Logic (2016)
50. Shakespeare's Definition of Reason, Words Equivocal by Reason, and the Fallacy of the Accident
Class of 2017-05-11
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/050-shakespeares-definition-of-reason-words-equivocal-by-reason/

[0:00] Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment. Move us, God, to know and love you. Help us, God, to know and love you. Guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our mind, illuminate our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. And help us to understand all truth. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. I was saying, I was thinking about Shakespeare's definition of reason, right?

[0:35] And can you define reason without words equivocal by reason? Can you? Well, it seemed like every word in the definition of reason is equivocal by reason. The first word in the definition of reason is that it's an ability, right? And ability has many senses. Aristotle, in the ninth book of wisdom, he takes up the abilities for motion first, and there's even many kinds of ability for motion—the ability to be moved, right—and the ability to move something, right?

[1:14] Two different abilities, right? And then there's the rational ability and the natural ability to move. So he's distinguishing all kinds of senses of abilities. Reference to motion, and then the second part of the ninth book of wisdom, he brings out other senses of act besides motion, and then other senses of ability, right? So, oh my God, right? What sense of ability does Shakespeare have in mind, right?

[1:48] Well, this might be the ability to do something, right? Okay, so you got a word equivocal by reason there, ability. And then he goes to what? The second word in the definition, it's ability for discourse, right? And discourse has more than one meaning. It can mean running from one thing to another, right? Or it can mean coming to know what you don't know to what you do know, right?

[2:16] At least those two senses. So that word is equivocal by reason, and in both senses, reason is an ability for. Then you have large, right? Reason is capable of a large discourse, and that can mean a discourse that covers a large area because it's about the universal, or it can mean a discourse about something great, like a discourse about the soul, which is a great discourse, right?

[2:48] Because the soul is a best thing here in this material world, or a discourse about the angels, or ultimately a discourse about God Himself, huh?

[2:59] Then you come to the word looking. Well, that looking can mean the act of the eye. It can mean the act of the memory or imagination. It can also mean the act of reason. So that's a word equivocal by reason. And then finally, you have the word what? Looking before and after. And we know from the categories of Aristotle that the word before is equivocal by what?

[3:24] Reason, right? So it seems you can't define reason without words that are equivocal by reason, huh? But now does Shakespeare in defining reason tell you what it is to use reason, and in particular, what it is to use reason for how you use reason to know a word equivocal by reason.

[3:51] Well, you have to run from one of these meanings to another meaning, right? To start to understand the word, right? Okay. Before can mean before in time, right? Can mean before in being. Can mean before in the discourse of reason. Can mean before in goodness, right? Can mean the way the cause is before in effect, right? So I can run from one of these meanings to another.

[4:17] But in a word equivocal by reason is distinguished from a word equivocal by chance. There's an order among the meanings, right? And therefore, you have to look before and after. Interesting, right? You can't define reason like Shakespeare does without using all these words equivocal by reason. But his definition also tells you how to use your reason to understand these words equivocal by reason. Isn't that tied very nicely, right?

[4:47] Right. Because you have to run from one sense to another. It's kind of beautiful, and then you have to look before and after, right? And when Thomas is in the fourth book of Aristotle's Natural Hearing, the Physics, and Aristotle distinguishes eight senses, eight central or chief senses, I call them, of in or to be in, right?

[5:15] Well, Thomas of course runs from one sense to another, right? But Aristotle hasn't ordered them except to say that the first meaning is what to be in this room, right? To be somewhere. And then Thomas does what? He looks before and after and orders them from the first to the eighth sense, right? One, two, three, they're all, in perfect order, perfect order, right? So he's following. He's using his reason, right, Aristotle or and Thomas, to what?

[5:43] Go from one sense of in or to be in to another sense of to be in, and then looking before and after to order those senses, huh? It's kind of marvelous, huh? So maybe that's why Shakespeare could write that because he followed Aristotle and St. Thomas. Or else he had natural genius, right? It could be that. so. Now you could also run to the highest perfection of reason, which is called what?

[6:12] Wisdom, right? And the discourse of the wise man, right, is the largest discourse of all. Both in the sense that it's about the what? Universal, because it's about the most universal. It's about being and one, which are said of everything of everything, right? So it's the largest discourse of any in that sense, but also in the sense of the better things, right? The discourse of the wise man is about what?

