Aristotle's Logic: Categories & Porphyry's Tree (Organon, Part 1)

[@Bytheirfruitsshall]

What a generous gift this is, and the graphics are so great, ThankYou and God Bless.

[@captainzork6109]

And that's why the Dark Ages were actually not that dark, for they had studied and expanded on the work of Aristotle for centuries. These people were called scholars, and Aristotle was referred to as "The Philosopher"

[@theenlightenment3370]

This is an amazing lecture on Aristotle’s logic and I need to find and watch the remaining parts. Thanks for sharing.

[@ilyaost5476]

Awesome Channel - Awesome video! Are you going to cover all the parts of Organon btw?

[@jtdripp]

great explanation! best on youtube. please continue with this.

[@Salim54321]

This is great explaination thank god i found this , thanks

[@Renegen1]

well described

[@ZePinheiroNeto]

Do you know if the predicables only consist about the predicament substance? Could be a definition or quid of others predicaments like quality? Please help me , i am in doubt? Or the definiton is only about subjcts, necessary substance? my understandind is that quid is about all predicaments.

[@ZePinheiroNeto]

10:57

[@TimothyJacobs]

Predicables can be any of the 9 accidental categories. They're predicated of subjects/substances, which presupposes that what they're predicated of have an essential definition. That definition has the formula Essence (species) = difference + genus (e.g. Human = Rational Animal). This is not talking about the full quiddity of a thing, which is all of its forms, essential and accidental. Socrates is essentially a human, but we can also predicate of him height, age, etc. which are not part of the definition of his human essence.

[@ZePinheiroNeto]

@@TimothyJacobs Sócrates is a man Substance is Substance Man is white Substance + acident

[@ZePinheiroNeto]

Socrates is a men ( socrates is individual and men is specie)

[@ZePinheiroNeto]

Then a substance could be one predicable?

[@danwroy]

Great video that tracks well with the text, but the phrases "accidents" and "judgements" are new to me, are these from related literature?

[@danwroy]

I guess that's just the term ("accident"), wasn't used in my translation.

[@TimothyJacobs]

The 10 categories, as explained in Aristotle's Categories, are Substance and the 9 Accidents. "accident" also refers to non-essential qualities of a thing, e.g. hair color. Judgment is the 2nd act of the mind that declares propositions with truth value. #1 is Understanding of concepts/universals. #3 is Reason (i.e. argumentation). Categories is best read with Porphyry's Isagoge as well as in the context of the whole Organon, which I have not yet made videos on.

[@retrogore420]

Great lecture. Is 'kind' the most universal? There are kinds of universals, kinds of beings etc. Everything is kind - it's all relative; nothing is kind - as it is kind with itself.

[@kallianpublico7517]

Aristotle, according to this presentation, writes about essence and definition and abstraction. Did he have a distinct notion of "meaning"? 1. Was meaning purely definitional? Not in any way abstracted? 2. What does it "mean" that substance is "different" than essence? 3. Does abstraction qualify or in any way limit meaning? In other words is the meaning of meaning derivative of abstraction? Of what does the word species when referring to trees and species when referring to animal consist? The same word used to define two species? Wherein lies the difference? Not in the definition of species in and of itself. No. The "meaning" of species lies in reference to the difference in kinds. The multiple genuses. The meaning lies in the examples not in the rules. The meaning lies not in the definition of the same kind, but in the distinction between kind. After all what does dog "mean"? 🐕 🐩

[@TimothyJacobs]

Good questions. What do you mean by "meaning"? I think we moderns often don't know what we mean and introduce vague distinctions or connotations that aren't really there. I'm guilty of this too sometimes. All universals are known by abstraction. A nature or definition is a real commonality in things, but in things it is not a commonality. In other words, "humanity" does not exist as a physical thing. Socrates and Plato exist(ed) as physical things and abstraction is the process of our minds understanding a real commonality in them. That commonality has a definition, or rather, that commonality is defined with reference to species, genus, and difference. Primary substance (aka. primary subject) and secondary substance (aka. 2ndary subject) are labels for the individual (e.g. Socrates) vs. the commonality (e.g. human nature). As another note, the vast majority of species are defined less cleanly/perfectly. While "rational animal" strikes at the core essential quality of rationality in humans, humans can also be defined by properties. Properties are effects of the essence that are always present where rationality is present, such as "political animal" or "risible animal." This is an indirect definition by pointing to some other quality that is not merely accidental. We do this with trees, animals, etc. But the principles for definition are the same. We seek a commonality then a difference. What do CATS and DOGS have in common? What's their difference? Asking "What's the difference between a LION and a TIGER" already assumes the commonality. Not sure if that's helpful. Feel free to shoot back more questions.

[@kallianpublico7517]

​@@TimothyJacobs Aristotle is referred to as a nominalist to distinguish him from idealists. Your presentation makes it clear where this notion comes from. His ideas of substance and accidents; actual and potential; essence; definition and abstraction, along with his categories: judgements, can all be used in an algorithm to "name" things. Plants, animals and their particular species, genera and so forth. While this is a practical "formula" in differentiating between things and grouping about things there are some crucial modern ideas and judgements that are left out. One idea not included, I think, in Aristotle is the notion of consciousness: its role in "naming" things. After all it is well and good to distinguish between types of leaves on trees, but the source of these "impressions" is left out. I'm not talking about the eye but the consciousness behind the eye. One judgement/category unknown to Aristotle is the gene. If instead of external, conscious types of leaves 🍃 we used the genes of trees to differentiate or associate kinds of trees what sort of things would be newly found? Aristotle's way of thinking about things is instructive, but are his instructions due for an update or are they due for a realignment. A realignment where certain central ideas: substance, accidents, categories, etcetera are replaced with more scientific ideas. Ideas such as genes, elements, electromagnetism and so forth? How would a chemist go about defining the "things" that exist in themselves? Would it differ from a physicist? A biologist? Would a tree be a type of tree or just a type of photosynthetic thing; or something belonging to a particular genetic group; or some sort of carbon absorbing, oxygen emitting fauna?

