Prima Secundae
67. Aquinas on the Order of the Passions: Love First Among the Concupiscible, Hope First Among the Irascible (ST I-II q.25 a.2-3)
Class of 2012-04-12
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/067-aquinas-on-the-order-of-the-passions-love-first-among-the/

[0:00] In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. And help us to understand all that you've written. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

[0:38] Amen. So, who's smarter, Aristotle or Thomas? Yeah. And who's more enlightened? One thing you can say, I think, is that Thomas is the one man who really could understand Aristotle, and therefore proportion him to us. I picked up the Albert the Great's commentary on the Physics of Aristotle, right? And the very beginning is talking what the subject of natural philosophy is, and he's saying it's corpus mobile, right?

[1:16] Okay. Well, of course, Thomas, in the very beginning of the commentary on the Physics, right, says the subject is ens mobile, right? It's not corpus mobile, and he says because no science proves its own subject, right? So later on, like in Book Six, Aristotle shows that ens mobile is going to be a corpus, right? So that's like a property there, rather than the subject, right? So you can see, you know, you know, he doesn't mention this Albert, you know, and who else besides Albert, you know?

[1:53] But it's you know little mistakes like that you find in Albert, and of course he's correcting Averroes, right? Because Aristotle explains the order of determination, the order of consideration in natural philosophy there, and Averroes is taking it to refer to the order of demonstration, right? Well, it's the second book as Aristotle talks about it, right? And that doesn't make sense in the text or the way Averroes explains it.

[2:18] it. Doesn't put it under one intention and so on. So he's correcting both Albert unnamed and Averroes named there, right? You know, but realizing Thomas is the only guy who could really what? Yeah, when I read the Greek commentators, you know, they kind of paraphrase Aristotle, but they have a difficult even paraphrasing him, let alone you know unfolding the meaning of the text. Yeah, it's a beautiful way Thomas proceeds, you know.

[2:45] So you know, I mean, there's no question who's got a greater mind, Aristotle or Thomas. But certainly Thomas had the the mind that could what? Understand things. It was capable of understanding Aristotle and applying to our minds, right? In that sense, you'd learn more from Thomas. You know, knowing Latin than just knowing Greek. If you had just one language, right? Because if you if you didn't know Greek, you'd have to read Aristotle Greek, and you couldn't read Thomas, you wouldn't understand Aristotle that that well, you know.

[3:18] And last night we were doing the the books, the seventh book there on places, right? Seventh book of the book of places there, and you know Aristotle was saying, you know, for the most part, that a property is always a sumploke, right? So it's a combination of things, right? So it's not one word. Remember, a guy is attacking Porphyry, you know, like he was mixing up the four problems in the book of places with the five predicables, right?

[3:54] But the five predicables are all names, right? Why? Why property, for the most part, Aristotle is is really speech; it's not a name. And if we're serious, definition is always speech. It's never just a name. And

[4:10] but we don't have. Oh, I got Albert there's commentary on the book of places. I was thinking last night about this beautiful thing there, and we talked about before about truth does not require that the way we know be the way things are. Well, God knows composed things, things put together in a simple way, right? Because He knows all things by knowing Himself, and He's completely simple, right?

[4:42] Why we're the reverse? We know simple things in a composed way, right? But neither God is false nor we false in knowing things in the way we know things not being the way things are.

[4:58] It's what you say about things; it has to be with them, right? So I was thinking about that, and you know, what's the most fundamental things you can say about God? You know,

[5:12] after you know that He exists, right? Well, you have these two ways of speaking of God. You can say God is pure act, and Thomas often calls him to the the first act. Okay, now, of course, these are composed, right? Act and what? Pure and act and first, right? But pure is a being of reason; it's negation. Because pure there means what? It doesn't have any ability to be moved or to be formed or to be an act anyway.

[5:51] There's no passivity there, right? So you're getting this composed knowledge of God's simplicity, right? I mean, His actuality. And then the other one, first act, right? Well, that's the relation, right? And he's first; he's before all the rest, right? All the creatures. But the relation of God to creatures is only relation of reason, huh? It's a real relation, our side, but his side's not. So you have the two kinds of what beings of reason, negation and and relation that can be some of these just beings of reason.

[6:29] And so you're knowing these these two ways, right? And I got thinking about these two ways of speaking about God, because when I remember years ago when I was studying the the treatise on the substance of God there in the Summa Theologia, right, I was always struck by the fact that you can use pure act as kind of middle term to show almost all, you know, right away of the attributes, right?

[6:54] So God is unchanging, right? Because change involves potency, so pure act can't can't change. It it explains what why he's altogether simple, because simple means not composed, our way of thinking. And as Thomas says, in everything composed, either one part is to the other as act to ability, or at least all the parts are to the whole as ability to act. So you can't have composition without some potency, some ability to be actualized.

[7:26] And so God is what altogether simple. And then once you know from the ninth book of wisdom that act is perfection of the thing, right? Well, then you can see that God's going to be altogether perfect. And it's going to be infinite, as I say, this actual; it's not going to be limited by any potency, right? But then I said, now you know, got to look before and after, right?

[7:51] Is there an order in our knowing between these two, pure act and first act? Probably, I guess we might say pure act first in our in our order knowing. Well, that's what Warren's saying on the phone today, say. But I said, how do we arrive at God being pure act? What's in the third part of the ninth book of wisdom, where Aristotle shows that act is simply before ability, right?