[6:50] Separated substances and ultimately about God, right? So he's got the largest discourse of anybody, the wise man. And he especially looks before and after his Aristotle said, right? Sapientis est ordinare right? And Thomas gives us the reason why the wise man, most of all, sees order or considers order, is because he's the highest. His wisdom is the highest perfection of what? Reason. But it fits exactly Shakespeare's what?

[7:22] Definition. It also reminds us of the importance now of words equivocal by reason, right? You can't understand them without following Shakespeare's definition of reason, and you can't understand or make the definition without using such words, right? But then when you get into statements, right, and we talked before of how some statements are known through other statements, but then we ask, can all statements be known through other statements?

[7:55] No. Ask the question again. Yeah. We know some statements through other statements, but are all statements known through other statements? If every statement was in need of being known through other statements, you'd never know any statement. Because any statement you use, right, to know something, some statement, you'd have to know them first, right? And before you can know them, you have to know other ones. So what?

[8:26] Ad nauseam, right? Just saying that. Yeah. So there must be some statements that are known to themselves, right? But what about the words in these statements that are known through themselves? What are called axioms, right? Statements that are known to themselves in some way by all men, right? Can you state these statements without words equivocal by reason?

[8:57] Well, the the most common example of an axiom that you always give is the whole is more than a part, right? And are the words whole and part equivocal or equivocal? Equivocal by reason, right? Remember how I was playing the sophist there with my students? I mentioned the assumption, and I start off in a nice folksy way by saying that I said one day that man is an animal.

[9:25] My mother says that doesn't sound good, Duane. She never went to college, but it doesn't sound good. I said, well, he's not just an animal; he's an animal that has reason. She says, well, that's better, Duane. She says.

[9:39] And so I said, animal is only part of what man is. Okay, and then I said, but animal includes besides man, dog, cat, horse, elephant. So sometimes the part is more than the whole. Oh, oh, oh! if I can prove myself, so it must be true, so it must be true. No, but I mean it seems like you know. Sometimes it is right. Well, you're mixing up two different senses, right?

[10:04] A whole, the whole that is put together from its parts, the composed whole, the integral whole, as they call it sometimes. And then the universal whole, right, which is not put together from its parts, but set of them. They're called subject parts for that reason, right? And the composed whole is more than one of its parts. It's composed of more than one of its parts. And universal whole is set of more than one of its parts.

[10:35] But they're not the same sense of whole, in fact, right? So even to understand, as that's always a common example of an axiom, right? It's so easy to say, right? Everybody knows what a whole and part is with, you know, because there's quantitative wholes and so on. And so everybody knows that axiom, but even the students don't realize maybe at first that these words are what equivocal by reason.

[11:00] If you take the axiom which Aristotle says is the natural beginning of all axioms, that something can't both be and not be at the same time in the same way. Well, of course, the word "being" is most very equivocal by reason, right? Huh? That's kind of amazing, right? You can't understand the most definitions, right, without words equivocal by reason. Certainly, the definition of reason you can't, and you can't even state the axioms without words equivocal by reason.

[11:29] But you can't understand words equivocal by reason, whether they're in definitions or in statements, without what running from one sense to another sense, at least the chief senses, and looking before and after that Shakespeare said. What a marvelous man that Shakespeare was, huh? But it also helps you to know what wisdom is, right? Wisdom is the highest perfection of reason. You shouldn't be surprised that it's about the most universal things that are said of all, but also about the best things, right?

[12:05] That the wise men will be looking for order and ordering things, more than anybody else, right? It's a marvelous definition of reason, right? Much more impressive than Hugo's definition, I think. Not the Hugo's definition is thought. No, no, man, but yeah. But this is kind of marvelous, this one here.

[12:35] Never heard the modern philosophers talking about words being equivocal by reason. I don't think they talk about reason. Yeah. I always give the example, you know, that when I was a student at Laval University there, in the library there, there were bound copies of all the theses that people had gotten doctorates from, you know, I mean the masters too, you know, the doctor theses. And sometimes you'd go and look at one of these theses if you're interested in the topic of it, right?

