De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 132: The Will's Necessity and the Intellect-Will Hierarchy

Transcript
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A necessity, huh? It doesn't fill, so to speak, my will, huh? It's like a willing else. But when you see God face to face, right, then your will is going to be completely what? Satisfied, completely filled, huh? A little bit like in Thanksgiving, your stomach is completely what? Satisfied, and maybe too much, right? And you couldn't want anything more, right? You see? Maybe you can't eat dessert or something, you know, let's have a few Americans on Thanksgiving, right? But, you know, it was kind of interesting that they called the Heavens sometimes a banquet, right? See? But it's even greater than the Thanksgiving dinner, right? Confivio, right? This is so much food, right? You couldn't possibly, right? All you can eat, but more. So you couldn't possibly have too much of this. You see? Then your ability to will is completely what? At rest, you might say, huh? You know? Completely. Then you necessarily will God, huh? So you don't have to worry about sinning anymore. I used to read it as a little, you know, saying, you know, sin in the deathbed, you know. Ah, I shall sin no more, you know? Because you all have these little faults, you know, greater faults. And, you know, St. John says, you say, I have no sin, you're a liar, and so on. Right? So the saint realized that even in little ways, or whatever, he's sitting up to the last moment almost, you know, but when he gets over there and sees God face to face, then, you know, he's not going to, he's going to be completely moved by that object, right? But you don't realize how good God is, huh? And it's hard to understand how good God is, huh? Um, yeah, I was mentioning how Thomas, the two little helps Thomas gives us, right, huh? He's showing that God and creatures, you know, um, is no better than God alone, you know? And I say, one ratio he uses, like, the goodness of the creature is the goodness of God, like a point is to a line, huh? Not like a shorter line is to a longer line, right? Yeah. See? Because if you add a shorter line to a longer line, you get an even longer line, right? Yeah. But you add the goodness of the creature to God, you get nothing better, see? Otherwise, God would be under kind of a more necessity of willing to do better, right? It's, you know, when you study God's will, you realize that he in no way necessarily wills us, right? That it's pure liberality on his part, right? Right. Pure generosity, right? And that's why, you know, Avicenna's very good there. Thomas always quotes Avicenna, right? Avicenna says, God alone is liberal, right? You know? He gives without getting any return, right? You see? And so it's like adding a point to a line, but it's no more than a line, huh? Or he'll say, you know, it's like a hole in one of its parts. Because the creature just has in a partial way, right? A very partial way. What God has completely, right? So Dwayne Berkwist in the arm of Dwayne Berkwist is no more than Dwayne Berkwist. And that's the way it would. It's God in the creature is good, right? No more than God alone. You know how strongly Christ speaks too sometimes, you know? Even speaking of self and human nature, why do you call me good, right? He says, God alone is good, huh? I mentioned those ways of speaking. God has things to, maybe it was both of those in Abraham, I think. He says, you know, follow me and I will show you every good. Thomas says, it is, myself. That is myself. So, it's hard for us to understand, huh? He's going to completely, in a sense, satisfy our ability to love, right? In fact, you're going to say, my ability to love is exhausted by God, right? It's almost like you're going to be willing like God will, right? He wills everything else but willing himself. But you realize, huh? You know, like Aristotle says, you know, the soul is in some way all things, right? And the will, in some sense, is open to all good, right? To perfect good, huh? You realize that kind of infinite capacity of the heart to love, but then there's only objects that can really meet that. Infinite capacity is the divine goodness, huh? And therefore, Augustine says very well that it was made for this, huh? And Thomas sometimes, when he's arguing about the infinity of God, you know, the same way he applies it to the, what? To the mind, right, huh? You know, that our mind is ordered to something infinite. And God is really the only thing that is simply infinite, huh? So God is the only thing that ultimately can satisfy our mind. There's something like that from, you know, the will, right? It's ordered to something infinite, huh? And even Juliet sees that, huh? Kind of a little clever scene there in the garden scene, you know, when Juliet comes out on the thing, she kind of confesses to the stars her love for Romeo, right? And then he comes forward and declares his love and so on. And then she says, she had to take her love back