Logic (2016)
42. Demonstration and Dialectic: Form and Matter of the Syllogism, Probable Opinions, Propter Quid and Quia, the Four Questions, and Why Definition Needs Genus and Difference
Class of 2017-04-06
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/042-demonstration-and-dialectic-form-and-matter-of-the-syllogism/

[0:00] Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our 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, order illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, the, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:30] So, what's the difference between a demonstration and a dialectical syllogism? Do they have different forms? This is distinction between the form and the matter of a syllogism. What is that distinction? Particularly the particular names that are used in the genus species form of definition. Well, you know, I was making kind of a mono-duxio, right? You say, what's the difference between

[1:10] adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing correctly, right? And then having the right numbers to add, subtract, multiply, or divide, right? And to get the right number from adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing, right, you must do two things, right? You must add or subtract or multiply or divide correctly, which you can do with even the wrong numbers, right? But you must also have the what? Right, right numbers, right?

[1:45] Huh? So I took the example there from being on the beach there with 19 grandchildren, and after swimming and so on, there was an ice cream place there, right, right on the beach. So it was generally agreed that Grandpa should buy ice cream cones.

[2:04] Yeah, for for the 19 grandchildren plus the adults that are present, right? And so I had to multiply the number of people who were going to get ice cream cones with the cost of the ice cream cone, right? So it's one thing to multiply correctly those numbers, right? It's another thing to have the what? Yeah, yeah. Now, there's something like that with the syllogism.

[2:29] given these premises, right, huh? Does something follow necessarily from them? Well, what is that like in the? What's that proportional to in the calculation?

[2:44] That would be multiplying by correctly. Yeah, yeah. And then are these propositions themselves, you know, true or false, or necessary or probable or something like that? That's analogous to what? Yeah, am I sure these are the numbers, right? This is really what ice cream cone will cost, you know? Do I really have the right number of grandchildren?

[3:08] Or what? Is it only probable this is what it's going to cost, right? Last time about ice cream cone cost this or something, you know? But it might be different on the beach, more or less or something, right? You know. So the difference between demonstration and dialectic, right, is in the form or in the matter.

[3:34] I guess it would be in the matter. Yeah, yeah. In other words, given the premises, right, that the demonstrator uses, right, and given the premises that the dialectician uses, you can ask does something fall necessarily from these what premises, right? And that's what we do when we talk about A, B, and C, which drives my wife crazy, right? I think I can't follow A, B, C stuff.

[4:03] And I always say, you know, men are understand better than women, but women are more capable of loving than men. I get them to accept that. Okay, but when you use letters, you kind of abstract from what what the matter is, right? So you don't mix up the two things, right?

[4:27] And but then the premises from which the demonstrator reasons are seen by him as being necessarily true, right? Either because they're obvious, like the axioms and the postulates of geometry, all right angles are equal and so on, right? The whole is more than the part and quantities.

[4:54] and that they're equal to the same Yeah, yeah. Or take the simple example there of the theory of geometry there, which says that straight lines intersect; these opposite angles will be what? Yeah, and then these two will be equal, right? Okay. Now, how do you know that, right? Definition of a straight line. Well, you have to realize that if this is a straight line meeting a straight line, right, these two angles must be equal to two right angles, right?

[5:30] Okay. Because you know what a right angle is, and a straight line meets a straight line, it makes equal angles. We call them right angles, right? And now, if it meets at an angle, it's going to be equal to what? You divide into their parts. It's going to be equal to two right angles, right? So, giving these letters here now, you can say x plus b must be equal to two right angles, right?

[6:00] And what a plus x must be equal to red angles. And then what? Therefore, axiom quantities equal to the same are equal to each other. So x plus d must be equal to a plus x, right? And if equals subtract from equals, results are equal. Therefore, I demonstrate that, right? Yes, but it's funny, right? Okay, but I demonstrate it from statements that are what? Either obvious or that are what?

[6:37] Shown through things that are obvious, right? Okay. So the demonstrator sees his premises as necessarily true, right? Okay. Either because they are evident in themselves, known to themselves, or because they have been arrived at through what? Real syllogisms, right? From statements that are obvious, right? Okay. Now you wonder, you know, what we call science now? That all respect for science in the modern world, because all these things that come from science, right, like telephones and you know, those machines you have in front of you and so on, huh?

[7:16] But is science? If you ask me, what is Euclid's elements, I'd say it's reasoned-out knowledge. When I say reasoned-out, that's the ultimate thinking out, right? So there's thinking out distinctions, divisions, definitions, thinking out statements, right? And finally, thinking out conclusions, right? So I include everything that comes before conclusions, right? But I say it's a reasoned-out knowledge of things, right? Is that what science is in modern things?

