Summa I-II Q.23 a.1–3: Replies to the Objections, How Emotions Are Contrary, and Why Anger Has No Contrary

Orientation #

He opens by “going back to the objections” of the article read before the break (q. 23 a. 1, replies), then reads articles 2 and 3 of q. 23. He refers twice to “last time”: his explanation of Categories ch. 12 with the text of St Paul on the greatest of faith, hope and charity, and an unidentified saint (perhaps a woman mystic, Gertrude?) who asked Christ about his mercy toward Aristotle, which the class still cannot trace. The preceding class read q. 22-23 on passion in the sensitive appetite and the species of concupiscible and irascible passions; the next continues into q. 24 on the moral goodness of the passions. He closes with “We have to stop now.”

The class, in order #

1. Reply 1 of a. 1: what the irascible is for (“the irascible power was given to animals”) #

Point: the irascible exists to remove impediments to the concupiscible, so all its passions begin from and end in concupiscible passions.

1. The irascible was given to animals (as said in the prima pars) so that impediments might be removed by which the concupiscible is prevented from tending to its object, either the difficulty of obtaining the good or the difficulty of overcoming the bad.
2. Therefore all irascible passions terminate in concupiscible passions: joy and sadness follow upon them. The concupiscible is “both the beginning and the end”; the irascible “comes in between.”

• Sequence he draws: liking is before wanting; wanting gives rise to hope or despair; the outcome is joy or sadness.
• Example, Aesop’s fox and the grapes (origin of “sour grapes”): he wanted the grapes, hoped to get them by jumping, kept falling short, and finally despaired. He tells students the same story about wanting a girl and giving up.

2. Digression: beginning, middle and end in Mozart (“the twenty third piano concerto”) #

Point: the concupiscible-irascible-concupiscible order is what one hears in a three-movement concerto, which is one piece and not three because it has a beginning, middle and end.

• Mozart’s 23rd (A major): an underlying sadness hinted in the first movement (a writer compared it to an uncertain spring day), which comes out fully in the minor slow movement and begins to be resolved there (he hears the key of C touched near its end); the finale opens with rushed joyful melodies “almost like escapism,” recalls the sadness, then brings the melodies back “absolutely inevitable.” “Very subtle.” His brother Mark’s and his wife’s favourite.
• Mozart’s 27th, his last, performed at a tavern called the Gate of Heaven: a world-weary first movement, a resigned second, a childlike third; again beginning, middle, end. His friend Leo Alvarez said it brought tears to his eyes.
• Aside: he would like to hear a certain performer play some Mozart and talk more about it.

3. Replies 2 and 3 of a. 1 (“the hatred of vices is attributed by Jerome”) #

Ad 2: Jerome attributes hatred of vices to the irascible not by reason of the hate, which properly belongs to the concupiscible, but on account of the fighting (impugnatio) against them, which pertains to the irascible. “See the way he handles that.”

• Aside: abortion seems to him a hatred of the human race, of babies and women, “kind of diabolic”; Moloch and Baal have in common the sacrifice of children. Ad 3 (the two powers have the same objects, good and bad): the good insofar as delightful moves the concupiscible; but if the good has some difficulty in being obtained, by that very fact it has something repugnant to the concupiscible, so another power is needed that tends toward it; the same holds for the bad, and that power is the irascible. Hence, as a consequence (ex consequente), the passions of the two powers differ in species.
• Contrast he adds: there are not two wills, one with love and one with hope; “things are more unified there” in the intellectual appetite.

4. Article 2: is irascible contrariety only good vs. bad? (“It seems that the contrariety of the passions”) #

Point: the objections argue that all contrariety of passions must be by good and bad; the sed contra shows fear and boldness are contrary though both regard a bad.

• Obj. 1: irascible passions are ordered to concupiscible ones, which are contrary only by good and bad (love/hate, joy/sadness); so, since they arise from these, the same holds for the irascible.
• Obj. 2: passions differ by objects as motions by their terms; motions are contrary only by contrary terms (Physics V, where Aristotle distinguishes kinds of motion); the object of appetite is good or bad; so contrariety in any appetitive power is only by good and bad.
• Obj. 3: every passion is by approach (accessus) or withdrawal (recessus), as he says Aristotle says “in the sixth book of Naturals”; approach is by reason of the good, withdrawal by reason of the bad (“that’s one way to get ratio in there”); as the good is what all want, so the bad is what all flee, said per se; so no contrariety except good and bad.
• Sed contra: fear and boldness are contrary (Ethics III) but do not differ by good and bad, since both concern something bad: if you think you can overcome it, boldness (audacia); if you think you may not, fear (timor). So not every irascible contrariety is by good and bad.
• Aside: the class agrees “those are pretty convincing arguments”; Thomas “plagiarizes” Aristotle, “we should give him credit.”

5. Body of a. 2: two contrarieties of motion (“the good is not that from which you go”) #

Point: since passion is a motion (Physics III, and our word “emotion” fits), contrariety of passions follows the twofold contrariety of motions in Physics V.