[8:25] He says, you know, in some way ability for act in the thing that goes from ability to act is an ability for it's an act, right? But it goes from ability to act because of something already an act. So simpliciter loquendo, speaking simply, act is before what ability, and therefore the first act is that you know got some ability. Well, then no, there'd be something before it; it wouldn't be the first act.

[8:53] So if it's the first act, it must be what pure act. So I would say you could syllogize and say. God is the first act. The first act is a pure act. Therefore, God is a pure act, right?

[9:12] So beautiful, beautiful things. Kind of funny One of the students I'm teaching them logic now, right? They says, "What's your favorite part of philosophy?" He said, "You know, it's logic or something." And

[9:28] I was in college. The course I enjoyed the most was the course was called Natural Theology, right? And what Kasurik did was to do the articles of the Summa before the Trinity, right? The ones where you can, by natural reason, see things. So you could kind of justify and call Natural Theology, right? Make it a philosophy course rather than a theology course. But that was the most interesting course.

[9:50] You know, once you get a little taste of of God, you know, you realize how tasty He is, you know. Tasted, see how sweet is the Lord, you know. He knows and so it's. certainly not logic, you know? That's almost as stupid to say. You know, my favorite science is grammar. I mean, grammar is getting some grammar. You know, you gotta know what a noun and a verb is, and so on and adjective.

[10:12] But I mean, somebody's favorite, you know, subject is grammar. You know, something wrong with the guy. But he's just thinking about logic, right? That's what I'm saying. Making the article I have on logic. You know, you know that the thing is, is

[10:27] logic is a tool, right? Huh? You know, Thomas says that logic is put with looking philosophy as its tool, but not as a chief part of it, right?

[10:39] So now this is extremely interesting here. Look how Thomas is looking before and after, right? Because the first article was what, whether the passions of the irascible are before those of the concupiscible or the reverse, right? And Thomas had a what nuanced answer, right? Because simply you could say some passions of the concupiscible always come first, right? But some passions of the irascible can come before you achieve the good or

[11:12] yeah. When I was asking whether love is the first of the passions of the concubiscible, and he's going to be asking whether hope is first among the passions of the irascible. So he's still, you know, looking before and after, right? Huh?

[11:30] And that's by pure act, right? As a result of looking before and after, with the help of the third part of the ninth book of wisdom.

[11:40] The first first part of the ninth book of wisdom is mainly about ability, right? Potency. The second part is mainly about act. It's more universal than the first part? And the third part is a comparison of the two, especially in terms of their order, right? In terms of knowledge and defining and

[11:59] causality and so on. Now, to the second one goes forward. Thus, it seems that love is not the first of the passions of the concubiscible. For the concubiscible power is named from what concupiscence huh,

[12:25] which is the same passion with what desire by another name. And also Thomas calls this part of the soul the appetitive power, right? Or they use the word appetitus, we get the word appetite, right? Which is desire, right? You know, I know when they say that the rest of them say, bon appetit, that annoys me. but as if you know, it really means have good desire, you know.

[12:54] Huh? You should say, you know, you know, may you enjoy your meal, you know, You should do that. Yeah, so the Lebanese use an expression that sort of a wish, expressing that may this meal be for twice the health that you have, something like that. But this is it's a plural for health. So that's what they're wishing for the meal. not just a good appetite. I want more than an appetite when I go to a meal.

[13:25] I want the food. So so appetitus, the the power in general is named from desire, right? Okay. But now the concupiscible is named from concupiscence, which is the sense desire, right? Huh. Okay. But then he gives this code from Aristotle that denominatio, right, the naming comes from the more what potent, right? Okay. As is said in the second book about the soul, right?

[14:01] So I call episteme what reasoned out knowledge, but reasoning out is not the only kind of thinking out, but it's the ultimate one, right? Huh? So we name the whole thing from the last thing. Okay.

[14:19] Therefore, concubisence must be more potent than what love. If love is, should name it from love. Moreover, love implies a certain union, right? Huh? This unitiva, as our friend Dionysius says, huh? It's the name of this power that unites concretiva, right? As Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of Divine Names, he's talking about love. But concupiscence or desire is a motion towards union with the thing desired, right?

[14:59] Therefore, it's before love, right? Just as you pursue union before you have union, right? Moreover, the cause is before the effect, huh? But pleasure is sometimes the cause of love, right?

[15:21] So why eating that food? Because you enjoy that food, right? For some desire or or love on account of pleasure, right? Huh? As is said in the eighth book of the Ethics, huh? That's

[15:39] one of the kinds of that's the first book on friendship there, right? Now that's one kind of friendship, right? Therefore, pleasure is before love, just as the cause is before the effect. There's more truth in this third objection than in the first two, but we'll see that when we get done. Therefore, not first among the passions, of the concupiscible power is love, right? To? Follow the Latin word order there.

[16:06] But now against all this is what a very famous man, there Augustine of Hippo, said in a very famous book, the fourteenth book of the City of God,

[16:19] that all passions are caused from love. For love, right? Seeking, I suppose, and tending, seeking to have what is loved is cupiditas, right? It's desire, right? But having it, enjoying it, it is what joy, right? Okay. So it's like saying that what desire is love pursuing what is loved, right? Because you don't have it, and joy is Love having. yeah, is love having what it loves.

[17:05] Love, therefore, is the first of the passions of the what In Kibiswa, right? Well, Thomas begins here by distinguishing between the passions concerned with the good and those with the bad, right? And we have to look among those concerned with the good to see what is first. Against it should be said that the object of the concubiscible are the good and the what bad, huh? The gospel this morning.

