Prologue to the Second Part and Question 1, Article 1: Does Man Act for an End?

Orientation #

He recalls “the distinction that I gave a long time ago” between two kinds of division of a book, and refers back to the proemium of Thomas’s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics and to “before” in the Categories, both treated earlier (prev. lecture context not needed). He ends by proposing “a little break,” with the rest of q. 1 to follow. The previous class covered Book I of the Ethics and the general notion of virtue; the next works through q. 1 aa. 2-3.

The class, in order #

1. Two kinds of division of a book (“the editorial and reference division”) #

Point: the printed division of a work is for reference; the division one can understand is another thing, usually into two or three.

• Editorial/reference division vs. logical/understandable division. Matthew’s 28 chapters and verses: handy for “chapter ten, the third verse,” but “no one could possibly understand the division into twenty-eight.” The understandable division (from Thomas’s commentary): Matthew stresses Christ’s humanity (hence represented as the man): Christ came into the world, went through it preaching, left it by his passion and death — three parts.
• Aristotle’s Metaphysics (“the fourteen books of wisdom”): fourteen books, chapters, line numbers, Thomas’s lectios — all reference. Thomas’s logical division is into two: the proemium at the start of Book I against all the rest, then subdivided.
• “Rule of two or three” for the understandable division; the reference division can be into anything.
• Consequence: you cannot base your understanding on the reference division, though it is good to know for finding a text.
• Applied: the prologue is divided against the whole second part; it is a prologue to the second part, not to the prima secundae only.

2. The prologue: man as image of God (“man is said to be made to the image of God”) #

Point: theology treats man as image of God, which sets Thomas’s order of the virtues almost in reverse of Aristotle’s.

• Damascene quoted: man made to the image of God (as Genesis says, image and likeness) insofar as image signifies something intellectual, with free judgment, and per se potestativum — moving itself, having power over itself. Having treated the exemplar (God) and what goes forth from his power according to his will in the first part, it remains to consider his image, man, as himself the beginning of his own deeds, having free judgment and power over his works.
• Contrast with the Ethics: Aristotle does not consider man as made to God’s image (though “he sees something of that”). Hence the order of virtues differs: Thomas in the secunda secundae takes the intellectual virtues, then justice (in the will), then fortitude, last temperance; Aristotle takes fortitude and temperance first, then justice, last the virtues of reason.
• Why Aristotle’s order? Thomas gives two reasons: courage and temperance are more known to us, and by them we are disposed for the higher things. Why Thomas’s order? A student answers, and he accepts: because God has no emotions but has the virtues of the will (justice) and of reason (art, foresight, wisdom); man is being considered as image of God.
• Theology, “as the name indicates,” is about God and other things only as related to God; so man as image is taken up more than the dog or cat, though they may have a footprint of God in them.
• Aside: newspaper item about children reading stories to dogs trained to listen.

3. The logical division of the second part (“about the last end of human life”) #

Point: the real division is not prima secundae / secunda secundae but end vs. what leads to it or away from it, in general and in particular.

• Reference division: prima secundae and secunda secundae (he shows his two volumes; he cites by part, question, article, “ad three”).
• Proemium to q. 1: first about the last end of human life, then about those things through which man can arrive at this end or deviate from it. Reason for the order: from the end one must take the reasons of the things ordered to the end.
• Proemium to q. 6: since one arrives at beatitude (“the name of the end of man”) through some acts, one must consider human acts, to know by which acts one arrives at beatitude or is impeded. Then: because operations are about singulars, every operative science is perfected in considering the particular — Aristotle in the Politics: better if Socrates had told us what the virtue of a man and of a woman is than only what virtue is in general. So moral consideration is first in universale, then in particular; that is the division between the rest of the prima secundae and the secunda secundae.
• Corollary he draws: the closer to the singular, the more perfect the practical knowledge but the less certain, since more must be taken into account — why Aristotle says this science is not so certain. Anecdote: his college professor, when he wished he knew what was going on in Washington: “They don’t know themselves.”
• Same order in the Ethics: Book I on the end of man before the virtues and vices; at its end the division of human virtue into moral virtues and virtues of reason.
• History: Socrates is said to have turned philosophy from “looking philosophy” to practical philosophy; Plato’s dialogues are mostly about some virtue (Laches with an old general on courage; Theaetetus with a young geometer on what science is; Euthyphro on piety) but you are “thrown into” a virtue without considering the end of man. Aristotle puts it together: virtue is the road to happiness, vice the road to misery (“you see it in the newspaper all the time”).

