Prima Secundae
Lecture 85: Concupiscence: Nature and Distinction of Appetite

Transcript
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About charity, you talk about envy, right? You know, when I was preparing that course there, Love and Friendship, it was something, you know? And I was trying to add a little bit to what you have in Aristotle and so on. But I was kind of influenced by, you know, the idea that charity is a kind of friendship, right? You know, I don't call you servants, but friends, right? And then he takes up in that tutus on charity, right? Envy, right? Once he's opposed to it, right, no? And so then I kept talking even about human friendship, right? How envy is what? Opposed to friendship, right, no? So if I'm sad about your success or your, you know, your thing, that's really opposed to friendship, right? I should, you know, if I'm your friend, I should wish good to you, right, no? And so envy is really what? Opposed to friendship. And then I found these beautiful things in the English novels, you know, where they talk about, one of them says, you know, they say it's hard for a man to bear, you know, success well, you know, not get inflated, you know, and so on. But it's even harder for his friends to accept his good thing, you know, and so I used to write, you know, you know, how prevalent envy is, right, you know? So I say now, you know, I would take the example that they would know from, they have a roommate usually, you know, so two girls, one of them is, you know, is being asked out by a real nice guy who's going places, you know, and so on, you know? Don't you feel a little bit of envy towards this, you know? You know, see, but isn't that, is that, that's really a movement opposed to what? Friendship, right? And you have to kind of suppress it if you find that, you know, see? Or if you two guys, you know, are roommates, and one of you has got a nice girlfriend, or one of you has got a nice job lined up for him when he gets out of college, you know, they say, yeah, one out of two guys gets a job or something, you know, and I can't find a job, or, you know, and you've got, you know, the law. You know, whatever it is. And, and say, well, you get a little bit of envy, you know? And somebody else's success in that same thing. But, so, knowing what friendship is makes you recognize what envy is, and seeing the opposition of envy to friendship, kind of, to the extent that there's envy in friendship, that's a defect of friendship, right? And contrary to the very nature of friendship, huh? That's why I admire those great poets there. You know, Homer and Shakespeare, right? Because they represent, you know, the, the, Shakespeare as a son, you know, where he's singing about his friend, you know, succeeding, you know, and so on, and he rejoices in it, right? But he, but he, he makes a comparison. He has a decrepit father, you know, rejoices to see his son, you know, his son, you know, succeeding on the athletic field, or whatever it is, you know? And, and I said, and Homer, right, do you see, when the great Achilles has lost his best friend, Patroclus there, right? And he mourns Patroclus like a father mourns a loss his only son, see? But some man you might be very close to, like Achilles is very close to Patroclus, right? That compares it to a father, you know, has lost his only son, right? Well, in my experience, you know, bad as we human beings are, right, yeah? I've never really seen a, a, a father be envious of his son's success, right? Or if his son is more successful, you know, than he was as a father, right, yeah? They rejoice in that, right, yeah? You know? So these two great, greatest poets here, Homer and Shakespeare, right? They, they see the love of the father for his son as containing something in the perfection of friendship, which requires, in a negative sense to say it, that be without envy, right? That there should be no envy between friends, right, yeah? And therefore it should be like the friendship of the father and the son, right, yeah? But it's because the father naturally sees the son as a continuation of himself, another self, right? And that's what a friend is, another self, right? So it's beautiful the way these things work out, right, yeah? But I've been thinking about it because I was reading, you know, among other things, I was using my course in the tweet on friendship. I suddenly would stick in an article where there's charities, friendship, at the end of the course, you know? Because it's beautiful if you read Aristotle. The objections, you know, based upon, you know, you're supposed to love your enemies, right? Well, friendship requires mutual love, right? And then Thomas, you know, makes a beautiful distinction that if you love somebody, you will love their children and those related to them, right? And so your primary object is your friend, but his