Q.81 a.2: The Concupiscible and the Irascible — Two Powers of Sense Desire

Orientation #

He opens by recalling that what “the previous article” called sensualitas, sense desire, is now to be divided into two powers (prev. lecture). He says nothing about next time. The previous class treated q. 81 a. 1 on whether sensualitas is a knowing or a desiring power, and the next reviews the eleven passions and their transfer to the will and to God.

The class, in order #

1. The question and the first objection (“of one contrariety, as sight is”) #

Point: whether sense desire is distinguished into irascible and concupiscible as diverse powers; the division comes first from Plato and Aristotle, though the sed contra cites two doctors of the church.

Objection 1 as he reads it:

1. The same power of the soul is of one contrariety: sight of white and black, taste of sweet and bitter.
2. The suitable and the harmful are contraries.
3. So concupiscible (regarding the suitable, what pleases the senses) and irascible (regarding the harmful) belong to one power.

His illustration of the harmful: you stick a pin in me, or step on my toes and say “so what?”, so I get angry and shove you off. He flags in advance that Thomas will say these are not really contraries; the true contrariety is within the concupiscible.

2. Second objection and a note on appetitus (“the ability to desire following upon sense”) #

Translation aside: appetitus in Latin names not the desire but the ability to desire, so “sense desire” in English can mislead; he sometimes says “the sensitive ability to desire,” though even that is imperfect. The phrase means “the ability to desire that follows upon sense.”

Objection 2: such a power is only of what is agreeable to the senses; but the agreeable-to-sense is the object of the concupiscible; therefore no other sense desire differs from it.

Why he finds it interesting: the irascible moves us to things not agreeable to sense. If I fight you over a piece of meat, the fight is painful; if you want to eat me for dinner and I run as fast as I can, the running is not pleasant. So the irascible is not moved simply by what is agreeable. He previews the reply: the irascible is in a sense a higher power, involving more knowing than the outward senses; “that’ll come out in the reply.”

3. Third objection: is hate irascible? (“a hatred of our what vices”) #

Objection 3: Jerome, commenting on Matthew 13, says we possess in the irascible a hatred of our vices; but hate, being contrary to love, is in the concupiscible; therefore the same power. He notes the objection’s claim is “actually not true.”

Where the confusion comes from: the story of Thomas, tempted by his brothers with a woman, grabbing the poker, driving her out, burning a cross over the door, and receiving a special grace—“was this anger or hatred of vice?” Things get mixed together. Anger in a way arises from hate or disliking: I hate your sticking me with pins, and so anger rises.

4. Sed contra and the Greek names (“thumos for the irascible”) #

Gregory of Nyssa (the edition’s footnote says Thomas has the wrong author; it is Nemesius) and Damascene lay down two powers. In Plato and Aristotle the Greek is thumos for the irascible—it can mean anger, or boldness—and epithumia for the concupiscible, desire for what pleases the senses.

5. One power in genus (“one power in genus”) #

Thomas’s reply: sense desire (appetitus sensitivus) is one power in genus, divided into two species, as sense is a genus for sight, hearing, smell, and so on (five species), but sense desire has only two.

Genus/species explained: a general kind with at least two particular kinds under it—number into odd and even; triangle into equilateral, isosceles, scalene; government into monarchy, oligarchy, democracy; sonnet into English and Italian; drama into tragedy and comedy “and maybe some other kinds in between.” Every science divides a general kind into particular kinds. Aside: in English “form” often serves for species (“democracy is one form of government”).

6. The argument for two inclinations (“just as fire, huh, has a natural inclination”) #

The argument as he reads it:

1. In corruptible natural things there must be not only an inclination to pursue the suitable and refuse the harmful, but also an inclination to resist what corrupts and impedes. Example: fire not only recedes from a lower place and tends to a higher, but resists what corrupts and impedes it; his own: a rock tends to the ground but resists being broken up.
2. Sense desire is an inclination following upon sense knowledge, as natural desire is an inclination following upon natural form.
3. Therefore there must be two powers in the sensing part: one by which the soul simply pursues what is suitable to sense and refuses the harmful (the concupiscible: moving toward the agreeable, away from the disagreeable); another by which the animal resists what attacks it and prevents the suitable or inflicts harm (the irascible).

Whence the irascible’s object is called the arduous or difficult: it tends to overcome the contrary things and rise above them.

7. Not led back to one source; the passions dampen each other (“concupiscence when aroused diminishes”) #

Point: the two inclinations are not reduced to one source, because sometimes the soul involves itself in sad or painful things against the concupiscible inclination in order to fight, by the irascible, against what is contrary. Example: St. Benedict, tempted by the flesh, jumping into a bramble bush—going against the desire for pleasure.