[17:37] I know what your gospel was, but our Lord ate some fish in front of the apostles. That's what it says, right? It didn't say salmon, I just said fish. Well, salmon's kind of fish. I hate to have to prove that my body was resurrected by eating salmon, you know.

[17:56] Yeah, because there's not going to be any suffering after the resurrection. Couldn't, but yeah. Now, naturally, the good is before the what bad. In that bad is a lack of the good, okay? This is what Aristotle teaches us in the ninth book of wisdom. That's a great book, that ninth book. Right. Used to always do that when I taught metaphysics. You know, you can't teach all the books.

[18:27] You know, ninth book is always the one that was, you know. And you can kind of see the way you go all the way to God with your act, right? You know, it's just beautiful. See things about that first act. It's really something.

[18:44] Yeah. You know, Kasurik said compared to Aristotle, he says, "I got the mind of an angler." Give us hope, give us hope, teacher. Give us hope.

[19:08] Whence all passion, whose object is the good, are naturally before the passions whose object is what the bad. Each one to its opposites, right? For because one seeks the good, therefore one what refutes the opposite evil, right?

[19:33] Now the good has the what definition of an end. The good in the end, as Aristotle pointed out, right, basically the same thing. Though we speak in a secondary way of the means being good, right, but primarily the good and the end have the same. Now what is before in intention is after in what Obtaining In obtaining. Yeah. So Aristotle is pointing this out. Thomas is just repeating Aristotle, right?

[20:07] Okay. So you're quite poor, Albert, to to e-book Aristotle, right? It's been a long time. Okay. Um. Therefore, one can observe the order of the passions of incubusible, either according to intention or according to what? Yeah.

[20:37] Now, according to achieving, that is before which first comes to be in that thing which tends towards the what? End. But is manifest that everything that tends towards some end first has a certain what? Aptness for, or a certain proportion to that end. For nothing tends towards an end that doesn't in some way fit that thing, right? It's not proportion to it. Then secondly, one moves towards the end, right?

[21:15] And third, one rests in the end after the what? Yeah. Okay. So I like the music of Mozart, and I move towards the CD of Mozart's music, and then I rest as I hear the beautiful music of Mozart, right?

[21:38] Now that aptitude or proportion of the now here petitus means the name of the what? Power, right? But the aptitude or proportion of the desiring power, right, is named again for desire. Um. To the good is love, right? Which is nothing other than a what? Complacence with the good, pleasing with the good. But the emotion to the good is called desire or concupiscentia right? Concupiscentia is a little more besides in the sensible, the sense desire, right?

[22:15] But. But the rest in the good is joy, which is a little more spiritual in meaning, and or delectatio, right? Pleasure. And according to this order, love comes before desire, and desire comes before what? Pleasure, right? But according to the order of intention, it is what? Reversed, huh? For the pleasure intended causes desire for it and a love of it, right?

[22:56] For pleasure is an enjoyment, you might say, of the good, which in some way is the end, just as the good itself. Aristotle, you know, talks about that, especially in the tenth book, right? You know, the tenth book is about what Aristotle's last word on what happiness is, right? But he also talks the first part of Book Ten about pleasure because that seems to be for its own sake, right?

[23:20] And then showing that happiness consists in the operation of knowing God, right? And if this perfects the mind, then it's going to be pleasant for the mind, right? So pleasant pleasure accompanies the end, right? Aristotle has a nice comparison there. He says that pleasure is to the end like beauty is to youth. You know, not the essence of youth, but kind of covers it, right? Okay, get the whole thing going here.

[23:53] Okay. So what am I? I'm a philosopher, right? Man, that's true. That's more fun. But why is the philosopher named from love, right, rather than desire for wisdom, which is what called wonder, right?

[24:21] That's what moves you to pursue it. Mm-hmm. Because it has to do with what he's saying here, you know. It was different. This is not a love, baby. That's in the passions, right? Not emotion. The love of wisdom, right? It's a love that's in the will, right? But does not the love of wisdom, in some sense, give rise to the desire for wisdom? And then the delight you have when you get a little bit of wisdom, right?

[25:01] Yeah. And the love of wisdom can be there whether you're desiring it or whether you're possessing it and enjoying it, right? The wisdom underlies this, right? Well, it's probably you name me, right, rather than from the the one pleased with wisdom, or the one seeking wisdom, right? Huh? You know, even right.

[25:30] I'm the one loving wisdom, right? That's that's a fundamental thing, right? That's what uh Bishop Theodoric, when he wrote about the monks of Syria, including Saint Marin, Simon the Stylite, and all the others, he always referred to them. I know he referred to them as philosophers, but he referred to their life as philosophy. Now,

[25:53] when the Gospel or the the Psalms say, "Taste and see how sweet is the Lord," right? Huh? Well, there you kind of be moved by the delight that you have in God, right? And Saint Bernard Clairvaux talks about the stages of love. You know, the first case you don't love God at all, right? But you love your own earthly things, and then you have difficulty in these earthly things because sometimes they deny you, or sometimes you know.

[26:25] And then you turn to God for what help, right? Okay. And remember when I was a kid there, you know, the neighbor's across there, and the father I think got cancer, you know, all of a sudden they're at daily mass that family, you know, and so you know, so you are kind of seeking God, you know, to relieve you from whatever your stress and don't have whatever it is.

