Summa I-II Q.12, Arts. 3-5: Intending Several Things at Once, One Act Toward End and Means, and Whether Animals Intend

Orientation #

He refers back to “what has been said above” in Thomas (fruition belongs to animals; there cannot be many last ends of one man) and to Shakespeare’s “looking before and after” as a definition of reason already used (prev. lecture). He says nothing about next time, only that he must leave early for a trustees’ meeting. The previous class covered q.12 aa.1-2 on intention; the next takes up q.13 on choice.

The class, in order #

1. What “at the same time” (simul, hama) means (“simul is known by negation of before and after”) #

Point: before reading a.3 he fixes the sense of “at the same time”.

1. Aristotle treats simul/hama in the Physics, but earlier in the Categories, in the chapter after the one on before and after.
2. Simul is known by negation: two events are together when one is neither before nor after the other.
3. Same pattern in “the tenth book” [ed.: Metaphysics X (inferred)]: equal is known through more and less; you and I are of equal height if I am neither taller nor shorter (a couple of negations). Translation aside: English “together”, “at once”, “simultaneous”; even totum simul in the definition of eternity (“all at once and perfect possession”) does not capture it exactly.

2. Article 3, objections and sed contra (“art imitates nature”) #

Point: can one intend two things at the same time?

• Obj. 1: Augustine, Sermon of the Lord on the Mount: a man cannot at the same time intend God and a bodily commodity; for like reason, not any two things. “Can’t serve two masters.” Aside: St Elizabeth Seton, newly married and wealthy, wrote of her fear that it must be one or the other.
• Obj. 2: intention names the motion of the will to its end; one motion cannot have many terms on one side.
• Obj. 3: intention presupposes an act of reason; one cannot understand many things at once, according to the Philosopher.
• Sed contra: art imitates nature; nature from one tool intends two uses, as the tongue is ordered to taste and to speech (talking all day, then a good dinner); so art or reason can order one thing to two ends and intend many things at once. Student: “kill two birds with one stone”; terrorists with one bomb intending to kill everyone in the room.

3. Article 3, the body (“either as ordered to each other”) #

Distinction: two things ordered to each other vs. not ordered to each other.

1. If ordered: manifest from what was said that one intends both the proximate end and the last end, as making the medicine and health. His case: am I intending to perfect myself in logic or intending wisdom? Both, since one is a means to the other.
2. If not ordered: a man prefers one thing to another because it is better; among the conditions of being better is that it is valuable for many things (valet: “available”, “useful for many purposes”); so one can be chosen for the many purposes it serves, hence many intended at once. Example: in the political season, one biting remark that both amuses my friends and annoys my enemies is preferred to one that does only one. Reagan, asked about Geraldine Ferraro’s saying his policy was not Christian: “I just turned the other cheek.”

4. Article 3, the replies (“one secundum rem… one secundum ratione”) #

• Ad 1: Augustine means God and a bodily good cannot both be intended as last ends, since (shown above) there are not many last ends of one man.
• Ad 2: one motion can have many terms on one side if one is ordered to the other; two unordered terms cannot be of one motion. But what is not one secundum rem can be taken as one secundum rationem, since intention is a motion of will already ordered by reason. Two ways: (a) two things run together to integrate one thing, as hot and cold well measured run together for health; (b) two contained under one common thing, as acquiring wine and a garment fall under “filthy lucre” — so whoever intends to make money intends both (you get in the car and go to work to make money, and want the money for a whole bunch of things).
• Ad 3: one can understand many things insofar as they are in some way one. His development: you cannot understand what a dog is and what a cat is by one act, only generically (quadruped, animal). But in the second act of reason, “a dog is not a cat”, dog and cat are understood together; if you did not grasp subject and predicate at once you would understand no statement. “Square is not a circle.” Likewise comparing Sophocles with Aeschylus or Euripides, Shakespeare with Ben Jonson, two students, two grade-school essays on abortion or euthanasia for a prize: in a sense both considered at once, though “kind of hard to do”.

5. Article 4, objections and sed contra (“the will of seeing the window”) #

Point: is the intention of the end one and the same motion with the will of what is toward the end?