children are kind of a secondary object, right? And it's a beautiful distinction, right? So it's not really contrary to the idea that friendship requires, what, mutual love, right? So how can you be a friend of your enemy, you know? But that's a secondary object, right? So it's beautiful things, but just seeing, you know, that he treated envy there with charity, right? I don't know if, you know, when you've heard people talk about charity, they're bringing envy, right? But one opposite illuminates the other, right? Aristotle says, you know, opposites, they alongside each other, are more clear, right? So you see the opposite alongside each other, they stand out, right? Stake along. I don't play that too much. So when you come back, we'll come back in the fall, we'll start with concubicence, right? We'll desire to come back to it. Yeah, we'll desire to know, yeah, yeah. But notice that he goes on from concubicence to delictatione, he doesn't take the version up, does he? It's the opposite. And he's got a lot of things here. Let me see. A lot of things. But now, right after the new son friendship, I mean, on pleasure, he takes some dolor, pain, and sadness, right? That's right. And the causes, right? He never does treat the version. Yeah. So he must be, he must be understanding of it, because of concubicence, right? I know he wouldn't feel less of this. It's not fair, right? These guys. I told you about that famous dinner that had in honor of Charles de Connick and Jacques de Molion. Did you tell me what that? Or Jacques de Molion. They were, you know, honoring them, praising them, and so on. So then de Molion, they kind of get together and say a few words, you know, to response to all this praise, you know, and de Molion thanked them, you know, and so on. But they said, you should have been praising me, you should have been praising Thomas, right? He's the master, I'm not the master. And then the guy that gets turned to get up, he says, well, you should have been praising Aristotle, because that was Thomas and the master. So, kind of poking fun at each other and so on. But, you know, What Thomas is doing here, as you recall, if you remember way back in the spring, I guess it was, he's going through the, what, emotions, right? One by one, right? And this is emotions, one of the emotions in the, what, concupisable appetite, right? Okay. So, and about this four things are asked. Whether concupiscence is in the sense-desiring power only. And secondly, whether concupiscence is a special, what, passion, a special emotion. Third, whether some concupiscences are natural and some not natural. I might have some application today, huh? And then fourth, whether concupiscence is infinite, huh? Curious, huh, these articles, huh? Not the first two, maybe so much, but the third and the fourth, unless it has some delightful surprises for the mind. To the first, then, one goes forward thus. It seems that concupiscence is not only in the sensitive-desiring power, right? Apetitus in Latin, of course, can name what? Desire, but it can also name the desiring power. And so here, when they speak of the Apetitus Sensitivus, or this is a different case, it means the sense-desiring power, right? The one that falls upon the senses. And then they speak of intellectual or rational-desiring power. Okay, and this is a little bit of a question about the word there. For there is a certain concupiscencia of wisdom, right? And he quotes wisdom, appropriately, chapter 6. The concupiscence, concupiscencia of wisdom, leads one to the perpetual kingdom, right? That's where my hope is. Okay? There's something to have the concupiscencia sapientiae. And I hope it's going to lead me to the perpetual kingdom, right? Thomas calls the ordered society of those who see God. But sense-desire, the sense-desiring power, cannot be borne towards, what? Wisdom, huh? Therefore, concupiscence is not only in the sense-desiring power, right? I told you about the little exchange between me and this professor there in college, you know. I was always trying to use the syllogism, right? So one day in class, he turned to me and says, Mr. Berkwist, do you have any emotional attachment to the syllogism? I said, well, I might have an emotional attachment to some girl, but certainly not to the syllogism. It's hard to think you get emotional about. You're reasoned by it, like the certitude of the syllogism, the rigor of it, but... Yeah, so wisdom here, huh? Emotions don't go towards this sort of thing, huh? Well, moreover, the desire of the commands of God, right, huh, is not in the sense-desiring power. For, nay, rather, the apostle. Now, that's what figure of speech there, right? The apostle with a capital A. That's what I want to see it? Yeah, yeah. For the common name is given to one in particular that stands out, right? So Aristotle calls Homer the poet. He quotes