58. The Order of Powers in the Soul and Four Senses of Priority

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Order of Powers in the Soul #

• The nutritive (feeding) soul is prior in being to the sensitive soul, which is prior in being to the rational soul
• Plants possess only nutritive powers; animals possess nutritive and sensitive powers; humans possess all three
• Each higher power includes and transcends the lower powers (the soul functions as a potestative whole)
• The relationship follows this principle: what can exist without something else but not vice versa is prior in being

The Four Senses of “Before” (Priority) #

1. Temporal Priority (before in time): One thing comes before another chronologically
2. Priority in Being (before in esse): One thing can exist independently while the other cannot
3. Priority in Discourse (before in reason): The logical order in which we understand things
4. Priority in Goodness/Excellence (before in bonitate): One thing is intrinsically better than another

Critical Insight: These are fundamentally distinct senses. Confusing them—particularly equating priority in being with priority in goodness—constitutes what Aristotle calls the most common mistake (ἡ δημοκρατικώτατη πλάνη, demiocratike planeta)

The Hierarchy of Sensory Powers #

Touch (Tactile Sense - Hapsis)

• The most fundamental and necessary sense for all animals
• Senses qualities essential to survival: hot/cold, hard/soft, wet/dry
• Cannot be destroyed without destroying the animal itself
• Requires the sense organ to be composed of mixed elements, maintaining a mean between extremes
• Cannot be lost while other senses might be (e.g., blindness, deafness)
• Prior in being to all other senses

Taste (Gustatio)

• A refined form of touch requiring direct contact
• More spiritual than pure tactile sensation
• Intermediate between touch and distance senses

Distance Senses (Sight, Hearing, Smell)

• Operate through an exterior medium (air, water)
• Necessary for animals that locomote to find food and flee danger
• Not necessary for sessile animals whose food comes to them
• Can be lost without destroying the animal
• Prior in goodness/excellence to touch but not in being

Why Simple Bodies Cannot Have Sensation #

• The four Greek simple bodies are: earth, air, fire, water
• A simple body lacks the compositional mean necessary for sensation
• Fire is excessively hot; ice is excessively cold; neither can maintain the equilibrium required for sensory organs
• Therefore, Platonic creatures (like Ariel) imagined as purely airy or fiery could not actually possess sensation
• This argument challenges Platonic metaphysics

Key Arguments #

The Necessity of Touch for All Animals #

Logical structure:

• Every animal is an ensouled body (psychē)
• Every body is tangible (subject to qualities sensed by touch)
• Therefore, every animal must have the sense of touch
• The tangible qualities (hot/cold, hard/soft) are essential to maintaining life itself
• Loss of touch means loss of capacity to flee danger or grasp sustenance

Consequence: Touch is the sense of survival and certitude; it cannot be lost while the animal lives

The Distinction Between Necessity and Excellence #

The Common Mistake (exemplified by breathing vs. philosophizing):

• Student reasoning: “Breathing is better than philosophizing because if you don’t breathe, you can’t philosophize”
• This confuses priority in being (necessity) with priority in goodness (excellence)
• The student has proven breathing is prior in being but then concluded it is prior in goodness—an equivocation

Correct Analysis:

• Breathing is more necessary (prior in being)
• Philosophizing is better (prior in goodness)
• The end is always better than the means, even if the means is more necessary for attaining the end
• Therefore: breathing is a means to living; living is a means to philosophizing; philosophizing is the higher end

Application to Priorities:

• When setting priorities with limited resources, one must distinguish:
  • What is necessary to live (food, shelter, clothing) comes first in being
  • Among non-necessities, one chooses what is better (Shakespeare before comic books)
  • But this does not make necessities better; it only makes them prior in being

The Exception: When Lesser Goods Are Prior in Being #

When the priority in being reverses the judgment of worse:

• Letters are less good than words, but losing letters means losing words
• Therefore: losing letters is worse than losing words (the loss of the lesser good is worse)
• Faith is less good than charity, but losing faith means losing hope and charity
• Therefore: losing faith is the worst of the three losses
• Plants are less good than animals, but animals depend on plants for existence
• Therefore: losing plants would be worse than losing animals

The principle: When X is prior to Y in being (Y depends on X), then losing X is worse than losing Y, even if Y is more excellent than X

Important Definitions #

Sensation (Αἴσθησις - aisthesis) #

• The reception of sensible form without (the) matter (receptio speciei absque materia)
• The sense organ receives the form of an external object as other, not as its own quality
• Example: Tasting the warmth of water as the water’s warmth, not as my body’s warmth
• When the organ becomes identical to the object, sensation ceases

Judgment (Κρίσις - krisis) #

• The separation of true from false by some beginning in knowledge (separatio veri a falso per aliquod principium)
• Ultimately grounded in sensation as the first principle of knowledge
• Why we use sensory language metaphorically: “That makes sense,” “common sense,” “sensible judgment”
• Distinguished from mere sensing by the involvement of principles or definitions