again, see? And he says, why? So she could give it again, right? To be frank, she says, and frank means what? Free, right? A frank means a free man at the original meeting of the frank. But then she says, then she realizes she doesn't have to do that because she can always give him more love, right? And then she speaks of her love as being infinite, right? She can always give more love, right? Okay. With God, you give all your love and it's still not enough. That's kind of interesting, you know, the commandment to love, huh? To love the Lord your God with your, what, whole heart, right? Okay. That's what Thomas talked about here, right? You see? God's the only object that can fully, what, satisfy the heart, right? Okay. Or his capacity to love, you might say, is what? The object is proportioned to his capacity to love, right? That doesn't fall short of it, right? As opposed to what the, the, the, the, Thackeray's saying there, right? Who in this life forgets what he wants? You're having God and dissatisfied, right? You think, you think, you kind of joke about Americans, you know, it's consumer society, you know. Happiness is one purchase, one more purchase away, right? I mean, I, I mean, you know, people, they get, they get, you know, a better TV set, they put out this digital TV or whatever it is, you know, and computers, you know, and they're, they're always getting a new computer or something, you know, and they're replacing these things, you know, but they, they, they, they're satisfied, right, huh? Something like that with money, right? The more money you get, kind of, the more money you want, huh? I remember seeing an older businessman kind of breaking down almost into tears because he couldn't make another killing, right? Somebody was stopping him from making another, I said to myself, you know, he didn't need the money, obviously, right? You know, but just, he wanted to accumulate more, I don't know, but you're never satisfied no matter how much you accumulate. Like Alexander the Great, you know, weeping that he'd no more worlds to conquer, right? But if he had more worlds to conquer, he would not be, you know? The way Caesar was so ambitious, you know, he's constantly thinking you have greater things you can do, as Plutarch says, huh? Right. But, so you see the ways you're applying them to the second objection, huh? These goods that are only partial and are not necessarily for happiness, they don't have an ability to what move or what heart necessarily, right? There's no such thing as an offer, I can't resist, right? But I hear people saying that, you know, sometimes in the world, you know, like when a man leaves one company or one institution to go to another one, right? I remember, you know, the wife of the man saying, you know, to my wife, you know, well, they made him an offer you couldn't resist. So, you had to go, I mean, obviously they're giving you a big raise or whatever it is, right? So they can get his services, right? I mean, I've heard that phrase all my life, you know, if it's you, you don't know if you can't resist. But, is it, you know, more salary or whatever it is, right? Is that enough? You know? See? The two, you can't resist. That kind of a, a what? A privilege. Yeah. You can say it when you see God face-to-face, right? I can't resist you. Now, the third objection is a little different one. The third one was saying the sense desire, right, seems to be moved by its object, especially in the other animals. Well, then, probably wouldn't it be the same thing in the reason and the will, right? He says, to the third it should be said that the sensing power, right, the senses, is not a vis, what, collativa. Now, what does the word collativa mean? To bring together, collatio, right, to bring together, right? So when we define and when we reason, what do we do? When I reason, I bring together at least two statements, and from them I have a discourse, right? I run to a conclusion, right? When I define, I bring together the genus and the differences, right? And then I see something, huh? When I add and subtract and multiply, I bring together two numbers, right? And then from that I get a third one, right? So sometimes I see, you know, in logic, you know, I see Albert the Great and Thomas too, but Albert and we're, you know, collativus and discursivus, that's what he described as our reason, right? Collativus. It brings together things, and then it, what, sees something else from those things that's brought together, right? So it's discursivus, huh? Okay? We talked about Shakespeare's definition there, right? And how the word discourse means what? Disgrunt. It means kind of, it comes with the word running, right? But when applied to the reason, it can mean not only the reason going from one thing to another, but it's coming to know what it doesn't know through what it does know, right? And that's kind of the discourse that defines reason, huh? And, uh, but kind of the beginning of that is just being collativus, right? Just like you need two numbers to get