What We Take Counsel About, Resolution, and Why Counsel Is Not Endless (Summa I-II, Q.14, Articles 3–6)

Orientation #

He opens by touching up the second article “we didn’t take up officially”: about operations there is counsel insofar as they are ordered to an end; once a human operation is itself the end, about it as such there is no counsel. He also refers back to the Latin “dominus and magister” against Greek kurios and didaskalos discussed earlier (prev. lecture). He closes: “It’s a good place to stop at the end of it.” The previous class covered q. 14 aa. 1-2 on counsel as inquiry and as about means; the next takes up q. 15 on consent.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3, the objections (“counsel implies a certain what bringing together”) #

Point: four reasons why counsel seems not to be only about what we do, then Gregory’s sed contra.

1. Counsel implies a collatio (bringing together), but collatio can be about immobile things not done by us, e.g. the natures of things.
2. Men seek counsel about things established by law (“legal counsel”), yet those seeking it do not make the laws.
3. Some make counsels about future events not in our power — his gloss: horoscopes, palm readers.
4. If counsel were only about our own doings, no one would take counsel about what another is to do; but that is false — aside: the counselors “paid big salaries” in all the high schools. Sed contra, Gregory (“obviously not infallible on this one”): we counsel about things in us and able to come about through us.

2. Article 3, the body (“the inquiry of counsel properly pertains to singular things”) #

Point: counsel is strictly about what we do because its inquiry is about singular contingents, whose knowledge is wanted only for operation.

1. Counsel properly implies a collatio among many; the name itself signifies it — concilium, many “sit together,” bring together “at once.”
2. In particular contingent things, to know something with certainty many conditions or circumstances must be considered; one person cannot easily do this, many do it better (“when one considers something, others occur to somebody else”).
3. In necessary and universal things the consideration is more absolute and simpler, so one can be sufficient by himself (as he “always is”). Hence counsel’s inquiry pertains to singular contingents.
4. Knowledge of truth in such things has nothing great that makes it desirable for itself (unlike universal necessary theorems in geometry); it is desired as useful for operation, since actions are about singular contingents. Example: knowing whether the stock will go up is good to know not in itself but so we can put money in or take it out. Conclusion: properly, strictly speaking, counsel is about what is done by us.

• Aside: the investment company where a billion dollars disappeared, Corzine, former governor and senator of New Jersey, beaten by Christie, “in deep trouble.”

3. Article 3, the replies (“not just any collatio”) #

Point: each objection’s case is counsel only insofar as it is directed to our doing.

• To 1: counsel is not any collatio but the collatio about the singular circumstances of things to be done. He adds: Albert, talking logic, calls reason collativus and discursivus (bringing together and discursing) — that general collatio is not counsel; counsel is the collatio of “everything surrounding this that seems relevant to this one thing.” Illustration: whether the church saw from the beginning that knocking off Middle-East dictators would make things worse for Christians; the patriarch in hot water with the White House for saying so; Iraqi Christians down from about a million to two hundred thousand, fleeing to the Kurds; the Filipino woman in Jordan.
• To 2: what the law lays down is not the doing of the one seeking counsel, but it directs one to operating, since the command of the law is one reason of doing something — stop for the red sign. Aside: laws now so complicated nobody has read them; the Constitution was written to avoid what they are doing now; laws have to be small so people can know them.
• To 3: counsel is not only about things done but about things ordered to operations; consultation about future events is insofar as man, knowing them, is directed to doing or avoiding something — what happens if we move troops out of Afghanistan.
• To 4: we seek counsel about others’ doings insofar as they are in some way one with us: (a) by union of affection, as a friend is solicitous about his friend’s affairs as about his own (parents and children); (b) by way of being a tool, since chief agent and instrument are in a way one cause, one acting through the other — thus the master (dominus, in the Latin; Greek kurios, with didaskalos “very much teacher”) takes counsel about what the servant is to do. Break “at the halfway point.”

4. Article 4: is counsel about all we do? (“Did you counsel about having breakfast this morning?”) #

Point: not about everything we do; only where there is doubt. Objections: (1) choice is desire of what has been counselled, and choice is about all we do; (2) counsel is inquiry of reason, and in all we do not through impetus of passion we proceed by reason’s inquiry; (3) Philosopher, Ethics III: if something comes about through many things, counsel asks through which most easily and best; if through one, how it comes about through it — and everything comes about through one or many. (He notes the third “can be mixed up.”) Sed contra, Gregory: about works of discipline or art there is no counsel. His tests: making tea for his wife “in four minutes” — no counsel; having breakfast — none. Body:

