13. Aristotle's Theory of Language

okay we are looking at aerosol yesterday I gave you what is probably the most tedious part to the discussion of Aristotle the ten categories but you all have it down and you will have it mastered by this Friday because I will be asking you to regurgitate a little of that data on a test that I will be giving you at that time and as I told you I'll give you Thursday to get ready for that on Friday and all there shouldn't be any big surprises on it I think you'll be able to see there the one thing that I want you to get from Aristotle I touched on it yesterday but please understand this that we have these two ways of thinking we were sort of getting to this at the end of the period deduction induction I don't know that we quite clarified it sufficiently by the end of our conversation but I think we were getting there I think Matthew was commenting on the angry look on Trevor's face or some such thing wasn't that where we left it off yeah and I was trying to reconstruct Matthew's observation in the form of a deductive solid ISM and I think Josiah took a run at it and got a solis somewhere down the road but give me the standards deductive syllogism if you're just taking philosophy 101 or logic 101 more likely and the prop is going to get up and try to explain deduction so who knows the standard deductive syllogism usually always is the point where you start a conversation on deduction and a I'm going to know it J if they be well yeah that is not exactly what I'm after I fear that's a fine answer that's more reasoning by implication but it's a little bit different it's it actually is a form of that but but you know all men are mortal younger time what is that Steven men are mortal so it really does raise the question how he's lived so long so who knows but we'll assume that for the sake of this all been immortal mr. Gore's a man mr. Gore's mortal would it also be would it follow every if all men are mortal and mr. gore is mortal but mr. Gore's therefore a man does that fall no that is a fallacy right and so you all you and you study that you've all done this little exercise and much more complicated things now every deductive syllogism like this depends on the say this metal object depends however on a certain degree of induction so where does the induction show up the lies behind this deductive syllogism where do you see induction going on with respect to the syllogism Megan in the first premise it's saying it's thinking an individual thing like a man and they're getting a more general conclusion from it in a sense yeah that's right okay can we clarify that's pretty good to start we're gonna stay you had your hand up I saw two like two tonight so what were you thinking we start a general statement right so that's that is deduction when you start with the general move to the particular that is deductive so you think of deduction kind of like a funnel going down to a particular point broad statement all that immortal particular conclusion mr. Gore's more I was trying to come up with a clever deductive comment to make about all Dupre's or something you know but I couldn't come up with anything good yeah so well tell me my son are you tardy this morning yeah our users gonna admit it right up front their yard it's always nice so thank you Alicia for adjusting that induction moves in the opposite direction you start with individual observation and move to generalizations my question is in what sense to use the induction at work in this little syllogism where is the induction happening there's at least two examples here of induction mr. Dougan where is induction happening in this syllogism I never looked at despair on his face Laura can you help them out where is there and it's actually much more obvious than probably most of you are thinking can't think that Sarah that's one point where we're doing induction where's the other point that all that are mortal how did we come to the conclusion that all men are mortal did that just come to us in a dream how do you make that you know generalization you do it by looking at men you go out into the world and you start looking at individual men maybe maybe a hundred thousand of them you know then eventually they all die and so you say to yourself hmm I've seen a hundred thousand men I noticed that in each and every case they die and I'm going to generalize from that something that is much bigger than my observations I'm going to leap from a hundred thousand individual men to all men right that's induction I go out I look at ten swirls I see ten squirrels have bushy tails and by an inductive generalization I say hmm I saw ten squirrels with bushy tails I'm going to generalize from that all squirrels have bushy tails so that when I say you know that Ben there's a squirrel not this big I can safely conclude what Kayla who better not this better right y'all see that every you know kind of exercise of knowledge you might say it's going to be a mix of induction and deduction that would be disputed by some but as a general rule it's taken the beef the way it has to be and so when we look at Aristotle Aristotle thinks that Plato has put too much emphasis on deduction and is really ignored the vast underpinnings of deduction that requires a certain degree of induction so that's really what he is emphasizing that Aristotle doesn't despise deduction he likes it and he's very much a champion of deductive reasoning but he thinks we need to face the music to do any kind of deduction correctly we have to acknowledge that there's a little bit of induction going on the great exception to that rule the one probably most conspicuous exception to that rule the guy who thinks you can do pure deduction you don't need any induction at all you can basically start with pure reason and come out with all knowledge at least in theory that's what he would say is a guy by the name of and it's not Plato I wonder if anybody knows who