[7:49] Is it reasoned-out knowledge? So we're using reasoned-out knowledge to manipulate matter. It depends that because that's the general perspective of the culture, but there is cutting-edge experimentation. Now, see, Einstein, the man of 1905, right, presented, and published, I guess, huh, three what? Papers, right? All which were worthy of the Nobel Prize, they say. There's never been anybody as as fruitful as Einstein, right? Huh? Seems on terms of those things.

[8:27] But Einstein says that a hypothesis in science, right, is freely imagined. That's not science. Is that reasoned out? That reasoned out, yes. And people notice the fact that the great discoveries in science, you know, are made by young men, maybe in their twenties or thirties at the least, right? As they get older, their forties or their fifties, something like that, they don't have because they're not, their imagination is not as free as vigorous and so on, see?

[8:58] When I read Heisenberg's, you know, things that he's talking about his own theories, right? He's just a young man, right, in his twenties and so on, right? He keeps on explaining it better and better, you know. But he's not, you know, discovering, making great discoveries that he made as a younger man. right? Kind of amazing the ones that he did, right? huh?

[9:18] You wonder, is that really reasoned out knowledge, right? I'm? Sure it is. And you know the way you you say, what do you do with the sector if the hypothesis is freely imagined. It doesn't. It's not self-evident knowledge, right? How do you test an hypothesis? Well, you tend to test it by itself. Your predictions, right? But is that a syllogism? If A is so, then B is so.

[9:48] My hypothesis is correct. there will be an eclipse of the sun at ten o'clock. At ten o'clock exactly, an eclipse of the sun. Does that prove that my hypothesis is correct? No. Doesn't prove it. No. Now this is a big dispute between Huygens and Newton right now. Newton was explaining light as a shower of little particles, and Huygens was what, is a wave. And so they, an experiment, find right, and and the light behaving like what, was waves.

[10:23] Therefore, they said it was waves. But then the photoelectric effect in 1905, Einstein showed that what? the photoelectric effect, you know, follows if you say that it's made up of little particles, but not if it's wave. Now they're really puzzled right now. Is it waves or is it what, little particles, which they eventually called photons, right? So I guess what happens is when light strikes a thing and what, knocks out electrons, right?

[10:53] If you increase the intensity of the light, you don't find any things coming out what, faster, right? Which would be if it was just a wave like phenomena, but you find that more electrons are coming out at the same speed. So it's like this individual collision between what, little particles which they later on called photons eventually, right? And and individual electrons, right?

[11:21] So had it been proven right that Newton was mistaken as to what light was, and Huygens was correct, when there was an experiment where it acted like a wave, right? Then there's another experiment where it acts like what, a shower of particles, right? How could it be both? As Heisenberg said, Einstein just knew there's a contradiction here, the appearance at least, right? But it could explain the photoelectric effect except by assuming that what, this hypothesis.

[11:58] No wonder we're twisting out knowledge, right? It is. Yeah. Has there been an interface between reason and reason out knowledge that one has, and also flashes of inspiration, intuition, or does that question even make any sense? Yeah, the people living kind of a familiar error to these things, and they kind of get what insight into what they are like, probably, you know.

[12:33] It was Niels Bohr who took the quantum and applied it to the atom, right? Kind of amazing, basically. But anyway, not get too much into that right now, right? Okay. So

[12:46] when Aristotle wrote the Prior analytics, right, that's about the form of syllogism, right? So it's done in terms of what, letters, right? Now, I'll use examples to show that some form is not a syllogism, right?

[13:05] But Aristotle says that you know the demonstrative dialectician they syllogize in the same way, right? And conclusion follows what necessary, right? The same way you see, you know, you who work with the correct numbers and I work with the incorrect numbers, we multiply in the same way, you and I, right? So as far as our multiplication, right? My multiplication is as good as yours, but you have the right numbers to multiply, and I've got maybe only you know one of them right, and one of them wrong or something, right?

[13:43] That's that's like the matter, right? Okay. Your conclusion follows from your premises just as much as my conclusion follows from your premises, right? But one of his premises is what certain. Are you not really, man? I was talking

[14:07] with Thomas today, you know, just having the video in the question twenty-three there, yeah, on the liberum arbitrium right? And Thomas is asking, now, is this a a a power that we have, right? Well, of course, what the word iudicium liberum means, what?

[14:33] Well, the objection says that's an act. That's not a power. Judgment is an act. That reason, right? So then, liberum arbitrium is not what a power. It's an act. So how does Thomas answer that, do you think? To me, he's got to conclude, it's the will, but you know the reason is going to be a power, right? He says, well, he says that this the vocabulary, right, would seem to indicate that it's an act, right?

[15:08] But from the custom of speaking, right, it's understood to be the source of this act, right? Okay. Now I was doing something like that the last time. Remember the word philosopher? I said,

[15:26] is God a philosopher? What would you say? Is God a philosopher? If you look at the word philosopher, it means a lover of what? Wisdom. Yeah. Is God a lover of wisdom? Of course. Yeah. But I don't know if it's good. I did go around saying that God is a philosopher. Which my favorite philosopher?