4. The three things and the Our Father (“Thy will be done”) #

Point: end, what leads to it, what deviates from it correspond to three parts of the seven petitions.

• “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come”: the end itself; “thy will be done, give us this day our daily bread”: what leads to the end; “forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, deliver us”: what would make us deviate.
• Hope, tied up with prayer, aims first at the end, then at the means.
• Aside: a Mass text on being united with the saints “who have done His will throughout the ages” — the saints are those who did God’s will, “that’s all they got to be saints”; that is “thy will be done.”

5. Dividing the first part: end in general, then beatitude — and the names of happiness (“when you meet good hap”) #

Point: the first five questions divide into the last end in general (q. 1) and beatitude (from q. 2); the names for happiness carry three rival accounts of its cause.

• Beatitude, from “blessed”: the name refers to divine help, blessed by God.
• Happiness from “hap”: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I scene 1, Valentine leaving for court, Proteus’s “when you meet good hap” (and again at the play’s end): luck leads to happiness. We say someone was lucky, or fortunate (Latin), or unfortunate — as if out of one’s control.
• Aristotle on luck/fortune (English luck, Latin fortuna, Greek tyche), Physics II, “the obscure causes”: three opinions — (a) it does not exist, a name for ignorance; (b) it is a cause of the universe (like modern biologists: nature could have gone another way); (c) something divine in it. The third shows up in fiction: Poetics, the statue of the murdered man knocked over at a festival, killing the murderer; Julius Caesar assassinated at Pompey’s statue, “Pompey getting his revenge”; end of Romeo and Juliet, the prince telling the fathers God found a way to punish their hatred by the death of their only children.
• Felicitas: different etymology, from felix, fruitful — the fruit of your labors; closer to Aristotle than “happiness.” Latin could say bona fortuna for the etymology of happiness.
• Eudaimonia: “well-demoned,” daimon without today’s negative sense; closer to beatitude, a divine influence.
• As a starting point for dialectic: one opinion, happiness is the result of good luck (crossing the street at the wrong time; investing in the company that went broke); another, the fruit of what we do (miserable because of the choices you made — you chose to get drunk); a third, being blessed by a superior thing. Aristotle in Ethics I: if anything comes to us from God, happiness most of all; but his emphasis is on the road you can follow, virtue, and avoid, vice — he does not deny luck, but “he can’t really teach you how to have good luck,” nor control what a daimon or god does. Greek plays: on the right or wrong side of the gods, Athena guiding Odysseus.
• Beatitude keeps some of the sense of eudaimonia but is used especially for the happiness of a rational creature — more precise than “the end”; so end in general is taken before beatitude, as more general.
• Poetics: for men going from happiness to misery, Aristotle uses eutuchia, good fortune, not eudaimonia — the way it is presented in plays; the greatest fiction is about happiness and misery, so it is appropriate to ethics.
• Aside: a student in Rome emailed him a piece “Aristotle and Shakespeare,” passages in Greek matched with Shakespeare.

6. The eight articles of q. 1 and their grouping (“eight things are asked”) #

Point: he reads the eight titles and proposes a logical grouping.

1. whether it belongs to man to act for an end; 2. whether this is private to rational nature (or do dog, cat, even the plant act for an end?); 3. whether human acts get their species from the end (your intention); 4. whether there is some last end of human life (Aristotle argued so in the proemium to the Ethics); 5. whether one man can have many last ends; 6. whether man orders everything to the last end (the average person says “I’m not aware of it,” but ask why, and why that, and it may come back to the last end); 7. whether the same last end for all men (Declaration of Independence, “pursuit of happiness,” but most think each pursues his own — “whatever floats your boat”; bumper sticker “Music is my life”; does Mozart have the same end as Aristotle, Shakespeare as Mozart, the chef who lives for food, the alcoholic?; Politics VIII, music has a moral effect); 8. whether all other creatures come together in that last end.

• Grouping: 1-2 go together; 3 stands by itself; 4-8 as a group, subdivided (4 with 5, 6 with 7). Left for the student to sit down and see.

