Video Transcript: Aspectual Laws and Type Laws

We're going to add one more part of this theory before closing shop for today.  And that is to introduce another new concept. This is the concept of a type law.  In addition to talking about the nature of things, by the aspect that qualifies that  nature, that is the highest one in which it fun, it has its properties actively, and  the laws of which govern its internal organization, when you take the things as a  whole, there are also laws for types of things. And what does this mean? types  of things, these are kinds of things, these are types, types, here are things such  as a daisy, a frog, or a tree. I'm going to use that because I already use that as  an illustration of something else, just a while ago. These are all natural, and this  is an artifact. So they're going to have a difference in nature that we already  saw, the natural things are going to be qualified by the highest aspect in which  they have their have their properties actively. The book is not it's going to be its  nature is going to be zeroed in on by looking at the formative historical is  foundational to, to making a book the process by which it was made. And then  it's going to be qualified linguistically. Because that's what a book is, it's a bunch  of language conveying something from one person to another. But there are  types and the type law is a law that makes possible the arrangement of the parts and properties that combine to make a particular type of individuals. of individual things. Think of it this way, when we look at a natural object, take the rock again, the rock has many properties that are physical, and has properties that are  spatial, numerical, kinetic, kinetic, what is it that makes it possible to combine  those properties together in such a way that it forms an individual rock? And the  answer is, there is a type law for rocks that says that its parts and properties can be arranged in this way. And this law governs them and unifies them. A type law  is a law that unifies a thing, having many different kinds of parts, and many  different kinds of properties from all different aspects. But just this combination  of them is a rock that's made possible by a type law. Same thing for a tree.  There's a type law for what it is to be a tree, different properties of all different  kinds combine in a specific way to form an object that is a tree. The law makes  that possible. So well, while aspects go this way. Type laws go the other way. It's a cross hatching of laws to zero in on the nature of the thing. So there's a  different type law for a daisy and a tree, and the book, the books an artifact.  Here, what this means is that there is a type law for every possible type of thing  that has been built into the creation from its very beginning. Does that mean  there was a type law for an airplane back at the time of the Big Bang, yes, that's  what we're saying? Absolutely. If there weren't a type law, it wouldn't be able to  put parts together. So as the form of 747. So in this view, follow me now there's  a difference between those things being impossible. And the things just not  being possible. Nothing is impossible if it's self contradictory, or self  performatively incoherent in the strong sense, something like that. It commits  one of those gross blunders. It's not possible. But take an idea of something  such as a talking rock, a flying tree. There's no contradiction there. It's just that 

there's no type law for any such thing so that they're not possible. So, not  possible, is a bigger category than impossible impossible, breaks a law and  can't be and isn't not possible means there's just no type law that makes it that  combination of properties into this sort of thing. And if there isn't, such as a  talking rock or a flying tree, if there isn't, then there can't be such things. So,  take some examples here. There are natural types, and artifacts, as I said. Take  a natural object such type of things such as a cell, a cell in a living thing, the cell  has arrangement of its parts, and they and their properties. It has a nucleus, it  has cytoplasm, it has DNA. Inside the nucleus, it has messenger RNA that goes  back and forth between the nucleus and communicates new proteins to be  generated. In the plasma of a cell, and so on. There are many things we can say these are necessary for any cell. And the there has to be a type law for a cell  that makes that combination of parts and properties possible. It's a law ordered  combination. It's not just a heap. But we do not need the concept of a  substance, there is nothing in that thing, which is what they are all propertis of.  The thing is all the properties and parts arranged in this way by the type law.  And I mean the type law for all cells. Every cell has its own law, there is a law  covering every cell. When it comes to artifacts, something similar happens. I can take clay, or some other substance, and mold it around and make a tea cup.  That particular combination of parts and properties with parts with all their  properties, ends up with a cup made that can hold tea and the handle so that I  don't have to burn my hand when I hold the cup. Now that's, that's what it's  intended to be intended to be a tea cup. Can we use it as an ashtray? If we want to, of course you could. But that's got nothing to do with what I'll call its internal  purpose its internal structure is, is that of something to hold tea or other hot  liquids, and a handle once again, so I don't burn myself when I hold it. It's not a  heap. But it's not a substance either. It's a law ordered arrangement of parts and properties. So as to form this type of thing, a chair, a teacup, a ladder, a house.  Dooyeweerd points out the way that a house is very different from say, a shack,  or a leanto a house has an arrangement of rooms that reflect reflect social  needs and social status. The master bedroom's larger, the nursery is even  smaller than the other bedrooms. This shows something about social status of  who lives in those rooms. There's a living room to meet people meet and greet,  and talk with and share good times, perhaps around the fire, something  interesting to sip. But it's its overall character is any social. It's made of many  different kinds of natural materials, combined in a certain way. But there's a  basic type for what it is to be a house that makes it possible for us to do that. We can speak then of artifacts like these as having an intrinsic purpose. Not any  purpose to which we want to put it we can, as I said, use a teacup as an ashtray, we can use a chair as a ladder. But they weren't made for that. And their  structure exhibits that the chair exhibits a structure of holding your back while  your butt sits on the seat. You can use it as a ladder, but it doesn't have the right

configuration of parts for a ladder. So I'm distinguishing the internal purpose of  the thing which we can observe in the arrangement of its parts from any external purpose we'd like to impose on it. Those aren't the same thing. And I'm talking  now here about its internal arrangement. It's the type law that makes that  possible. And it exhibits then to us a certain intrinsic purpose for which it's made. This is yet one more way of zeroing in on the nature's of the things around us.  We have now the the aspects in which they function actively They function in all  of them passively. And we can notice that too, but actively zeros in on its nature  is different from for an artifact. Because what qualifies the artifacts nature is its  leading function, which is still one in which it has properties only passively. But  the laws of that aspect, the laws governing those properties govern the overall  internal organization of the artifact. And now we have type laws that cut across  all the special distinctions, and combined parts and properties of many different  kinds. So as to make a particular type of individual things, chairs, teacups,  ladders, books, automobiles. We're zeroing in ever, ever closer on the nature of  the things we encounter in God's good creation. When we come back, we have  some real work to do. We're going to look at the relations of parts to wholes,  we're going to look at the relation of wholes to super wholes, we're going to see  how these things play in and can give an account that makes sense. Where  we're going with this is that I'm going to end up using the organization of the  state, the political institution, as my example of an artifact, something people  create, but whose nature can be determined in this way by these concepts of  leading functions, qualifying functions, passive possession of properties, type  laws, and so on. There's going to be a type law for the state, for the political  institution, the ruling part of which is the government. And we're going to take  these concepts and apply them to getting a theory of the state as an example of  how to apply apply all these. So we have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow. And  then we'll go to the theory of the state. Think this over, rewind it. If I were  personally available to you, I'd say write down your questions and send them to  me but I can't do that. Other people will do it for you. So next time, till then, sleep well.