• Obj. 1: Augustine, De Trinitate XI: the will of seeing the window (end: the vision of the window) is other than the will of seeing through the window those passing by; the latter is intention, the former will of the means.
• Obj. 2: acts are distinguished by objects; end and means are diverse objects — he notes this is the division of the proemium to q. 8, acts of the will toward the end vs. choice, which is of the means.
• Obj. 3: the will of the means is called electio; election and intention are not the same.
• Sed contra: the means stands to the end as a middle to its term; in natural things the same motion passes through the middle to the end; so also in voluntary things.

6. Article 4, the body (“I wish medicine on account of health”) #

Distinction: the will borne to end and means absolutely and by itself vs. borne to the means on account of the end.

1. Absolutely: simply two motions of the will.
2. On account of the end: one and the same motion in subject; “I will medicine on account of health” designates one motion. Tending to the means as the way to the end is part of intending the end.
3. Reason: the end is the reason for willing the means, and the same act falls on the object and on the reason of the object, as one vision sees color and the light that makes color visible.
4. Comparison with the understanding: considering premise and conclusion absolutely is two considerations (in discourse you run from beginning to conclusion, not in both at once); but seeing the conclusion as following from the premises is one act only. Aside: the act God would have is like the latter.

7. Article 4, the replies and his gloss (“as going up and coming down”) #

• Ad 1: Augustine speaks of the two visions as the will is borne to each absolutely.
• Ad 2: the end as a certain thing is another object than the means; as the reason for willing the means, one and the same object.
• Ad 3: a motion one in subject can differ in reason by its beginning and end, as going up and coming down — Aristotle’s famous example, used to explain acting-upon and undergoing. So the motion of will borne to the means as ordered to the end is choice; the motion borne to the end as acquired through the means is intention. Sign: one can intend an end before the means (of which there is election) are determined. His gloss: when Thomas expounds Aristotle he first tells you the conclusion, then gathers the premises, and only later you see how this premise really implies this conclusion — then conclusion and premises are seen in one act. So in deliberation, while you and I are weighing your way against his, I am not yet intending either as the way; once I say it is his way and choose, I consider it not by itself but as the way I intend to get to the end. “Kind of a subtle difference… That’s a hard distinction to see.”

8. Article 5, objections and sed contra (“do brute animals intend the end”) #

• Obj. 1: nature in things lacking knowledge is further from rational nature than sensitive nature is; yet nature intends the end, proven in Physics II; much more do animals.
• Obj. 2: as intention is of the end so is fruition; fruition belongs to animals (said above); so intention. His case: Tabitha can enjoy my steak but not intend it.
• Obj. 3: to intend is only to tend toward something; animals act for an end (moved to acquire food); so they intend. His cats: fed together, then Tabitha heads for the wooded lot to hunt all day and night, Muppet jumps up to the window ledge to watch the world go by.
• Sed contra: intention implies ordering something to an end, an act of reason (“looking before and after”); animals lack reason.

9. Article 5, the body (“as the arrow by the archer”) #

Distinction: to intend as of the moved vs. as of the mover.

1. To intend is to tend to another, said both of the mover and the moved.
2. As of the moved: what is moved to an end by another is said to intend — so nature intends, as moved to its end by God like the arrow by the archer; and so animals intend, moved by natural instinct. He notes people miss this distinction when they say nature acts for an end.
3. As of the mover: one who orders the motion of himself or another to an end; reason alone does this (Shakespeare’s definition of reason by order). This is properly and chiefly to intend, and animals do not intend so. Aside: huge flocks of birds overhead sound like dogs barking; birds migrating miles and returning to the same spot, one going to the front and falling back, “almost as if they had radio communication” — moved by natural instinct rather than by ordering it themselves.

