Beginning the Treatise on Law: Wisdom, the Axioms, and Whether Law Belongs to Reason

Orientation #

He picks up the division of the Prima Secundae: after acts and passions come the beginnings of human acts, first the inward (powers, habits), now the outward — and this is q. 90. He says grace begins at q. 109, so law runs all the way to there. The previous class finished two articles on sin and made introductory remarks on approaching law theologically (prev. lecture).

The class, in order #

1. The outward beginnings of human acts (“what beginnings of acts”) #

Back-reference to the prooemium of q. 49: after acts and passions, the beginnings of human acts — first inward (powers and habits; powers already treated in the First Part, so habits remain, first in general, then virtues and vices), then extrinsic, which begins here at q. 90.

• “Exterior” does not mean the beginning stays outside us: grace is something inside us too, but comes from an exterior source.
• The outward beginning inclining to evil is the diabolus, treated in the First Part. Students and he hunt the word: not “adversary” (that is satan, the enemy — Shakespeare calls him “the common enemy”); the Greek first sense is slanderer, from throwing something against someone. He connects it to the serpent’s slander of God — “you shall be like gods” implies God is holding something back from you.
• The outward beginning moving to good is God, who instructs by law and aids by grace: “you ask for grace to follow the law.” Hence law first (q. 90 ff.), then grace (q. 109, itself divided into grace, its cause, its effects).
• Aside: Thomas “looks before and after”; he is not original, he blazed no trail of his own — and he complains about those who would have wisdom begin with them.

2. Subjective parts vs. composing parts (“they call those parts subjective parts”) #

Law is treated first in general, then in its parts — subject(ive) parts, from the universal whole said of many (genus of species), as against the composed or integral whole.

• Boundary marked later in the class: the composed whole is not said of its parts (the arm of a chair is not a chair) but is put together from them; the universal whole is said of its parts (man is an animal) but is not composed of them (man is not made of dog, cat, horse).
• The order is from general to particular, “because we know things in a confused way first.”

3. Why the wise man judges the axioms (“the wise man judges the beginnings”) #

Occasioned by a correspondent in Rome writing on metaphysics. The problem: axioms are, with Boethius, statements known through themselves to all men, so all men to some extent judge them true; the virtue is natural understanding (Aristotle’s nous, Thomas’ intellectus). Then why is it the wise man who judges the beginnings?

1. Aristotle cannot demonstrate the axioms — they are the starting points of all knowledge of these things; he can only make them known by distinguishing the words composing them.
2. A student offers: the wise man knows them as beginnings. He grants this is part of it.
3. His own answer: Aristotle discovered that the words in the axioms are all equivocal — not by chance, but by reason — and the man of merely natural understanding does not know this. Hence the wise man’s judgment is more universal and more distinct, and he can defend the axiom against an argument. Book V of wisdom (Metaphysics) distinguishing the senses of these words is thus both the beginning of the consideration of being as being (since being and one are said in many ways, Book IV) and a defence of the axioms.

4. “The whole is more than the part” and his mother (“she didn’t like it when she heard me say that man is an animal”) #

Example to show the confusion an unexamined axiom invites. Euclid’s axiom; Aristotle refers to axioms in mathematics because there everything goes back to them more clearly.

• His mother objected to “man is an animal”; she was satisfied by “an animal that has reason.” So to be an animal is only a part of man — yet animal includes besides man dog, cat, horse, elephant. So sometimes a part includes more than the whole.
• Solution: two senses of whole and part. Animal as an integral/composing part of the definition — then man (the definition) contains more, namely reason. Animal as a universal whole — then it is said of more than man is. Confusing these produces the doubt.
• More precise statement of the axiom: a whole is more than a part of itself; a whole is not always greater than just any part. New England is a part of the United States but bigger than the whole of Massachusetts — but there the whole and the part are not of the same thing.

5. Thinking you do not know what you do know (“that’s an odd state of mind to be in”) #

From Physics II: Aristotle refuses to prove that nature exists; those who would prove it “think they don’t know what they do know.”

1. How is that possible? Manifested by something better known: Socrates showed men do think they know what they do not know.
2. If that mistake is possible, so is the reverse — you make it because you cannot always separate the two. Examples: an effeminate man taken for a woman, so a masculine woman taken for a man; Miller’s taken for Budweiser and Budweiser for Miller’s.
3. The cause of the reverse mistake is a sophistical argument, like the one Parmenides gave his students. “That’s the state of mind of our world today.”

• The average man on the street grants the whole is more than the part, but on meeting the objection gets a sudden movement of doubt, like a movement of doubt against faith, because he cannot solve it. The wise man can.
• Student on Descartes: was “I think therefore I am” thinking he knew what he did not? He answers: in saying it he was not wrong — he knew he was — but he supposed he understood what thought is more than he did. “He didn’t say I think therefore I think I am. That’s the moderns.”

6. Soul, body, and which am I? (“you’ll have to catch me first”) #

A second case of a good-looking argument with a hidden equivocation.

