Concupiscence II: Natural and Acquired Desires, and Whether Desire Is Infinite (ST I-II q.30 a.2 replies, a.3–4)

Orientation #

The recording begins mid-way through the replies of q. 30 a. 2 (“as has been said, concupiscence is the desire of a delightful good”). He closes by saying “we have to have the pleasure of talking about pleasure next time.” The previous class treated q. 30 aa. 1-2 (whether concupiscence is only in the sensitive appetite and whether it is a specific passion).

The class, in order #

1. Reply 1 of a. 2: the pleasant good “under the notion of being absent” (“under the notion of being absent”) #

Point: the pleasant good is not the object of concupiscence absolutely but ratione (by reason of / under the notion of) being absent; that is what makes desire a distinct passion.

• Comparison with the knowing powers: the sensible under the notion of past is the object of memory. To say “the object of memory is the sensible” has some truth but is not precise enough. He notes the difficulty of translating ratione into English (“by reason of being past” / “under the reason of”).
• Aside: the little books of Aristotle following the De Anima: De Sensu et Sensato (present), the book on memory and reminiscence (past), the books on dreams (some think dreams foretell the future; Aristotle is “very nuanced” on that; people who dream of a stranger and meet him next day).
• These particular conditions diversify the species of passions, and even the powers of the sensitive part, which regard particulars: so irascible vs. concupiscible is a real division in the senses but not in the will, which is one power.

2. Reply 2: Augustine’s cupidity and “praedicatio per causam” (“that is a praedicatio per causam”) #

Point: Augustine (Eighty-Three Questions: cupidity is the love of passing things; “cling not to perishable things, lest you perish with them”) is saved two ways.

1. First way: it is a praedicatio per causam, not per essentiam. Parallel he gives: Aristotle in De Anima II says sensing is an undergoing; not that sensing is essentially an undergoing, but that the senses must first be acted upon by the object, then see or hear. Not “an ad hoc convention” to get Augustine or himself out of a problem: found in Aristotle and in daily life; surprising when you first realise we do this.
2. Aliter dicendum: Augustine takes cupidity in a large sense, for any emotion of the appetite regarding a future good, so it comprehends both love and hope. He stresses Thomas’s respect for Augustine: Augustine uses words carefully, we must understand how.

• What this brings out about love: one can love a present good as well as an absent one. Hence St Paul: faith, hope, charity remain, but the greatest is charity; in the next world faith and hope disappear, charity remains and is greater, because God, partly absent here (“we don’t see him as he is”), is more present there.
• Digression (his morning reading, “question twelve”): does everyone see God equally? No: all see the same thing, but one has more ability because he partakes more of the light of glory; and that because he loves God more; love gives rise to desire, and desire disposes one for what is desired (as a student who really desires to know is disposed to learn). Metaphor: one would not marry someone one did not think loved one; the more you love God, the more he unites himself to your mind, the more you see.

3. Reply 3: the passion opposed to concupiscence “is innominata, unnamed” (“is innominata, unnamed”) #

Point: the passion directly opposed to concupiscence, regarding absent evil as concupiscence regards absent good, has no name (the same problem in English); fear is put in its place, as hope is sometimes put in place of cupidity.

• Reason: a little good or a little evil is regarded as nothing, so for every motion of the desiring power toward future good or evil one lays down hope and fear, which properly regard the difficult good or evil.
• Aside: in an election we alternate between hope and fear rather than “wanting”. Break.

4. Article 3, objections and sed contra: “some are natural and some not natural” (“some desires to be natural and some”) #

Point: whether some concupiscences are natural and some not.

1. Obj. 1: concupiscence pertains to animal desire; natural desire is divided against animal (“soulful”) desire; so no concupiscence is natural. He notes how many objections turn on clearing up a word: Aristotle in the Sophistical Refutations, the most common mistake in thinking is mixing up the senses of a word.
2. Obj. 2: material diversity makes diversity only in number, not species (two tables here, this wood and that wood; the difference between you and me), and numerical diversity does not fall under art; natural and non-natural desires differ only by the things desired, hence materially; so no such division.
3. Obj. 3: reason is divided against nature (Physics II, “second book of Natural”); a non-natural concupiscence in man would have to be rational; but concupiscence is a passion of the sense appetite, not of the will.

• Sed contra: “the philosopher, whoever he is, it’s Aristotle”: Ethics III (where temperance is treated) and Rhetoric I lay down some desires natural, some not.

5. Article 3, body: the two ways something is pleasant (“in two ways is something what delightful”) #

Point: concupiscence is the desire of a pleasant good, and something is pleasant in two ways.

