Aristotle’s pithy two-word definition of man—the rational animal—has gained classical status. “Animal” is the proximate genus; “rational” is the specific difference.

The user shapes language, but language shapes the user as well. If we consistently use language that serves to distort reality, we can eventually come to believe our own twisted rhetoric. Such is the power of language.

So long as the entire class is not being referred to, the statement is particular. Be it large or small, a portion is a portion.

Logical truth, in other words, is founded upon ontological truth.

We will call “complex” ideas those for which there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between idea and thing. Here the correspondence is one to many. There is more than a single originating source for this kind of idea in the objective world.

I establish a fact if I successfully ascertain that there is, for a particular idea I have in mind, a corresponding reality external to my mind. For instance, I have a particular idea in my mind, which I label “cat.” Corresponding to that idea are actually existing things in the extramental world called “cats.” But I could have another idea in my m

Don’t treat evaluative statements as if they were statements of objective fact.

The final cause, as applied to activity, is the purpose of the activity; as applied to an object, it is the use to which the object can be put. The material cause is the material out of which an object is composed. The formal cause is the identifying nature of a thing, that which makes it precisely what it is. Let us analyze a birdhouse in terms of

Note this about the “completely unlike” judgment: No two things can be so unlike that they do not share the elemental act of existence. If, in comparing A and B, it is declared that B is “totally unlike” A, then there would be but one thing, A, since B would not exist.)