PHL 3305 Lecture 26

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Humility

Off-script talk about humility

• The Lord doesn't let humility overcome him
• He calls all of us to humility
• The Lord himself is humble Phil 2:1-11
• Man desires to praise God, yet sin—particularly pride—gets in the way

Defining Humility

• Divine vs Human condescension
  • Divine condescension: God comes to be with us to raise us up.
  • Human condescension: looking down on someone out of pride.
• Humiliation vs Humility
  • Humiliation is an attack on the humanity (tearing down) of another
  • Humility is a virtue to be cultivated

Proper to the Student

• Teachers are the custodians of a thousand-plus-year-old tradition
• "Hierarchy of being" - everything is related
• Learning is aided discovery: learning something through discovery is more perfect
• Humility of the student
  1. hold no writing or knowledge in contempt
  2. blush to learn from no man
  3. after learning something, do not look down upon others
• a student qua student is ignorant
  • student qua student = the student in so far as he is a student

Kinds of Demonstration

1. Quia: demonstration that a thing exists
2. Propter Quid: demonstration why a thing exists

natural sciences start with the existence an effect (quia) and work backward to a cause (propter quid)

1. syllogisms with unmiddled premises (propter quid)
   1. syllogisms that demonstrate through first cause (propter quid)
   2. syllogisms that do not demonstrate through first cause (quia)
2. syllogisms with "non-unmiddled" premises (quia)

Example

Quia syllogism

every illumined body that does not twinkle is relatively near
every planet is an illumined body that does not twinkle
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every planet is relatively near

• middle term ("not twinkling") is the effect
• the cause is in the conclusion

Propter Quid Syllogism

every relatively near illumined body does not twinkle
every planet is a relatively near illumined body
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every planet does not twinkle

• middle term ("nearness") is the cause
• the effect is in the conclusion
• this syllogism does not proceed from what is better known: we are more easily able to see that planets do not twinkle