[13:03] And Everybody was interested in Marxism at the time because of the Cold War and so on, right? And I remember going reading one of the theses on Marxism, you know. Well, what's the official name of Marxist philosophy? Oh. Dialectical materialism. Yeah, yeah. Materialism means that matter is the beginning of all things, and dialectical means that things develop out of matter by the war of the opposites, right?

[13:32] So opposites are what altogether essential for Marxist philosophy, right? It's one of the two pillars, you might say, right? Matter is the beginning of everything, and everything else develops out of matter through the conflict of opposites.

[13:49] Well, the word "opposite" is what equivocal by reason, and the Marxist never distinguishes the senses, right? Aristotle does in the Categories, huh? Before we get to the word "before," right? He takes up the word "opposite" and distinguishes between, you know, contradictories and contraries and having and lacking, and then relatives, right? And well, it's something so fundamental for the Marxist philosophy, right? They shouldn't have been aware of the fact that the word "opposites" are what.

[14:22] Yeah, yeah. I mean, they might use the word "contradiction," you know, for any kind of opposition, you know, even you know, contraries and so on. So this this is ignorant ignorant men, you know. And Aristotle realized, you know, that these common words, especially right. Shakespeare's a large discourse, you know. You very often it's the common words that have these senses of being equivocal by reason, right? Like "before," I think, very common words, huh?

[14:55] So that's marvelous, marvelous. Shakespeare's a wise man, right? He's really wiser than the modern philosophers. And more entertaining right? So we should look today a little bit at fallacy, the accident. Everybody have anything? No. Which one to see? Which one? The one of the fallacy accident proper. Fallacy accident, the one that you got here. The one I just handed out to you the other day. Now this is the first of the kinds of fallacies outside of what language. Right now, and you want to take these up kind of one by one because it's very hard to understand the distinction of these kinds of fallacies.

[15:53] So, I start off here with a quote from my teacher in logic, Albert the Great, and here is a commentary in all these books of the.

[16:11] I say go I mean at the statistical computations Yeah, yeah, but also the other books of Aristotle, right? But notice he says here the fallacy of the accident is before all the others, right? In the order of fallacies, right?

[16:31] As fallacies are, because plus habet, it has more of the power, right? The virtute decipiendi, right? Okay. So, this is a very important one, right?

[16:50] Now, a little text here from Thomas Aquinas in the eleventh book after the books of natural philosophy, the eleventh book of wisdom, there being fourteen books of wisdom. He'll touch upon the strength of this fallacy, right?

[17:12] Thomas says, "No science which is truly science and has certitude considers about being per accident." Now, what does that mean? What does the the arithmetician uh consider about the number two? does he talk about there being two chairs, two eyes.

[17:55] He talks about what belongs to two as such, right? Now, some things belong to two as such because they pertain to what two is. So he considers that two is a number. He considers that two is what an even number, right? He considers that two is a prime number, right? Only even prime number What? The only even prime number. Yeah, yeah. He also considers that two is half of four, maybe, and a third is six, right?

[18:32] Because it belongs to two as two to be half of four, right? To be a third of six, right? Huh? Or the geometer, right? He considers what belongs to triangle as such, right? Well, some things belong to triangle such that it has what three sides, right? Okay. That it's a continuous quantity, right?

[19:00] And then he starts to show properties of triangle, right? So it belongs to triangle such to have three angles inside, right? And those three angles to be equal to two right angles. Proposition thirty-two in first book of Euclid's Elements, right? Euclid of Alexandria. Well that's memorable because there's three angles inside equal to two right.

[19:29] Yeah, my mind divides. Yeah, yeah. It's like you start by remembering the first book of of what Summa Conjectura is that Thomas takes up the perfection of God starting in chapter twenty-eight, which is a second perfect number. Perfect number. Okay.

[19:47] So he considers that the triangle such is a rectilineal plane figure, right? Huh? Contained by three sides, right? But also these properties like it has its interior angles to two right angles. Does he say anything about triangles being green or about triangles being pink? You know, talk about pink now. Woman's dressing, yeah. And well, why? Well, it's accidental to triangle, right? It doesn't belong to triangle. Per se, you might say, in Latin huh?