• The argument: I have a body; I have a soul; the soul is not the body; so there are two things — which am I? The only reasonable answer left is: I am the soul, in the body as in a prison (Plato). Hence Socrates on his last day: “Where shall we bury you?” — “You’ll have to catch me first,” since Socrates takes himself to be the soul, and his associates are still thinking of the body.
• The defect: soul and body are two things, but not as a man and a dog are two things. Aristotle says the soul is the first act of a natural body composed of tools; matter and form are one.
• Stepping stone to substantial unity: a wooden chair. Are the wood and the shape two things as a table and a chair are? No — one is the actuality of the ability of the other; the table and the chair are really two distinct things. He notes this is not yet substantial unity, only a step toward it.
• Second student on Descartes (the soul joined at a gland in the brain): granted — he did not understand the unity of soul and body, and so pointed Western philosophy toward separating them.
• Because I am one thing, Thomas says Saint Peter is not in heaven, his soul is; “Saint Peter is in heaven” is synecdoche. So too “the Word was made flesh” for “was made man,” flesh used to say he came all the way down to the lowest part of us. Other synecdoches: a man called “the toe” because he kicks the field goals; a lady named Corazon whom Father Robert says is “all heart” [ed.: transcript reads “all art”].
• Aside: he tells students that when they leave the room they will in some way cease to be — cease to be in this room.
• Closing point of the digression: from Sophistical Refutations, the most common fallacies arise from speech, especially equivocation; so only the man who distinguishes in order the senses of the words equivocal by reason can defend the axioms.

7. The divisions of q. 90 (“three things occur to be considered”) #

Law in common, then its parts. In common, three: its essence (nature, substance), the difference of laws, their effects. On the first, four articles: whether law is something of reason; its end; its cause; its promulgation [“fourth about its what”]. The first task is to define law. Break taken here.

8. The three objections of a. 1 (“it seems that law is not something of reason”) #

1. Romans 7: “I see another law in my members” — the lex fomitis; but nothing of reason is in the bodily members, since reason uses no bodily organ. Therefore law is not of reason. He calls this “a good one.”
2. In reason there is only power, habit, act. Law is not the power; not a habit, since the habits of reason are the intellectual virtues — natural understanding, reasoned-out understanding, wisdom, art, foresight [ed.: understanding, science, wisdom, art, prudence]; not an act, since then law would cease when the act ceases, as in sleepers (“all laws are suspended after ten”). He names it a disjunctive syllogism (either-or), and asks whether the error is in the reasoning or in a premise. A student proposes a fourth possibility is missing (something pertaining to reason otherwise); he agrees — then the either-or statement is not correct, since it must exhaust the possibilities.
3. Law moves subjects to acting rightly, and being moved to act pertains to the will; so law pertains to will, not reason — “what is pleasing to the prince has the vigor of law.” He notes this is what the Muslims say: law as the assertion of the divine will rather than something of reason.

• Sed contra: it belongs to law to command and to prohibit, and to command is of reason.

9. The body of a. 1: law as rule and measure (“the law is a certain rule and a measure of acts”) #

Law is a rule and measure of acts by which one is led into acting or drawn away from acting; lex is said from ligare, binding, because it obligates.

1. The rule and measure of human acts is reason, the first beginning of human acts.
2. For it belongs to reason to order to an end, which is the first beginning in things to be done (the Philosopher). Shakespeare defines reason as “looking before and after” — that is what ordering is; and Thomas’ sixth attribute of the wise man is that he orders everything else, ordering being the highest perfection proper to reason.
3. In each genus, what is the beginning is the measure and rule of that genus: unity in the genus of number, the first motion in the genus of motions.

• Conclusion: law is something pertaining to reason.
• Digression on measure: in the Summa Thomas treats five attributes of God’s substance — simple, perfect, infinite, unchanging, one — attaching good to perfect, everywhere to infinite, eternal to unchanging [transcript garbled: “to his being unchanging, that he’s infinite”], nothing to simple or to one. He suggests one could attach to God’s being one that God is the measure of all things: Plato in the Laws against “man is the measure of all things”; Aristotle says it is a property of the one to be a measure. Hence the most virtuous man is a measure for other men — Homer the measure of poets, Mozart of musicians, Mary of women. And since Plato says the perfect is the measure of the imperfect, perfection and unity together yield that God is the measure of all things.
• That only reason measures, shown in anger: the neighbor boy who smashed a potted plant required some intervention, though the neighbors were indignant. If someone bumps into you in the hall by accident, no anger; a high-schooler knocking everybody down the hall, a little anger; someone using your children for target practice really requires anger. “How can the emotion be the measure of itself?” — as sleep cannot tell whether you sleep too much or too little.

10. Reply to obj. 2, and the works of reason (“this is a beautiful comparison that Thomas does”) #

As in exterior things one distinguishes the operation and the thing worked out (building / the built), so in reason one distinguishes the act (to understand, to reason) and what is constituted by that act: first definition, second enunciation or statement, third syllogism or argument in general.