another number, right? Or two statements to get another statement. So you have to kind of bring things together, right, huh? Okay? Thomas in the Body article, where you can see the vis collativus of Thomas Aquinas, right, is bringing together the, what, reason or understanding the will and kind of seeing them alongside each other, comparing the two, right? Bring together diverse things and understanding something, right, and the comparison of them. So he says the sense power is not a power that brings together diverse things, as reason does, but simply, huh, it grasps something one, right? Okay? So the, what, dog, it smells the meat, right? Okay? Remember the first cat we had, we had her, had him up at the, uh, the lake there, where we were staying one summer. And my mother had cleaned some fish on some brown thing and put it in the wastewater basket, you know. The cat's like it's a wastewater basket. But they smell one thing, right? They're not comparing things, just smell one thing. And in the wastewater basket, there's just going to be some fish to eat or something in that thing, huh? And therefore, according to that one thing, it's moved in a determined way, the sense desire, huh? Okay? But reason is what? Able to bring together many things, huh? And therefore, for many things, the intellectual ability to desire, the will, right, is able to be moved. And not from one, from what? Necessity, huh? And that's the reason why we think that the newborn baby, right, is not really responsible, right, in the way that someone who has a use of reason, huh, and can bring things together, yes, huh? But in a way, you know, the cause of our sinning is our will, what, moving towards the good, known by reason in some way, but not sufficiently, what, considered, right, huh? Okay? So when the man robs a bank, right, he thinks, well, this is a way to get a lot of money, this is a way to get an easy street ride, this is going to be an easy thing, easy hit. And he's not considering the whole thing, right, that it isn't his money, and that, you know, it's unjust, and all the other things, right? So his will is not awaiting a full consideration of what? Of reason, huh? Okay? Now, there's always a quote of Hamlet there when he tells why he chose Horatio as a friend, huh? He says, since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, and could have been distinguished, right, her election has sealed thee for herself, right? And he starts to go into the reasons why he chose him as a friend, huh? That he was not passionate slave, right? Give me that man that is not passionate slave. Well, some men are a slave of their own fear, some of their anger, some of their lust, you know, some of their desire for drugs and so on, right? So, reason can compare these men, right, huh? And see their differences, and see which man is better to have as a friend, huh? See? And as he said, since my dear soul was mistress of her choice. Well, the soul is mistress of her choice when she has the, what? Vis colletivus, right? And discursivus, when it has that power to bring things together and compare them and distinguish them, right? And to reason, right? And then it's, what? Really able, right? To, what? Be mistress of her choice. Yeah. So a simpler way of saying, I don't know why those times would be that, but therefore since the will is a blind faculty, it can't do that. It's dependent entirely upon. Yeah, yeah. It can't be possible. Yeah. You see, if my will is too much inclined, let's say, to money or something of this sort, right, huh? Then my will may not wait for my reason to consider whether this is a suitable way of increasing my wealth, huh? You see? Sir, can you say that again, please? Yeah. I say, if my will, right, is too strongly inclined towards money, right? And so my reason, then, is thinking of how to get money, right? And there are some ways of getting money that are, what? Unjust and questionable, right? In every way, see? Well, my will may not, what? Wait for a full consideration of reason, but it will, what? Jump, you might say, right? At any, what? Suggestion of how you can quickly and clearly, right, get some more money. Without thinking, in fact, maybe being unjust to somebody else, or robbing, you know, but doing something else that isn't quite right, yeah. Wouldn't it be the sensitive appetite more than, like, especially in saying that? Yeah. Any person, you know, is sensitive? Yeah. Yeah, but as he said before, though, see, the sense appetite doesn't have control over my members, right, without the consent of the will, huh, see? Okay? And, you see, when Aristotle takes up the virtues and the vices in books two through six, right, of the Nicomagian Ethics, then book seven he talks about some things that are above or below vice, he talks, among other things, about continence and incontinence, huh, and there he's talking about the man who doesn't have his sense appetite habituated to the good, right, but his reason, will, are not entirely corrupt, and there's a struggle for