that would be not Socrates no I don't think so at least you may not know this but make a little mental note of it because we will come back to it later let's be a good guy to report on his name is Descartes okay Dakar Descartes does have this notion that you can begin with something that is certain by pure reason and from that reason from that pure reasonable you know premise get everything else what is the premise that he believes you can know not by induction not by observation but by just pure intuition you know it has to be true and from that he wants to give you everything else it's famous you've probably all heard it when it's Descartes starting point he thinks he can start somewhere with something other than and inductively derived you know premise and give you everything else as a result it's the most famous statement of Descartes and I'm sure you've all heard it at some point and it is Spenser exactly is that there you go because notice notice you don't perceive you're thinking do you you just think and the cart thinks therefore that he could bypass that need for induction yes for Aristotle therefore the tasks in reasoning is it depends heavily on induction and his peculiar way of describing induction is by moving things to experience from one class to another and I did tell you that yesterday so this is fair game for the test and what is that move what is what does induction require in Aristotelian terms what are you doing anybody this is in your notes hopefully from yesterday no you are moving objects from one class to another and the classes are okay from primary substance to secondary substance I've got that that is induction this marker is an individual object its primary substance when I give it the name marker I've just moved it into the class called secondary substance Avery and it's good to touch on this because I tell you throughout the year I will be throwing that term out there and invariably I will say and remind me once again Alicia what was nominalism and every year I get blank stares so somebody is gonna make a mental note that every time I ask the question they're going to know the answer and they're going to be they're going to make me proud nominalism is that philosophical outlook that says that things are what they are because we name them that way this marker is a marker because I call it a marker that chair is a chair because I call it a chair I named it nominalism there's no ideal chair no perfect eternal essential archetypal chair in which this particular chair participates which Aristotle thinks is silly he thinks what you do is you look at this world and you notice that a bunch of things sort of resemble each other and so you just put them all in the same class give them the name and the name is chair and that makes them anomalies fair enough that's it so nominalism is distinguished from idealism there's the idealism Plato nominalism Aristotle well Dana you Cayley is an activity of nominalism itself anything you anytime you name anything but it usually isn't applied in that case because we don't think of the class of things in this world that are all Cayley I mean we could there's probably what you know a few thousand people in America who are named kaeleen not a real common name though I assume there's some others out so we could but that's not the way we usually do it but when I speak of chair or book or window or human you know then I am putting a name on something that tends to classify it so Aristotle is anomalous and to him the technical definition this is what I want to see if I ever ask you this and it's what I want you to understand where Aristotle is that mental process by which we move something from the status of primary and secondary substance it's easy enough to say it'll make me happy but if you say something other than that I will not be happy you know so just make sure you understand what I mean by that what Aristotle was trying to get over is that process that mental process by which we put a move an object from the status of primary substance to secondary substance I mean that's not the only magic way to say it but that's the concept I want you to get the idea what is primary substance what is secondary socrates it's taking an object and moving it from one to the other it's exactly what it is isn't that what I said yeah that is induction yeah well it's induction and it's nominalism both it nominalism is a philosophy that focuses on that inductive process these are related ideas did that do not respond to your comment okay the next little topic I want to get to here with Aristotle has to do with his use of language Aristotle of course is all about worries and I've said he's a nominalist so that should not be a surprise to you he's concerned about how we use language and as Aristotle thought about language he realized by the by that we can use words in a variety of ways even when we're putting this object into the class of secondary substance we can do it in a sense in a variety of ways and as he reflected on and he came up with this is classic it's classic aristotelianism any serious study of Aristotle will definitely cover this stuff so I'm just giving you a heads up here it comes you heard it here first okay so here it is these pre uses of language that Aristotle gives us first of all univocal or you nimac oh you'll hear it either way I will tend to say univocal because that's the way I've learned it but I think it's more correct to say UNIF achill and it sounds a little classier doesn't it but either way it's fine now having given you that word does anyone know what the other two words are I just want to find out this absolutely new to you or if you covered it somewhere along the way is this brand new okay anybody have a guess what the other words would be you might guess yeah good luck no but it's the intelligent guess ok univocal you've got equivocal which I know you've heard that word but maybe not in this connection