[26:49] And then as you get to know God, then you start to take what delight in the Lord. And now it's not. This is apart from this, right? Okay. And then finally, you are loving yourself for and in God, right? And he says this is hard to realize in this life, you know. But so you're not realized perfectly until the next life, right? But you know, in a more human example of friendship, you know, you might turn to somebody for help because you need that person, you know.

[27:24] And then you're not really loving the person on their own sake, right? But as you get to know that person, right, then you find them attractive, you know. Now you start to like them for their own sake and not simply as a way of being helping you, right?

[27:47] Now, how does Thomas answer the first objection? Why is the concupiscible appetite named from concupiscence or desire? You might consider the same thing about appetitive power in general. Why is it named from desire, right?

[28:04] I think Thomas could be a little bit better in this answer than he will, but we'll see what he says. The new improved edition. The first therefore should be said that in this way something is named according as it becomes what known to us. For vocal sounds are the signs of things understood, according to the philosopher, right? So you remember how I used to talk about the twelfth chapter, the categories, where Aristotle distinguishes the senses of what before, right?

[28:43] And before in time is the first sense, right? Then before in being, like ones before two, and then before in our knowledge of, reason, right? And then finally, before in goodness or desirability. I used to always ask the students. Now it gives these four senses in a certain order, right? One, two, three, four. In what sense of these four does one sense come before another one, right?

[29:11] It's like the twist tie and the tongue tie, you know. In what sense of before does one sense of before come before another sense of before? Because I had already said they are really good, you know. In what sense of before does one sense of before come before another sense of before?

[29:36] Yeah, in the third sense, right? Because we name things as we what know them, right? Okay. Now we ut plurimum, right? For the most part, know the cause through the what effect, right? But the effect of love when what? Is? Possess the thing loved The thing loved is had is pleasure, right? When it is not had, the effect is desire or concupiscence. Now, as Augustine says in the tenth book of the Trinity, love is more what sensed, right?

[30:20] When indigence or need, right, prompts it, right? Whence among all passions of concupiscible, the more sensible is what concupiscence. An account of this from it is the power denominated. Well, maybe it might be even easier to see how it's more known in some way, not just from its being the what effect of a cause, right? But from its being more like motion, right? Okay. Now, as my teacher, Bill Shakespeare says, right?

[30:58] Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, right? And as Aristotle says in the ninth book of Wisdom, act comes first from what motion, right? Okay. So that's why people watch sport games because it's motion, right? And that's why they watch the movies because it's motion, you know. And when I was in Quebec, you know, we used to have the news reels in those days, and they were called des actualités.

[31:31] That's what they were. Well, this is the first sense of act, right? Motion, right? So desire is more like motion. Pleasure or delight is more arresting in the thing, right? And love is again not like the motion towards the thing, right? So desire is more known because it's more like a, what Motion. emotion, yeah, yeah. And in that sense too, you know, with our reason, right? Why is reasoning, in a sense, more known than what understanding, right?

[32:07] And because like emotion, right? Understanding is a stand, is not, isn't a rest, right? Yeah. And people are aware of this discourse, you know. That's why Shakespeare names it, right? I mean, defines it. A discourse is it comes to the word for running, right? You know. Reason is the ability for large running.

[32:31] Yeah, yeah. So I think you could add that to Thomas, you know. See, mentions here, knows he says in the text of the thing he says.

[32:49] First, there is a what proportion of the object? Secundo movetur ad finum, right? Now one is moved, right? So it's that desire which is like motion, right? Tending towards something, right? So motion tends to be what more known, right?

[33:08] It's like C. S. Lewis kind of says, poetic, you know, God, He's what He moves so quickly everywhere. Well, it's kind of proportionate to us in a kind of a poetic way, right?

[33:23] Now, the second objection was saying that love is an union, right? What does that union come after you? You pursue the object and you are united to it, right? Huh? Well, Thomas of course sees the distinction, right? To the second, it should be said that there is a twofold union of the love to the lover, right? One is in things, right? Realis, huh? According as there is a conjunction, right, to the thing itself, right?

[33:57] And such a union pertains to joy or pleasure, which follows upon what desire. Another is the what Affective union, which is according to aptitude or proportion, right?

[34:15] On account of, insofar as from this, someone has an aptitude to another, an inclination, he already partakes in some way of it, huh? And thus love implies what union, huh? Which kind of union precedes the what?

[34:36] The man pursues the woman because, in some way, he's attached to her by what love? He likes her, right? Okay. I wasn't attached to Mozart's music, right? Or something, or attached to his food, I wouldn't wouldn't pursue it, right? Huh? Okay. And then pursuing a real union, like between my ear and Mozart's music, or my tongue and and this food I like, huh? So that's

[35:07] a good distinction to what see, right? Huh? Have to see distinction before you can see order, right? Huh? But notice the third one, right? He's admitting some truth. The third one, right? And that's the order of what intention, right? To the second, to the third, it should be said that pleasure causes love, according as it is before in what intention? Intention, yeah.

[35:42] So I intend the the joy of hearing music of Mozart. So you have those contrary orders, right? Huh? That's why Aristotle often says, you know, it's last in intention is first in execution. I first intend to get rid of my headache. Then I intend to take aspirin. Then I intend to go to the drugstore. And then I start to go to the drugstore. Then I get the aspirin.