[20:23] To itself, right? Now, what do you mean when something belongs to triangle to itself? Well, you mean through being triangle, right? It belongs to triangle through being triangle to have three sides, right? It belongs to triangle as such to be what a surface, right? Huh? Plane. Belongs to triangle as such to have interior angles to right angles, but it don't belong. It don't belong. Doesn't belong to triangle as such to be green or purple.

[20:56] Yeah, yeah. What's the Thomas is saying, huh? No science which is very truly science, right? And has certitude considers about being per accidens but only sophistic negotiates about it, right? And it uses it to what deceiving, right? And then what is per accidens It uses as if it were per se. Okay. Some people can't see the distinction between per se and per accidens huh? Shakespeare touched upon accident when he said reason looks before and after, right?

[21:40] Because there's an axiom about what before and after. That nothing is before or after itself, right? Okay. It's like the axioms of beginning and end. Nothing is a beginning of itself. Is it?

[22:07] Can something be beginning of itself? Can something be an end of itself? Some people, you wonder. Yeah, you're your worst enemy, huh? But you know, when Thomas takes up, you know, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, in the first book, he considers God what in himself or by himself, right? And then in the second book, he considers God as a beginning, and the third book, God is the end, right?

[22:39] And but what is either beginning, the end of himself? Everything other than himself. Yeah. So nothing is the beginning of itself, right? You know, when Parmenides and Melissus, you know, in the first book of Physics, are talking about what

[23:03] there'd be no multiplicity, right? Aristotle says they're doing away with beginnings, right? Because nothing is the beginning of itself, right? So they have the axiom of of before and after that nothing is before or after itself, right? You see Thomas using that sometimes in the thing, right? Nothing is hey what cause of itself, right?

[23:38] Can God have a beginning? Well, it'd be either himself, right, or something else that is causing his beginning. If something else causes a beginning, he wouldn't be the first cause, would he? And he can't be the beginning of himself because nothing is the beginning of itself, Thomas says. Okay. So if you can't see certain distinctions, you're going to be deceived, right? You can't see the different senses of the word, right?

[24:11] You know, it's a beautiful objection to creation. Is creation to to create is that to be a cause in some way? I think so. It's a cause of creature, right? Okay. But there are four senses of cause: matter, form, mover, and end. Which of these are going to reduce being a creator?

[24:45] Yeah, yeah. And so sometimes we see in scripture, you know, God made heaven and earth, right? It's not making in the way we make, of course. Or we have to have some material like wood to make a table or wood to make a chair, wooden chair, right? Huh? But God, you know, creates without any what matter, yeah, yeah. Okay. Now it is injection, right? Huh?

[25:17] Could God create something that's not able to be? No. So whatever He created must have been able to be. So it wasn't nothing, then, was it? So God's just like us, you know. No, I, you know, you you do some carpentry, I guess, right? I mean this, yeah. So, um uh but you needed something that was able to be a table or a chair, right? And wood is able to be, right?

[25:54] These things. So God must have, you know. In a pile of stuff. Yeah, You're mixing up two different senses of ability, right? Because when you say that

[26:08] God couldn't make something that was not able to be, able to be means what? It doesn't involve a contradiction. See, could God make a a square circle? Because that's not able to be; it involves a contradiction, right? So whatever God created must have been able to be, not that it had some kind of matter that was able to be created into something, right? You are mixing up two different senses of ability.

[26:42] It's very hard to see that distinction of those two senses of ability. But you are mixing up those two senses: the sense in which matter you can say wood is able to be a wooden table or a wooden chair, right? Where it is really something, or it has a little bit of being, right? See. But when he said

[27:05] God is is omnipotent, right? Now, well, that doesn't mean that he can make something that involves what contradiction. So he can't make a even number that is odd. Parallel lines indeed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the models that do that, right? Non-Euclidean geometry. But they're not really parallel lines, right?

[27:37] I remember years ago, I heard some of these arguments about certain limitations on God or certain things that God couldn't do, and it was just a very sort of a very shallow surface sort of thing. I didn't hear too much about it, but is it true to say that that the way the Lord made creation that certain things just aren't possible because it's His will? As far as I don't know that it would ever be possible for there to be a square circle or.