10. Ad 1: what Aristotle argues in Physics II (“whether they have a mind or are a product of mind”) #

• Ad 1: that argument proceeds as intending belongs to what is moved to an end. His insistence to students: Aristotle says action for an end appears in the bees and insects so clearly that people wonder whether they have a mind; he does not assert it, and later argues they have no mind but are a product of mind. He reasons from what they do that seems intelligent, not from their having or lacking a mind; whether their own mind or a superior one requires further investigation. Fabre’s insect: paralyzes its victim by squeezing the head just enough for a coma (Fabre himself always killed it), digs a hole, drags the victim by the antennae, lays eggs on the live food supply — “very intelligent”. But when Fabre cut off the antennae, it could not find another way to drag it and filled the hole without the victim; even the caveman, dragging a woman by the hair, would grab an arm or leg if the hair came out. So it does not have its own mind; the intelligence is “something of another art put into things”. Aristotle’s second account of nature: the first definition is beginning and cause of motion and rest in that in which it is first, as such, not by happening; later, nature as something of an art put into things — if the art of shipbuilding were in the wood, it would build itself into a ship — a divine, not human, art. Parts of Animals: one studies animals to see something of the superior mind; Thomas’s first reason for considering God’s effects is to admire the divine wisdom. Moderns: most biologists deny nature makes eyes for the sake of seeing, ears for hearing, teeth for biting, though obvious to simple folk, and offer no evidence; they reject it because it leads to God — “putting the cart before the horse”: it cannot be God, therefore nature does not act for an end, therefore deny what we see. Aristotle’s order is the reverse: they act for an end, so either they have a mind or are a product of mind. Physicists mock them: Bohr needed the quantum for the stability of the atom (a miniature solar system in constant contact with others would have no regular paths); from physics and chemistry alone the stability and growth of a dog or plant is highly improbable. Aside: a young Palestinian Eastern-Christian sent to study in France, asked to write on how modern man should view God, wrote that we should rather be concerned with how God views modern man; his professor blasted it as illogical.

11. Ad 2, ad 3, and close (“an absolute rest in the end”) #

• Ad 2: fruition does not imply ordering to something as intention does, but absolute rest in the end — appropriate to the animal (“the nice warm place under the stove”).
• Ad 3: animals are moved to an end not as considering that by their motion they can attain it (which is properly to intend) but by concupiscence, by natural instinct, moved by another like things moved naturally. Aside: that is why animals cannot try something new, pick up a book and read. He ends: leaving early for the Trivium School board of trustees, then to visit the grandchildren, “all seventeen.”

His words #

• simul / hama: “at the same time”, “together”, “at once”; known by negation of before and after.
• totum simul: “all at once”, from the definition of eternity.
• bodily commodity: Augustine’s bodily good, opposed to God as last end.
• valet: “valuable for”, “available for”, “useful to many other ends”.
• secundum rem vs. secundum ratione: one in the thing vs. one in reason [ed.: secundum rationem].
• filthy lucre: his rendering of the common thing under which wine and vestment fall.
• second act (of reason): composition, “a dog is not a cat”, as against understanding what each is.
• that which is towards the end: the means [ed.: id quod est ad finem].
• electio: election, choice, the will of the means.
• discourse: running from beginning to conclusion, not in both at once.
• born / carried towards: the will’s being borne to an object (fertur).
• fruition: absolute rest in the end, no ordering.
• nature (two accounts): beginning and cause of motion and rest in that in which it is first, as such, not by happening; and “something of an art put into things”.
• product of mind: what acts for an end without its own mind.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 12, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 12, a. 4 (whole)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 12, a. 5 (whole)

Mentioned

• Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte (obj. 1 of a. 3)
• Augustine, De Trinitate, book XI (window example)
• Aristotle, Categories, chapter on simul; Physics (on simul; book II on nature acting for an end, bees and insects; art of shipbuilding in the wood)
• Aristotle, “the tenth book” on equal known through more and less [ed.: Metaphysics X (inferred)]
• Aristotle, Parts of Animals (studying animals to see the superior mind)
• Thomas, proemium to I-II q. 8 (division of acts of will toward the end and choice)
• Thomas, “first reason why we consider the effects of God” (no locus given)
• Shakespeare, “looking before and after” as definition of reason
• Fabre on the paralyzing insect; Elizabeth Seton; Reagan and Ferraro; Heisenberg and Bohr

His questions #

• Where does Aristotle talk about simul or hama? In the Physics, but earlier in the Categories, in the chapter after before and after; known by negation.
• Am I intending to perfect myself in logic, or intending wisdom? Both at once, since one is a means to the other.
• Now can one understand many things? Insofar as they are in some way one: generically, or in the second act (“a dog is not a cat”), or in comparing.
• Can you understand what a dog is and what a cat is by one act? No, only generically; two different acts.
• How do you translate valet? “Available”, “useful for many purposes”.
• Whether they (the insects) have a mind or are a product of mind? Aristotle says people wonder; he does not assert it; further investigation shows they are a product of mind.
• What evidence do the moderns use to back up this perspective (denying eyes are for seeing)? They don’t; they reject it because it leads to God.
• Do brute animals intend the end? Only as moved to it by another (instinct, nature), not properly, which requires reason’s ordering.