[36:14] Then I take the aspirin. Then I get rid of my headache, right? Yeah. So the order of carrying the thing out and the intention is just the what reverse. That's why we're studying logic, right? That's that's the last intention. The last thing I intend to study is logic. But the first thing I study, right? Because it's the tool for all the rest, right? Similarly,

[36:38] you know, I'm a lover of wisdom, so wisdom is first in my what? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of marvelous that Laval, the two greatest minds up there were Charles De Koninck and Maurice Dion, right, Monsignor Maurice Dionne And De Koninck always taught what natural philosophy, and Dion taught logic or something along those lines, you know. And one of them taught metaphysics. But they wanted to emphasize, you know, that you have to learn these things what first, right?

[37:09] Well. Yeah, yeah. That's why I first started, you know, when I got to that natural theology course, right? And Thomas is arguing that God is unchangeable, and he argues from what he's shown before that he's he's simple, right? But that's what I learned in the first book of natural hearing, the first book of the physics, that whatever moves is composed, right? And Aristotle makes that altogether clear, right?

[37:33] So he had the in my mind from natural philosophy the statement, everything that moves is composed. Then from the arguments and the question on the simplicity of God, God is not composed. Therefore, you know, yeah, you see, if I didn't have the natural philosophy, it wasn't so clear. I wouldn't be able to follow that argument, right?

[37:58] Twenty times. I'm just teaching how to read Thomas. He says, young boy, you know, he he would lecture, you know, and then he kind of, you know, talk about Bertrand Russell or some other guy's difficulty. He couldn't seem to find the ancient Greek answer Aristotle's solving, you know. So you know how they say, you know, if you don't know history, you have to repeat the mistakes. Well, something like that.

[38:26] If you don't know the the first philosophies, you you you make the same mistake again and again and over and over again. So it's good to learn how to read Aristotle, but you need Thomas to help you read Aristotle. I told you that time ago. That's one one of the philosophers there is going off in the in the text of fifth book of wisdom there on the word beginning, right?

[38:53] And Monsignor Dion says, look what Thomas says, you know. He's obviously misunderstanding, right? Aristotle only gives the the Second sense, there beginning, right? The first sense of beginning is the beginning of the road, right? The second sense of beginning is where you might begin because you're somewhere along the road, right? Okay. So when I go to Boston, the road I take to Boston, I don't go to the beginning of the road to go to Boston.

[39:28] It wastes time, right? The beginning is where I pick up the highway, right? Okay. And Aristotle compares that to what takes place in knowing, right? We don't always begin from the beginning of the thing, but from what is most known to us, right? Whereas he was confusing what Aristotle's giving a comparison. I like this, as if that's what he's talking about in that second sense, right? You know.

[39:54] Well, it's clear, you know, it's not until what to be like the fifth sense, right? Where he's talking about. beginning and knowing you know. So, Just understand the whole text, right? No, look what Thomas, said, you know. And you know, I think it was De Koninck too said that thing about Kajetan, you know, when he tried to comment on Aristotle, directly you know, he started to go off, you know.

[40:18] And he should have confined himself to comment on Thomas, right? In proper proportion to us. The kind just—I mean, De Koninck compared it to the—you know—you're illuminated by the angel right above you, right? If you're an angel, and the one above him would be too elevated for you, right? So you have to proportion these things down. We have something like that, with Aristotle and Thomas and so on, right?

[40:45] And maybe you need somebody like De Koninck or Dionne to learn how to read Thomas, right? Then you learn how to read Aristotle, and so on.

[40:59] I was noticing there in the very beginning there of the physics there, where Moerbeke translates the Greek text there, "scientia" twice. you know, use the word "scientia" twice, In the Greek text, the word is "methodos" and then "episteme," right? Aristotle is using them kind of convertibly there, perhaps, you know, so it's not so much, but

[41:25] sometimes it is important to see that, you know. Sometimes he just usually translates "methodos scientia," but sometimes he translates just transliterates as "methodos," makes a Greek a Latin word out of it, you know, Moerbeke. He's a very good translator, but you got to see what he's saying.

[41:45] Okay, so now you see where love is, right? Why I'm a lover of wisdom, right? Why named from that? Who does Aristotle compare to the philosopher there? He's talking about wonder in the premium. Remember that. Same question again. Who does he compare to the philosopher when he's talking about wonder there? The poet? Not the poet, but the philomuthos, right? The lover of plots. Yeah, the lover of fiction or the lover of plots, right?

[42:28] But he's a philomuthos, right? So if you're a lover of fiction, right? But you're being named again from love, right? That being said, a man who enjoys fiction, that's true, right? But he's called there philomuthos, huh? Philomuthos is something like a philosopher, Aristotle could say, because the muthos, the myth, is composed of what wonders, right? huh? Even if you take muthos as being kind of fairy tale we'd say you know, the wonder of the child up you know glass mountain you know How do you climb the glass mountain so on. Okay, now we go to what is first among the passions of the what irascible, right?

[43:25] To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that spes hope is not first among the passions of the what irascible. Now notice this this texture. I mean, he's talking about the passions here, right? Now, but you know, when you take the names of passions and carry them forward to the what will, right? Huh? And sometimes even to the to the to the habits of the will and so on.

[43:54] And we have among the theological virtues, you have caritas agape, which is a love, right? Huh? And you have what hope, yeah? So it's a little this prepares in a, in a remote way, right? Huh? For seeing

[44:17] why those should be so principal, right? Why Why should the is any connection between the fact that the principal, the first passion of the concupiscible and the first passion of the irascible are, are love and hope, right? And that the theological virtues, you know, that are in the will, right? One is named from love and the other from hope, right? You know, there's some connection between those two, right?