him, right, okay? So, you left your money around there, and I can take it without getting caught, right, see? If I have a struggle, you know, to take it, then I'm not yet, you know, virtuous, right? Mm-hmm. But I'm not completely vicious either, you see? I'm in a kind of a, what, middle stage there, right? And so the, the, and sometimes the reason the will went out, right, other times the sense appetite seems to win out, huh, but in that case, you're, you might repent what you've done, right, when your passion subsides, huh, you see? Or the man, you say, whose anger has a hard time controlling his anger, right, and his anger really wins out and he hits somebody or does something, right, and then when his anger subsides, he, he, he, he's, he regrets what he's done, huh, maybe it's too late to make amends or whatever it might be, huh, you see? Or like the man who, you know, the fear overcomes him and he runs away when he should stay. and fight or stay and defend something, and then his fear calms down, he realizes what a coward he's been, and he's ashamed of himself, and so on, right? You see? So he's not entirely bad, right? And that's where Aristotle talks about shame there. He says that the man who's really virtuous has nothing to be ashamed of. But the man who's something to be ashamed of, right, he's not totally, what, good or bad, right? You see? But the shame, in a sense, is something encouraging him to be virtuous, or try to be virtuous, but if you're not too sure about yourself in some manner, then you tend to be more, what? Yeah, or, you know, shame more, you know? Like in sexual matters, something like that, for example, you know? Just talking about these sinful things makes some people blush, right? You know, the part of that may be just the bodily constitution of the person, you know, you've got to be careful about these things, you see. But a younger person is more apt to blush, right? And Aristotle says that's actually good that they blush, you know, in a sense, huh? It shows they have some sense of what's decent and some sense of honor and so on, right? You know, what happens a lot now with the movies now and the things and so on, they kill the shame of the Indian people, right? Yep. And shame is kind of this dipping stone to virtue, but it's not the same, you know? But when Thomas talks about temperance, I mean, in the Summa Secundi Secundi, he'll talk about Veracundia, which is shame, right? It's kind of like an integral part of what? Of temperance, huh? Anastas and Veracundi are the two parts, huh? But anastas is spiritual beauty, right? Veracundi speaks of shame as being something a little less than virtue, right? But may be involved in it, huh? He says the good man would be ashamed if he did something. He shouldn't do, right? He's not so apt to feel ashamed because he has no inclination to do it, really. Okay. So, when you do something bad there, you know, when I kill you, I've given in to my anger maybe or something of that sort, right? Or when I run away, right, huh? I've given in to my fear, right, huh? See? Okay. I think I mentioned how Shakespeare thought that the rape of Lucquise, that narrative poem of Shakespeare was a very good representation of temptation, right? Right. You see? And how the man is, you know, has an inner struggle going on there, right? What is it called? The Rape of Lucquise, son. It's not a... You say it's... It's called a narrative poem. The narrative poem. Yeah. I mean, it's not a drama. It's not one of the plays, right? In Shakespeare, you have about, what, 37 plays, and then you have the sonnets, right? And you have the two narrative poems, Vitus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucquise, huh? And Vitus and Adonis is more comic, and the Rape of Lucquise is more tragic, huh? But it's a very powerful thing. It's a good study there of lust and sin, but then the, what? It's a sense of, what, you know, you're ashamed of what you've done, right? You know, and the consequences of what happens, and so on. So it's a powerful thing there, right? But no, your will has to consent, right? To whatever your body is urging you to, huh? So in some sense, the man who rapes, like in this example, or the man who kills somebody out of anger, right, is his will has consented to his emotions, right? But the emotions and the senses have a great influence on these things, because what you do isn't singular, right? Rastal's always pointing that out, but what you do isn't singular, right? I don't kill man, I kill this man right here in front of me, right? And reason knows directly, as we know from the dhyana there, reason knows directly the universal, why the senses know the, what? Singular, right? So in some sense, the senses and the emotions which fall upon them, they're closer to the singular of what you do than is the will and the reason, huh? And so if you don't apply the universal, right, or just consider that adultery, let's say it's pleasant, right, huh, you know, the pleasant should be pursued, right? Pleasant is good. Then you're