• A. Suitable to the nature of the animal (food, drink): the desire is called natural. B. Suitable to the animal according to his apprehension, when someone grasps something as good and suitable and consequently delights in it: the desire is called non-natural, and more properly cupiditas.
• Natural desires are common to men and other animals and all men agree in them; Aristotle in Ethics III calls them common and necessary. The second are private to men, to whom it belongs to think out something as good beyond what nature requires; Rhetoric I calls the first irrational (without reason), the second with reason; and since diverse people reason diversely, these are proper and added above the natural. His English: “acquired taste”, as if some work of reason is needed to acquire it.
• Student asks for examples of the non-natural. His: Austri’s essay “towards an evaluation of music”, giving reasons for the Baroque and Mozart over the Romantics (the one thing the Romantic won’t admit is that emotion should be subordinate to reason); his own passage from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to Mozart; his brothers Richard and Marcus bringing home the Magic Flute, he listened “docile by nature” and heard nothing at first, then began to hear how much is in it. Comparable: Shakespeare, more desirable only after thought and learning (obscurity partly from changed word-use, not Shakespeare’s fault); even Scripture.
• Aside: a friend’s point (name garbled, “Amy Tuck”) that Muslims praise the Koran as literature while the Bible must be read spiritually to be appreciated; Augustine at first found the Bible unworthy beside Cicero; Jerome told by the Lord “you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian.” A student’s puzzle that music-desire is called “not natural” (not “unnatural”): “nonnatural.”

6. Article 3, replies: the “active object” and “with reason” (“from a diversity of the what? Active object”) #

• Ad 1: the same thing desired by natural desire can be desired by animal desire when apprehended; so of food and drink there can be a natural concupiscence. Boundary: something like a plant’s feeding is natural but not animal desire; in animals the food is apprehended. [unclear in recording: the "broccoli" example]
• Ad 2: the difference is not only material but in a way formal, from a diversity of the active object. Back to the general question (Thomas and Aristotle): does the power act on its object, or the object on the power? Digestion: my teeth and juices act on the food. Senses: my sounds act on your ears, the painting acts on my eyes, not the reverse. Emotions likewise: the man with the gun moves me to fear, the food moves desire; hence Thomas calls them passiones. Since the object of the appetite is the good apprehended, diversity of apprehension gives diversity of active object: grasped as suitable by an absolute apprehension (here not opposed to relative but meaning without comparison) gives natural desire, called irrational in the Rhetoric (“be careful about the word irrational and without reason”); grasped with deliberation, an act of reason, gives non-natural desire, “with reason”. Your love of Shakespeare is with reason: some deliberation. He quotes a Shakespearean line about music having “a far more pleasing” sound and “my ear distinguishes” (recording garbled).
• Ad 3: in man there is not only universal reason (intellectual part) but particular reason (sensitive part), “as said in the first book” (the treatise on the soul); so the concupiscence “with reason” can belong to the sense appetite; and the sense appetite can also be moved by universal reason using the imagination as middle term.
• Asides: if people really heard Mozart they would…; at the first performance of Mozart’s 22nd piano concerto the audience demanded the second movement again (no records then; a student: one might hear a piece once in a life, so they must have had better memory; Mozart improvising after the concert); the natural transition from reading this text to Mozart, still “in the domain of reason”, while popular music jars; Father Boulay sending money to the restaurant to stop the music, insulted, and later to have the conductor teach them to play.

7. Article 4, objections: whether concupiscence “is not what infinite” (“These are marvelous objections”) #

1. Obj. 1: the object of concupiscence is the good, which has the notion of end (Aristotle always connects end and good; the means good secondarily); whoever posits the infinite excludes the end (if everything were desired for something else, no end); so not infinite.
2. Obj. 2: concupiscence is of a suitable good, proceeding from love, conformity of the heart to its object; the infinite, being disproportion, cannot fit: “how could an infinite pair of pants fit me?” Shoes infinitely big or small would not fit. “He must have a lot of fun doing this.”
3. Obj. 3: one cannot traverse the infinite, so never arrive at the last; but pleasure comes to the desirer on attaining the end; so infinite desire would mean never any delight. Example: the man always wanting more money is always dissatisfied; Sam Walton, asked at the end of his life what he wanted: “I want to make more.”

• Sed contra: Politics I: men desire in infinitum.

8. Article 4, body: finite in act, “infinite in what succession” (“infinite in potency rather than in act”) #

Point: natural desire cannot be infinite in act, non-natural desire is entirely infinite; and a second reason from Politics I.

