Logic (2016)
33. The Order of Thinking Out: Definition, Understanding What a Thing Is, Name and Speech
Class of 2017-03-09
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/033-the-order-of-thinking-out-definition-understanding-what-a/

[0:00] Now, okay. So let's think about the logic of the second act, right? And what's our purpose in thinking about this? To think out all kinds of things, right? Now, because many different thinking out, right? We might use many of these senses. In fact, we might use all of them, right? We might think out using all of these, right? Now, okay.

[0:34] So Aristotle wastes his time in distinguishing the eight central senses of in, or did Thomas waste his time in thinking out the order of these? Then you see more distinctly what they are, right?

[1:01] Sometimes I order these senses of thinking out, right? Like to think of thinking out a distinction, right? That, in fact, when we start off, we're confused, right? You first think about something, your knowledge is what.

[1:35] First step out of this is to think out a distinction, right? Okay. Thinking out a distinction. Then thinking out a what division, right? Now, why did I give those separately, right? Because in a way, think out a distinction is more general than think out a division, right? But a division is a distinction of the what parts of some whole, right? Okay.

[2:13] But there are some distinctions that are not distinction of the parts of a whole. Would you say that the meanings of the word in are parts of the word in, or to be in?

[2:31] So it's a distinction that's not a division, right? The distinction between act and ability is that a distinction of part a whole of just parts?

[2:56] But you could subdivide this into the division of a composed whole and the division of a what universal whole, right? Indeed, there's another kind of whole which they call the what potestative whole, right? Aristotle calls the parts of the soul, right? The powers of the soul, what? He calls them parts, right? It's a different kind of part than the what universal whole, right? And composed whole, right?

[3:49] But it's kind of in the same light as the both, right? Okay. Just Aristotle in the fifth book of wisdom he just distinguishes these two wholes, right? But Thomas, you know, points out that Aristotle has this other sense of whole, potestative whole, right? Okay

[4:12] thinking out a what definition? Now, in a way, a definition is what. You think out the parts of the definition, which is a proposed whole, right? But you're doing something different when you think out a definition, and you think out the division of the genus into species, aren't you? You're not defining something, are you?

[4:56] Okay. Now sometimes, sometimes I say that distinction and division, definition, are going from what? The more universal to the less universal, right? Because a distinction—there are some distinctions that are not division, but a division is a distinction of the parts of some whole, right? A definition is a little—it's something the aspect of a division, right? But you're really bringing something out differently than the division is, right?

[5:39] Okay. Now sometimes you take off from a distinction and you go to order, right? Thinking out order, right? What does order mean? Right. Let's think out the definition of order. What's the simplest definition of order? Yeah, yeah.

[6:14] And so you can think out the different senses of order, right? Okay. We were doing that, right? We were thinking out the order better in knowledge, right? And thinking out the order of which one knowledge comes before another knowledge, right? And then we were thinking out why one was better than another, or why this came before that, right? So we're thinking out many orders, right? But all the senses of what before, or all the senses of after, and all the senses of what order, right?

[6:48] So we multiply these things, right? Okay. You might want to think out, you know, why the first act of reason comes before the second act of reason, right?

[7:04] We were kind of stupid and slow, so we might, you know, need an example to help us, right? But it dawned upon me, you know, I'm not too bright, but sometimes a little light comes into my mind. And it seems to me you have to understand to some extent what a square is, and a quadrilateral before you can understand that a square is a quadrilateral. Would you say?

[7:29] You have to understand what a square is. And understand what a circle is, which is the first act, right? Before you can understand meaning a square circle. I see some reason there right? now.

[7:44] Yeah. I was joking more in the phone today, and said, "which is better, than the first act or the second act. Well, you see,

[8:03] how do you know it's true that a square is a quadrilateral? That's the important thing to know whether the statement you made is true or false, right? So, how am I able to know that a square is a quadrilateral is true, and a square is not a circle is true, and that a square is a circle is false, and the square is not a quadrilateral is false.

[8:32] How do I accomplish that? Because it's a task, right? Yeah, but doesn't go back to the first act. It's by understanding what a square is and what a quadrilateral is that dawns upon my sluggish mind. that a square is a quadrilateral, And it's by understanding what a square is and what a what circle is that dawns upon me that a square is not a circle, right?

[9:04] So isn't the first act better than the second act? Second act, you know, you can understand the true or false, but you can't even know whether it's true or false without that first act, right? And you have these axioms, you know, like the whole is more than a part. You have to understand what a whole is and what a part is before it dawns upon me that a whole is more than a part.