not considering sufficiently what this is, right? You're not applying to it the moral law which you understand, huh, universally, right? But if your emotions are not habituated to follow reason, right, but they're, you know, strong in a way that's opposed to reason, then it becomes hard to, right, in the concrete circumstances to apply your universal understanding to this, huh? So you've got to take into account that, huh, the influence that those things have, because what you do is in the singular. So he's saying, therefore, because the sense power is not collativa as indiscretive was, right, but it simply apprehends something one. And therefore, according to that one thing, the sense appetite is moved in a determined way. But reason is collativa, huh, it brings together many things. And therefore, for many things, many considerations, the, what, intellectual ability to desire is able to be moved, namely the will, and not from one from necessity, huh? So there's many things I can consider about this, huh? I'm kind of curious if you have more sentences than my text here. I'll just be reading kind of what we've done already there. Pardon? I'll just go a little over again what we've kind of done there, right? Yeah, it just seemed like it was more than... Yeah, there is. I have more words than you have. Yeah. I'm curious. You got that Spanish edition there, or what? Yeah. Did I have a little break before I go on to the second article? Yeah, okay. Good. Whether the will is a higher power than the understanding, huh? First objection. Thompson's going to say the reverse, huh? The good and the end is the object of the will, but the end is the first and the highest of all the causes. It's called the causa causar, huh, the cause of causes. Therefore, the will is the first and the highest of the powers, huh? Okay? Moreover, natural things are found to proceed from the imperfect to the perfect, and this also appears in the powers of the soul, for it proceeds from the sense to the understanding, which is more noble than the senses. But the natural process is from the act of the understanding to the act of the will. Therefore, the will is more perfect and more noble power than the, what? Understanding. Moreover, and this is probably the strongest one, you know, because it always occurs to the Christian, habits are proportioned to the powers, right? As perfections to the perfectible. But the habit by which the will is perfected, to wit, charity, is more noble than the habits by which the understanding is perfected. So charity is the greatest of the three theological virtues. And it quotes, of course, the famous text from the Corinthians. If I know all mysteries, and if I have all faith, but I have not charity, I am, what? Nothing. So Tom, or I mean, St. Paul says, you know, these three remain, faith over charity, but the greatest of these is charity, huh? When I was in graduate school, you know, I said, which is second? The charity is the greatest of the three. Nobody knows that text. Shouldn't know it anyway. But which is greater, faith or hope? Hope. Yeah. And Thomas seems to say that in the question, is disputate, dispe, huh? Well, he gives a short explanation, you see, of the three theological virtues. He sometimes says, by faith, we, in a sense, know our end, huh? Our end is. By hope, we tend towards that end, right? Oh, yeah. And by charity, we are joined to the end, huh? Yeah. So obviously charity is the best of the three, right? Yeah. But hope, in a sense, is what? On its way. You're tending towards the end, yeah. So that's better than just kind of being aware of the end, huh? Uh-huh. Okay? but hope like charity of course is in the will right but here's just from charity but against this is what the philosopher says now pagan philosopher he's quoting right in the tenth book of Nicomachean Ethics that the highest power of the soul is the understanding so what do you think disputed question one guy from the Dominicans told me a Dominican teacher used to say seldom affirm no no no excuse me he said never affirm seldom deny always distinguish what's more he said never affirm seldom deny always distinguish there's some truth of this it's kind of interesting what this do you think it had said you know where that comes from that's funny because there was a priest who was here in our community for a few months and he used to say don't say yes don't say no say distinguish yeah and that's the first time I've ever heard that since that time yeah maybe he had a Dominican background or his classic background now Thomas begins with a distinction here right I answer it should be said that the eminence of something towards another can be noted in two ways right in one way what simply right in another way what secundum quid right okay now we've talked about that kind of distinction before have we or not the secundum quid distinction between some teacher and secundum quid right I think it's been a while but yeah like a year but I think I remember something about that you know between simply