was in my mother's womb.

[13:46] You know, maybe starting around April, right? Of 1935, right? So that's when the main purpose began. Now I don't know. I had a friend that just died at ninety-three, eighty-one. So let's say I've got twelve more years. So four years from now, I'll cease to be, huh? My soul will, but I've been doing purpose to be there right. I told you how De Koninck, you know, when he, when he had his uh, session with Pius XII, right?

[14:17] When they were defining the Assumption, right? Koninck said the argument in favor of the Assumption was that if her body had not been assumed into heaven, Mary would not be there. Her soul would be there, but not Mary. The person is, you know, it's a selective view to say Peter is there. right? He'll be there when his body is resurrected. So, so

[14:45] my life has a beginning and end in time, right? And that's being negated and he says what Vitae interminabilis, okay? Because end, as Aristotle points out, you know, is a little broader than beginning, right? So we can speak of the beginning of the line and the end of the line, right? But we can speak of the end points, right? And sometimes the end is extended. We don't speak of two beginnings, so much right Two ends, huh?

[15:15] So vitae interminabilis that's when we refer in there, you know, has no beginning and no end, right? So you're negating, that right? My life and time has beginning and which I know more or less, and an end which I'm not quite sure exactly when it'll be, but you know, so.

[15:38] But even in my life, between those two that begin and end, there's a what before and after, right? So time is defined as what the number of the before and after, right? In motion, so I have no what I have a before and after, okay? So when you say all at once, tota simul, right? This is the negation of what before and after, and this is the negation of beginning and or the two end points of my life, right?

[16:15] Okay. I said I'm always struck by the fact that I was there for the two hundredth anniversary of Mozart's birth, and the two hundredth anniversary of Mozart's what death, and I was there at the concert celebrating Mozart. You know, I realized how short his life was, right? He died in his thirty-sixth year, right? Didn't even see his thirty-sixth birthday, right? He said, "What if I had talked to him?"

[16:44] You know, the Köchel numbers are what it's up to six hundred twenty or something like that, right? And you know, all kinds of operas or big big works, you know, not just little works.

[16:59] So here you have one negation, right? This negation of before and after in time, and here's the negation of the what? Beginning and end. So eternity has neither a beginning nor an end, right? Nor does it have any before and after. You look very bored.

[17:29] But now it's very important as a child that you read fairy tales. Now you don't read Shakespeare, you know. And I didn't, you know. It's very important for a father to sit down in the evening there and read to the kids, right? And eventually they they pick up the habit of reading. They want to read themselves, right? My son Paul would be the first one up in the morning, you know.

[17:56] and uh one time, uh my wife and I get up, And he had uh propped up, you know, three or four teddy bears, you know, around various places, sofas and things, in the living room. He put a book in the end. If he told me, I run over

[18:14] right, and I would laugh and laugh and all this. And okay. But now what is the use I want to make of fairy tales, right? Well, you've heard about the evil witch, you know, and she shows up at the wedding or the things she's mad and so on, and she puts the curse on you, right? What happens? Everybody's frozen, right? And it's not until maybe the prince charming or it turns up, you know, kisses the bride, everybody comes back to Mm.

[18:47] movement of life, right? Okay. Now I remember, you know, seeing that little boy in the fairy tale books, you know, he had to start reading the thimbles, thimbles, thimbles for years like this, right? Okay. And you say, how much life do you have in the now time, right? Because the past is no longer, right? And the future doesn't exist yet, right? How much time is there in the now in the strict sense?

[19:22] See, it's between the past and the future, right? The now in the strict sense is is there any length of time? I mean, sometimes you use the word now to include a little bit of the past, right? You know, the class we're having now, right? You know, but then part of this class is over, part of it remains, right? And how much of it is here in the now in the strict sense?

[19:51] It includes nothing in the past, right? Nothing in the future. How much? You know how much is really here? Time, right? How much? Yeah, it's indivisible. It's like a point, right? How much life do you have in that now?

[20:09] I can't even syllogize in the now, can I? Can I? even rattle off the definition in in this now? I'm practically doing all right. I can't even eat a piece of candy. I can't drink a glass of wine. I can't eat a newspaper. Actually, I got a newspaper. Practically no life at all now, right?

[20:41] So perfecta possessio vitae, right? And you know,My great friend, Heraclitus right? He says the now that flows along—it's always different, right? Makes time. The now that what stands still. But is it like that now that which had, right? Everybody just stood still. No, no There's practically no life at all now of time, right? But God in the now, the eternal now, right? that stands still, right? The now that stands still makes eternity.