• Hence his standing claim: the first thing to understand in logic is speech and name, because logic is mainly about three speeches — definition (Categories-level), statement (the Peri Hermeneias), syllogism or argument.
• Name and speech have the same definition but for one part: both are vocal sound signifying by human agreement or custom; speech has parts signifying something by themselves, a name does not. Johnson: the etymology is “son of John,” but that is not the meaning of the name — Carol Johnson is not the son of John; the name means her family. His own name, Berquist, from Berg (mountain) and quist (branch) — “I’m a little branch off your Aristotle tree” — but that is not really its meaning.
• Speech with signifying parts: “white horse”; a definition — square is an equilateral right-angled quadrilateral (genus and differences each signify); a statement — “man is an animal”; and syllogism puts statements together.
• The reply proper: practical reason uses a kind of syllogism in things to be done (Ethics VII), so there must be in practical reason, with respect to operations, something standing as the proposition in speculative reason stands to conclusions; and these universal propositions of practical reason ordered to action have the notion of law — propositions sometimes actually considered, sometimes held habitually by reason. (This answers obj. 2: law is neither power nor habit nor act simply, but the work constituted by the act.) A student supplies: the Ten Commandments. As geometry deduces from axioms and postulates, so from law we deduce what we should do.
• Complaint about vocabulary: Thomas got into the habit of using propositio for statement, though “proposition” is more properly the name for the premises, what is placed before — “we’ll forgive him this little slip.” Likewise proportion: Euclid’s proportion is a likeness of ratios (4 is to 6 as 2 is to 3), while 2 to 3 is a ratio; moderns call a ratio a proportion, and Thomas does not know what to do with proportionality. “I’m going to correct him when I get to heaven.” We should follow the geometers, who first saw these things clearly. Asked whether Thomas studied Euclid, he says yes.
• Aside on lost titles: the eight books of Natural Hearing, usually called the Physics — “it’s lost”; and metaphysics, the books after natural philosophy.
• Aside: Aristotle and Augustine are honored by Thomas as fathers — as Washington is father of his country, these are fathers of the life of your mind.

11. Reply to obj. 3 (“otherwise the will of the prince would be more iniquity than law”) #

Reason has its strength of moving from the will (the will is a cause as mover): because someone wills the end, reason commands about the things toward the end. But the will about the things commanded, if it is to have the character of law, must itself be ruled by reason. In this way the will of the prince has the vigor of law; otherwise it would be iniquity rather than law.

• He stops here, announcing what comes next: law is always ordered to the common good — which, he says, goes back to the honor he was trying to bestow on the father of our country.

His words #

• diabolus — slanderer, from throwing something against someone; distinguished from satan, adversary/enemy.
• subject(ive) parts — the parts of a universal whole, said of many; opposed to composing/integral parts.
• natural understanding — Aristotle’s nous, Thomas’ intellectus; distinguished from “reasoned out understanding” [ed.: science].
• equivocal by reason — not by chance; the condition of the fundamental words, especially those in the axioms [ed.: analogous].
• foresight — [ed.: prudence], in the list of intellectual virtues.
• “the fifth book of wisdom” — Metaphysics V.
• natural hearing — [ed.: the Physics]; “the eight books of natural hearing.”
• lex from ligare — law said from binding, because it obligates.
• speech vs. name — vocal sound signifying by human agreement, with or without parts signifying by themselves.
• proposition — properly the premise, what is placed before; Thomas uses it for statement.
• proportion vs. ratio — proportion a likeness of ratios (Euclid); 2 to 3 is a ratio.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 90, prooemium; a. 1 (three objections, sed contra, corpus, replies to obj. 2 and 3)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 49, prooemium
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 109, prooemium
• Romans 7, “I see another law in my members” (quoted in obj. 1)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics IV (defence of the axiom of contradiction; being and one said in many ways) and V (inferred)
• Aristotle, Physics II (whether nature exists)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII (practical syllogism)
• Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations (fallacies from speech)
• Aristotle, Peri Hermeneias
• Boethius, on axioms as known through themselves to all
• Plato, Laws (“man is the measure of all things” rejected); Socrates’ burial (inferred: Phaedo)
• Euclid (“the whole is more than the part”; proportion)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, on the attributes of God’s substance

His questions #

• Why can Aristotle or Thomas say that the wise man judges the beginnings, if all men know the axioms? Because the wise man knows them as beginnings and knows the words in them are equivocal by reason, so he can defend them.
• Is the whole always greater than the part? No — a whole is more than a part of itself; animal is a part of man’s definition yet said of more than man.
• How can anyone think he doesn’t know what he does know? Since men do think they know what they don’t, the reverse mistake is possible, caused by a sophistical argument.
• I have a soul and a body, and they are not the same: which one am I? The argument equivocates — soul and body are not two things as a man and a dog; the soul is the first act of the body, and I am one thing.
• Where is the error in the objection that law is neither power, habit, nor act of reason? In the disjunction itself: it fails to exhaust the possibilities, since law is the work constituted by the act of reason.
• Is law something of reason or of will? Of reason: it is a rule and measure of acts, and the rule of human acts is reason, which orders to the end.
• How can the emotion be the measure of itself? It cannot; only reason measures how much anger is suitable.
• What has the will of the prince to do with law? It has the vigor of law only insofar as it is ruled by reason; otherwise it is iniquity rather than law.