Romans chapter 7, huh? Good does not dwell in me, that is, in my, what? Flesh, huh? But the desire of the commands of God comes under concupiscence, huh? According to that of Psalm 118, huh? My soul desires concupific, concupific, huh? Use that word. It wants to desire your, what? Justifications, huh? Therefore, concupiscence is not only in the sense-desiring power, right? Moreover, to each power there, what? Is desirable concupiscibile its own, what? Good. Good, huh? Therefore, concupiscence is in each power of the soul, and not only in the sense-desiring. Part of this is in the question of how particular is that word signify, right? But against this is what Damascene says, huh? Orthodoxy. That the, what? Irrational part that obeys and is able to be persuaded by reason is divided into, what? Concupiscence and era. Era, right? Okay. In Greek, they say epithumia and thumas, right? So Plato and Aristotle will talk about epithumia, which is kind of translated sometimes by concupiscentia in Latin, and they speak of that power as the, what, epithumia, or we in Latin speak of it as the concupiscible power, right? And then, what, thumas, anger, right then? Okay. This is the, what, part of the irrational part of the soul, okay? It's rational only by, what, partaking, right? The part that, what, undergoes, huh? It's desiring. Therefore, concupiscence is in the sense-desiring power, right? So Thomas says, I answer, it should be said, that as the philosopher, another capital P there, right? I know I get some of these texts, sometimes I download the text of Thomas into my computer so I can carry it somewhere without carrying all my books. And if they don't have that P capitalized, or even Apostolus capitalized, you go in there and I change it with a capital A and a capital P, you know? It's not just any philosopher. It's not just any apostle, huh? I guess if you study the New Testament, you see that, was it, Peter and Paul are called, well, what, Apostles, right? The others not, really, so much, huh? In their letters and so on, huh? Okay. I answer, it should be said, that as the philosopher says in the first book of the rhetoric, concupiscence, or epithumia, I suppose would be the Greek word, is a desire for the, what? Pleasant, huh? There is, however, a two-fold pleasure, as will be said below. So, one which is for, in the understandable good, huh? Which is the good of reason, right? So wisdom is an understandable good, right? Virtue is an understandable good. Justice is an understandable good, right? The other pleasure is in the good according to the senses, as known by the senses. Now, the first pleasure seems to be of the soul only, because you're studying the dianima there, right? The reason and the will are not in the body. I remember a guy talking about some, a neurologist, the way he was, some guy studying the brain, right? And he's kept on poking the brain and saying, oh, I taste steak or something, you know, or, you know, but he couldn't find any place that he poked the brain, like I said, I just willed something. And so, like a personal scientist, he concluded, the will is not in the brain, right? That's a good step forward, right? I heard something similar was that a scientist was doing that with somebody else, stimulating his brain, and his arm went up, and the scientist said to him, do that again. And the man said, I didn't do it, you did it. Yeah. He's got to say, you made me well that. Yeah, you did it. I didn't do it, you did it. Yeah, yeah. So they're in the soul alone, right? Yeah. The second, the one that is in the sense, is of the soul and the body, what? Together. Because the sense is a power in a bodily, what? Orbit. Whence the good according to sense is a good of the whole, what? Combination, you might say. Such a desire for pleasure seems to be meant by the word concubiscence, right? Which pertains together to both the soul and the body, right? As the name concubiscence itself sounds, you can go to Latin to see that, right? Whence concubiscence, properly speaking, is in the sense-desiring power. And those are of two kinds, right? And in the concubisal power in particular, right? Which is named from it. Okay? Let's go back to the reason why those are named, right? So in Plato and Aristotle, they use the term, e-cubi-e. In Latin, they speak of the, what? Concubisable, irascible. Now, are concubiscence and anger the only emotion, only passion in that particular part? So why are these two powers named from one of the six emotions? Love, right? Concubisable, pleasure, or delight. Fear, right? Not fear, right? Hate. Hate. Aversion, turning away from, huh? Aversion, and then sadness, right? Okay? And here, we've got five passions, right? And here's one of them. We've got hope and fear, right? Despair, right? Oh, listen. Okay. Why are these two powers named from these two passions? There's any