[28:09] No, no. But there is an opposition between that and being, right? Now. Yeah. A square can't be a circle. Right. So, as far as that is not that God is limited; it's just that God. That's not something. That's not something. That's not something, right? It's nothing. Square circles, nothing. Right. And nothing is impossible with God. But the mind, often times, will say somebody can't see a distinction, right?

[28:46] Now, you know, I was reading the. Beautiful chapter there, sixteen of the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? And this is the chapter where Thomas brings out very forcefully, right, that God is pure act, right?

[29:03] Well, then in the second part of the chapter, he talks about the mistake of David David of Dinant, who said that God is what the first matter, right? And they can't differ by what anything, right? Because then they would be what composed, right? Okay. So an odd number differs from an even number, not by being a number, but the one is what divisible into equal parts, and the other is not, right?

[29:38] So there'd have to be some difference to separate God from what first matter, right? And Thomas says, well, David doesn't know the difference between what a difference and a what diversity, right? And because God is pure act, and the first matter is pure passive ability, right? They have nothing in common, so they're not the same thing. It's not that they have something. When you have a difference, though, you have something in common, right?

[30:10] They come together in some way, and then there's some difference that separates them, right? And the word difference in Greek is what diaphora, which means to what carry apart, right? So you carry apart things that are together in some way, right? So if you put me and the dog together because we're both animals, right? What carries us apart? Well, I'm two-footed and he's four-footed, right? Huh? Yeah.

[30:42] Simple way, right? He's a four-footed animal, I'm a two-footed animal. Well, you prefer wine, he likes just water. Yeah. yeah. You're a philosopher and he's just a wannabe philosopher. Yeah, yeah. But Aristotle usually defines man in metaphysics as two-footed animal, you know. Okay.

[30:59] Yeah, yeah. So you have to have something to carry us apart because we're both animals, me and the dog. You know, I got a little distracted today. I had to do some lawn mowing, so I'm sitting down and feeling kind of tired. There was a magnificent squirrel up in the tree there in the backyard, you know. And we got pretty tall trees there in the backyard, huh?

[31:22] And I was watching, you know, just looking at the window there because I was kind of resting there between my jobs, and uh, you know the squirrel's coming down the tree like that, you know. And my mind goes, you know, a cat can't do that, you know, that they're not going to do that claws, you know, on that tree, and but then as I was watching him coming down, and there's kind of these like oh, these split trees, you know, got like this, and there's distance between like this, he jumps from here or to there.

[31:48] We're high. I mean, he's gonna he's gonna get squashed if he falls down, but is he? was he? was he? you know? So short of himself. Yeah. he's got kind of, I said, even in the squirrel, I used to kind of dislike squirrels because they look, they remind me of a mouse or a rat or something. You know? And I said, you know, even in the squirrels, I have something to admire you know?

[32:15] So, you know, we have to have something in common before we can have a diaphora or difference and lack of the same same etymology, right? phora, you know, phora, which means carry, right? And and then what? Apart, diaphora, right? You know, like metaphor means about carry over, right? But this means carry apart, diaphora, right? So one of the five predicables, right, is what? Diaphora, right? Yeah. There's nothing that carries apart, man, and what?

[32:52] I mean, God rather and first matter. See, there there are other by themselves, right? Because the one is pure act and the other is pure ability. So nothing in common. That's diversity. Yeah. and so he didn't see that, right?

[33:13] But, you know, if you talk about you know the difference between say an odd number and even number, right? Well, because the even number is divisible into two equal parts, and the odd number is not divisible into parts. That carries them apart, right? Separates them, right? And now if you say, what separates divisible into equal parts and not divisible into equal parts? Is some further difference that separates them?

[33:44] Do they have a difference? Separates them, carries them apart. I don't I don't know No, what? They're they're what? Separate by themselves because the one. Is not the other Yeah.

[34:02] So because David did not couldn't see this distinction between difference and diversity, right? Between things that are carried apart by some difference from. Yeah. Yeah. Because you wouldn't carry things apart unless they were somewhere together, right? And then things are nowhere together, right? So you couldn't see that distinction, right? Well, people have a hard time seeing the distinction between the Peripatetic and the Cartesian sometimes, right? Who sees this?