and what in a way and not simply but in some way right but usually kind of a qualified way right yeah could you doctor just made an example or two yeah talk about it a little see yeah remind me and it's very important when you get into logic into the the R.S.D.L.'s book about statistical refutations right where he talks about 13 kinds of mistakes right but the first two mistakes outside of language are the mistake for mixing up the accidental with the as such and we're just talking about the importance of that distinction when you talk about the good right because the good as such right is desired huh the bad as such is not desired right but the bad can be what desired in some accidental way or by happening huh so if I desire to drink a delicious poison you could say I'm desiring to drink something bad to drink right yeah but I'm not desiring it as bad as poisonous right right I'm desiring it because it tastes good smells good right and it happens to what tastes good to be poisonous it doesn't go long to tasting good as such to be poisonous otherwise you can't have a hell of a time you can't even drink it anything right you see the idea you see so we say some might say you know how can you define the good as we define the good and Aristotle does and Plato does and Thomas does and Dionysius does right the good is what all want see and that would not be a definition of good the first definition of good anyway if the bad was also desired because a definition has to be what convertible with the thing it defines so if sometimes the bad was desired then the definition wouldn't fit just the good would it so I don't understand the convertible with the thing it defines well in logic we say a and b are convertible right if every a is a b and every b is a I'm sure ok let's put that on the board every second thank you um we say a and b are convertible if every a is b and every b is is a b ok now if you have a property in the strict sense right or a definition they should be convertible with the thing defined which is a property so every two is half of four and everything half of four is what two now if you have a definition every square is an equilateral and right angled quadrilateral and vice versa every equilateral and right angled quadrilateral is a square that's why when Socrates is asking somebody what something is right like if Socrates asks what is a dog and Berkeley says well dog is a four-footed animal Socrates would stop and say well it is true that every dog is a four-footed animal but now is it true that every four-footed animal is a dog so since you can't turn it around that speech four-footed animal is not yet a definition of dog you have to add something more right you see that or if I said a square is a four-sided figure Socrates would say well it's true that every square is a four-sided figure but is the reverse true is every four-sided figure a square so the definition should fit only the thing being defined and that's kind of even the etymology of the word definition which comes from limit right so I say the limits the city limits of Worcester should contain the whole of Worcester but no city outside or no town outside of Worcester right and you really haven't given the city limits of Worcester if part of Worcester is outside those limits or some other town is within those limits the same way if I defined let's say the square as a what green in right angle quadrilateral then I'd leave some squares out of the definition of nine but if I defined the square as a right angle quadrilateral I'd include the oblongs as well as squares so it's got to fit it's got to be a tight fit as we say okay how to get into that discussion anyway well I deflected you at the point of simplicity dera versus secundum quid which we ran into secundum okay okay I was talking about how Aristotle divides the fallacies in the book on sister reputation into the fallacies that come from speech from language like the fallacy of equivocation right or he makes the different senses of a word or something of that sort right then the fallacies outside of language and the first two ones he talks about right correspond to two very common and important kinds of distinction and the first one is sometimes called the fallacy of the accident right it's a mistake there for mixing up the as such with what is by happening okay like if I was to say you know who builds a house I say well sometimes it's a pianist you know sometimes it's a beer drinker sometimes you know but now I'm speaking accidentally aren't I right okay it's not the pianist as pianist who builds a house it's not the beer drinker as beer drinker building a house right it's the house builder as such right yeah okay so to be a pianist or to be a beer drinker is something that happens right it's not it doesn't belong to the house builder as such right okay now as I mentioned here because we had seen in the previous article when we talked about the will as willing always the good right and how we define the good at first is out out the good the good