Further sign: the passions of the irascible seem repugnant to those of the concupiscible—concupiscence aroused diminishes anger, anger aroused diminishes concupiscence, ut in pluribus. His common example: a man and woman on agreeable terms are not angry; when they get angry they do not want to make love. The activity of one diminishes the other, which shows two powers. Tackle football: getting knocked about is not pleasant to sense, but you are trying to beat the others, get even for last year’s loss; the pain does not stop the fight.

Student: that one diminishes the other would suggest one source feeding both—yet you said they do not lead back to one source. His answer: in the soul generally, when one power is very active it shuts down others; a hungry child waiting for a delayed dinner forgets his hunger when interested in something else; it happens to us too. “So it shows you got kind of two different powers.” Student: so one could pacify anger by giving candy—yes.

Rhetoric: Aristotle on anger and pity in the courtroom. If I am angry with you, what you did seems worse and I want to punish more than I should; if I feel pity, it seems less bad and I let you off lighter. Pity is a kind of sadness, so concupiscible; anger is irascible; so they get in each other’s way—anger, a desire to get even, blocks pity; pity diminishes anger (someone hits a man, sees he is hurt, feels sorry, gives him a hand up). Aristotle: it is like warping the ruler before you use it—you do not get an accurate measure; so these should not be allowed in court, “but they are.” Student: a priest wanting people to act would stir anger; wanting them to help, pity—yes.

Asides: his friend with the spastic stomach, excused from the Lenten fast, eating hot dogs and buttered popcorn at the movies while Berquist fasted—laughing or getting angry at it makes one forget one’s hunger; a student adds the confessor should have made him give up movies. Two hungry people have an angry spat at dinner and one leaves the meal unfinished, hardly aware of hunger: its place is taken by anger.

8. The irascible as fighter and defender (“the fighter for and the defensor”) #

Point: the irascible is the fighter for and defender of the concupiscible, rising against what impedes the pleasant things the concupiscible desires and against what inflicts the harm it refuses. Comparison (Plato’s city): the army protects the common people in their pursuit of pleasure and from those who would harm them.

Conclusion Thomas draws: all the passions (passiones, our “emotions”; cf. Descartes’s treatise on the passions of the soul) of the irascible start from passions of the concupiscible and terminate in them—anger arises from sadness or pain, and in inflicting revenge ends in joy. Hence also fighting among animals is about concupiscible things: Aristotle’s animals fight over food and sex; two hungry dogs fight over a thrown piece of meat, or over the female.

Student: anger sometimes comes from a slight, not physical pain. His answer: the slight causes sadness or pain—being insulted—something at least the imagination sees.

9. Reply to the first objection (“a contrariety that you have in the concupiscible”) #

Contrariety proper is in the concupiscible: convenientes and inconvenientes [ed.: he renders as suitable/unsuitable, agreeable/disagreeable], liking and disliking, loving and hating. The irascible is not immediately about the agreeable or disagreeable but about resisting what fights against—what gets in the way of what you want or of your avoiding what you want to avoid; not the contrary of the concupiscible’s object but “something else.”

10. Reply to the second: the estimative power (“there is what we call the estimative power”) #

Point: sense desire is not limited to what the outward senses find agreeable, because there are inward senses. In the knowing part of the sense soul there is the estimative power, perceptive of things that do not change the senses directly; correspondingly in sense desire there is a power desiring what is not suitable by sense pleasure but useful for the animal’s defense—the irascible.

Examples: the sheep flees the wolf not because the wolf’s shape hurts its eyes (unlike fire burning) but because an inward sense recognises it as an enemy; a mother animal recognises her young as something to feed. His own: a kitten played happily with belts, but one striated belt looked like a snake and it would not go near it—an undeveloped vis aestimativa seeing an enemy. Student: an older cat with a more developed estimative power would not make that mistake—yes.

So the irascible is in some sense a higher power, involving a higher sense power, and so closer to reason: it acts not for what is immediately pleasing but as a means to the desirable or to avoiding the painful—“it seems almost like reasoning.” Yet it is automatic, not discursive, and by nature: newly hatched small birds crouch when a big bird flies over, with no experience; we have to be taught everything (look before crossing the street). A student: they do a particular action without knowing the universal; a universal mind directs them somehow. Animals go dumbly to slaughter, but not toward their natural enemy.