The Tangible (Ἅπτικόν - haptikon) #

• The object of touch; the perceptible qualities: hot/cold, hard/soft, wet/dry
• The most fundamental sensible quality
• Essential to life itself, not merely to well-being

Examples & Illustrations #

The Shower Example #

• When first entering a hot shower, you feel the warmth intensely
• As your body temperature rises to match the water’s, sensation diminishes
• Turning the water hotter is necessary to feel warmth again
• Illustrates: Sensation requires difference between the sense organ and the object

The Ocean Example #

• Cold ocean water feels intensely cold initially
• As body temperature adjusts, the sensation decreases
• Shows the principle of adaptation and the necessity of a mean in the sense organ

The Beer Blind Taste Test #

• Someone claims Budweiser tastes better than Miller
• In a blind test (without knowing which is which), they cannot distinguish them
• Socratic principle: one cannot judge which is better without first being able to tell them apart
• Illustrates: Discernment must precede judgment of quality

The Immaculate Conception Statement #

• The Blessed Virgin said “I am the Immaculate Conception” (not “I am Immaculate Conceived”)
• This puzzled Church authorities because it seemed grammatically improper
• Illustrates: The distinction between the abstract form (Conception) and the concrete subject (she who has that form)
• Raises questions about how to speak properly about ultimate realities

The Twinkie and Food Processing Question #

• A student asks: At what point does processed food cease to be food?
• The issue: How much processing/denaturation can occur before something loses its proper nature?
• Example: Food products labeled “non-dairy food product” challenge what counts as actual food
• Related to Aristotle’s doctrine of nature (physis) and proper functioning

The Bread Examples #

• Fresh bread baked by hand (like the father-in-law’s) requires only minimal toaster setting (level 9) to brown
• Cheap American white bread requires much higher settings (3-4) because it’s so light
• European bread (Italian boule) is better but costs more
• Shows: Natural, properly-made food has different properties than artificially processed food

The Boat Problem (Theseus’s Ship) #

• A wooden boat: replace one plank, still a boat (missing one plank)
• Replace another plank—still a boat
• At what point does it cease to be the same boat when half the planks have been replaced?
• Illustrates: The problem of substance and essence amid material change
• Related to the food question: when is something no longer what it essentially is?

Notable Quotes #

“Every other knowledge is more necessary than wisdom, but none is better.” — Aristotle, Metaphysics Proem (quoted by Berquist)

This encapsulates the central distinction: necessity and excellence are different dimensions entirely.

“If I can’t tell them apart, how can I say that one is better than the other?” — Berquist, paraphrasing Socratic reasoning about the beer tasting test

Illustrates the logical requirement that distinction precedes judgment.

“Breathing is more necessary than philosophizing, but philosophizing is better.” — Berquist

The clearest articulation of the distinction between priority in being and priority in goodness.

“That’s the most common mistake that the human mind makes.” — Berquist, on confusing different senses of “before”

Questions Addressed #

Why is touch necessary for all animals but other senses are not? #

Answer: Touch senses the qualities (hot/cold, hard/soft) essential to survival itself. Other senses enable well-being and successful locomotion but not survival per se. Sessile creatures can survive without distance senses because their food comes to them.

Can a simple body (composed of one element) have sensation? #

Answer: No. A simple body like pure fire or pure air lacks the compositional mean necessary for sensation. A sense organ must maintain equilibrium between opposites (neither excessively hot nor cold) to perceive differences. This refutes Platonic doctrine of air- and fire-creatures.

Is breathing better than philosophizing? #

Answer: No. Philosophizing is better (it is the end), while breathing is more necessary (it is a means). Confusing these judgments is equivocation—the most common logical error. The better judgment does not entail the more necessary judgment.

How do we properly set priorities with limited resources? #

Answer: Distinguish between priority in being (necessity) and priority in goodness (excellence). First secure necessities (food, shelter); then allocate remaining resources according to what is better, not what is more necessary. But this ordering does not make necessities better; it makes them prior in being.

What does it mean that sensation is the reception of form without matter? #

Answer: The sense organ receives the form of an external object as other, not as itself. When tasting water’s warmth, you taste the water’s quality, not your body’s quality. When the organ becomes identical to the object, sensation ceases because there is no longer a difference to perceive.

Why did the Blessed Virgin say “I am the Immaculate Conception” rather than “I am Immaculate Conceived”? #

Answer: The abstract form (Conception) and the concrete subject (she who has that form) are grammatically and metaphysically distinct. This highlights the difficulty of speaking properly about ultimate spiritual realities. Berquist suggests there may be a special theological reason for this phrasing that is not yet fully understood.

At what point does processed food cease to be food? #

Answer: Not directly addressed, but the question touches on Aristotle’s doctrine of nature (physis) and proper functioning. It relates to how much something can be altered before it loses its essential nature. Berquist notes that recognizing something as a “food product” rather than “food” indicates this intuition.