1. Two contrarieties in motions: (a) by approach to and withdrawal from the same term, which is properly of changes (generation, a change to being, vs. corruption, a change from being); (b) by contrary terms, properly of motions (whitening, dealbatio, from black to white, vs. blackening, denigratio, from white to black, whence “denigrate,” blackening a reputation).
2. So in passions: contrariety by objects (good and bad) and contrariety by approach/withdrawal from the same term.
3. The concupiscible has only (tantum) the first. Reason: its object is the sensible good or bad absolutely; the good as good (in quantum bonum) cannot be a term from which (a quo) but only to which (ad quem), since nothing flees the good as such but all seek it (omnia petunt ipsum, beginning of the Ethics); the bad as such is only a term from which, since nothing desires it and all flee it. “That’s important to know that figure in your life.” He offers: if the good is what all want, maybe the bad is what no one wants, “but all flee.” So love, desire, joy are all toward the good; hate, flight (abomination), sadness all from the bad.
4. The irascible has both. Its object is the sensible good or bad not absolutely but under the reason of difficulty (arduousness). The difficult good invites tending toward it as good (hope) and receding from it as difficult (despair, the fox with the grapes); the difficult evil invites avoidance as bad (fear) and tending toward it as something one may overcome so as not to be subject to it (boldness). So contrariety by good/bad: hope vs. fear; by approach/withdrawal from the same term: boldness vs. fear, hope vs. despair.

• Contrariety is “a great subject of philosophy,” treated in Wisdom mostly in the tenth book.
• Aside on Thomas’s method: he admires how Summa Contra Gentiles IV (around ch. 10-11, the procession of the Word from the Father) leads the mind up: inanimate things act only outside themselves (fire generating fire), plants have the seed come from within but it falls off, sense takes in an image that stays in memory (yet memory is not the sense), reason’s thought remains in reason itself; “more and more intrinsic” until you reach God.

6. Student exchange: is the object of hope mixed? (“hope and fear are the chief emotions”) #

A student: the object of hope and despair is a mixture of good and evil (good with the difficulty), but the object of fear and daring is not a mixture, just evil. He agrees that in fear one runs from the evil and in boldness toward it while the object is evil in both, but adds: Thomas will say later that hope and fear are the chief irascible passions, and one is bold because one hopes for victory, so the good of overcoming would be, in a sense, the object of daring; nevertheless boldness is with respect to something bad (“I can beat that guy”).

• Example he gave someone starting adoration in a parish: it is not just a good but a difficult good; you must overcome opposition and yourself.
• Example: someone picks up a book (a straight line that meets itself), cannot comprehend it, and despairs of understanding it or finds the effort too much: approach to a good, then withdrawal from it out of despair.
• Judas despaired at something good; despair is “a very dangerous thing,” a preoccupation with one’s own badness as if it could not be overcome.
• St Gregory on David dancing before the ark, despised by Saul’s daughter, answering that he would lower himself still more: “I admire David for conquering the Philistines, but even more for conquering himself.”
• A student cites Chrysostom (in one of the articles on despair): the real problem is not sin but despair, since God can forgive sin but nothing can be done with despair.
• A student tells of a Desert Father who accepted accusations of fornication and theft as good for humility but denied being a heretic, “because heresy separates me from God”; against another student’s objection that the other sins also separate, the reply: they are against charity, but faith can remain without charity so one can come back; sin against faith leaves nothing. He: the Abba “knew the before and after.”

7. Is the opposite of the best the worst? (“which is better to breathe or to philosophize”) #

Point: the loss of the lesser can be worse than the loss of the greater without the lesser being greater.

1. For the most part the opposite of the better is worse and of the worse better.
2. But where there is a before and after in being (I can breathe without philosophizing, not philosophize without breathing), losing breathing loses everything, so it is worse than losing philosophy.
3. Students conclude breathing is better; but they are arguing from priority in being (the “second sense” of before), not priority in dignity (the “fourth sense”) that he taught them from the senses of before and after, and warned they would mix up later.
4. So with faith, hope, charity: lose hope and you lose charity; lose faith and you lose hope and charity; so the loss of faith may be worse than the loss of charity, yet “the greatest of these” remains charity, as St Paul sees. “It’s a very subtle thing.” It shows “the fundamental character” of Categories ch. 12, which he says he explained last time with that text of St Paul.

• Loose end: the saint who asked Christt about his mercy toward Aristotle (thought to be a woman mystic, perhaps Gertrude) and was told it was not her business to worry about it; still not identified.

8. Article 3: does every passion have a contrary? (“anger is a certain passion of the soul”) #

Objections: (1) every passion is in the irascible or concupiscible and both have contrariety in their own way; (2) every passion has good or bad as object and a passion about good is opposed by one about bad; (3) every passion is by approach or withdrawal and to any approach a withdrawal is contrary. “Pretty convincing,” “a pretty clear either-or,” a student says. Sed contra: anger is a passion, and no passion is laid down as contrary to anger (Ethics IV).

• Why this matters: contraries come in twos, so if every passion had a contrary the count would be even; instead it is eleven (six concupiscible, five irascible).
• Aside: the apostles are listed in pairs (Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, James of Alphaeus and Thaddeus) and Judas is left over; with Christ that makes thirteen, one source of thirteen as a bad number; the Sophistical Refutations also have thirteen kinds of mistakes.