Shakespeare’s definition of reason, “large discourse”: “large” marks the difference from animals, limited to certain things. Fabre’s insect: squeezes its victim’s head enough to paralyse but not kill, digs a hole sized to the body, drags it by the antenna, lays eggs on it, covers it—food for the young; Fabre with pliers could hardly get the right pressure. But when Fabre cut off the antenna, the insect could not find another of “a million and one” places to grab and filled the hole without the victim. A creature that could reason out the squeezing could reason out another handhold—even cavemen dragging a woman by the hair would pull her by the leg if the hair came out. Anaxagoras’s great fragment: mind is unlimited, something infinite; other animals do one or a few things very well, as if programmed, and are lost outside that.

Aside: his cats know he is on their side yet react as to an enemy if he gets a little aggressive in play; two cats facing off use bodily gestures interpreted by the other.

11. Reply to the third: hate and the irascible (“hate, simply speaking, pertains to the concupiscible”) #

Hate simply speaking is concupiscible, but by reason of the fighting caused by hate it can pertain to the irascible—the irascible is an effect of the hate, associated with it. Shakespeare uses the effect of one thing as an adjective of the other: “hating envy,” “loving hate”—a hate proceeding from love, as the Capulets’ and Montagues’ excessive love of their own household leads them to hate the other.

Student: is the irascible then a species of the concupiscible? No—not a species; as the body said, the emotions of the irascible start from an emotion of the concupiscible, because it fights for it, and terminate in one if there is victory. Example: I want the girl, you want her too, we fight (anger, also boldness, another emotion); I overcome you and rejoice, as an army or country rejoices after winning a battle.

His words #

• sensualitas / sense desire; the ability to desire following upon sense; the same as appetitus sensitivus.
• appetitus; in Latin names the ability to desire, not the desire; “sensitive ability to desire” as his alternative rendering [ed.: sensitive appetite].
• concupiscible; power inclining simply toward what pleases the senses and away from the harmful.
• irascible; power by which the animal resists what attacks or impedes; its object the arduous or difficult.
• nocivum; harmful, hurting.
• thumos / epithumia; Greek for irascible (anger, boldness) and concupiscible (sense desire).
• genus / species; general kind with at least two particular kinds under it; English “form” for species.
• ut in pluribus; “for the most part,” of the mutual dampening of anger and concupiscence.
• fighter for / defensor; the irascible relative to the concupiscible.
• passiones; what we call emotions.
• convenientes / inconvenientes; suitable/unsuitable, agreeable/disagreeable to sense.
• estimative power / vis aestimativa; inward sense perceiving what does not change the senses directly (enemy, young).
• “large discourse”; Shakespeare’s definition of reason, marking the unlimited mind (Anaxagoras).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 81, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies).

Mentioned

• Summa Theologiae I, q. 81, a. 1 (“the previous article,” on sensualitas).
• Jerome on Matthew 13 (via objection 3).
• Gregory of Nyssa (per footnote, Nemesius) and Damascene (via sed contra).
• Plato and Aristotle on thumos and epithumia; Plato on the army fighting for the city (Republic, inferred).
• Aristotle, Rhetoric, on anger and pity in the courtroom, “warping the ruler.”
• Aristotle on animals fighting over food and sex (locus not given).
• Descartes, treatise on the passions of the soul.
• Fabre on the paralysing insect.
• Anaxagoras, fragment on mind as unlimited.
• Shakespeare: “large discourse” (Hamlet, inferred); “loving hate,” Capulets and Montagues (Romeo and Juliet, inferred).

His questions #

• Is sense desire one power because suitable and harmful are contraries? No: the true contrariety (agreeable/disagreeable) is within the concupiscible; the irascible is about what resists.
• What does appetitus name? The ability to desire, not the desire itself.
• Why is the irascible not moved by what is agreeable to sense? It moves us to painful things (fighting, fleeing) as means; it involves an inward sense, the estimative.
• How is sense desire one power in genus? As sense is a genus for the five senses, sense desire is divided into two species.
• Why are the two inclinations not led back to one source? The soul involves itself in sad things against the concupiscible, and the two passions diminish each other.
• Doesn’t mutual diminishing suggest one source feeding both (student)? No; in the soul generally, one very active power shuts others down—the hungry child distracted.
• Does anger always come from pain, even from a slight (student)? Yes; the slight causes sadness, at least as the imagination sees it.
• Would an older cat have feared the snake-like belt (student)? No; a developed estimative power would not mistake it for an enemy.
• Is the irascible a species of the concupiscible (student)? No; its emotions start from and end in concupiscible emotions because it fights for them.