[9:27] So isn't the first act better. Wouldn't that be more necessary? The first act for the statement. Yeah, but I mean, isn't it? You know, I mean, the second act, you can't even accomplish some task there, you know, knowing the true or the false, right? Without, you know, moving back to the first act. We didn't say it wasn't necessary.

[9:55] I said to warn you, I said, but if you understand what a square is, right, and you at the same time understand what a circle is in the first act, no, the square is not a circle. So understanding a square is not understanding a circle. So it's two different understandings, right? That you have one and then the other. When I'm watching the second act. when I understand that a square is not a circle, I'm understanding square and circle at the same time, and I'm kind of angelic, right?

[10:23] Because they know many things, right? Distinctly, right? They know like all all animals, you know, at one thought or something, you know, they're really tremendous minds, you know. and I'm becoming like an angel, you know.

[10:38] They kind of, you know, there's a little paper there on the calculus there where you you know make one figure be what? None. None of the other, right? Therefore, you seem to know them both together, right? Just like you know, it's a simple way of being like an angel. but, you know, you gotta, you know, you know those aspiring things, you'd like to be like an angel, right?

[11:00] Okay. So and then you might wonder Thinking out a what statement, right? Now we're in the second act, right? huh? Thinking out a statement.

[11:46] And then what? Thinking out a Out a conclusion, right? In each theorem, of, my friend, Euclid. Look at Euclid's elements. Let's just take Book One. He begins with the what definitions, right? And then he has statements, right? He's thought out, like the whole is more than a part. If equals add, equals results are equal quantities equal to the same, equal, and so on. And then he starts thinking out what conclusion, right?

[12:25] About forty theorems, right? In Book One, ending up with the Pythagorean theorem, right? Okay. So this order, kind of, what is the order in which we think out things, right? And then it comes this magnificent thinking out of the what sense of cause and effect, right?

[13:00] Maybe in this paper you know about uh I don't know transgender stuff, And it dawned on me, you know, that what is the cause of man woman, right? Are you a man woman by nature or by choice? It's by nature. right? Everybody thought it was by nature. now the thing is, you are one of them by choice, right? So they don't know what the cause is, right?

[13:33] You know, really, really mixed up, right? But they don't look before and after, right? So what? I saw a Time magazine where they were celebrating this gender stuff, and there was a picture of a woman who had been modified into being a man. That looked like a man, except the sort of horrifying thing was that she had had a baby, and the way she was looking at the baby was the way a woman looks at a baby.

[14:10] Yeah. And so she is taking the form of a man, but well, not really a man. I mean, it's pretty staggering. So, what is

[14:27] the cause of man woman, right? And if you look, you should find that nature is the cause and not choice, right? Now, how are you a husband or a wife? By choice. Yeah, yeah. Getting pretty mixed up, right?

[14:59] So do you take so and so your wife or your husband, right? huh? You know. The choices. Yeah. the mix up is, it gets really weird because I read about recently a woman who wanted to become a man and she wanted to have her body changed. So she went to a Catholic hospital and have her uterus taken out, and so they refused. And now she is technically, at least as far as some people are, concerned Yeah, she's suing the Catholic hospital.

[15:35] But the newspaper reports it as he is suing them for refusing to do a hysterectomy on him. Does that sentence make sense? He's suing them for not doing a hysterectomy on him. See, that's where they they refuse to look, at nature Men do not have uteruses. That's it. That's nature,

[16:08] Yeah, there's the first man ever to win a hysterectomy case or something. Here you've got almost all the senses right that we talked about, but kind of a little bit of an order, right? Okay. So if we think about the logic of the second act, right now, then we've got to think about thinking out, right? Okay. Can we say something about that last sense of the end here?

[16:47] Oh, I left my heart in San Francisco. Yeah, I don't know if there's a sense of thinking out there, but if it were, it might be something like thinking out the means to some end, right? Okay. Because all the means in a sense are, you know, part of the love ordered to that end, right? The means for getting into that end. It's hard to enter. We say go in the kingdom of heaven.

[17:22] We enter into a door, through a rope. Now, Thomas in the proemium to logic, he speaks of the first two acts of reason as being what?

[17:39] Kind of understanding, right? Intelligere right? Okay. Then he adds a third act, which is what reasoning, right? Huh? Okay. But now you want to distinguish these two understandings, right? And in the logic of the first act, what kind of understanding are you concerned with?

[18:07] Understanding names. Yeah. but more basically, it's understanding what something is, right? Okay. Understanding what a thing is. So why did Aristotle give us? First, he's called the father of logic. Why did he give us the categories, right?