[34:37] No, Sir Thomas says now, right? If you're saying that thing about science, sola sophistica. He's busy about this, right? Huh? And for deceiving he uses what is per accidens as if it were per se. We can't see that, right? Whence there comes about the fallacy of the accident, right? Which is the first one outside of speech, which is saying the same thing like Albert, efficacissima, most efficacious to deceiving.

[35:08] Even the wise men is what Aristotle says, right? Even the wise men deceived by this. Oh my God! What about the rest of us? As is said in the first book of the Helen Coram. Now take this example at the bottom of the page here, right?

[35:35] The singular is understood. I Understand. what you are there over there, you're a man. So singular is understood, and what is understood is universal. Therefore, the singular is universal.

[35:58] Mistake by the accident, right? For the material singular as such is not what understood. Strange thing. I take the example here after this second text from Albert the Great. He's talking about there being a defect of the middle term, right?

[36:32] Socrates is a man. True enough, right? And man is a species. True enough. Therefore, Socrates is a species. That's perfect. syllogism Plain as the words on the page. Yeah, yeah. You say A is B and B is C, then A must be C, right?

[37:00] What's wrong with that? It's just perfect syllogism as far as I can see. Right? What's wrong with that? Take another one example of this.

[37:20] Is a cat an animal? Yes or no. You admit that cat is an animal. You're not going to go back on that now, are you? Okay. Now, animal said a dog. Yes or no? Yes, Your Honor. Okay. So you said a cat is an animal, and now you're admitting that animal said a dog. So therefore, a cat is what said a dog. You just proved that a dog is a cat.

[37:48] It's necessary that the cat is what. It's necessary it's an animal. Yeah, there's nothing accidental about that, is there? The cat is an animal. That is altogether firm, right? Sure, Yeah. And you also admit that animal said a dog. Yes. Well, if a cat is an animal, an animal said a dog, then cat must be said a dog. You've just proven beyond a doubt that a dog is a cat.

[38:19] Like propositions, necessary, right? That's my own invention or discovery or thought, or maybe it isn't, but it's kind of it's kind of my own. I don't remember seeing it so explicitly, but I think the fallacy of the accident, right? Most of all, deceives us, right? When it's there necessarily, right? See. Necessarily, the cat is an animal. That statement is not contingent, right? Like the cat is brown or something, right?

[38:51] That'd be contingent, right? Cat can be brown, it can be some other color too, right? But a cat must be an animal. This is firm, right? An animal must be said of dog, right? That's also necessary isn't it? Therefore, a cat must be said of dog. You're not even logical. You see? You can't do. That's how we we do it, right? I mean, Aristotle himself said in the categories, right?

[39:21] If substance is said of animal, and animal is said of dog, then substance must be said of dog, right? The dog is an animal. Animal is a substance. Then a dog must be right. If three is a odd number, and odd number is a number, then three must be a what? Yeah, you can't deny reason.

[39:48] Okay. So um, if uh, Marin is a man, and man is said of Michael, then Marin must be said of Michael. Michael's Marin I know you guys have been great about you. So you got some guy just learned all about the syllogism, right? And you know, C is B and B is A, therefore C is A, right? This is perfect. This is a perfect argument, right? And it's very hard to what?

[40:28] Yeah. What's what's the fallacy in this argument? Why isn't uh, Michael Marin or vice versa? There's some- there's some change going on there in the middle the middle term. Mhm.

[40:45] Exactly. how- how- can you express it in words? See, this is most efficacious for deceiving you. It's very slippery. Huh? And why is animal said of cat? Because animal is said of dog. That's why it's said of cat. The same genus, I guess you'd say. Yeah. But is animal said of cat? because animal said of dog.

[41:25] No. No. That's kind of accidental, isn't it? Animal is said of cat because the cat is a living body with sensation, right? That's what an animal is. Plant is a living body without sensation, right?

[41:52] So is a cat an animal because animals said a dog? It's accidental, right? What else is said of right? So it's being said of cat. It's not said of cat because it's said of dog. It's said of cat because the cat is a living body with sensation.