[21:29] There's a what perfect possession of life, right? Okay. So God has in the now of eternity, which has no before and after, right? No beginning, no end, right? He has perfection of life, right? He has the fullness of life, right? And the way that even heaven won't have this fullness his life is, right?

[21:59] He has a perfection. And so you're negating. It seems to me. This is my idea anyway. That here is a third negation, right? You're negating the imperfection of life in the now of time. You see, a possession is something that you have firmly, right? Okay. or at least I think you have got a car, got a house, you know. A possession, right? Now it's mine. There's something kind of you can hold on to, right?

[22:31] But the now of time, you can't be possessed. either. It's always like moving along, right? It's never quite the same, anymore, right? Aristotle says that the time is tied up with the the what the before and after motion, right? But the now is like the thing in motion, right? You know. And this thing is falling to the ground. Right? You throw a stone and it falls to the ground.

[22:58] It's always in a different place, right? It never stays in one place, right? It's always something that's in motion. And so I don't have possession of that now, right? And I have no perfection of life in it, right? Not even my musical perfection. My ears, right? You know.

[23:24] Can't you know define something in the now? Can't say much in the now. Can't say anything to speak of in it. Maybe a syllable not even a word. No sentence.

[23:44] So what's the first number about? We say all. Three, yeah. So, I have three negations, right? So, that's what eternity is, huh? But we're knowing it kind of negatively, right? So Thomas will attach the consideration of the eternity of God to the consideration of his what? Unchangeable, right? huh? Okay.

[24:18] Just like he'll attach to his infinity, as being what everywhere, right? It's kind of a full life, to be everywhere. That's set up with this infinity, right? Or he attaches to the perfection of of God, is what Being good, right? Being goodness itself, and so on. Notice the word "simul here, right, is the third what? Third post-predicament, right? But "simul" is a negation of what? Yeah.

[25:04] Aristotle, in the tenth book of wisdom, there he speaks of of equal as being negation of more or less, and together is negation of before, right? You and I came here together, one was not before, and not one after. right?

[25:30] So that's the last line in in uh comedy of errors, right? The two brothers are in the servants of thing, and they said, "we go, no, that's, We'll go together, right? "

[25:45] Okay. Simul So a negation there, right? In simul. Okay, it's a nice. Now, what did I get in the definition of eternity? I get no way. What did our Lord say when he came down here, right? And he said, "Abraham lived to see my day, right? " But I ain't 50 years old. You imposter! And what did Christ say? Before Abraham was I am. Yeah. Now, is he saying that according to his human nature or his divine nature?

[26:39] Yeah. But kind of funny sense of before, right? Because in duration, right? But he didn't say before Abraham was. I was, because then he would have been before him in what time, and he's not before him in time, right? You could say maybe in duration, but you know, eternity is before time. But you know, you say I am, right? Okay. So the past and the present and the future of time—it's all present to God in His eternity.

[27:20] So they sometimes compare, you know, God's to the point that's the center of the circle, right? And then the points on the circumference are what in time. One of them comes before, or after another one, right? But they're all directly, you know, related to the what? The center, yeah, and they're all present to God, right? You said that some particular saints may have had an experience of eternity.

[27:48] If that's even a question, that would make sense. Yeah, you know, Augustine apparently and and Thomas, you know, say that Saint Paul, right, carried up to the third heaven, right. He he saw God as He is, in a transitory way, okay. I mean, that was it wasn't a permanent, you know, and that uh, they they seem to say the same thing about Moses, right? Okay, they're kind of partaking of eternity, right?

[28:19] But our our our life in the next life is called eternal life, right? Huh? Because you all partake of eternity, right? And when we see God as He is, that seeing God will not be in time. It will be in eternity, partaking of eternity. Huh? Kind of an amazing, amazing thing. huh? I often wonder, you know, I say, I assume that we'll see each other in heaven, you know.

[28:48] But I mean, how we get to you know to get your your friends that you had in this life to talk to you about you know heaven and other things and you know they'll be so absorbed in God, right? Huh? You know, how would you get their what attention, so to speak?

[29:12] You know, I was thinking, I was thinking about text today and Thomas, there was talking about charity there, right? Huh? And he says that

[29:25] charity is chiefly loving God, right? Huh? Okay. And the objection was trying to argue, you know, that with charity is not only loving God but also loving your neighbor, right? Huh? And Thomas is because of the fact this is being used in objection, right? Huh? And Thomas says, "Charity is chiefly loving God and loving your neighbor in God, in God, yeah." And it's kind of interesting, right now.