reason why they're named from those two. First among the other. Love is more fundamental than, you know? I want stake because I like stake, right? So my liking stake is more fundamental than my wanting stake. Visible. Yeah. I always go back to Shakespeare, right? And Tress and Cressida, and things in motion, sooner catch the eye, and what not stirs, right? So if you want somebody's attention, you, what? Wave. Wave, you know, you get off the airplane or something, or the train or something, you wave, right? If you don't want somebody to notice you, because you owe them some money or something, right? Don't move around. It's just, you see? You see this in the movies all the time. Somebody's hiding in the room, right? And the police, whoever it is, are about to leave. And then somebody happens to move something, or, you know, a little bit, or, you know, back right in there, right? You can tell them that, okay? So things in motion, sooner catch the eye, you're what not stirs, right? That's a very important thing that Shakespeare says, huh? And Aristotle, in the ninth book of Wisdom, right, he says that ability is known through act, right? So act is what is first knowable. And then he points out that the act that is first called an act is motion. So motion underlies everything, right? Now, Thomas gives a good principle. He's explaining words equivocal by reason. We name things as we know them, right? So the order in naming follows the order in what? Knowing. You know that favorite question of mine? What sense of before? Does one sense of before come before another sense of before? What's the before in our knowledge, right? In that sense of before, because we name things as we know them, right? So concubiscence is more like motion than, let's say, love, and therefore it's the area of pleasure. Because pleasure is kind of a resting, right, in the object, but love, right? And you possess it, right? Like concubiscence, a wanting, desire, that sort of thing. It's like a seeking of which you don't, what? Have, but that you like, right? But life can be with either one, having the object or not having it, right? So concubiscence is more like motion. And anger, you know? You know, when you're trying to explain what emotion is Mozart imitating, right? His music, right? And some days it's hard to say exactly what it is, huh? But when he imitates anger, he's very clear. And we had a letter, right, of Mozart to his father when he's writing the Induction from Seraldo. And he's explaining how he's imitating Oz, and he gets angry, right? And he says, music must imitate his losing control of himself. But he says, knock it away that is disqueasing to the ear. Or in other words, cease to be music. So these are both like motions, right? And Shakespeare's a beautiful metaphor, right? And as you like it, huh? Where Oliver Isidus and Cecilia, right? They fall in love very quickly, right? And the idea is to get them married off as quickly as possible. You know, but the other character, as the brother says, they are in the very wrath of love. Sticks are not, you know, clubs cannot separate them, right? But notice that metaphor, right? They are in the very wrath of love, right? You know? They're going at each other, you know? The way that people, you know? But there's a lot of emotion there, right? But here, you're making a metaphor here from these two species that have some similarity, right? It's kind of striking that Shakespeare could do that, right? A very wrath of love. So Thompson's out by saying, and the concupiscible power is denominated, huh? Named from, huh? Okay? But it includes those other emotions that we distinguished before. Now, sometimes we take a word that's applied to something in the sensible world, right? And we carry it over, right? And to some extent, that's the solution to these first objections, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the desire for wisdom or for other spiritual goods, right? Which are not sensible goods, is sometimes named, what? Concupiscence, right? Either on account of a certain, what? Likeness, huh? Because both are kind of, what? Desire, right? Kind of wanting, huh? That's very common, huh? Like, we take the word see and we apply it, take it from the eye, right? And then Hamlet says, I see, you can see my father now, looking around for the ghost. And he says, in my mind's eye, right? In the imagination. And then finally we carry it over to understanding, right? You see what I mean? So the word see is taken from the eye and then applied to the act of imagination and finally to the act of reason itself, right? Now something like that can take place with the word love, right? And it could take place with the word concubiscence. But apparently the word concubiscence in Latin is tensing more, stuck with the sensible one, right? But it could be carried over, either an account of some