Lecture 4: Opposition and Order
A. Problem left over: specific differences.
B. Solution: opposites and order.
II. Opposites.
A. Opposites are tools for specific difference.
1. Must not overlap.
2. Exhaustive.
3. Opposites can fulfill the characteristics.
B. Kinds of opposites.
1. Correlatives.
a. Correlatives are not useful for specific differences: overlap.
2. Contraries: most different in a genus.
a. Contraries are not specific differences: not exhaustive.
b. Two meanings of the term contrary.
3. Privation and possession: lack and having in same subject.
a. Privation and Possession good candidates for specific differences.
(1) Exhaustive.
(2) Non-overlapping.
4. Contradictories: having and lacking like statements.
a. Compare and contrast privation and possession to contradictories.
b. Contradictories are not differences: go beyond the genus.
c. Contradictories foundation for the previous two kinds of opposites.
C. Opposites used for distinction and order.
III. Order is relation of prior and posterior, which have four meanings.
A. Prior in time is easy.
B. Prior in Being more difficult.
C. Prior in knowledge.
1. How it is like prior in being.
2. How it is unlike prior in being.
D. Prior in goodness. Priorities in moral life.
E. Importance of order to philosophy in general and definition in particular.
IV. Conclusion: Analogy and second operation next.
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