[30:01] But maybe that's a deeper understanding of what charity is—the kind of love it is. You hear the saints say things of that, sort, don't you? So Saint Boggess distinguishes between say, kind of human compassion, which is having doing some good to relieve the misery of another because he's like me. But that's not what piety is, as a fruit of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Piety, The compassion sees misery in what is by nature the image of God, sees the misery.

[30:44] But he says, "But piety sees the image in need, not in misery. See, that's the focus: the need here, but the image is the focus."there So, okay. Now, you're seeing something of God and that's what you seek,

[31:19] why did motion show up as a as a postpredicament? Why did motion show up as a postpredicament I suppose because there's a before and after an inter? Yeah, but it's also found in what more than one genus, right? But not in all genera, right? Okay. So Aristotle gives the the kinds of motion. He follows them in the order of the categories, right? Can be distinguished, right? So the generation, corruption, and substance, and growth, and quantity, right?

[31:50] Huh? And alteration, quality, right? And then locomotion in what? In where? Where? Where? Yeah, not in time. Okay. Because I'd be like saying there's a motion, in, motion. Okay. But I mentioned, you know, how how in natural philosophy, the study of change of place comes first, right? And then comes alteration, and then what? Growth, right? So if you want to have an alteration, if I want to burn these papers, I got to bring the paper and the fire what?

[32:32] Together, so that change of places presupposed to an alteration, right? And then you have to alter the food, right, by chewing it and digesting it, right? Huh? Before you can make flesh and blood and bone out of it, right? And so there's an order, you know. And locomotion, of course, is the kind of motion that's most known to us.

[32:57] So you know the division, you know, that we have, you know, even when I was in high school, you had you could take a biology course or a chemistry course, right? And biology you took in your sophomore year if you were to take it, or you had to take it. And the chemistry was in the junior or something. I don't know why. And the physics you had it in the senior year, you know.

[33:19] But that division into physics, chemistry, and biology goes back to Aristotle, right? Because the oldest part of physics is called mechanics, then. and that's a study of what change of place. So Galileo and Newton were dealing mainly with change of place, right? And then you have what we would call maybe chemical change, right? But this is called alteration, right? And then you in Biology, we have living things.

[33:50] Then you have growth. Even the plants, you have growth, right? Common to plants and animals, right? And even the man, right? We grow. You and I, we grow, okay?

[34:03] So, there the order is a little different, right? It's not following the order of the categories, but but how one is a cause of the other, right?

[34:15] And but there's also the fact that change of place is a change that seems to be most known to us, right? And you know, when you got to the the early Greeks, there they didn't seem to admit any of change, but change of what place? And therefore, that what seems to be a change of quality is just a change of place. You know, that took an example using students in class, right?

[34:44] Marcus has a cup of coffee, right? And it's kind of bitter, you know. And he goes out of the room, and someone goes over to the sugar bowl and puts some sugar in there and stirs it up. Marcus comes in and sips his coffee again. Oh, there's been a change of quality. Yes, yes, yes. It's changed from bitter to sweet. And Parmenides would say, you know, fool, right now, you know, far-reaching mind, right?

[35:10] You know, how how could the coffee, you know, lose one quality to another quality? That quality come nothing, and the other quality came in out of nothing, you know? No, all there was was a change of place that you were too stupid, Marcus, to follow, right now. You know, the sugar was sweet and still is sweet. There's no change in. Coffee was and still is bitter, right?

[35:34] But there's been a change of place, and some sugar has been mixed in there, and it's too small for you to see. Right, at least stirred it. You know, grains of sugar left in there, and then they fooled you, you know, these dumb professors, you know. And so, and you know, the change from cold to hot, right now. Marcus puts on the water to make tea in the morning, and the water is cold, and then it's hot, right now.

[35:58] But a change of quality, right now. Oh no, Mister Marcus. There's these little things called molecules, and they're moving faster, faster, faster. Just a change of place that you're too stupid. You know, many little changes of place in these little molecules that you're too stupid to follow, right? Okay.

[36:16] So all there is is a change of place, right? And I was telling you about Thomas there, you know, disputed questions on power, right now. When he's taking up the Trinity there, he talks about procession, right now. The Father proceeds from the Son, right? And the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, right? Procession, I mean, the English word for procession is going forward, right?