[44:46] To the third one goes forward. Thus, it seems that hope is not the first among the passions of the irascible. one. I couldn't help but think about this when you're, we look at the text at the end of the seventh book about places. There, Aristotle is showing that in all these problems, right, it's easier to what destroy than to establish. And there's only one little exception there, which is kind of minor, you know.

[45:12] but, you know, but it's where we're hoping, right? huh? I'm saying, you know, Thomas, you know, sometimes in these big questions, you may have 20 objections to the truth, right? So it's easier to attack a theory of truth. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it still reminds me of what what he's saying there, you know. Yeah. Than to defend it, huh? You got to answer 20 objections, right? And when those objections get through, you're finished.

[45:38] Which is when you can't answer, right? Now, I told you about the student I had when I was teaching St. Mary's. You know, come in, pose an objection, not being in class, you know. And I'd heard all these things, all these objections, you know. So I answered nicely, you know. So you know, and I could see it when he just kind of relaxed after answering that, you know.

[46:03] He told me one time after the course, sometime, and he thought he always thought he was going to have me today," you know. And well, you know, uh, it's kind of marvelous to read Thomas, you know, now, you know, you meet. You know, more objections than people can think of. You know, and so you already kind of prepared for the objection, right? Uh. Okay. I notice he has a similar objection, like he had the first one in the against love, right?

[46:33] The irascible is named from what? Anger, anger, right? But again, quoting Aristotle, denominatio fit a potiori. okay, from the more potent one, it seems then that anger is potior, more potent, than before than what? Yeah, Okay.

[47:05] Moreover, the arduous, the difficult, is the object of the what irascible, right? But it seems more arduous that someone attempts to overcome a what contrary evil that is imminent in the future, which pertains to what audacity, right, or boldness, right?

[47:33] Or to one that already is laying upon one, right? Huh? As present evil, which pertains to what anger, right? Huh? Then that one attempts simply to acquire some some good, right? Okay.

[47:58] And likewise, it seems more difficult that one attempts to what overcome a present evil than a future what evil, right? Therefore, anger, which seems seems to be a more potent passion than audacity, and audacity than what hope? Yeah, and this hope does not seem to be before, right? Okay. Moreover, before occurs an emotion to the end, and the what recess from the what Limit. Term. term? Then the excess to the term, right?

[48:39] But I suppose you have to leave the bad before what you good. What is what is John Baptist saying, right? He must. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You got to repent first, right? Then, you can pursue the kingdom of heaven, right now. Okay. Fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom, and so on. Okay.

[49:04] But timor, right? Fear and desperation, right? Huh? Despair imply recess. Withdrawal from something, right? Why audacity and hope imply ex- acceding to something, right? Therefore, fear and desperation precede hope and what audacity.

[49:34] But against this, the more something is nearer to the what is first, the more it is what before. But hope is nearer to love, which is the what? There's the passions. Therefore, hope is before all the passions of the irascible, right? And Shakespeare, the lover, said to the girl, you know. But can I hope? And she says, She says, "She hopes that all men hope, right? " Something like she says, "She'll, That way, she'll have more choices.

[50:14] " Okay, now what the heck is Thomas going to do with this? I answer. It should be said that just as has been said, all the passions of the irascible imply emotion, what towards something, right?

[50:31] But emotion towards something in irascible can be caused from two things. In one way, from the aptitude alone, or the proportion of the end, which pertains to what love or hate. Another way, from the presence of the good or the bad, which pertains to what sadness or joy. And from the presence of the good, there is not caused any passion in the what irascible. But from the presence of the bad, is caused the passion of anger, right?

[51:18] If he's stepping on my toes, I say, "On my toe, " and you say, "So what? " Well, it probably caused a little bit of anger in that part, right? To get you off my foot, right? Okay, you're twisting my arm or something, right? Does that hurt? Too bad. Yeah.

[51:38] All you do is twist it more. That causes some anger, right? Because, therefore, in the road, in the way of generation, or carrying out something, right? The proportion or aptitude to the end precedes the what? Obtaining the end. Yeah. Hence, it is that anger among all the passions of the irascible is what last, in the order of what generation, right?

[52:18] But among the other passions of the irascible, which imply some motion fouling upon either the love or the hate of the good or the bad, right?

[52:34] Is necessary that the passions whose object is a good, and these are what hope and despair, right? I know it's hope and despair. Their object, you could say, is what a good difficult to what obtain, right? And hope arises if you think you can what overcome those difficulties, right? And despair if you think you what cannot, right? Okay.

[53:12] And then a evil or. bad Bad, difficult to avoid, right? Huh? If you think you might not be able to avoid it, you know, then you have what fear, right? Huh? But if you think you can easily overcome it, right? Ah, then your prize is what boldness, right? My friend Jim Frantzak, right? Like golden glove boxer.

[53:45] One time I had been playing football, and they gave me the ball to run. It was just to score an extra point. It was a short run. They opened up a big hole, for me and there is this little pipsqueak of a guy standing there. And I said, oh, no, run right over. Boom! There was no problem. But if it was a big, heavy guy, I might have given a second thought, you know, go another way or Yeah.

[54:10] We can go up to the playground there and play a little tackle football, you know. Not really, they could have been hurt easily, you know. But the the big guys coming through the center there, you know, I determined to stop him, You know, all the other guys are fleeing. You know, I tackled and bring him down. You know, but luckily I never dislocated shoulder. My brother and I in high school, he went out, you know, to play football, you know, and first practice they got dislocated shoulders, so for the rest he was on the running team, you know.