and then the third one analogical alright univocal univocal means literally you know from your Latin studies one voice here is the meaning I will give it to you and then I will try to be quiet so you can write it down and well it's frustrating for me to give you something and you're writing it and meantime I'm 14 paragraphs down the road so I know that dis frustrating I'll try this so here it goes univocal language is language that it means this you apply one word to two different objects but you mean basically the same thing with respect to both objects to apply one word to two different objects but you mean basically the same thing with respectable Dodgers Avery yes naming things that's that's the main thing we're talking about but it's much broader than that that's really cool that's really cool all right that depends on what you mean by cool if you walked into the room and say you know Wow well it's really a cool day today meaning the temperature is low and then you say mr. Gore and mr. Gore you're really looking cool you see would that be univocal is that univocal no could you don't mean basically the same thing unless you mean Avery that my body temperature is very low I've got chill mr. core you're cool one step from dead kind of thing well that's a different all right so if we use the word univocal let's take the word for example bright you know it's a sunny day I walked over to the window I look outside see the sun shining oh it's a nice bright day come back in here look at the lights and I say and those are really bright lights got that projector you can't see it but I can the lights on is bright am i using the word bright univocal ii and all of those applications answer yeah because in each case what I mean is something that gives off light you can light up the room with reference to those things that are bright right then I come walking into the classroom and I look at Caylee and I say in Wow that Caylee is really a bright young lady all right I've used the same word do I mean the same thing Nicole no what do I mean if I say that Caylee is a bright young lady okay I'll be smart I don't mean that if we shut off all the lights in here we could simply get along by the radiant energy flowing from Kaylee's skin I don't mean do I and none of you would take me of heed that only we can do the experiment and see but I think well now let me ask you this a more subtle question is there any connection at all between my use of the word bright to describe the Sun and my use of the word bright to describe Kayle is there any connection at all what do you think simply if I had explained it but notice you've again used the word shine right in a in something other than a univocal way haven't you notice how much of our language we just do this without really thinking much about it you think of a Venn diagram you know here's here's one thin diagram or here's one circle that represents the word bright and if I say okay bright Sun and then I say bright light ball I mean basically the same thing though I little bit of difference of difference of degree then if I say Cayley is bright really the overlap is pretty thin I don't mean bright in that sense but I mean in some sense okay that's equivocal when you have a radical difference in the way the word is used so that there's only one narrow point of contact and the meanings bright Sun bright Kaley well there's a little a kind of point where those two meetings touch each other but I don't mean the same thing quite at all I neither mean that the Sun is intelligent nor do I mean that Kaley glows in the dark you know I've got two different meetings going on but they're not utterly totally divorced from each other y'all follow what I'm saying they're a little bit of a point of contact that's equivocal Sydney was illustrating the point of how to you know trying to explain what it means to say that Kaylie is right by saying well she shines but there's another word isn't it normally a simple sense Crysta of the words shine would be what is that what's that word normally mean sure and advant what does that mean to say it stars shining the sun is shining so on shining in that sense means giving off light and then you know Sydney was talking about Caylee shining does she mean the same thing by that getting goth-like same idea you see it's univocal Aria I'm sorry it's equivocal see equivocating on the meaning of the word so far so good it's not difficult but Aristotle notice that he noticed that we use language in a very fluid way and he's concerned about when we put words in classes you know that we're not doing and playing tricks with our words that can become very slippery he wants us to be cautious as we do this wait okay so we quit the goal thank you is when you take a word and apply it to two different objects and the meaning of the word with respect to those objects changes radically you take the same word apply it to two different objects and the meaning of the word changes radically with respect to the you know those two objects now be careful I'm saying it changes radically but I don't mean it changes utterly so that they're totally unrelated here's two different words bear bear right what are the two meanings to that English word bear Stephen one of the meetings might be there that you find evidence up in the woods right and then we also have an English word bear right we have another one over here I guess we got three words like you what's another to carry something I am bearing a load okay I don't think there's any connection I don't think there's any point where the meanings of those two words are overlapping right it's to divorce what's another word for bear what else what's another word for bear that's right without clothing naked strict so there's three there's three different applications of the word the English word that's not spelled the same of course in each case but of the word bear right so when I say the meaning