[18:39] Well, the categories are what, Yeah they're the ten highest genera, right? What's a genus, right? Well, genus is a name said with one meaning of many things, other in kind or other in species, signifying what it is, right? It's the connection between what the categories is about, what a category is, and understanding what a thing is, right? It's only the beginning, right? Aristotle somehow divides them into what, maybe different species, right?

[19:15] It's the task of all the different parts of human knowledge, or different parts of philosophy, to divide and subdivide, right? So Aristotle doesn't go and divide numbers into odd and even or into prime and composite. but Euclid will do that for you, right? And Aristotle in ethics will divide habits into virtues and vices, subdivide the virtues into the ones, right?

[19:47] Okay. So, understanding what a thing is, well, in second act, you are what? Understanding. A lot of times, Thomas just calls the second act there, like Aristotle does in the third book of the soul, which takes the second act as composing or dividing, right? Putting together the things you understood in the first act, right? Okay. I have to use the word understanding, which he talks about in the introduction, or the proemium Peri Hermeneias True or false, understanding the true or the false.

[20:44] I used to ask my students, right? What is an even number? What is an odd number, right? And they seem to understand what an even number is and what an odd number is, right? But how did they understand what an even number is and what an odd number is?

[21:10] So, what is an even number? They know what a number is. Yeah, but they seem to know what an even number and an odd number is. I give them. that much credit, you know. What's an even number?

[21:27] Number is divisible by 2. Yeah, or a number that can be divided into two equal parts, right? So it's some kind of definition that you're giving to understand what an even number is. An odd number is a number not divisible into two equal parts, right? And you could give an interesting second definition of the odd number, right? A number that differs from an even number by one.

[21:56] So you add one, even, or subtract one, you get even an odd number. Good discovery, right? Okay? And then I asked him, what's a perfect number? Of course, none of them know that.

[22:14] But how do I make known what a perfect number is, right? Know what number is? Yeah. Definition? Yeah. So a perfect number is a number which is equal to the sum of everything that measures it evenly, right? So the first perfect number is six. I don't need examples, right? It depends upon the senses? I'm in trouble. You've gone from the one to many You thought I was This is the material uh distinction, right?

[23:08] Yeah. Discrete and continuous. Okay. We have a continuous supply of these things. You know, you get to lecturing it all in college and soon you're going to get some of this stuff. It's like stuffiness. It's an occupational hazard, you know. Father Hardin used to call it the dust of battle. Yeah.

[23:39] Trying to teach students. So six is measured evenly by one. There's six ones and six, right? Measured evenly by two, there are three twos and they have six. Measured evenly by three, there's two threes, right? But you can't measure it by how many fours are there, or how many fives, right? So it's measured only by one, by two, and by three, and they add up to six.

[24:05] Yeah. If you want to, you know, not sleep tonight, you can try to find the next number, but I'll tell you ahead of time that it's twenty-eight right And so it takes a while to figure it out. if you go on, and get bigger and bigger, right? Takes higher math. But um, but notice, huh? They knew what an odd number, what an even number is by definition, right?

[24:32] However, perfectly, they can state the definition, right? And they came to know what a perfect number is by definition. Now you see, a definition is connected with knowing or understanding what a thing is, right? Okay. But would you distinguish between a definition and understanding what a thing is?

[25:07] Maybe it's kind of like the confused to the distinct. Yeah, but here I'm understanding distinctly what a thing is by its definition, right? But there's still a difference between understanding what a thing is distinctly and having a definition, right?

[25:24] Now you can say the definition is that by which, huh, you understand or can understand what a thing is, right? Okay. Is kind of what enables you, right? Now sometimes I compare it with the example of something more known to us the eye, right? And I say we use a telescope to see things at a what distance, right? I think I told you my one of my father's business friends, right?

[26:01] His son was into astronomy, he made a what? Yeah, on these reflecting telescopes, right? And they're a huge piece, huge thing, right? And uh so my father had his his extra stuff in the factory there to make the stand for it, right? So So uh we went out there for the for the first day, to look up at the sky, right? He's going

[26:25] to turn on the moon, right? Well, the damn clouds came in, for the moon. But then he turned it on on Saturn, right? I had seen pictures of Saturn, though. When you look in a telescope and you see the rings of Saturn boy is that impressive you know What is that? You know it's really something, you know. Now I could never have seen with my naked eyes, they say, in the astronomy books, the rings of Saturn, right?

[26:48] Um. So what's the connection between seeing something at a distance and a telescope? Is a telescope the same thing as seeing at a distance? No, it's that by which, right? You what? It would send me to. Then there's another thing called a microscope or something, right? huh? Which is seeing something that's very what small. And is a microscope the same thing as seeing something very small? No, but is there some connection between the microscope and seeing that there are cells in every monster?