[15:49] Yeah, yeah. Even though he's he's he's a lover of wisdom, he loves wisdom more than we do. He's wisdom itself, right? He loves himself. He's the only one that loves himself adequately, so he is the most of all a lover of wisdom. But according to the what, the origin of the word, right? What is the intention of of uh Pythagoras when they said, you know, you are wise, the wonderful things you're discovering, you know, right, the Pythagorean theorem and things of this sort, right?

[16:18] And they said, don't call me wise. God alone is wise, right? What should we call you? Gotta call you something. Call me a lover of wisdom. So it's the name of a man who knows himself not to be wise as God is wise, right? When he compares to God, is not wise, in fact, right? But he loves wisdom nevertheless, right? He tries to get as much as he can, right?

[16:48] Well, then you see, it's not the word itself would seem to indicate if you applied to God as much as to what Pythagoras? and more to God than to Pythagoras, right? Because he loves wisdom more than Pythagoras does. huh? But you had to respect the what? the custom, right? Because these things signify by custom, right?

[17:13] And he didn't mean he was equally a lover of wisdom with God he didn't like that No. He meant that he didn't really have wisdom, right? You know, but he's trying to pursue it as hard as he could.

[17:25] So the prior analytics, which is about the form, they call it of the syllogism, right? And has all those letters in it and so on. That's looking to see whether, given these statements, something else follows necessarily from them, right? But doesn't say anything about whether the statements themselves are necessary or probable, right? And in the demonstration, the premises will be seen to be what necessarily true, huh?

[17:54] But in the case of the dialectic, they'll be seen merely as what probable, right? Okay. Now, you can see a dialectical syllogism is a syllogism from probable what opinions, right? Now, did we talk last time about how we define probable opinions, or how Aristotle does, right? Okay, let's speak here of a dialectical syllogism.

[18:33] Syllogism from probable opinions. My opinion, Aristotle says, is probable because of the quantity. Or the quality of men, what? Thinking it, right? Okay. So it's the opinion, probable opinion,

[19:18] is the opinion of all or most men, right? Okay. That's probable because of the what? Quantity, the number of men holding it, right? If all or most men think, right, that sugar is sweet, that's probable because all or most men think that, right?

[19:52] Or the opinion of all or most, or the Most famous, right? You have those three categories of men in a given art or science, right? Just try to

[20:21] make these things better. I got my tax form recently, and I'll have trouble writing my signature nicely. Okay. Or the opinion of all or most men, or the what? The most what? Famous, right? In a given art or science, when speaking about what pertains to that art or science, right? Okay. When speaking

[20:56] of what pertains to that art or science. Okay. So if most doctors say smoking is bad for your health, right? If all doctors or most doctors say that smoking is bad for your health, right? That's a probable opinion, right? Because there are men in a particular art or science, and they're speaking about a matter that pertains to their what? Art or science, right? What is helpful for health and bad for health, right?

[21:38] Okay. Or you take the most famous man, right? Huh? Okay. So I was quoting Einstein, right? Einstein is the most famous scientist, right? And he says the hypothesis in science is freely imagined. Well, that's probable because what? Einstein said, it, right? Okay.

[22:08] You know, I remember going to some philosophical conference, you know, and I was quoting that statement of Einstein. What? Just Einstein's opinion, please. You're a philosopher, right?

[22:22] But you have to consider it seriously, right? Okay. So you'll see in disputed questions of Thomas you know, often they'll have a quote from Augustine or a quote from Anselm or a quote from Damascene or somebody, right? who's famous in the art or the science of theology, right? And if he says this, well, then you got to take that seriously, right? Huh? Think about it, right? I'm not saying it's necessarily true, but you know.

[22:48] Okay. Um. Which is more important in opera: the words or the music? Mozart is famous for his operas, right? huh? They perform Mozart's operas all over the world, right? Every year, right? My son's at West Point there was the the bicentennial Mozart's birth, and they had the Mozart opera in the fall, right? And they had Mozart opera in the spring, right? At the Eisenhower, the auditorium, the Eisenhower auditorium there, right?

[23:21] And bring us, you know, good groups of the City Opera of, New York, and so on, right? So Mozart is famous, you know, for writing operas, right? He loved writing operas, and he says in music, in opera, he says the words must be altogether the obedient servant of the music.

[23:45] Because then you get Wagner, right? The words have a masculine, element, right? The music is a female. Okay, but you know, so in fact, even the famous, you know, Wagner's famous for his operas too, right? You know, but Mozart is more probable in my mind.

[24:09] So you could say an opinion is said to be probable because of the number of men holding it, right? The quantity of men, and that's if all men say this or most men say this, right? Or because of the quality of the men, right? If all or most men, or the most famous in some art or science, say something that pertains to that art or science, right?