[54:38] He never never made it to a football team, but it's easy to get your shoulder, I guess, dislocated. The other things, huh? But I had a little bit of what audacity there, right? Boldness, right? Going to bring this guy down and not let him go through through the center of the line here. We played without any equipment, you know. Your kids, you know, that's what great kids did, you know.

[55:01] Most of the time we just played touch football, you know. At this time we're playing tackle football, you know. We had in a Golden Park there.

[55:13] Now he says the passion whose object is the good to which hope and despair are naturally before the passions whose object is the bad. Right? That's the thing he talked about before. Right? That love, desire, and what joy are naturally before hate and aversion and sadness. Yeah, because the good is before naturally the bad.

[55:41] You see that, you know the the which is more principal, you know, the love of happiness or the hatred of misery. Love of happiness Yeah yeah If you didn't love happiness. You wouldn't hate misery, would you?

[56:02] Do you love friendship, huh? Then you hate loneliness or something like that, right? You know. Yeah. So they're naturally before the passions whose object is the bad to which boldness and what fear, right? Huh? Thus, nevertheless, that hope is what before desperation. Why? Because hope is a motion towards the good, according to the very notion of the good, of which whose notion is that it be what attractive, right?

[56:42] And therefore, this motion in the good per se, right? Or desperation kind of acts it unto itself, receding from the good, right? Which doesn't belong to the good, according as it is good, but according to something other, which is the word per accidens, right? So you know the story of the fox, right? He's jumping to meet the grapes, right? And it's they're good, and he wants them, but they're a difficult good because they're so above him, right?

[57:10] He keeps on jumping, and he's getting more and more terrified, but he still can't reach the grapes, right? And finally, says that they'd probably be, you know, probably sour anyway, you know.

[57:21] I just compare that to the guy. He wants the girl, you know, but he can't get her, or somebody else is more clever to get her, you know. And so says, well, she'd be spoiled anyway, you know. She didn't pursue, you know. But I mean, but it's more natural to what pursue the good, right? Than to give up the good, right? So the good is is more per se.

[57:42] I mean, hope is more per se regarding its object, and despair is kind of what contractions, right? You think you can't overcome the difficulty, right? It's basically a good difficult to achieve, right? It's not difficulty good to achieve, but a good difficult to achieve. Okay.

[58:08] And for the same reason now. Notice, huh? How how the order there is changing now, right? Because you know he first spoke of spes and desperatio, and audacia and timor, right? Huh? Well, in some way, audacia is like spes insofar as it goes towards the object, right? Spes goes towards the good, and boldness goes towards the bad, right? I am going to get rid of it, huh?

[58:33] But now, what's more fundamental, though? See, because the bad naturally is what repulsive, right? Huh? Okay, so that she goes on to say, and for the same reason, right? Unfortunately, um, timor, since it is a receding from the bad, right, is naturally prior than what boldness, right, for you are actually pursuing bad, right? Huh? You got on the battlefield, fear is more natural than boldness, right? Huh?

[59:06] You know, and you know I see that even I got to reading biography of Washington, you know. But I mean, that was part of the order of the day, you know. Anybody who was, you know, because he praises them and how brave they are, you know. But anybody who is, you know, neglecting his duty, you know, will be shot, right? You know, that's what they say. Let's see, do we need wings to go forward?

[59:26] You know, okay. You're going to be a dead coward, or you know, a dead hero, right? You know, you know, but your your your family get more money, I suppose. If you're a dead hero, if you're a dead coward, he'll go down, remembered, remembered better. You might also get shot to the end. Yeah, but there's a lot of places that Shakespeare doing the battle scene. You know, whether the man has come out the wound in front or back.

[59:57] Come out the wound in the back. That's a bad sign. You know, you're running away from. Okay. So that what? That however, hope and despair are naturally what before fear and audacia From this is manifest that the desire for the good is a reason wherefore one avoids the what bad, okay.

[1:00:38] So in the in the two teams playing with the two players and the teams are what desires for what victory, right? So there, so also hope and despair are the ratio timoris and audaciae For boldness follows upon the hope of what victory, right? And fear follows the what desperation of overcoming, right?

[1:01:11] But anger follows upon boldness, right? For no one what gets angry, desiring revenge unless he what dares to vindicate himself, right? According to this, Avicenna, says in the Sixth Book of Natural Things, right? I was telling Warren this morning. the other time on the phone. I was saying how I'm reading the sentences there right now a little bit, and often Avicenna comes up, you know, and sometimes Thomas, you know, corrects a mistake about Avicenna, but a lot of things he he takes as being good in Avicenna, right?

[1:01:51] Of course, a lot of things. Warren is saying is down there and giving his talks down in Argentina. There, you know, some student comes up, you know, and he you know he's a Muslim, right? And Thomas like the Muslim. Oh yes, he thought highly of Avicenna

[1:02:08] and Averroes. He takes three things from them. He does correct them sometimes. I don't think so. Everyone's very happy. I guess you know now the kind of card you know Avicenna and Averroes is heretics, you know, by the

[1:02:27] Muslims. Okay. Thus, therefore, it is clear that hope is the first among all the passions of the irascible. And if the order of all the passions, according to the road of what generation, we what wish to know, right? First, there occurs love and what hate, huh? Or weaker words, like and dislike, right? Secondly, desire and turning away from, right, flight from, huh? Third, hope and what desperation.