1. Natural desire is of what nature requires, and nature tends to something finite and certain: no man desires infinite food or drink; even the kid does not want infinite candy (“depends on the kid”). But as in nature the infinite is in potency rather than act, by succession (one day, one bottle after another), so this desire is infinite in succession: having obtained food, one desires it again, since bodily goods fail. Hence the Lord to the Samaritan woman: whoever drinks of this water thirsts again. Aside: among the most vivid scenes where Christ comes alive, with the man in the tree (Zacchaeus, inferred) told to come down, “I need your help today”. Elizabeth Taylor: had one husband, desired another.
2. Non-natural desire is entirely infinite, for it follows reason, and it belongs to reason to proceed in infinitum: he who desires riches desires not to a certain term but simply to be rich quantumcumque potest.
3. Another reason (Politics I): desire of the end is infinite, since the end is desired for itself, as health: more health is more desired, in infinitum, as if white by itself disperses (sight), the whiter disperses more. “How much do I want to enjoy the music of Mozart? More and more.” Desire of what is for the end is measured by its suitability to the end: those who make wealth their end desire it infinitely; those who desire it for the necessities of life desire a limited amount. The same holds of the other objects of desire.

• Student: related to hatred of all thieves, said earlier? He: not so much a matter of end with hatred. Aside on wanting to get rid of “quite a few” Jews and needing a limit to iniquity.

9. Article 4, replies: “Can’t drink the whole fountain” (“Can’t drink the whole fountain”) #

• Ad 1: everything desired is taken as something finite, either finite in reality (as desired once in act) or finite as it falls under apprehension; it cannot be apprehended under the notion of the infinite, since the infinite is that of whose quantity there is always something outside to take. “Can’t drink the whole fountain.”
• Ad 2: reason is in some way of infinite power, able to consider ad infinitum, as in adding numbers and lines (his kids: “can you count to a hundred, Daddy?”, then to a thousand). So the infinite, taken in some way, is proportioned to reason: the universal is in some way infinite, containing in potency an infinity of singulars: knowing what a number is, one knows an infinity of things; “no odd number is even” speaks of two infinities. Tie to his explanation of Shakespeare’s definition of reason as “large discourse”: discourse about the universal, which covers an infinity, is a large discourse.
• Ad 3: to be pleased one need not attain everything desired, but takes delight in each thing attained: each bonbon, each bottle.
• Next time: pleasure (delight).

His words #

• ratione / “under the notion of”, “by reason of”: the formality under which an object belongs to a power or passion
• “soulful desire” [ed.: animal appetite, appetitus animalis]
• praedicatio per causam vs per essentiam: predicating a thing from its cause rather than its essence
• innominata: the unnamed passion opposed to concupiscence
• cupiditas: Thomas’s more proper name for non-natural desire; “acquired taste”
• “irrational” = “without reason”, not against reason (Rhetoric I)
• “active object”: the object that acts upon the power, hence passio, passiones
• “absolute apprehension”: here, apprehension without comparison, not opposed to relative
• “particular reason”: in the sensitive part, vs universal reason in the understanding part
• “second book of Natural” [ed.: Physics II]
• quantumcumque potest: “as much as he is able”
• “large discourse”: Shakespeare’s phrase for reason, read as discourse about the universal

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 30, a. 2, ad 1-3
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 30, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 30, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, De Sensu et Sensato; De Memoria et Reminiscentia; books on dreams (Parva Naturalia, inferred)
• Aristotle, De Anima II (sensing as undergoing)
• Augustine, Eighty-Three Questions (cupidity as love of passing things)
• St Paul, “faith, hope, charity” (1 Cor. 13, inferred)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 12 (unequal vision of God, light of glory; “question twelve” as he says)
• Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations (mistakes from ambiguity)
• Aristotle, Physics II (reason vs nature); Ethics III; Rhetoric I; Politics I
• Thomas, treatise on the soul, “first book” (particular reason)
• Austri, essay towards an evaluation of music
• Mozart, Magic Flute; piano concerto no. 22
• John 4, the Samaritan woman (inferred); Zacchaeus (inferred)
• Shakespeare (unspecified lines on music; “large discourse”)

His questions #

• How do you translate ratione in English? “By reason of” / “under the notion of” being past or absent; there is no perfect English.
• Is “sensing is an undergoing” a praedicatio per causam or per essentiam? Per causam: the sense must be acted on by the object before it sees or hears.
• Why does charity remain in the next world while faith and hope disappear? Love can be of a present good as well as an absent one; God is more present there, so love is greater.
• Does everybody see God equally? No; more love, more desire, more disposition, more light of glory.
• Can you give some examples of non-natural desires? Music (Mozart, the Baroque), Shakespeare, Scripture: acquired tastes needing work of reason.
• Does the desiring power act on its object or the object on the power? The object acts on the power (unlike digestion), hence the emotions are passiones.
• What does “absolute” mean in “absolute apprehension”? Not “vs relative” but apprehension without comparison.
• Can nature or a child desire infinite food or candy? No, natural desire is finite in act, infinite only by succession.
• Is desire of the end infinite? Yes (health, Mozart: more and more); desire of means is measured by the end.