[24:38] What's the most famous book of geometry in the world? Yeah, Euclid's, Elements, right? For thousands of years, right, it was you know the the text, right.

[24:53] And so if Euclid says, you know, that the interior angles of a triangle are two right angles, that's probable. right? Or if Pythagoras says that in a right angle triangle, the square on the side opposite the right angle, right, is exactly equal always to the squares the sides containing the right angle, that's probable I mean, men who have a theorem named after them, right? Pythagoras is about the only theorem I know really in geometry, right?

[25:23] that is named after somebody right? He's famous this guy, Pythagoras, right? You've got a good philosopher in him too. we got to respect the man, right?

[25:34] What does the word mathematician mean, by the way? As in being a student. Well, it means one fond of learning. It's a synonym for Philomathes, a lover of learning, right? So Plato says that a philosopher must be a Philomathes. So there's a similarity between the word philosopher and the word Philomathes, right? But philosopher is more precise as to what the ultimate goal of all learning is, which is wisdom, right?

[26:07] Which my granddaughter Sophia says is the knowledge of God, right? But in general, you've got to be a Philomathes, a lover of learning, right? To be a what? Philosophers, right?

[26:22] Yeah. So the s the similarity you don't realize that you know. go back to the Greek. So now in the case of the demonstration, the premises are what seem to be necessary, right?

[26:45] And so that's the big difference between them. They differ in their matter, right? And therefore, if you proceed from opinions that are probable, then the conclusion is necessarily probable, right? Because it follows necessarily from the probable opinions, right? But it ain't necessarily so, right? But in demonstration, if it follows necessarily, right? If it has the form of a syllogism, right? The conclusion follows necessarily from the premises.

[27:16] The premises themselves are necessarily true, right? I mean, all of them, right? Then the conclusion is what necessarily true, right? Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of demonstration, right? And we a lot of times use Latin words, but we speak of a demonstration, propter quid, right? Dioti or something like that in Greek, right?

[28:09] Aristotle defines this as a syllogism, making us know the cause and that of which it is a cause, and that it cannot be what otherwise right? It? Must be so, right? Okay.

[28:51] So going back to the theorem that I gave you before, simple enough. Straight lines intersecting is the cause of what? Equality of these angles, right? When you go through the demonstration, you see why those angles must be what? Equal, right? And you know the cause of it: the lines intersecting are straight,

[29:22] and you know that it can't be otherwise now, right? So have these three elements in the what? Definition, the demonstration, propter quid. You're going from cause to what? Effect, right? You know these intersecting lines before you know that these angles must be equal, right? But you reason from the fact that they're straight lines and that they intersect, right? That those angles will be equal, right? So you're reasoning with necessity. From the cause to the effect, right?

[30:04] Now, is that the kind of demonstration you have when you talk about the existence of God in the Summa huh? Like the five ways, of the Summa Theologiae, that you may be acquainted with, right? Is that demonstration properly? propter quid going from cause to effect in that? No Effect to cause Yeah. Aristotle calls that the other kind of demonstration, right? He calls the demonstration "propter quid Latin now Latin English," "quia," right?

[30:40] Meaning that it is so, right? But you're going from the effect to the cause. So the first proof of the existence of God goes from what effect to what cause?

[31:11] You go from motion, right? You go from motion to what? The first mover. To the first mover, the unmoved mover, right? So you're going from the effect to the cause, right?

[31:27] Again, your premises have to be seen as necessarily true, right? So one premise is that everything that is in motion is moved by another, right? And then the other premise is that there can't be moved movers, right? Add infinitum, right? And both those premises are in the proof, right? But aren't we presupposed to it? right They're proven, right? More fully, of course, in Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologiae right?

[32:01] Okay I have a question what is that demonstration? "Quia," "quia. Quia, q-u-i-a." "Q-U-I-A, yeah, Okay, great. Okay. But it's the idea that that is so, right? Okay. But it's, it's basically you're going from the effect to the cause, right? That's the kind of demonstration you have, you know. And the first one is for motion, right? That's kind of striking, you know, because our knowledge starts with our senses, right?

[32:32] And as somebody said, things in motion, as soon as you catch that, and whatnot stirs stirs. So I can't think of a more appropriate thing to reason to from God or reason from to God, right? Than motion, right? It's kind of very, very proportionate to us, non-souls right? Okay.

[32:56] So the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first two arguments are from motion, right? And explained more fully than in the Summa Theologiae. right? Okay. But in both cases, the premises are seen as being necessarily so, right?

[33:29] Now let's go to dialectic here. a little bit more. Let's stick a little bit more here at the. Do you ever hear about the four questions? Do you hear

[33:57] about the four questions? And the four questions come in two pairs, right? Because you can't understand the distinction of four. You've got to have a distinction of two or three, right? It goes without saying Yeah. And in each pair, there's a first question and a second question, And they're proportional.