7. Article 1: the objections and sed contra (“how can the end be first”) #

Point: the difficulty is that the end, being last, seems not to be a cause or beginning at all.

• Obj. 1: a cause is naturally before its effect (one sense of “before” in the Categories); the end has the notion of last, “as the name itself sounds”; so the end is not a cause; but what man acts on account of is a cause (the preposition propter signifies the relation of cause). Carpenter and chair: the chair does not exist until the making is done — how can what does not exist cause what is going on now?
• Support for the objection from Metaphysics V: Aristotle treats beginning, cause, element, nature, then necessary, in that order; Thomas: beginning before cause because more general (“just like here, end before beatitude”) — every cause is a beginning, not every beginning a cause (the point is the beginning of the line without being its cause); the common notion of beginning is what is first, in being, knowing or motion. And when Aristotle lists the four causes (matter, form, mover, end; Physics II, Metaphysics V), at the end “he kind of stops” to manifest that it is a cause — the least known cause.
• Obj. 2: the last end is not for the sake of an end, but in some things the action is the last end (Ethics I, seen in the proemium). Why understand God? To understand — not for anything further. Lattimore on whether he wanted to translate the Iliad: “it’s just you” [unclear in recording] — one who has experienced Homer wants to put it in his own language. So not everything man does is for an end; sometimes what he does is the end.
• Obj. 3: man acts for an end when he deliberates, but many things are done without deliberation or thought, as moving a foot or hand while intent on other things.
• Sed contra: what is in a genus derives from the beginning of that genus; the end is a beginning in things doable by man (Physics II); so man does all things for an end. “You should have to think about this”: how can the end be first?

8. The body: human acts and the object of the will (“the lord of his own actions”) #

Argument as he reads it:

1. Of man’s actions, only those are properly human which are proper to man as man.
2. Man differs from creatures without reason in being lord of his own actions; so properly human actions are those of which he is lord.
3. He is lord by reason and will; hence free judgment is called a faculty of will and reason (his text refers to the Master, Sentences II). So human actions are those proceeding from deliberate will — the distinction Thomas also made in the proemium to the Ethics (digesting your food is not a human act). Other actions are “actions of man,” not human acts.
4. All actions proceeding from a power are caused by it according to the definition of its object: no seeing without colour or light, no hearing without sound.
5. The object of the will is the end and the good (basically the same, as seen before). Conclusion: all human acts are for the sake of some end.

9. Reply 1: first in intention, last in execution (“first in the intention of the agent”) #

Point: the end is last in being carried out but first in intention, and as first in intention it has the notion of cause.

• Marriage: do you ask her or marry her first? You ask first, but you would not ask unless you intended to marry: before in intention vs. before in execution. Restaurant: you go to the restaurant before eating, but intend the dinner before intending the restaurant. The chair is a cause of what the carpenter does because he intends it; the chair’s existence is not the cause, what he has in mind is.
• Aristotle often says what is last in thought is the beginning of action, and what is first in thought is last in things.
• Psalms (Augustine’s division, then Thomas’s): first fifty on penance, then good deeds, then resting in God — the reverse of the Our Father, which is in the order of intention; in execution you must first stop sinning, then turn to the good, then reach heaven (purgatory: still being purged). “That’s a very important distinction between those two orders.”
• Learning: knowing comes after learning, yet before it — it is why you bought or borrowed the book.
• Aside: joke about marriage as “a dead end” — “no way out.”

10. Reply 2 and 3: elicited vs. commanded acts; acts without deliberation (“the first thing willed cannot be”) #

Point: even the action that is the last end is done for an end, because the will’s own act cannot be the first thing willed.

• If a human action is the last end it must be voluntary. Voluntary in two ways: commanded by the will (to walk, to speak) vs. elicited, the will’s own act (to will) — like Aristotle’s act of reason itself vs. an act commanded or directed by reason.
• The elicited act cannot be the last end: the will’s object is the end as sight’s is colour; as the first visible cannot be seeing itself (every seeing is of a visible), the first desirable cannot be the will itself. So if a human act is the last end it is a commanded act, and the willing is for an end; so whatever man does he does for an end, even in doing the action that is the last end.
• His “homely example”: his mother’s letters — she recounted to one brother what another had written; but the first letter cannot be about what is in a letter. Likewise the first thing understood cannot be understanding itself; the first act of the senses cannot be memory; the first thing you see cannot be seeing.
• Student: so the will is for the sake of contemplating God — is that not an action that is an end in itself? Answer: yes, but the willing is not the end in itself; the first act of the will must be for the end, not for itself. “That’s kind of a subtle point.”
• Reply 3: actions done without thinking (scratching yourself) are not properly human, since they do not proceed from deliberation of reason, the proper beginning of human acts; they have an imagined end, not one set forth by reason.
• St. Francis de Sales: animals seem to cast themselves toward an end, but man forecasts his end — sees it before.