likeness, or, and this is very interesting what he says, an account of the intensity, right, huh? Of the, what? Desire of the, part, yeah. From which there comes about a, what? Redundance in the lower, what? Appetite, huh? Okay, that together also in the lower appetite meaning the sense desiring power in its own way Tends towards the spiritual good, right? Fouling the what? Yeah, and also the body itself sir is what? There's kind of an overflow you might say right then okay And even in the life of the mind you know when you're trying to understand something you're having a difficulty I'll tell you you see it you know, there's kind of an overflow in the what emotions you can kind of walk you up and down you know You know the famous example of the greek who's supposed to have what you see the bathtub right now, and then he discovered a theorem, right? Eureka! He said and he jumped out of the bathtub and ran down without putting his clothes on you know That's kind of the overflow right now In the life of St. Teresa of Avila there right she comes out of her what cell there where she's been meditating or something and all of a sudden she starts dancing right you know And she's just overflow into the body of this And he quotes the psalm 83 my heart and my flesh right exult in the living what? God I was reading Thomas there in question 12 there in the summa prima paris today He's asking whether the the senses can see God, right? Of course the senses can't see God as he is but there's kind of a ambiguous Passage there from Augustine right which Thomas has to explain right now And Augustine is explaining that we'll see God with our senses in the way in which we see that our neighbor is alive We don't really see with our eye his life as such, right? But we see him moving and talking or laughing wherever it is and then we what our reason, huh? We see that he is what? Blind yeah And so when you see these things in the next world, right? Lumen by God and so on Oh, yeah, God is there. Yeah holding these things in existence, right? Your mind right away will grasp that God is there, right, huh? So it's like what they call the sensible prejudice, right? It's grasped by some other power than senses but when you sense, right? And so I grasp that you're alive, right? By my reason when I sense you, you know, acting like you're alive Sometimes you don't know about the student, you know, he's passed away or something Yeah, lower life form Yeah, yeah Now in the reply to the second objection, he kind of gets a little bit into the meaning of the word a bit In that first part, con concupiscence, yeah To the second, it should be said, huh? That desire, I suppose the word desire, right? Is able more to pertain, properly speaking, not only to the, what? Lower appetite Right? But also to the superior, right? That word is more able to be, what? Extended, right, huh? Okay For it does not imply some, what? Con associatium Some living together with, right? Which, in desiring And that, I suppose, refers to what the body being involved, right? Not just the soul, right? But it implies simply the simple emotion in the thing, what? Desiring, yeah? So they get a little bit of what Thomas meant in the body of the article when he said, That ipsum nomen, huh? Con concupiscencia sonata, huh? That there's a kind of togetherness, right, huh? Of the soul with the body in emotion, huh? It reminds me of often there in the article in the evaluation of music where he makes a good point, huh? That the pleasure of fiction, right, is not the highest pleasure, but it's the pleasure most proportioned to man because it involves the body and the soul, and therefore can move us more forcefully, huh? It seems to appeal to the whole man, huh? But the word desire is more neutral, you know? Going back to the first objection, or the reply to the first objection, you know, is it simply because of its overflowing into the lower appetite that the word concupiscence is applied to the desire of reason, or the rational part, rather? I remember Deion talking one time, I see Deion in the talking class one time about the eros, right, the Greek word, which is very sensual, right, eros, erotic, the word erotic love and so on, huh? But sometimes it's applied to the, what, love of God, right, huh? And because of the intensity of it, right, huh? Okay? It's like in the Song of Songs, you know? It's supposed to be the last book you read, huh? Because you've got to be confirmed in virtue, so you won't be. It's understanding the book, right? I read a priest saying, you know, all I can say about it is about marriage. You read the book too early. You're not a gray beard yet. You read St. Bernard's first sermon on it. It was in the same room, I think, sometimes, he was saying, you know, don't have the girls read this right away, you know, read this later on, when they, you know, some