changes radically what I mean is that there's still a little point of contact it doesn't change absolutely or utterly but just very very substantially now the third kind of language lies right in the middle see it is not as Extreme as equivocal but it's not as kind of consolidated as you nificant and this is the word this is an illogical language and the meaning of this is that the meaning of the word changes proportionately with the thing being described the meaning changes proportionately with the thing being described let's change the word cuz it would be hard to illustrate this using the word right but we're gonna think of for example the word good when I lived out in the country a few years ago I had a dog the dog's name was könig because the dog was a Malamute and so we were thinking of what why did we cleverly come up with the name Cody or a Malamute the kind of dogs of Melanie today but you know what does it look like but it you know Jake what is it sled dogs kind of flying to Alaska we were thinking Kodiak hence did you get that you should put your hand up to see all right Cody now we don't have Cody anymore when we moved back into town we had to relinquish Cody he was just he was like a bear and we just thought this is not gonna work he likes to run he likes to be happy and life in the little neighborhood is not gonna fly solo all right so here's my point let's say I came to school and I said well this dog that I've got Cody is a good dog right I use that description to apply to codeine Joe why would you take that to me if I said that my dog Cody is a good dog then you would probably infer from that what characteristics would apply to my dog Cody B&R I think Albania let's get some of these down these old biddy and what else Joe what else well loyal loyal anything else your eyes are setting much higher standards that would probably apply to Cody who would chase after anything that came down throw it but it's friendly friendly could be friendly all right what else thank you Joe that's good what are the kinds of things becomes mine Ben that's good just like okay all right well usually people mean something if they say he's a good dog usually mean what what what kind of practical stuff would you expect you say that the dogs are good dog Krista you'd think but he doesn't bite the mailman from with that what else another big one we usually think of he's a good dog he's there for what what go ahead I think you said it he's potty-trained he's housebroken you know that kind of stop maybe he brings my slippers you know if I ask him to or the newspaper something like that without salivating on it too much he's a good dog all right so notice that I've used the word good and I've applied it to an object and that I hope has induced in your mind a certain kind of object the word good modified the object that it was applied to then if I come to school and I say yeah my dog Cody's a good dog and hey that jerk is a good man he doesn't bite he's potty-trained brings my slippers doesn't salivate too much you see that without even thinking about it much as soon as I take the word and apply it to a different object your definition of good changes you don't you don't work at it it just happens rather naturally right that's where the meaning of the word changes proportionately to the thing being described okay Aristotle notices that when we use language many times the language morphs depending on the context in which we use it yes oh there it is see I know it I would be just like I predicted deep in this profound spot all right so good brownies are what what does it mean to say a brownie is a good brownie we've got a good dog we've got a good man we've got a good brownie Kayla what does it mean to say we're about to jump into some good brownies what do you think that to me delicious anything else healthy I'm sure no power all right so good does not mean in the case of the brownies healthy it will kill you but what a way to go while Nicole is carefully you know what dissecting I guess would be the word the brownies okay well I want you to think about this just just a closing thought here I want you to think about the fact this is from you know from a Christian point of view how we use language because we would also say not only a dog is a good dog we could say a man is a good man we also say what God is good right and do you see that as soon as we say that we mean something quite different once again I'll follow that the meaning of the word change to change for ssin Utley the thing we were describing and that's a warning to us to always be on our guard lest we think that the language we use about God can ever be any more than just an illogical we can never really talk about God you know vocally the great champion of that point in church history is a guy by the name of anybody want to guess who's the most famous person in church history to develop the point that all of our language about God is that best and the logical it is never univocal and we'll return to this theme and get to this character his name is anybody want to take a stab at this one but you know Jacob any theories archana comes to your mind is that's not right but that's a good guess good thought he would probably even be say it's not even quite analogical alright give this in your notes then I'll quit trying to distract you from what you're really interested in here Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas you thinking you're gonna speak up they all in here a little bit all right then I have about three more little things to say about Aristotle we'll do those tomorrow and for the rest of the period we will simply enter into a state of Nirvana

Channel: Bruce Gore

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Keywords: Aristotle Philosophy Language Univocal Equivocal Analogical Bruce Gore Thomas Aquinas

Id: SpPTwNCekeU

Length: 37min 21sec (2241 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2015