9. Emotions, the Passions of the Soul, and Their Bodily Nature

Subscribe in Podcast App | Download Transcript

Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Passions of the Soul and Bodily Necessity #

• Emotions (anger, fear, desire, joy, sadness, etc.) are called “passions of the soul” because only living bodies with souls can undergo them
• Passion (πάθος/pathos in Greek, from Latin) means “undergoing” or “suffering”
• All passions involve bodily changes: anger involves bodily heat; fear involves trembling; desire involves bodily appetite
• Non-living bodies can undergo physical changes (heating, cooling) but only living bodies can undergo emotional passions
• The passions are more known to us than acts of the will precisely because they involve sensible, observable bodily changes

The Formal Aspect (Logos) vs. the Bodily Aspect #

• Each emotion has two aspects: a formal aspect (the λόγος/logos or definition) and a bodily aspect (the material change)
• Example: anger formally is “desire for revenge,” but materially involves heating of blood around the heart
• The dialectician defines emotions formally without reference to matter
• The natural philosopher must define emotions both formally and materially, including the bodily substrate
• When emotion names are carried over to acts of the will, the bodily aspect is dropped but the formal aspect is retained

The Two Powers of Desire and Their Eleven Emotions #

• Concupiscible emotions (ἐπιθυμία/epithymia in Greek, concupiscibilis in Latin): arise regarding what is pleasant or painful to the senses
  • Basic emotions: love/liking (when something pleasant is present to senses) and hate/disliking (when something painful is present)
  • Derivative emotions: desire/wanting (when lacking what we like) and aversion (when facing what we dislike)
  • Resultant emotions: joy/pleasure (when possessing what we like) and sadness/pain (when suffering what we dislike)
  • Total: six emotions
• Irascible emotions (from anger, which stands out as most manifest): arise when there is difficulty in obtaining good or avoiding evil
  • From desire for a good thing that is difficult to obtain: hope (when we estimate we can overcome difficulties) or despair (when we cannot)
  • From aversion to evil that is difficult to avoid: fear (when we cannot avoid evil) or boldness/confidence (when we can)
  • From sadness when we think we can overcome what causes it: anger (desire for revenge)
  • Total: five emotions
• The irascible emotions serve to help overcome obstacles to obtaining concupiscible objects

Carrying Emotion Names to the Will and to God #

• When emotion names are applied to acts of the will (e.g., “love of wisdom”), the bodily aspect is dropped but the formal aspect is retained
• Not all emotion names can be properly applied to God, even formally
• Emotions with evil as their object cannot be applied to God: fear, despair, anger (because these require actual evil or the possibility of undergoing something bad)
• God cannot fear because fear concerns an evil that is difficult to avoid, and nothing bad can befall God
• God cannot have desire or hope because these concern a good not yet possessed, while God is goodness itself
• Some emotion names can be applied to God metaphorically: anger can be said of God metaphorically in relation to divine justice (God punishes); pity can be said of God metaphorically in relation to his will to relieve our misery
• But fear can never be said of God, even metaphorically, because the formal aspect itself (evil difficult to avoid) has no application

Emotions vs. Will: Distinction and Relationship #

• Emotions follow upon the senses; involve bodily changes; are shared with animals; are more immediately known to us
• Will follows upon reason; is immaterial; is shared with angels and God; is less immediately known to us
• The emotions are confused with the will because the will can overflow into the emotions, and vice versa
• Example: love of wisdom is an act of the will (not an emotion), even though love can name an emotion
• It is difficult for most people to distinguish the emotional love (e.g., for a girl) from the rational love (e.g., for wisdom or a philosophical truth)

A Note on English Terminology #

• “Passion” in English can be misleading because it suggests something the soul undergoes without the body
• The word “emotion” (from motion) is more precise, indicating that we are “moved to” fear, anger, pity, sadness
• “Feeling” is sometimes used but is less precise because it can name the sense of touch as well as emotions
• The connection between feeling/touch and emotions may derive from the fact that touch is the most interior sense, while emotions are interior affections

Key Arguments #

Why Emotions Involve Bodily Change #

• Argument from disposition: Sometimes people are moved by small and faint occurrences when their body is already disposed toward that emotion (e.g., an already-stressed clerk suddenly exploding at a compliment)
• This shows the body’s state is causally relevant to whether an emotion is provoked
• Argument from bodily necessity: If nothing fearful is occurring, yet one experiences fear, this is a sign that something bodily must be at work
• The emotions are in matter and in a logos in matter (in Greek: ἐν ὕλῃ καὶ λόγῳ ἐν ὕλῃ/en hylē kai logō en hylē)

Why Emotion Names Can Be Carried to the Will But Not Fully to God #

• The formal aspect of an emotion (its defining characteristic) can be understood apart from bodily change
• Therefore, when we speak of acts of the will (which are immaterial), we retain the formal aspect but drop the bodily component
• However, some formal aspects require reference to evil or privation, which cannot be in God
• God’s immutability and perfection rule out certain emotional names even formally