[27:29] Yeah Okay, So the definition is to understanding what a thing is. something like a telescope is to seeing something at a what distance, right? And a microscope is seeing something that is very small and so on, right? Okay, That's an important distinction to make a distinction between seeing at a distance and a telescope and between understanding what a thing is and definition, right? But you see the importance of definition for understanding what a thing is.

[28:06] Now, later on, when we study the third act. we're going to be talking about reasoning and an argument, right? Now, he gives an argument called a syllogism, right? A syllogism is an argument in which some statement is laid down, another follows necessarily from those laid down, right? Wow. But now, is an argument the same thing as reasoning? Sometimes people kind of mix them up over there. An argument is something what?

[28:41] It's not an act of reason, but it's a what? An ordering of the statements, right? Enables you to reason well, right? Now, is it something that is to understand the true or the false as definition as to what a thing is? An argument is to reasoning.

[29:04] Yeah. Statement. Yeah. Now we've got to think that out, right? Okay. So we've got to think out what a definition is and what a statement is, right? Okay. Now there is a beautiful distinction that we met before in logic, an distinction between

[29:48] distinction of name and speech, huh? Nomen and oratio, right? Okay. Oratio was the word, right? Prayer, I guess. Okay. Distinction of name and speech.

[30:09] They both have something in common, right? But what is the distinction of name and speech? huh? It's not very well-written this time, of course. I'd expect your students to spell things perfectly, but distinction of name and speech. Well, they're both what? Sound, right? Okay.

[30:36] So this is a sound, isn't it? Right. Is that a name or speech? What's the difference between this and a name or a speech?

[31:02] Speech is a vocal sound. Yeah, it's produced by the vocal cords, right? Here, but this is produced by my middle thumb here in the wood, right? Okay. So a name and a speech are a vocal sound, right? I'm not following the grammatical order, I'm following you know the logical order, right? It's a sound that is what produced by the vocal cord, right? now. The logician, you know, as a logician isn't going to bother to talk about how he produces sound with the vocal cords.

[31:34] Leave that. to some other science, the logic, right Okay. Now, um What's another thing I want to say about this vocal sound that is a name or a speech? I'm making just being noisy. Not giving me my pizza, or this. I'm paying your attention or something right now. Okay. So the name and the speech, the vocal sound, a little bit what? Intelligible Huh It signifies, the thing right Okay.

[32:23] Vocal sound signifies. Now, the great Augustine defines what a sign is. I don't know what that is. You have to think out the definition of sign. It's the only thing you have to do, right? Now, what's the definition of sign that the great Augustine? Something that strikes the senses, brings to mind something other than itself. Yeah. I like that word "strike." it brings out that you know you're undergoing, right?

[33:10] So it's a it's a vocal sound signifying right? Grammatic order is somewhat different, right? Grammar, logic are two different liberal arts, right? Okay. Now, um,

[33:30] the baby cries, right? That's the sound, right? Been around babies I'm sure you've heard, that sound. It's a vocal sound, right? And does it signify something? Yeah. Maybe the baby's hungry. Maybe the baby's got a pin sticking in or something. But it's some kind of bodily need, a little one, you know. Okay.

[33:57] And was there a difference between the cry of the baby and the name and the speech? they signify? Yeah. One signifies nature Yeah We can kind of see why nature gave this to the baby, right? huh? So the mother or whoever it is would come running, right? Now. Okay. So if the baby you know, is playing and whacks into something, you know, whack. Maybe the mother can examine and see how much damage has been done, right?

[34:40] huh? You know? And uh... I'm running around the garage there, and I hit the corner of the garage, and my mother comes out and she starts, you know, bathing it, you know, Of course, the bowl turns all red. She says, "the kids, I don't even see that. It was like I lost a whole.

[35:02] She sounds like the kid jumping. Oh, oh my gosh. You be more careful. running around the driveway there. Okay. Let's see. They say sometimes it signifies by custom or by. You didn't say by choice. In some cases, maybe you choose it, but by custom or choice, right? But

[35:29] describe these. It's more by custom than by choice, though, right now. Okay. It's scientists and they name you know this new element berkelium which was discovered at the University of California Berkeley. You've got to choose these things, but as opposed to something that signifies by nature, yeah.

[35:55] Now this is common to both name and speech, right? Now we come to the differences between name and speech, right? And what is the difference between name and speech now? They both are sound. It is vocal sound. It is signifying and signifying by custom. But what's the difference between name and speech?