things. I remember, like, C.S. Lewis one time, you know, he's trying to describe the love of the angels, right, huh? He's trying to give the idea that their love, in some ways, is more intense than our love. Because our love is partly in the sense appetite, partly in the intellectual appetite, partly in the will, partly in that part. It's kind of divided, right, huh? And he compares it to, what was it, the anger that he was, you know? Yeah, ferocious, he calls it our love, you know? So we are trying to explain that it's got an intensity, right, that our divided love doesn't have, right? I went out to the wedding there. He said, take a few plays of Shakespeare with me to read, right? I said, well, I certainly can't take any tragedies, it's not book it, you're going to a wedding, right? So I picked up, you know, a volume of As You Like It, right, huh? A volume of Twelfth Night, huh? And one of the Merchants of Venice, right? So you get little quotes, you know, huh? And so they describe, of course, you know, that in Belmont there is a lady richly left, huh? And she is fair, and fairer than that fair of wondrous friendship. So I think what they use is to apply it to the bride, you know, the last two parts, you know? I said to the groom, I said, you're a fortunate man, huh? For she is fair, and fairer than that fair of wondrous friendship. Really, really, really, that's the right lines. But there's two attractions there then, right, huh? One is more in the sense appetite, right, and the other one more in the appetite of the reason, right? I was reading a little book there that my daughter had there, the Lucia there, talking about the apparitions and so on. There are very interesting things in there. You have a chance to get some of those. One thing, too, you know, the angel that comes down, there's three visions of the angel before the Blessed Virgin. He says, I am the angel of Portugal. When Thomas explains the orders of the angels, the princes, right, archangels, angels, where our guardian angels are, these are the last three ones, the princes, you understand this as, what, heads of nations, right? And he gives the example from Scripture, you know, a couple of them are eating about. So, we should pray to that angel who's ever going to the United States here for this election. Oh yeah. In Portugal, it's a national holiday, the feast of the angel, God's angel in Portugal. June 9th is a federal holiday. It's amazing. Who cares when? Now to the third, huh? To each power of the soul it belongs to desire its own, what? Good, huh? By what is called natural desire, huh? You have that even in the plants, right? So, I've heard, you know, the guy at the nursery, you know, say, this likes a lot of water, it likes a lot of sun. It's a lot better, right? I like the broccoli, I like to plant broccoli. He says, it's a big feeder, right? You've got to get another... Like to eat. Yeah. So, to each power of the soul, it belongs to desire in this way, huh? Its own good by natural desire, right, huh? Which is not fouling some, what? Knowing some grasping, huh? So, here's the word apprehension. Here's the word apprehend for what? Grasping for knowing, right? Because in knowing, the thing known is in the, what? Knower. So, when I grasp something, you know, it's in my hand, right? So, when the mind grasps something, it's contained in the hand, huh? In the mind, huh? My love is, what? More in the thing loved, huh? So, the thing, love is in the thing loved, but the thing known is in the knower. It's just the reverse, huh? It's like to use that word, apprehension, huh? When I was first studying it out in philosophy, they always called the first act of reason, simple apprehension. But the English word would be grasping, right? Simple grasping. Grasp what a square is. Grasp what a circle is. And then you can grasp what a square is not a circle. You've got to grasp what a square is first, and what a circle is. Quadrilateral. Well, you can grasp what a square is a quadrilateral. But to desire good by a, what? But the animal goes back to the word anima, right? Soul, right, huh? Okay? Which follows some, what? Grasping, right? Pertains only to the desiring, what? Power, right? So, he's distinguishing between natural desire, right? Which is found even without knowledge in the one naturally desiring something, right? From this desire that follows upon some kind of grasping. So, the sense desiring power and intellectual desiring power are named that way because they fall upon some knowing, either by the senses or by the intellect. But to desire something under the notion of a good that is pleasant according to the senses, which is property, in a strict sense, concupiscity, right? Retains to the concupiscible what? Power. So, any question about that first article? It's a lot to do with understanding the words here, right? The words signify.