9. Body of a. 3: anger alone has no contrary (“It is singular in the passion of anger”) #

1. Anger is caused by a difficult evil already lying upon one, present.
2. Faced with a present evil the appetite either succumbs, and does not go beyond sadness (a concupiscible passion), or is moved to attack the harming evil, which is anger. A motion of flight is impossible, since the evil is laid down as present or past. So no contrary by approach/withdrawal.
3. Nor by good and bad: to the evil now present is opposed the good already attained, which cannot have the note of the arduous; after attaining the good no motion remains but rest in the good obtained, which is joy, a concupiscible passion.
4. Hence no passion is contrary to anger; only opposed to it is ceasing from the motion, mitescere, growing calm, as the Philosopher says in the Rhetoric; this is a negative or lack, not a contrary. “So what do you say? Calm down.” (Rosalind’s brother, angry on the floor, sprinkled with water, “probably holy water.”)

• So the passions are eleven, “an odd number; we’re an odd bunch.”
• Aside: Greek philosophy tends to base things on contraries; Aristotle in the twelfth book of Wisdom rejects this as the whole story because the first cause has no contrary; the Manichaeans had two. The universe is “even till you get to the last one,” then odd. Odd numbers: seven sacraments, seven gifts, the Trinity, five books of Moses. Those who claim the Trinity can be known by natural reason cite Aristotle’s book on the universe, where three is used in praising God; Thomas says no, Aristotle only took three as a perfect number, having beginning, middle and end.

His words #

• irascible / concupiscible: the two sense-appetite powers; the irascible removes impediments, the concupiscible tends to the good absolutely.
• difficult good / difficult evil: the irascible object, the sensible good or bad “under the reason of difficulty, arduousness.”
• ex consequente: “as a consequence,” how the specific difference of the passions follows from the two powers.
• impugnatio: the fighting against vices, why Jerome puts hatred of vice in the irascible.
• excess / recess: his first reading of accessus / recessus, “approach or withdrawal.”
• ratio: “by reason of” the good or bad.
• audacia / timor: boldness and fear.
• Naturals: his name for the Physics [ed.: Physics].
• dealbatio / denigratio: whitening and blackening, contrary motions by contrary terms.
• a quo / ad quem: term from which and term to which; the good is only ad quem, the bad only a quo.
• in quantum bonum / in quantum malum: the good as good, the bad as bad.
• omnia petunt ipsum: “the good is what all want”; he adds “the bad is what no one wants, but all flee.”
• tantum: “only.”
• Wisdom: his name for the Metaphysics [ed.: Metaphysics].
• senses of before and after: the second sense (in being) vs. the fourth (in dignity), from Categories ch. 12.
• mitescere: to grow calm, the only thing opposed to anger, a lack not a contrary.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II q. 23 a. 1, ad 1-3 (read and translated)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II q. 23 a. 2, whole article (read and translated)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II q. 23 a. 3, whole article (read and translated) Mentioned
• Aristotle, Physics III (passion a motion), V (two contrarieties of motion), and “the sixth book of Naturals” (approach and withdrawal)
• Aristotle, Ethics I (the good is what all want), III (fear and boldness contrary), IV (nothing contrary to anger)
• Aristotle, Rhetoric (mitescere opposed to anger)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics X (contrariety), XII (first cause has no contrary)
• Aristotle, Categories ch. 12 (senses of before and after)
• Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations (thirteen kinds of mistakes)
• Aristotle, “book on the universe” (three a perfect number)
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles IV, ch. “ten, eleven” (procession of the Word)
• Thomas, prima pars (irascible given to animals to remove impediments)
• Jerome, on hatred of vices (via ST); Chrysostom on despair (student); St Gregory on David dancing before the ark; St Paul, “the greatest of these” (1 Cor 13, inferred)
• Aesop, The Fox and the Grapes; a Desert Fathers saying (student); Mozart, piano concertos 23 and 27

His questions #

• Why is the irascible given to animals? To remove impediments to the concupiscible, from the difficulty of obtaining the good or overcoming the bad.
• Why is a three-movement concerto one piece and not three? Because it has a beginning, middle and end, like the passions: concupiscible, irascible, concupiscible.
• Why does Jerome put hatred of vices in the irascible? Not for the hate, which is concupiscible, but for the fighting against them.
• Can the good as good be a term from which? No; only a term to which, since all seek it; the bad is only a term from which.
• Why has the concupiscible only one contrariety and the irascible two? Its object is good or bad absolutely; the irascible object, the difficult good or bad, allows both approach and withdrawal from the same term.
• Is breathing better than philosophizing because without it you are dead? No; that argues priority in being, not in dignity; likewise loss of faith may be worse than loss of charity though charity is greater.
• Why are the passions an odd number, eleven? Because anger alone has no contrary.
• What is opposed to anger? Only ceasing from the motion, growing calm (mitescere), a lack, not a contrary.
• Who was the saint who asked Christ about his mercy toward Aristotle? left open