[36:19] Parts. Yeah. And not just parts, because they both have parts, right? But in the name, no parts signifies by itself. Yeah. So the speech is having parts, and that means at least two. Can be more than two, but having parts that signify

[36:50] something by themselves, right? Okay. And the name is the negation of that, right? No parts signify right by themselves, right? Now we always, you know, deal with these, you know. uh, objections like you're saying, well, when we were young there, the we had next to people call it whose name was Johnson, right? I don't think they had any sons, but at least they had a daughter. And you say, well, Johnson, John means something, right?

[37:41] And son means something, right? But in so far as Johnson functions as a name, a last name in this case, or a family name, does John and son mean something? Because the girl is not a son, and I don't think her father is John, right? You see, so Johnson, in so far as it functions as a name, you know, it happens to be made out of him, right?

[38:10] It doesn't signify John and son something separate about John and son, right? Okay. So the speech has parts signifying by themselves, at least two parts, and the name does not, right? And therefore,Thomas points out the distinction between the etymology of the name right and the meaning of the name right and sometimes you see confusing the two right okay so you see the etymology in Johnson might be you know someone was the son of John right but that's not what it signifies anymore now right See Okay my my last name is originally Bergquist and my father got the G out but Berg means mountain in Swedish and quist means branch So am I a mountain branch is that what it means no so it's only the

[39:08] whole sound of Bergquist that signifies me right Cause they call me Burke you know but my mother's maiden name was Burke B U R K so she joked that she just slipped in the name she fathered Burke Bergquist you know but that's where we got the G out too come on you have a tendency to put a K just to be there right in the spelling of the last name okay

[39:37] my son was at West Point guy his nickname was B Q yeah I was trying to say Bergquist you know but you got a B and a Q there right Bergquist B Q we call him Thomas Burke or something like that you know PRK

[39:58] So you see them name and speech right now if you go to the great tradition of logic here, the first two books of logic are of course Aristotle's Categories and then the famous book of Porphyry which is the introduction to the Categories right but they used to refer to these as the the book of the five names genus difference species property accident to use other words and the book of the ten names genus substance substance quantity quality so on.

[40:42] but definition is not a name definition is a what speech now Aristotle is talking about going from the confused to the distinct right he says we name a thing before we can what define it and so the definition gives you a more distinct knowledge right and so I used to take their experience and say you probably went to your father or mother when you were reading something and you didn't know what the word meant they kind of know what it means but when they're asked to define it they hesitate you know it's kind of hard to to define something you know what love means what define it Uh, uh.

[41:27] Let's try and define it Okay So a definition is speech And a statement is speech, right? But what would be the natural way to distinguish these two speeches?

[41:45] Well, if they're both speeches, how would you how would you distinguish them? By their end. Yeah, or by what they signify, right? Okay. So you could say a definition is speech signifying what a thing is. Sometimes I define definition as speech making known what a thing is, right? Because that tells you something about it, right? But you could say basically that definition is speech signifying what a thing is.

[42:30] Because it's a speech, you can think out that it's like making known distinctly, right, what a thing is. But you could also say it's speech making known

[42:47] what a thing is, right? My students didn't know what a perfect number is, right? The definition, with the help of an example, right? Made known, right? To some extent, what a perfect number is, right? Okay. Sometimes I say it's speech bringing out what a thing is, right? Bringing out, bringing out, bringing out, right?

[43:14] Nature loves to hide, right? Heraclitus says, huh? Okay. But what is a statement? That speech signifying what a thing is—that's the definition. But speech signifying the true or the false, right? Okay.

[43:43] How do we think about the definition of what truth and falsity means, right? Right. Serious computer problems. Hopefully that was all. resolved So just be good

[44:01] So, okay. So, definition is sometimes talked about in connection with understanding what a thing is, and statement with understanding true or false, right? Now, sometimes you know, bad customary, sometimes use the word proposition, you know, for statement, right? But proposition etymologically comes from pro, pono right, placed before. Proposition is maybe more, but. Yeah. Yeah. Now they call them theorems in Euclid. Sometimes they call it propositions, right?

[44:35] It's because he states beforehand what he proposes to prove, right? So it's a proposal, right? I propose to show that triplets and terranes are two right angles. and then he

[44:52] does that. Okay. Does Euclid call them uh, theorems, or does he have a name for them? Each, each. I think in Greek it would be like the word for proposal, right? And that's where you get the word proposition, right? You proposition whom? That means, right?

[45:20] And it's closer to that. as I tell the students, in premise or something like that. I like the word statement, right? huh?