[36:49] Well, that's names. First of all, change of place, right? So Thomas has to explain the word, you know, and he says that. Newick's is a very interesting point, right? That the first meaning of the word equivocal, by reason, right, tends to be not only something sensible, but more precisely something what? Yeah, continuous or in the continuous, right? Well, change of place is more clearly continuous than change of what quality, right?

[37:23] And growth seems to be continuous too, you know, but that's quantitatively too, right? So change of place seems to be the motion that's most known to us, and so we we borrow the words from that even to talk about the other one. The water became hot, right? Come to be, coming is first taken from change of what place, huh?

[37:53] So, but that that all we have to talk about the Trinity, right? The word is borrowed from that, huh? You have to borrow from carry the word over, right? Okay, I like the word becoming, right?

[38:11] Is becoming like coming into coming to be in this room? Coming to be coming, as if you know, being is kind of a house, and you come to be, you come go in there, and then you die, you go out. How

[38:28] the house called existence, right? Or being, right? Coming to be, right? But but they kind of lost sight of what Aristotle saw, right? That the basis of that division, right? He was on the basis of the three kinds of motion, right? Change of place, change of quality leading to generation, corruption, and then growth, right? And so, you know, why should atomic physics be have the name physics?

[39:10] which is placing it with mechanics, right? Which is change of place? Really, atomic physics should be put with what chemistry? So my friend there, Werner Karl Heisenberg, right? When he divides up the physical sciences, he puts chemistry and and what atomic physics together, right? He doesn't put atomic physics with with change of place, right? But it's because they they adopted Aristotle without understanding it, right? So custom came in there, and so.

[39:45] But the original basis for it was. Two different kinds of motion, right? Which Aristotle had shown in the fifth book of Natural Hearing Then, when you study motion in particular, you get the three kinds, right?

[40:05] And then one is more general than the others, so the order they're made, going from the general to the particular. Change of place is more general, right? And alteration is more general. You find alteration in the non-living world as well as the living world, right? And growth is peculiar to living things.

[40:26] Then you have the Greek philosopher saying, you know, learning causes the mind to grow. But it's kind of interesting. That's kind of interesting, huh? Other buddhas to be fond of these things, you know. Be very concrete, you know. Mental constipation and so on. So we can't can't digest the. You know the text right now It's uh

[40:57] okay. Now the last. predicament is. What? Yeah, yeah. Now to some extent, to have is to motion like. Ma is to what? Before and after, right? Because.

[41:22] I have a certain height now. I guess I'm five foot nine, I guess, or five foot eight, something like that. Okay. But I grew to be five foot eight, right? Huh? And I guess I stopped growing, right? When I got to that height, right?

[41:40] This man that just died, there, he'd been head of his basketball team there in high school, right? Huh? Tall I'll see a picture of a guy the other day. He's seven feet something, you know, seven feet four inches. Yeah. Yeah. No, one of my students comes on Wednesday night there. He's six feet four or something, you know. He's, you know, tall, you know. Used to play the the guy who crossed the alley there from me back home there, you know.

[42:08] But he was, you know, the center of the basketball team, you know. So I can help myself with the, you know, you know these. Dink shots, you know, but not really playing the game with them, you know. Tall height. Yeah.

[42:26] So growth is a kind of motion, right? But you then you have something, right? Okay. When you alter something, it has some quality, right? Huh? Okay. So there's there's there's some reason why those last two go together, you know. A little bit like like you know the second and the third go together, right? Huh? Okay. And we talked about how the distinction, the basis of distinction, comes before, before and after, right?

[42:59] So. Set aside now the categories and go on to the logic of the second act. Now, the logic of the second act is much easier than the logic of the first act. Okay.

[43:19] Now, what time we go here? Go to four thirty, or what do you go? Yeah, four thirty. Okay, okay. So let's. I'll come back to this next time, but let me do a little bit. of this here

[43:42] Logic is divided into three parts. I mean, parts is Gaul divided into three. Three. I think he says three parts. Yeah, Caesar. Okay. Well, how do you distinguish the three parts of logic, right? How does Thomas do that? in his proemium Three acts. Yeah, yeah. Now, what's the first act? That's simple grasping or naming Yeah. Now, the first act, you could say, is a kind of understanding, and Thomas says that about mostly.

[44:27] Here, sit up. Not the wrong one. Oh, this is down here. Okay. Shuck, shuck. Take away these things that Thomas uses, tool to use.