His words #

• editorial and reference division; logical and understandable division: his terms for the printed vs. intelligible division of a book.
• rule of two or three: the understandable division is usually into two or three.
• “the fourteen books of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics].
• per se potestativum: having power over oneself, moving itself (from Damascene’s definition of image).
• exemplar / image: God / man in the prologue.
• foresight [ed.: prudence]; art, wisdom: virtues of reason.
• “looking philosophy”: theoretical philosophy, before Socrates’ turn to the practical.
• in universale / in particular: moral consideration in general vs. in particular.
• beatitude: from “blessed,” divine help; used especially for a rational creature’s happiness.
• hap: luck; root of “happiness”.
• luck / fortuna / tyche: English, Latin, Greek; “the obscure causes.”
• felicitas, felix: fruitful; happiness as fruit of labour.
• eudaimonia: well-demoned; eutuchia: good fortune (Poetics).
• ratio: “the thought of the definition”; the end has the ratio of last.
• propter: “on account of,” signifies the relation of cause.
• beginning / cause: every cause a beginning, not every beginning a cause.
• human acts vs. acts of man: acts of which man is lord by reason and will vs. others.
• free judgment: a faculty of will and reason [ed.: liberum arbitrium].
• order of intention vs. order of execution (“carrying out”).
• commanded vs. elicited act of the will.
• cast / forecast (Francis de Sales): animals vs. man toward an end.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae, prologue to the second part (Damascene quotation).
• Thomas, ST I-II q. 1 proemium; q. 6 proemium (partial).
• Thomas, ST I-II q. 1, titles of the eight articles.
• Thomas, ST I-II q. 1 a. 1: objections, sed contra, body, replies 1-3 (verified source; the handout “The First Definition of Reason,” p. 86, is the verified read text for part of the class).

Mentioned

• Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith; Genesis (image and likeness).
• Thomas, Commentary on Matthew (three-part division); Commentary on the Metaphysics (proemium vs. rest; order of beginning, cause); proemium to the Ethics commentary (human action); Augustine on the Psalms (three parts).
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (beginning, cause, element, nature, necessary; four causes); Physics II (luck, three opinions; end as beginning; four causes); Categories (senses of “before”); Nicomachean Ethics I (end before virtues; action as end; happiness from God); Politics (virtue of man and woman; VIII, music); Poetics (statue; eutuchia).
• Peter Lombard, Sentences II (free judgment).
• Plato, Laches, Theaetetus, Euthyphro.
• Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona I.1; Julius Caesar; Romeo and Juliet.
• Lattimore’s Iliad; Francis de Sales (cast / forecast); Declaration of Independence.

His questions #

• Is this a prologue to the prima secundae? No, to the whole second part.
• What is the logical and understandable division of the Gospel of Matthew? Three parts: Christ comes into the world, goes through it preaching, leaves it by his passion.
• Why does Aristotle take up courage and temperance before justice and wisdom? Thomas: they are more known to us, and by them we are disposed for the higher things.
• Why does Thomas take the virtues of reason and will before those concerned with emotions? Because man is considered as image of God, who has no emotions but has justice and the virtues of reason.
• How is the second part of the Summa divided? Editorially into prima and secunda secundae; logically into the last end (qq. 1-5) and what leads to or from it, in general and in particular.
• How can the end be a cause when it is last, not a beginning? It is last in execution but first in intention, and as such has the notion of cause.
• Which comes first, asking her to marry you or marrying her? Asking is first in execution; marrying is first in intention.
• Why can the elicited act of the will not be the last end? As the first visible cannot be seeing, the first desirable cannot be the will’s own act.
• Do you have an action that is an end in itself (contemplating God)? Yes, but the willing of it is not the end in itself; the first act of the will is for the end.
• Can the first letter written be about what is in a letter? No; it must be about something not in a letter.