[1:03:13] Fourth, fear and what boldness. Fifth, anger. Sixth and last, joy, and what? Sadness, which follow upon all the passions, as Aristotle says in the second book of the Ethics. Thomas would be looking before and after there, right? Ordering these things, seeing the order these things.

[1:03:37] Thus, nevertheless, that love is also what before hate, right? And desire before flight, and hope before what? Desperation and fear before audacity, and joy before sadness, as can be gathered from the things foresaid. Now, again, in Thomas's reply to the first objection, which is similar to the first objection, we name things somewhat more potent. Again, he talks about cause and effect there. To the first, therefore, it should be said that because anger is caused from the other passions, has an effect from receding causes.

[1:04:23] Therefore, from it is worth the more manifest the potency is denominated right But I think you could also see in terms as being what a more manifest motion, right? Okay. And I was talking about the metaphor there, Shakespeare, right? Where he says, and as you like it, they're in the very wrath of love, right? Clubs cannot part them, right? You see. So there's a certain similarity between anger and and concupiscence, right?

[1:04:53] Huh? And so much that Shakespeare can give it that metaphor, right? And when Thomas takes up, you know, the emotions, I mean, the virtues in the Secunda Secundae, he attaches to the principal cardinal virtues virtues, prudence and fortitude, and or justice and fortitude and temperance, right? Other virtues that have the mode of that one, but in a different matter or a different passion. So the the virtue that moderates what anger, right?

[1:05:31] Which you might call mildness, right? Something called meekness. I think mildness is a better word. Is attached to what temperance, right? Huh? So just as temperance moderates a violent, what? You know, vehement emotion. You know, desire for sense pleasure, right? Huh? Ah, would be food or drink or sex, something of the sort. So mildness is moderating a violent or vehement thing, anger, right? Huh? You know. And you know, you can see the newspaper every day, right?

[1:06:04] Huh? People always getting into trouble because of concupiscence right? They pursue a woman, or they they drink too much. You know, or they got angry and and and they hit somebody or would fall over him or did something like that, right? Huh? But that these are violent emotions, you know, vehement, you know, emotions, and they have to be what? Moderated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why you know they say, as to say, men men drink, you know, huh?

[1:06:39] Their reason, of course, for the emotions is weakened, right? Huh? And some men who are inclined to concubiscence are going to get amorous, right? And the other men who are more irascible in nature they get angry, yeah, and they tend to, you know. That's right. Yeah, yeah. So,

[1:07:01] but those are strong motions and and involving you know bodily change and so on. Then they're going to be more known to us, right? Now, so it seems to be it's a little more abstracted than it could that answer the objection, right? You know, it's an effect, right? Now, it seems even more clear to me at least, I don't know, that that the motion is very clear, right?

[1:07:27] Now, when a man gets angry, it's kind of easy to tell, right? Now, you can kind of tell if somebody's afraid, but more quickly you can tell if he's angry, right? Don't you think so? Bodily change going on, and he's behaving, you know. In his face. Yeah.

[1:08:02] Now, in regard to the second objection here about departing from something and so on, to the second should be said that the arduous is not the reason for what acceding to something or desiring it, but rather the fundamental object, which is the good, right?

[1:08:22] And therefore, hope, which directly regards the what good, is before. Although audacity sometimes is for something more what arduous or even anger in some cases, right?

[1:08:39] So, the boldness to fight, right, might be might be more difficult, right? But you're again approaching something bad, which is not per se to be approached, right? Or to be avoided, huh? He talks about fear. Fear makes him take counsel. right? It's not too severe. A. Politician has to run scared, you say.

[1:09:20] Not a very good life you come to think of it. And again, the third one is making the same point about the good being before. To the third, it should be said that desire first and per se is moved towards what? The good. The good. As in its proper object, right? And from this is caused that it recedes from the bad.

[1:09:50] For the emotion of the appetitive part is proportioned, not to the natural motion, but to the intention of nature, which before intends the end, then it intends the emotion. The contrary, which is not sought except an account to attain the end. of it. Well, notice, I'm called a lover of what wisdom, right now. Why am I called a lover of wisdom and not a hater of folly?

[1:10:24] Or why is it said that, as the great Socrates says in the dialogue the Theaetetus, right, that wonder is the beginning of philosophy, right? Aristotle talks about men begin to philosophize out of wonder, right? You know.

[1:10:45] Why do they say that? That rather than say that philosophy begins in in the flight from error, right? Trying to escape error. Because that's important to Socrates too, right? Because he thought that most men think they know what they don't know, right? And I remember one one year I had sabbatical and I was talking about looking to error, you know, mistakes, you know.

[1:11:14] But why do I want to avoid error, right? True. Yeah, yeah. It's more fundamental in a sense to want to know the truth than to avoid error, right? If I didn't want to know the truth, but I really care about avoiding error.

[1:11:42] That's what Augustine said. he sort of manifested that everyone loves the truth. He says, well, somebody's not sure if he loves the truth. Ask him if he likes to be deceived. Yeah. Nobody likes to be deceived. It would

[1:11:56] be kind of funny to say, you know, I I want truth because I want to avoid error. You know, doesn't make any sense, right? Or I want pleasure because I want to avoid pain. Yeah.

[1:12:14] You see, if I want pleasure, I can't have pleasure if pain is getting in the way, right? So, want to avoid pain because I want pleasure.

[1:12:30] Okay, take a little break here now before we do that.