[42:26] We're not saying animal of cat, so we can say said a dog a cat, right? Neither dog necessarily said a dog, right? And cat is necessarily also an animal. That's a very subtle thing, right? And see how people can be taken in by that sort of thing.

[43:01] You know what square is? Yeah. Is a square a definition? Do you know what a square is? Is a square a definition? I'm going to make you eat your words now. I'm kind of hungry.

[43:24] A square is a equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. Okay. You admit that? I'm not going to go back on you now. you admit that. No change of mind. Okay. Now it's equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral square. I mean, definition rather.

[43:44] Yes. And you said a square is that, and that is a definition? So now you're just going to be forced to admit that a square is a what? Definition. No. No, you are.

[44:00] I just realized, of course, you'd be most pleased. Aristotle named his basic work in logic the Categories, not the dog categories. Don't tell me.

[44:14] You see, isn't it necessarily true the square is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral? Yes. Okay. And is it necessarily true they're right-angled and right-angled and equilateral? Right. Quadrilateral is a definition, right? Yes. Is the definition of a square. Yeah. So if the square is that, and that is a definition, then the square is a definition, obviously, right?

[44:43] Well, if I said to you, you know, a square is a quadrilateral, right? And quadrilateral is a plane. rectilineal plane figure, right? Then wouldn't you admit that the square is a rectilineal plane figure, Okay. Why don't you admit then that the square is a definition? Because you say it's this, which is a definition, and therefore it is a definition, right? Don't you admit that the square is equilateral right-angled quadrilateral?

[45:14] No. And don't you admit that equilateral right-angled quadrilateral is a definition? Yeah. Therefore, the square must be a definition. Hmm? There's a accidental, uh, something pseudo equivocation. Yeah, but it's kind of hard to see what it is. What's wrong, with that? It seems to me to be a real syllogism, doesn't it? Do you? It has a likeness to syllogism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, with Socrates and species and all that, there is the singular and the universal.

[45:54] Yeah. Yeah. And there is an element of that. Not saying this is the solution, but that the definition is a universal definition. You could be speaking of a universal square or or an individual square. Yeah. This is not the way that this is not the answer I think you are looking for, and it may not even be valid. But it would be hard to state, like, what's wrong with this argument, right?

[46:20] Because it does seem to have the form of syllogism, right? You know. But is equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral said of square because it is a definition,

[46:41] or because it expresses the nature? Yeah. Expresses what it is, right? But not because it's a definition. It's hard to get hold of, right? Okay.

[47:04] So it's kind of accidental to the reason why it's said that, right? You know. It seems, you know, to be necessarily so, right? Very, very hard to to avoid that. There is a lot of equivocation then in the political discourse of the day. I think in cultural discourse, a lot of accidental fallacies. Would you? Do you think that's true? What? Do you think there is a lot of this fallacy in public discourse?

[47:36] of cultural and political matters Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Especially you know, to these more universal things, right? Okay. Now take a take um take another kind of example here. Um.

[47:54] Did you become a monk? Yes. Thanks to God. Now, if you become a monk, then you are a monk, right? Okay. So if you put the soft butter into the refrigerator, it becomes what? Hard. Yeah. Can you admit that something becomes something? It isn't, right? So now you admit that the soft has become hard, and therefore the soft must be hard. So you are

[48:36] admitting that the soft can be hard. What's a contradiction? Sounds like yeah, here we mixed up. The soft can be hard, you're saying. Yeah. Where it can become hard. Well, the reason it's becoming hard, you admit that you put the butter in the refrigerator, the soft becomes hard, right? Right. Or if you take something, you take the refrigerator in the butter out of the refrigerator, it'll be soft, right?

[49:05] So sometimes the soft becomes hard, and sometimes the hard becomes soft, right? Right. And what does the word "becomes" mean? Comes to be. Yeah. So it comes to be. So if the soft comes to be hard, then the soft is hard. No it's coming to be hard Yeah, but you admit that the thing that comes, you came to be a monk. You now are a monk, aren't you?

[49:31] Well, then if the butter, if the soft became hard, the soft now is hard. Same thing as you, right? Just because you're, you know, you think it's better to be a monk than to be hard. You know. It's trying to butter me up.