[34:20] So four questions. This is the question of the mind's really interesting, right? One pair is, does it exist? Okay. And the answer is yes, then the second question arises: what is it?

[35:00] Now, if it's obvious that it exists, you can start right away with the second question, right? So in the third book of Natural Hearing, Aristotle doesn't try to investigate whether motion exists. In the motion, sort of catch the eye of what that says. It's very obvious that motion exists, right? So you might go right away then to the second question, right? But you presuppose that you know that it does exist, right?

[35:30] But if it's not obvious that something exists, you would say, well, does it exist? And do you have a reason for saying so, right? Okay. Okay. Makes sense, right? See the order of those two questions. Now suppose you were out in the street here, you've got somebody to say now. Hey you, do you have a body? What do you say?

[35:59] Yeah, the cause I do, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Do you have a soul? Never saw one. He's not too sure that he has a soul, right? But I'm going to ask now, what is a soul? He's not even sure that he has a soul.

[36:22] Be better to show that one exists, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you might show him, you know, that by the word "soul," right? What do we mean? If you say does the soul exist, you got to have some meaning to the word "soul," right? Otherwise, you're just saying does X exist? Right? Answer the question: Does X exist? Right? Unless you mean the letter X, right? You know.

[36:50] So, what do you mean by the word "soul," right? Well, I would say what you mean by the word "soul" is the source of life in a living body. Now, do

[37:03] living bodies exist? Some bodies, how about? Yeah. Are they alive because of something outside of them that pushes them around, or are they alive because of something inside them? Something inside. Yeah. So the soul is the beginning or cause of life within a living body, and you admit that there is such a thing, right? So now we know the soul does exist, right? And in the plants and in the animals as well as in man, right?

[37:33] Might be differences among these souls, but they all seem to have a soul, right? Moses looking at plants, I tell him that the soul, the plants have soul. A lot of times people, you know, they use the word "soul." They begin with something they've heard, you know, in a confused way, maybe in religion or something, right? Now, Christianity, right? And that's not obviously that exists, right? Some kind of a spiritual thing, you know, goes somewhere up to heaven or hell or something, down to hell or up to heaven at your death, right?

[38:07] It's not just something exists, right? But there's a source of life, right, within living bodies, right? That exists, right? Now, what is that source, right? Okay. So that's the second question, right? Now, so Aristotle goes and asks, "What is the soul?"

[38:27] Now, the other question is, first one, the second is, is this that? That is the first question. Is this that? Okay. You see, I might have a student that comes to me and he he says.

[38:55] I think there's a there's a theorem that says that the the uh, interior angles of a triangle always fit to right angles. Is this that? Are they always equal? I said yeah, yeah, yeah. In make-believing, right? Something, right? Okay. But if he thinks that that is so, right? Then the next question is, why is it so, right? Okay.

[39:27] Is light both particles and waves. Some experiments it behaves like the wave. Other experiments it behaves like a shower of particles. Why is it both?

[39:47] Okay. Um, do trees grow? You think around the campus here or the grounds? Trees grow. Why do they grow? Good question You see Okay, so if this the first question was is this that right? If you don't think that this is that, you don't go and ask why is this that unless you think this is that right? Okay.

[40:15] So why is this that? Those are the four main questions right? The philosopher asks right? Not so much as with who or where or when right? But these are the four great questions. Does something exist? And if it does, what is it? If it's what is this that? Well, if this is that, why is this that?

[41:00] Is he dead? Yes, yes, he's dead. Why, why? Is Seric going to Russia? Yes, yes, he's going definitely. Why? Why is he going to Russia? Okay. Now. Now

[41:22] I kind of suspect that this is the way Albert the Great came to his division of logic into two parts right? Because as you know, if you look at the Thomas's premium, to logic right, and I call the Premium to the Posterior Analytics is a major Premium because it's more expansive right? And then his premium to the Peri Hermeneias. Those are the only two books that he commented on in Aristotle's what organon, right?

[41:54] But Albert the Great is a paraphroxis of all the books there, categories, the Peri Hermeneias, the um, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, and dialectical books and so on.

[42:10] But Thomas has just didn't do the whole commentary on the Peri Hermeneias right? So I had to finish it right. Some student asked me, helping me on some Thomas, generously to help me comment on it.

[42:25] But the most important book in some ways in logic, the Posterior Analytics, he did a whole commentary on the book right? But in both ones he divides logic into what three parts right? The logic of the first act right, the logic of the second act, and the logic of the third act. The first act is what? The first two acts he says, are a kind of understanding, but the first act is understanding what something is.

[42:57] I bet you understand what a square is? on. I bet you understand what a circle, is, huh? Which you understand what a dotter member is. I guess he understands what Marion there, on the, head of the order here.