1. Counsel is inquiry about things that come into doubt; reason inquiring, called argumentum, makes faith about a dubious thing.
2. Something to be done can be undoubtful in two ways: (a) because one proceeds by determined ways to determined ends, as in the arts, which have certain ways of operating — the writer does not take counsel how he ought to write, the art determines it; (b) because it does not much matter whether it be done thus or thus, small things that little aid or impede the end.
3. So, as the Philosopher says, no counsel about small things nor about things already determined, as in the works of the arts — apart from conjectural arts, as Gregory says, “medicinal, negotiative” (medicine “in its place”). Replies: (1) choice presupposes counsel by reason of judgment; when the judgment is manifest without inquiry, no investigation of counsel is required. (2) reason in manifest things does not inquire but judges at once. (3) when something comes about through one thing but in diverse ways there can be doubt, as when through many; but when both thing and way are determined, no counsel — his baguette: hard as a rock, twenty or thirty seconds in the microwave, “was there any counsel there?”

• Aside: the type who wants to “discern the Holy Spirit” about everything; his parody, leaded or super unleaded — “I got to pray about that” — it is one of the small things.
• Aside: the Fathers (John Chrysostom, “I guess”) on “Let us make man in our image”: said only before man was made, as if God took counsel because man is special; such scriptural ways of speaking (like “now I know you love me”) Thomas has to explain.
• Aside: rolls go soft in the microwave, need the oven at two hundred; the baguette would only harden in the oven; same atmospheric conditions make one soft and the other hard; crackers left out go soft. “This is what a philosopher wants to know about.”

5. Article 5: does counsel proceed in a resolutive order? (“the order of reasoning about things to be done is contrary”) #

Point: counsel is resolutive because it begins from the end, which is before in intention but after in being. Objections: (1) our doings proceed in a compositive not resolutive mode — resolution goes from the composed to the simple, composition from the simple to the composed; he adds Thomas’s reason why ethics proceeds roughly: by applying “universalia et simplicia ad singularia et composita.” (2) reason goes from things before to things after in a more suitable order; past before present, present before future, so counsel should go from past and present to future, which is not resolution — his instance: example as an argument in political rhetoric, from a past case to the future (“last time you did that the woman got upset, so don’t do that again”; “I burnt my fingers last time”). (3) counsel is only about the possible for us (Ethics III), which hangs on what we can do now, so why not begin from present things — “who’s going to bell the cat? Not me, said the mouse.” Sed contra, Ethics III: the one who takes counsel seems to seek and to resolve. Body:

1. Every inquiry begins from some beginning. If what is before in knowledge is also before in being, the process is compositive, from causes to effects, since causes are simpler than effects.
2. If what is before in knowledge is after in being (“which is more common”), the process is resolutive: from most manifest effects we judge, resolving to their simple causes — from water to hydrogen and oxygen.
3. The beginning in counsel’s inquiry is the end, before in intention but after in being; therefore counsel must be resolutiva, beginning from what is intended in the future until one arrives at what can be done right now. Digression on “causes are simpler”: that is why God is the most simple thing of all. He repeats Aristotle’s fragment from the lost dialogue on philosophy — either you ought to philosophize or not; if not, you must philosophize to show why not; in either case you must philosophize — and his own imitation: is it necessary to understand the word “necessary”? in either case you must. Aristotle takes up “necessary” in the fifth book of wisdom, goes through four senses, reduces to the chief one, and touches the argument for God: the contingent depends on the necessary; something can be necessary through another (the conclusion of a demonstration is necessary because of the premises), so the first is necessary through itself, and what is necessary through itself must be altogether simple — the third way in the Summa, and the first thing taken up about God there is his simplicity. Max Planck, “father of modern physics,” who discovered the quantum: the more universal a theory, the simpler. Replies: (1) counsel is about operations, but the reason of operations is taken from the end, so the order of reasoning about things to be done is contrary to the order of doing — headache, want to get rid of it, take aspirin, none at home, go to the drugstore: “the end of the inquiry is the beginning of the doing.” (2) reason begins from what is before by reason, not always from what is before in time (“none of these senses of before”). (3) what is to be done on account of the end we do not consider unless suitable to the end; so before one considers whether it is possible, one considers whether it is suitable — the mice arrive at the bell as what is needed, then realize it is impossible since no one will bell the cat; “we don’t have the money.”

6. Article 6: does the inquiry proceed to infinity? (“finite, in act, on both sides”) #

Point: the inquiry is finite in act at both ends, infinite only in potency. Objections: (1) counsel is about particulars, and the singular is infinite; (2) counsel must consider not only what to do but how impediments are removed (a part of prudence: caution — “I’m going to remove this tyrant,” and they are worse), any action can be impeded, and any impediment removed by human reasoning, so one goes on seeking (“I might have an accident coming up here, going home, going to the grocery store”); (3) demonstrative science stops at principles per se nota with certitude, but no such certitude in singular contingents, which are variable and uncertain. Sed contra: no one is moved to what is impossible to reach (first book “about the universe” [ed.: he reads it so]); the infinite cannot be gone through; so no one would begin to take counsel — false.