[49:45] But I think it's the fact that instead of butter, it's not the, excuse me, the softness is accidental. Yeah, it's the butter as such that became hard. And it became soft. No, softness. Yeah, yeah. But you take this one example. I say if you put the butter in the icebox to you know refrigerator, always I call icebox. It's a horrible fight we have about this all the time.

[50:12] Always called it icebox, and she calls it refrigerator all the time. East is east, west is west. Yeah. But the soft becomes hard. That's accidental, right? It's the butter as such that becomes hard. See? Yeah. And but soft belongs to the butter before it becomes hard, right? So what happens to the butter before it is hard? Is said to be what becomes hard, right? So you're kind of putting the soft, which is accidental.

[50:59] It's not the soft that really becomes hard. The soft is lost. The softness is lost when it becomes hard. And but if you think of the soft as what what becomes hard, then it seems that the soft now has come to be hard. Just like he's come to be, you know.

[51:22] I came to be married, so I'm married. So if the soft became hard, the soft must now be hard, right? But you're confusing the. But Heraclitus speaks as if one opposite is the other, right? Because change is always between opposites, huh? And in change, one opposite becomes the other, right? But here you're speaking what? Cratylians, right? So, in the first book of Natural Hearing, the first book of the so-called Physics of Aristotle, right, he's distinguishing between what really becomes the opposite, right, which is the subject underlying the other opposite, right, but not the other opposite as such, right?

[52:10] But since the butter was soft before it became hard, it seems like the soft has become hard, right? And we would speak that way, wouldn't we? The soft becomes hard, huh?

[52:26] Cold becomes hot, right? The young become old. The healthy become sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the healthy sometimes are sick, right? And the sick become healthy, so the sick are healthy and the healthy are sick. That's kind of an argument from the accidental, right?

[52:51] And yet, seems there's some kind of necessity there, though, isn't it, right? Because only thing could become hard is something that is what soft. If you're already hard, you can't become hard, right? But you have to be soft to become hard, right? So it seems what per se because it seems to be what necessary, right?

[53:13] And if I say, you know, four is necessarily a what number, right? That seems to be per se, doesn't it? Four is necessarily what? Even number. Yeah, four is necessarily double of two. Four is necessarily half. What seems to be necessary seems to be per se, right? Aristotle talks about this, right? In in the Posterior Analytics, he talks about demonstration, right? If you're trying to show that something is what necessarily so, right, it's going to have to be per se, right?

[53:53] Well, what becomes hard must necessarily be soft. What becomes hot must necessarily be cold or lukewarm or something like that, right? And so it seems to be what per se, right? It seems to me that the accidental deceives people most of all when it is what some kind of necessity there, right? Just like another example now, where we say

[54:21] Michael is a man. Man is said of you, right? Bernardo. Bernardo, yeah. And therefore, Michael is said of Bernardo, yeah. Yeah. Well, Michael is necessarily a man, and man is necessarily said of Bernardo. Therefore, Michael is necessarily said of. Why not? Seems like a perfectly valid syllogism, right? Can't you follow an argument? What's the matter with you? You sleep?

[55:02] See how this can get very. So the. man is not said of Michael because he's Michael No I was rereading the Veritati there. Thomas was talking about the justification of the impious, right, huh? You know, and

[55:37] what comes first, you know. It's a time in which he's he's what turned away from God, right? Huh? And then a time when he's turned towards God, right? Huh? And the end of the time in which he's turned he's turned away from God, and beginning of the time when he's turned towards God are they the same?

[56:14] Well, then there's a time in between which he's neither turned away from God nor turned towards God. Is that possible? No, because then he can turn away from his sin without grace, right? He doesn't have grace yet. What's the solution to that? right? There's no time in between. Yeah.

[56:43] But is there a last instant in which he's turned away from God? Or is there just a first instant in which he is turned towards God, right? But if you think you know, that's a different. There's a last instant which he is turned away from God.

[57:06] Either you say that the same instant, in which case he's turned away from God and turned towards God. Yeah, which is a contradiction, right? Or else, not. It can't be the last, the same instant, right? Therefore, there must be some time in between, in which case he's what no longer turned away from God, so he doesn't need grace to turn towards God to turn away from his sin, right?

[57:30] You see a very different problem.