[43:11] Everybody knows what you member is, right? Okay, but you know, what a primary number is. Okay. that's the first act of reason, right? Understanding what something is, and from the father of logic, that Aristotle is called, right? It's come down to us this book called the Categories, which retains that prior logic, right? Then the second act, right, is understanding the true or the false. Let's take up the statements, right?

[43:38] It's the book that's come down to us from the father of logic, in that which is the Peri Hermeneias. Interpretation, we call it in Latin. And then all the rest of the books are about what the third act, which is what reasoning, right?

[43:57] You've heard of Hugo's definition of reason, right? What's Hugo's definition of reason? Reason is the ability to know what reason is and to order its acts and other. Well, that's not Hugo's definition. That's not Hugo's definition. No, Hugo, Hugo is kind of. plagiarizing, you know, Thomas, right? He says, "Reason is the ability to understand, reason, and direct itself and others, right? " Okay. It's interesting to compare Hugo's definition with Shakespeare's definition, right?

[44:36] There's obviously a connection between Shakespeare saying that reason looks before and after, and that it directs itself, as Hugo says, right, and others, right, because you have to see order to direct things. Okay. And there's a connection, obviously, between reasoning and discourse that Shakespeare talks about, right? Shakespeare doesn't talk about understanding in his definition there, but it's understood, right? Just like when you say looking before and after to understand that he has, what?

[45:06] You know, he looks for distinction, right? And if you have discourse, right, you've got to have something to understand about discourse, right? So there are two kinds of harmonies, right? One is Shakespeare's definition that is Hugo's, right?

[45:24] Hugo is a German word, I guess originally, huh? Hugo's there, it meant bright mind. So we're understanding, right? So, so Hugo's mind thinking about mind. Okay. Okay.

[45:47] But my teacher, I first went to Laval there. We were studying the Isagoge, right? but in Albert's version of the Isagoge, right, his paraphrase, right? And then uh, a little bit of the categories, and so you meet in in those books. Albert's division of logic, right? He divides into two parts, not into three, right? Now, one way of introducing Albert's way of dividing is, you know, why do we need logic, right?

[46:26] Well, because you don't know everything, right? If you knew everything, you would need logic, right? God doesn't need logic, does he? He knows everything. Angels, know everything that they naturally know, right? They don't need logic.

[46:42] So you need logic to come to know what you don't know, right? But you come to what you don't know to what you do know. But there's two kinds of unknown: the simple unknown and the complex unknown, right? And you come to know the simple unknown by definition, and the complex unknown by argument, right? So logic has, or by reasoning, right? So logic has two parts: the art of defining and the art of reasoning, right?

[47:16] Now, in Ostibley's logic book, which my oldest grandchild is using, in college there, in college there, he's still using Ostibley's logic, right? Yeah, at the College of St. Thomas too. He taught at the College of St. Thomas, and he went to Notre Dame. Ostibley did, right? But name of the book is Logic: the Art of Defining Reasoning. So he's following Albert rather than Thomas, right?

[47:44] Well, who's correct, Thomas or Albert? Albert just reasons for both. Yeah, yeah. And that's why I sometimes give as the rule of two or three or both, right? To bring out that it might be you should divide it into two, sometimes you should divide it into three, sometimes you should divide it both into two or three, right? I take my favorite example there from the book on poetic art of Aristotle, right?

[48:15] Where Aristotle does what? When he praises to the sky Homer, he calls Homer the poet by antonomasia. Homer is the poet, right? And he says Homer taught all the other Greeks in what unity of a plot consists. Right. It's not about everything that happened to Patrick, right? Because they might not really, what, fit together, right?

[48:47] There's got to be a course of action that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, right? So Homer taught all the Greeks how to make a good plot. Course of action is beginning, middle, and end. So he's dividing the plot in how many parts? Yeah, makes sense, right? But then another place in the book in the poetic art that says a plot consists of two parts: tying the knots and then what?

[49:18] Untying them. right? People are astounded by the symbolism, right? As to how many knots Shakespeare unties in the last act, right? They keep on getting higher and higher numbers, right? Incredible, man. right? This is a magnificent way of dividing a plot, right? Tying the knots and what? Untying them. So is Aristotle correct in dividing the plot into beginning, middle, and end, which is a division into three or into two: tying the knots and untying the knots.

[49:56] Both, right? No? Okay. All right. take an example. there From logic, you know, somebody comes along and says, "Did you know that one name is sometimes said of many things? Did you know, Bernardo? Huh? Well, isn't man said of all you guys? Isn't chair said? Is the chair the chair? No, I see a lot of chairs here. You got names that are said of many things, don't you?

[50:25] Now, when I say chair of this and this and this, do I have the same meaning in mind? If I call that a chair? and this a chair? and this a chair, right? Now, if I want to brag, that was the chair of my department, you know, for a while there, some of you. Now,

[50:45] was I a chair? Equivocal. Yeah. So sometimes when a name is said of many, like these two, chair is said of these two. and when said of this and the chair?