[44:52] Understanding. Thomas says the first two acts are both a kind of understanding, right? And the first one is understanding what thing is, right? Okay.

[45:09] I'm pretty smart, and I think I understand what a square is. I understand what a circle is, right? I'm not too sure I understand what a dog is. Although I meet one as I come in here, and I understand what a cat is, you know, I don't think I understand them as well as a square and a circle, right? I have some understanding of what a dog is, right?

[45:31] I usually recognize it. I'll get very excited if I was just a cat in the backyard. now. I come across, I seem to know that I have a cat, lover, you know. so I'm. Okay. Now, what's the second act? What is it called? Well, I noticed that Thomas will often use the words that Aristotle uses, right? He'll speak of the second act sometimes as composition and division, right?

[46:01] He's thinking of the fact that you're putting together in a affirmative statement, right, or separating in a negative statement, right. So if I understand what a square is and understand what a quadrilateral is, I might be so bright as to see that a square is a quadrilateral. And if I understand what a square is and understand what a circle is, as I think I do, I might be so bright as to say to divide the two and say a square is not a circle, right?

[46:36] We can inscribe a square in a circle and vice versa, right? You can circumscribe a square around a circle, The inverse. A square is never a circle, Circle square. Not even that can make a square a circle. Okay. Mohammed. Now you know Thomas is a little bit lazy here because he's following Aristotle and Aristotle speaks of the second act here as composing or dividing these things, right?

[47:07] But Thomas himself says the first act and the second act are both the kind of understanding, right? So I sometimes like to call the second act

[47:18] as understanding what? The true or the false, right? Understanding the true or the false. So I understand that a square is a quadrilateral, understanding something true, right? When I understand that a square is not a circle, I'm understanding something true, right? I also understand a square is a circle, right? But then I'm understanding something by false. And then I say a square is not a quadrilateral, something false, right?

[48:24] So sometimes it's called the second act, understanding the true or the false, right? Now sometimes they talk about the name of the speech that is involved in different acts of the reason, right? And you take these two acts and then the third act, which will be reasoning, right?

[48:56] Sometimes they talk about three speeches, right? Now, do you remember the distinction that we made between name and speech Name is a vocal sound that signifies what something is, but no part of it signifies. Okay. It doesn't necessarily signify what something is, but it's a vocal sound signifying by custom or by choice, right? Rather than by nature. No part of it signifies by itself, okay? So, Bergquist is a what?

[49:39] Sound. It's a vocal sound. It's a vocal sound that signifies, right? But does it signify by nature, like a baby's cry? It's signified by by choice and or by custom, right? Okay.

[50:03] And no part of Bergquist signifies by by itself. So you might say, why aren't some names made by putting together two names, right? Yeah. But then it's maybe signifying, but as it functions as a name, it doesn't have any meaning, right? Okay. So my standard example is Johnson, right? now. When we were younger, right, the neighbors were named Johnson, right? And they had a daughter, but she was not a son, and her father I don't think was John either.

[50:44] So Johnson although it's made up of John and son, right? uh, does Johnson mean son of John? He's the first guy. Yeah, but not but not instead of this girl, right? She's a Johnson. My name was originally Bergquist. My father dropped the G for some unexplained reason. And Berg means mountain in Swedish, and Quist means branch. So, but does Bergquist mean mountain branch?

[51:21] You don't have to confuse that from which the name is taken and with its meaning, right? It's a family name, right? And when I went to school. it was called my last name. Dwayne was my first name, and Hugo was my second name, right? But Hu and Go is a heavy meaning? You know, just Hugo means something, right? Okay. Dwayne, and this is Du means something? and the two, there's two syllables in Duane.

[51:52] see. Sometimes you have, you have people have named Duane with the Y and E, you know. It's kind of one syllable, Duane, you know, Duane, Duane, But then Duane, Duane, Two, syllables, but they don't have any meaning, right? Okay, so, but a speech has what?

[52:14] Parts, at least two parts, that signify something separately, right? Well, they sometimes talk about the speech called definition as being a help to understanding what a thing is, right? We're trying to understand what eternity, is right? And what do they use to help us understand? Well, the speech called a definition. In this case, it was a definition of eternity.

[52:44] Why? The true or the false is found not in a definition necessarily, but in a what? Affirmation. Yeah, which I call the statement I like to call the statement, right?