[@TimothyJacobs]

@@kallianpublico7517 I think I know where this is going. For this, we need to look at his epistemology, whereas the video is physics and logic. ***See my video Introduction to Aristotle on Metaphysics & Epistemology***** though that video is pretty old and basic in it's presentation. If by "Consciousness" you mean "self-awareness"... It is more than the mere awareness of sentience (having senses), which even animals have. Aristotelian epistemology in brief: Our senses pick up sensory data, these are processed by "internal senses" just like animals, result in phantasms (like animals), then from these phantasms the active intellect abstracts universals into the understanding. Once we have knowledge, we can reflect on it and how we got it. Those higher intellectual operations (understanding, judgment, and reason) and the various kinds of reasoning we do involve consciousness. All acts of the mind are self-aware. Almost every time I have heard someone say that Aristotle needs updating they have not sufficiently understood him or do not sufficiently reassess whether modern ideas are actually correct. There's a great deal of "chronological snobbery" and "newest is best" mentality in philosophy today that gets us into the societal problems that we have today. I'm not accusing you of this because I've had the same questions as you until I dug deeper into Aristotle. Just stating a general observation.

[@kallianpublico7517]

@@TimothyJacobs Your "self-awareness" I call self-consciousness or the linguistic mind. I distinguish this idea/word/thought factory 🏭 from the non-linguistic consciousness of the body. The body not only senses, it reacts and acts and hungers and rests and memorizes and sleeps. The acquisition of language beyond gestures and sound is cultural. The origin of language is something I consider unknown. We are taught and indoctrinated into language: "self-awareness", but we are born with the consciousness of the body(awareness). The I of self-awareness is not the same as the I of awareness. The body has instincts that the linguistic mind cannot control. The linguistic mind is coherent, the body does not require coherency to function, it has "necessary" functions. The logic of the linguistic mind changes with cultural, advancements, the body changes with evolution. Aristotle did not know about genes or biology. I doubt he knew, or any Greek, about the origin of language. For him, I assume, the "I" of self-awareness could not be detached from the "I" of awareness. For him, I assume, consciousness was what could be talked about and could not be separated from "brains" or "genes". If he was exposed to modern ideas from industry, culture and science I wonder what changes he would make in his algorithm for naming things? I mean what would he have thought of literature like horror, science-fiction, self-help? The Greeks had a moral and intellectual landscape far removed from our own. Could his "organon" incorporate these new ideas or would it become inadequate? Inadequate but not extraneous. Could a review of Aristotle's Organon yield new insight into modern ideas? I imagine I could try to compare and contrast Aristotle's coherency to today's scientific coherency, but I suspect others have tried already? I do not seek to replace Aristotle, merely get a more complete perspective on whether anyone has improved on his "organon", or where the limits to it lie - if any? Has anyone used it to propose any new ideas? Has any new idea been assembly lined into his organon, what has been the result?

[@logicalconceptofficial]

Not to nitpick, but because I think it’s really important to understand how logic is the “parent folder” of all else, or you could say the “one true God”, supremely and eternally true, and self evident beyond all else….Aristotelean Logic is not Mathematical Logic, but both are forms of logic. To say something isn’t logic or from logic, especially things like math, science, physics, etc. shows one does not fully know god/Logic and needs to re-reason a few things. That said I don’t necessarily agree even with how Aristotle proposed and understood some things, like how for instance it is clear to me that the argument for the “unmoved mover” needs to be made circular and “side-less”, not infinitely linear and with no need for the unmoved mover to have immanence in all links of the chain like logic does to all that is logical or illogical, sensible or nonsensical. Once the one kind of circular argument, that is not fallacy, the all true kind, the kind that makes a perfect circle ⭕️ in geometry a possibility, or a physical bracelet, has been made of an “if/then” unmoved mover type of argument then it shows perfectly how “I am that I am” and that logic is (and is not) logical/tautological. A little leading to all existence as well as the non-existence of what is truly, and what has been formally logically reasoned to be certainly nothing, which itself is nothing (0=0).

[@TimothyJacobs]

I think I see where you're going with this. Logic is the shape or form of the intelligibility of the universe, but not its matter or content. It orders our understanding, but it isn't the foundation of metaphysics. Truth is correspondence to reality, and reality is primary, even to logic, for logic is the shape of its intelligibility. Now, all things have order given to them by God, who is the supreme order-er and foundation of order, the divine Logos. The universe is ordered because he made it and he is the foundation of order. This is not yet an Abrahamic God. It is simply the Aristotelian first mover and Hereclitus' logos. The Stoics explained it further as the ordering principle of the universe, but they weren't original in that. Their originality was just in making the logos religious. The Gospel of John unites Aristotle and the Stoics while critiquing both. The Logos is both the foundational order of the universe and first mover, as well as one to be worshiped. For an effect cannot be greater than its cause, so if there is love in the universe, it must preexist in Aristotle's First Mover. Thus, it is a loving thing. The argument for the unmoved mover isn't circular, it's reductio ad absurdum. All things around us are contingents. So in order to exist, there must be some cause of them that is not contingent but necessary. Even atheists keep looking for answers to the origin of the universe. They want infinite contingents, and infinite series, but this is just a modern version of turtles all the way down. There must be a bottom, a foundation.