[51:02] kind of the chair of the congressional committee now, you know, he's got to accuse himself, of all this That's what's going on. But sometimes it has one meaning. Sometimes it has different meanings, right? More than one meaning, right?

[51:18] Now, later on you might come back and say, now when a name is said of many things with more than one meaning, right, this could be sometimes by what chance, right, and sometimes because there is a what connection among the meanings, right? Your body is healthy, right? Your diet is healthy.

[51:45] Is it? Does healthy mean the same thing? No. Is it pretty pretty equivocal? No. So we distinguish equivocal by chance and equivocal by what? Yeah. I kid this student that comes to my Wednesday night class, right? His name is Richard. I say, "my older brother is named Richard. My oldest brother. Why you guys got the same name? " Is there any reason why you're both called Richard?

[52:18] Did someone look at the two and say, "Look at those guys; they're very much alike" or something? They both like Boston. So common. Then we call him Richard, right? I like Boston too. So it's by chance that the student that comes is named Richard, right? and my brother Richard had that same name, right?

[52:45] But when you say that you know, your looks, you look healthy, and you are healthy. Doesn't mean the same thing. does it? Lady of Paris. Lady appears there. I said maybe one. I didn't look at one. I said maybe one.

[53:13] But now sometimes Thomas will divide names said of many into what three. Sometimes he says a name is said of many things with exactly the same meaning when said of each of them. Sometimes with entirely different meanings when said of each of them, right? And sometimes in meanings that are partly the same but partly what different, right? Okay.

[53:41] That makes sense, doesn't it? Like I would say about Shakespeare's plays, some are tragedies, right? And some are comedies, and then some are in the middle, right? And might later on subdivide them into those two kinds, huh? We're seeing forgiveness plays, right? The love and friendship plays, right? So it makes some sense to say sometimes a name is exactly the same instead of both chair chair. Sometimes it means something entirely different, right?

[54:13] Huh? Okay. many examples of that. But sometimes it means things that are partly the same, partly different. So should you divide into two or into three? Both, both, both. Makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah.

[54:43] Okay. So I think that Albert the Great's division makes some sense, right? But since he divides into the art of defining, and it kind of corresponds to the logic of the first act, right? And then he's got to put the what art of reasoning is not only about reasoning itself but about statements which are used in reasoning, right? So he kind of makes the Peri Hermeneias a part of the art of what reasoning, right?

[55:13] As in reasoning you reason from statements to what statements, right? Okay. So and it kind of brings out the usefulness of logic, right? Okay. I kind of suspect that Albert the Great was influenced by this distinction of the four great questions, right?

[55:32] Because what is it is a question about the simple unknown, right? What is the soul, right? What is a perfect number, right? What is a perfect number, you know? So the number is equal to the sum of everything that measures it, right? Why? When you ask why is this that, you're asking about a what composite thing, right? Huh?

[56:04] Is the soul of a dog immortal? No, No, is the soul of man immortal. But why? Why is the soul of man immortal? huh? Why isn't the soul of the dog immortal? Right? Now you're asking about the combination of soul and immortal, right? Why is this that, right? So, in a way, Albert's division of logic corresponds to this distinction here, right? I think that's where he got the idea.

[56:35] Or influenced by that, you know. At least that's my guess, right? But Thomas's distinction makes sense too, right? Okay. Claire. Okay. Secretary. Okay. I told you a joke about living in the office. The office, they're all looked after. My name was Claire, you know. So, she'd be like, "Say Claire, say Claire." And he'd be like, "Something, something, yes, Claire." Yeah. We're all thinking of Claire in the office.

[57:15] Okay. Do you see this? Okay. Now Aristotle makes a beautiful connection between these two. He says, in the, it's a fundamental statement there in the, Posterior Analytics, that a complete definition is a demonstration by a different form.

[57:33] Okay. Let's show how this is so, right? I'm going to make a demonstration on the board, right? A definition is speech signifying what a thing is, right? Remember that definition? A definition speech signifying what a thing is. Yeah. That's my minor premise, right? I'm going to the major premise here.

[58:26] A speech signifying what a thing is is speech composed of a genus and differences. Okay Now, if you lay down those two statements, we'll come back to them. in a minute let's see if they're true or not. right now What conclusion follows necessarily. Well, if a definition is speech signifying what a thing is, and a speech signifying what a thing is is speech composed of a genus and difference, what can you conclude?

[59:23] Definition is? speech composed of genus and difference Yeah Okay The differences or differences? Right. You know. Definition. right spell your things right Okay. Now, When you say that a definition is speech signifying what a thing is, you're talking about the purpose of what a definition, right? Okay. And purpose is one of the four kinds of causes, right? And I'm reasoning from this cause of a definition to kind of the matter, you might say, of a of a what of the speech that is put together from a genus and differences, right?