Important Definitions #

Passion (πάθος/pathos) #

• An undergoing or suffering
• Passions of the soul: specifically, affections that only living bodies possess, as opposed to non-living bodies which can only undergo physical affections like heating or cooling

Logos (λόγος) #

• The formal aspect, definition, or account of a thing
• Distinguished from matter (ὕλη/hylē) in complete definitions
• The logos of anger is “desire for revenge”; the matter is “heating of blood around the heart”

Concupiscible (ἐπιθυμία/epithymia, concupiscibilis) #

• Pertaining to sense-desire; emotions arising regarding what is pleasant or painful to the senses
• Named from desire (epithymia) because desire stands out most vividly to us when we lack what we like

Irascible (from anger, which stands out as most manifest) #

• Pertaining to spirited resistance; emotions arising when there is difficulty in obtaining good or avoiding evil
• Includes hope, despair, fear, boldness, and anger

Examples & Illustrations #

The Patient Railroad Clerk #

• A clerk deals patiently with many customers requesting ticket changes and asking “stupid questions”
• When someone finally compliments him on his patience, he suddenly becomes angry
• Illustrates how the body’s prior disposition (already stressed, worn down) makes one susceptible to emotion from a trivial cause

The Salmon Aversion #

• Berquist does not like the taste of salmon
• When eating salmon at a dinner, he experiences aversion, and after eating it experiences sadness/displeasure
• Simple example showing liking/disliking and the resulting emotions of desire/aversion and joy/sadness

Fear of Error in the Will #

• Socrates and Monsignor Dion both experience fear—but not bodily fear; rather, fear of being mistaken
• This fear is in the will, not in emotion
• Shows how emotion names can be applied to the will while dropping the bodily aspect
• Error is a great part of misery (Thomas Aquinas), and humans naturally fear such intellectual evil

The Three Kinds of Pleasure #

• Animal pleasures: eating, drinking, sleeping, sexual pleasure (shared with beasts; subject to diminishing returns)
• Human pleasures (in the narrower sense): fine arts—music (Mozart), painting (Titian, Raphael, Da Vinci), literature (Shakespeare); unique to humans as rational animals
• Angelic pleasures: understanding and intellectual contemplation (shared with angels and God; imperfectly possessed by humans)
• Human pleasures are most “pleasingly proportioned to man” because they can be pursued longer without diminishing returns and accord with man’s nature as both animal and rational

Education as Progression Through Pleasures #

• Proper education leads from animal pleasures (refined: fine cuisine, good wine) through human pleasures (music, art, literature) to angelic pleasures (philosophy, theology)
• A well-educated person has appreciation for good music and literature and naturally pursues philosophy and theology
• Conversely, a good philosopher or theologian necessarily has appreciation for beauty; a theologian who only listens to rock and roll would be “crazy”

Notable Quotes #

“You must be before you can do something, right? And so if you can be without something else, then you can do something without that, right?” — Establishing the principle that being precedes operation

“Error is a great part of misery” (magnus pars miseria) — Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, cited to explain why fear of error is a legitimate fear in the will

“We live longer in error, right? To do the truth, right?” — Thomas Aquinas, cited on the human condition regarding error

“The pleasures of the fine arts are too high for the animals, and too low for the angels.” — Aristotle, characterizing the unique position of human aesthetic pleasure

“Nothing so changes the soul of man than music.” — Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Matthew, cited regarding the power of beauty to elevate the soul toward God

Questions Addressed #

Are All Passions of the Soul Inseparable from the Body? #

• Yes, all emotions necessarily involve bodily changes
• Examples: anger (heating of blood), fear (trembling), desire (bodily appetite)
• Even when bodily changes are not observable, the body’s disposition is still causally relevant

How Can We Understand Acts of the Will If We Only Know Emotions Bodily? #

• We can understand the formal aspect (logos) of emotions apart from bodily change
• By understanding what anger formally is (desire for revenge), we can apply this formal aspect to the will (which is immaterial)
• But we must drop the bodily component when speaking of the will
• The formal aspects are accessible to reason even if the full emotional experience requires the body

Can Emotion Names Be Applied to God? #

• Names of emotions cannot be applied to God if they formally require evil or privation
• Fear cannot be applied (even metaphorically) because fear by definition concerns an evil difficult to avoid, and God cannot be harmed
• Anger can be applied metaphorically because God’s justice includes punishment, though God does not have anger’s formal cause (sadness)
• Pity can be applied metaphorically because God’s will is to relieve misery, though God does not experience emotional pity
• Love and joy can be applied to God properly (formally), though without the bodily aspect, because they concern God’s possession of goodness

Why Are Emotions More Known to Us Than the Will? #

• Emotions involve bodily changes, which are sensible and observable
• The will operates immaterially and therefore is not directly sensible
• We know what is most known to us (the sensible) before what is less known to us (the immaterial)
• This is why emotion names stand out and are familiar to us, and why we must learn to distinguish them from acts of the will through philosophical reflection