• Aside: Hamlet; John XXIII called Paul VI “Amleto.” Body:

1. Counsel’s inquiry is finite in act from the side of the beginning and of the end.
2. Twofold beginning: (a) one proper to the genus of things to be done, the end, about which there is no counsel but which is supposed as beginning (as seen before); (b) beginnings taken from outside the genus, as one demonstrative science supposes things from another it does not inquire into. These are taken either through sense (this is bread, this is iron) or through some speculative or practical science known in the universal (adultery is prohibited by God; man cannot live without suitable nourishment); about these the one taking counsel does not inquire. Aside: the “inquiry” about abortion is not a matter of counsel; as one can think one knows what one doesn’t, one can think one doesn’t know what one does — that abortion is repugnant to nature; slogans sound good.
3. The end of the inquiry is what is at once in our power to do; as the end has the notion of a beginning, what is for the sake of the end has the notion of a conclusion, so what first occurs to be done is the last conclusion where the inquiry stops.
4. Nothing prevents counsel being infinite in potency, as things to inquire about can forever occur — what if it snows, rains, a tornado, an earthquake. Aside on history: history is always more complicated than we think — the mistake of Marx and philosophy of history; Dr. Carroll: if you’re bored with history you’re bored with life; physics has a principle of simplicity, history has none; Carroll’s “one man can make a difference” — Constantine; Muhammad hit by a rock in a desert skirmish, lost a tooth, what if it hit his head; Hitler’s father changing the name from Schicklgruber (Shirer: imagine millions shouting “Heil Schicklgruber”). Replies: (1) singulars are not infinite in act but in potency only — the unreasonable fear (“what about this? what about that?”) that paralyzes some people morally; there are limits to what you can imagine. (2) though human action can be impeded, it does not always have an impediment ready at hand, so not always counsel about removing one. (3) in singular contingents something certain can be taken, not simply, but as now taken in the operation (“that bread really was dry this morning”): for Socrates to sit is not necessary, but for him to sit when he sits is necessary, and this can be taken with certitude.

His words #

• collatio; a bringing together, and (in counsel) the bringing together of the singular circumstances of a thing to be done.
• concilium; from many sitting together, “at once.”
• collativus and discursivus; Albert’s terms for reason in general, bringing together and discursing — not counsel as such.
• argumentum; reason inquiring, making faith about a dubious thing.
• conjectural arts; arts like medicine where counsel remains (“medicinal, negotiative”).
• resolutive / compositive (resolutoris, compositivus); from composed to simple vs. simple to composed; from effects to causes vs. causes to effects.
• “the fifth book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics V].
• “the reason of the operations is taken from the end”; his rendering of Thomas’s reply.
• caution; the part of prudence concerned with impediments.
• “before in intention, after in being”; the end as beginning of counsel.
• infinite in potency; things to inquire about can always occur, though the inquiry is finite in act.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 14, a. 3 (objections, body, replies).
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 14, a. 4.
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 14, a. 5.
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 14, a. 6. Mentioned
• Aristotle, Ethics III (counsel about the possible; the one taking counsel seeks and resolves; how counsel inquires when through one or many).
• Gregory (“Gregory the Impostor”) on counsel, sed contra of aa. 3 and 4.
• Albert, on reason as collativus and discursivus.
• Aristotle, “fifth book of wisdom,” on the senses of “necessary” (inferred: Metaphysics V).
• Aristotle, fragment of the lost dialogue on philosophy.
• Summa Theologiae, the third way and God’s simplicity (no locus given).
• “The first book about the universe” (his reading of the sed contra of a. 6).
• Genesis, “Let us make man in our image” (Fathers, John Chrysostom).
• Max Planck on universal theories being simpler; William Shirer on Schicklgruber.

His questions #

• Did you counsel about having breakfast this morning? No — a manifest matter needs no inquiry.
• Was there any counsel in making tea for my wife in four minutes, or softening the baguette? No; when the thing and the way are determined there is no counsel.
• Should I get leaded or super unleaded — must I pray about that? It doesn’t matter; one of the small things about which there is no counsel.
• Is it necessary to understand the word “necessary”? In either case you must, imitating Aristotle’s “you must philosophize.”
• Who is going to bell the cat? Not me, said the mouse — the suitable means proves impossible.
• What’s going to happen if we move our troops out of Afghanistan? Left open; used to show counsel about future events as directed to doing.
• Was the White House right about the Middle East dictators? Left open; the patriarch’s view that it made things worse for Christians.