[1:00:50] Okay. Now, why does speech signifying what a thing is? Why must that be composed of a genus and difference, right? Well, if I was, you know, we're being a little bit dialectical, right? I'd say, you recall a long time ago we defined what a speech is and what it. We defined what a speech is in logic and we defined what the name is, and we spoke about how a what both are vocal sound, right?

[1:01:25] Signifying by custom, right? What is the difference between a name and a and a speech? What is the difference? The name does not have parts that signify by themselves. Yeah. A speech does. Yeah, and these two parts that signify something separately, right? So a definition or a statement we saw was a speech, right? Okay.

[1:01:52] But a name doesn't have parts that signify by themselves. So a name, but a names, but a speech is composed of what names? Okay. Now, if a speech signifies what a thing is, must you then have a name that signifies what the thing is?

[1:02:15] How could a speech, which is composed of names, right, tell you what a thing is if you didn't have a name that signifies what the thing is? Right. Okay. But now they scoffed. They said, "Yeah, stupid Berquist, right? Because if I ask what is a man, right, I got to use a word that signifies what the man is. And what are you? You're a man, right? So a man is a man.

[1:02:45] What the hell is that telling? Yeah. Yeah. You didn't get out. You didn't get out of the starting one. So if I use the name to signify what the thing is, right, I'll be saying a rose is a rose, a square is a square. A man is a man, huh? A syllogism is a syllogism, that's what it is. But if I don't use a name to signify what it is, how will the speech tell?

[1:03:14] How will the definition tell you what the thing is? I'm completely, s- you know, dumbfounded. You want to take that in trouble, right? Do you agree, Mary? Totally. We admit the definition is composed of what? It's a speech that's composed of names, right? But how could it tell us what the thing is if it's not composed of a name to signify what the thing is? But if I take the name, it signifies what a square is.

[1:03:51] I'd be defining a square by square. What's the poet just saying? A rose. is a rose is a rose. He gave up the attempt to try to define a rose, right? It's the rose. Love is love is love.

[1:04:10] But if I don't, if I use a name to signify what the thing is, I'm saying a man is a man, right? A square is a square. If I don't use a name to signify what the thing is, I don't definition really explain what the thing is? I'm stunned.

[1:04:33] Well, What if you have a name, right? that signifies what the thing is, but not as distinctly as the word "man" signifies what man is, right? But it signifies only kind of a general way what a man is, right? That he's an animal, right? Or a name that signifies what a square is, but not in particularly square, but more generally quadrilateral, right? Four-sided plane figure, right? Who are you going to do that for?

[1:05:21] Well, on the one hand, you're what? Using a name that doesn't, some way, signify what it is, which gets around a little bit of the problem, right? But being that says only in general what it is, it's saying what it is in kind of a general way, right? And that's where our mind begins. Our mind knows things in a confused way before distinctly.

[1:05:48] So it knows that this is a what? Four-sided figure before it knows exactly what kind of a four-sided figure it is, right? But then the mind is going from the confused to distinct in an orderly way. So you need a name that does in some way signify what it is, right? Only in general, and that's what you learned in logic there, the Isagoge right? Which you studied a bit late, right?

[1:06:20] It's called genus, right? Genus is the name, right, said with one meaning of many things, other in kind, right, signifying what it is. So it's signifying what it is of these many things, different in kind, but only in general. It says only one meaning, right? And they're different, right? And it says in general what they are, right? Each one of them, right? The category says what a dog is and what a cat is and what a horse is, right?

[1:06:52] But only in general, right? Okay. But it's a good place to begin because we're going from the confused to distinct. So we begin with that kind of thing, right? Genus is the first name. But then to complete the knowledge of what it is, right, you need a name that signifies how it is what it is. And then you learn that. That's Isagoge too, right? Porphyry was a very good friend of ours, right?

[1:07:22] That's called difference, right? Difference is the name of what the species has in addition to the genus, right? Okay. It's the name of what separates species of the same genus, right? So it completes, right, understanding your understanding of what this thing is. In particular, right, but the genus only began your understanding of what it is in kind of general way. Now I solved the problem. I'd seen that was a solvable

[1:07:52] problem there for a while. I was I was going to give up philosophy and everything because you know defining, right? Because I had to have a name that signifies what it is. But if I do that and say a man is a man, doesn't seem to get me anywhere. I didn't realize there could be a name, right, that's closer to me, right? Because I start off being confused at first, right?

[1:08:16] I'm still confused. So if there's a name that signifies in a more confused way, right, the more general way, right, what it is, that's a nice stepping stone for me towards knowing it, right? And I go from a confused knowledge of what a man is and what a square is, you know, to more distinct knowledge, and then have to add names to signify how it is what it is, right?