[53:00] Sometimes I call it Proposition, but etymologically, proposition meant a proponent placed before, right? So proposition is really more like a premise made in an argument, and so I don't like the word proposition, but you find it used sometimes, even by Thomas sometimes, you know? But proposition is really more used in logic and through that, right? The reasoning, you could say you reason by a what? Argument, right?

[53:32] Okay, so argument. Austin here, right? He has a logical sort of thing in this, Yeah But he has you know logic the art of defining and reasoning, but he's not talking about the middle act, right? But he has all two parts in there, so this is the argument, right?

[54:13] So sometimes we speak of logic being about these three kinds of what speeches, right? But maybe we begin with the idea of being about these three acts, right? These are speeches that are used to complete these acts, right?

[54:35] Now, is a square a circle? What do you think? Square is not a circle, right? Well, then is understanding what a square is. The same understanding as understanding what a square is. What did I say? Is understanding what a square is the same thing as understanding what a circle is.

[55:05] Well, you admit that a square is not a circle, right? Well, then is understanding a square the same thing as understanding a circle. No, no. I'm kicking you, and kicking him. You're not him, are you? So I'm kicking you is not kicking him, and the kicking him is not kicking you, right? Okay. So if a square is not a circle, then understanding what a square is not the same thing as understanding a circle, right?

[55:39] So can I understand what a square is at the same time as I understand what a circle is? No? But it's kind of interesting. In the second act, I might come up with the statement that a square is not a circle, and could I understand that a

[56:01] square is not a circle unless at the same time I understand square and circle? I have to understand the square and circle, the same time, to understand that the square is not a circle, right? Yeah. And making some comparison, square and circle, right? It's not the same, right? So I have them both in mind at the same time, right? But when I understand what the square is, or I understand what the circle is, I can't do it at the same time.

[56:35] But the second act is strange, right? But now, if I understand that a square is a quadrilateral and a square is not a circle, right? I am understanding the same thing. Are these two different truths? The square is a quadrilateral, and the square is not a circle. So I am understanding two different truths, right? So is it one understanding or two different understandings? Yeah. It's kind of interesting.

[57:18] That's strange, right? Being an angelic mind over there, right? Where it understands, you know, in one what, form, what a cat is, or what a dog is, let's say, You know? Maybe even more. than one thought. They're amazing creatures, those are. You know, I mean, you know, we're pretty, pretty, uh, you know, pretty w- w- we're hardly alive mentally. speaking. We're very angle wormish. Yeah. Did you see the movie Rain Man?

[57:48] by any chance. It. Had Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman played autistic kind of idiot savant. And he could see these mathematical relationships to things just like that, almost like an angelic intellect. And would it be accurate to say that some aspects of this of autism that would that would involve these kind of idiot savant gifts is that almost like sort of like an angelic perception of seeing just the whole in a holistic way, some sort of.

[58:26] Well, the basic point is that you can only understand one thing at a time. Okay. But you go into the different acts, right? You are understanding in the second act, one statement, right? And it has its own unity, right? The statement, huh? Okay. one thing is being said of another. But then it seems that you understand a bit square and circle together, right? In the second act, which you can't do in the first act.

[58:58] Okay. And then we get down to the third act of reasoning, right? In reasoning, you may put together two statements, right? And draw a third statement from them, right? It's a conclusion, right? Well, now if you're seeing how that conclusion follows from those two premises, don't you have three statements altogether, you see? But there is a certain what order among them, right? This is a kind of what unity, right?

[59:34] Okay, just like an army is in some way one, right? Because it's got a certain order, right? But if you break the army and lose its order, it's just a crowd of people, you know, seeking to survive and running away. It's no longer an army, is it? Because it lacks the unity of an army, right? So it's kind of interesting, huh? You know that as we go on from the first act to the second act, and from the second act to the third act, right?

[1:00:05] we seem to, what, in some way, right, understand the second act together things that cannot be understood but separately, right? I can't have one understanding in the first act is understanding both of what a square is and what a circle is. I have to understand, you know, the square through its definition, and I understand the circle through its definition. so I got two different definitions. I can't pay attention to both at the same time.

[1:00:36] Okay. But in the second act, I seem to know, in some way, square and circle together, okay? And then in the third act, right? I seem to know, you know, the premises and the conclusion together, right? When I finally see them, right? My first reason maybe I don't. I kind of see one not the other, but then, you know, I see that they follow from that.

[1:01:02] So we're going to be talking here about the what second act and and about the statement, right? next time, right? Joshua's talking about coming up next time, so he might notify you of his his thing, but.