De Anima (On the Soul)
53. Practical Reason, Incontinence and Self-Control; Dividing the Soul by Its Root: Emotions, Tragedy and Comedy, Choice and the Image of God
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[0:00] But neither when it looks at some such thing does it right away urge fleeing or pursuing. Just as often something fearful or pleasant is thought, but it does not urge being frightened. But the heart is moved while should be pleasant some other part. It's a discreet way of speaking, I should say. Okay. So what he's thinking there are the fact that sometimes. When we talk about a science like ethics, huh?

[0:30] And this is kind of a subtle thing when they divide these things up. See, and I'll say when they divide up the virtues of reason, huh? One way of dividing them that Thomas uses in the *Prima Secundae* is into the virtues of

[1:00] looking reason, or the speculative intellect, right? Latin intellectus speculativus, and the virtues of what practical reason, huh? And I could give this before, but just to recall to your mind, there are three virtues of looking reason, huh? There's natural understanding, that we understand that a whole is more than a part, for example, that's true. And then there's reasoned out understanding,

[1:52] which in Greek is called what episteme. In Latin, they translated it *scientia right? In Greek, they call this nous, and in Latin, intellectus. And then wisdom, which is the head of both of these kinds of understanding.

[2:15] But now, where'd you put? Well, let me finish this first. then I'll come back to it. Now, actually, there's only one natural understanding, only one virtue. There's only one wisdom, but there's many forms of what reasoned out understanding, huh? So these are low species, as the logicians say, but this is still a genus. Now, the virtues of practical reason are one is concerned with doing, and that's called in English foresight, in Latin prudentia we get the word prudence, and then phronesis in Greek, huh?

[2:55] And then you have making, and we take the word English from the Latin the word art. In Greek, you'd have the word *techne*, the word technology.

[3:12] Now there are many arts, right? And every time you have a material out of which you're going to make something that requires different tools and a different way of being worked. Then you have a different what art. So the art of of the tailor, which works with cloth, right, is different than the art of the carpenter that works with wood. And you can't use a scissors and needle to make something out of wood, right?

[3:46] But you don't use a hammer and a saw to make something out of cloth. Of course, the glassblower he has a different kind of matter in a different way of what working with that. And the metal worker again would be different. So my father's factory there. When they're making something in metal, they might heat the metal and what bend the metal, right? You do that with wood?

[4:15] I don't think so. You don't heat it and bend it. Okay. So there are many arts, right? Now foresight in the Summa. Theologiae, when Thomas takes up foresight, he distinguishes four forms of foresight, and you could call them the foresight of the individual man and his individual life, right? The foresight of the what father, right? For his whole family, and then the foresight of Douglas MacArthur, the general, and then the foresight of George Bush, the president of the head of the community, the prince or the king or whoever it may be, right?

[5:11] So foresight is concerned with the what here and now, right? What should I as an individual do here and now? And what should I as a father, or as a general, or as a president, or king, or something do? Now, where would you put ethics? See, is ethics the same thing, or is political philosophy the same thing as one of these kinds of foresight? Are they the same thing?

[5:42] They would cover all. It's more general. Yeah, and therefore you put it really among a form of what reasoned knowledge, right? So when I consider in ethics what courage is or what temperance is, I'm not talking about whether I should go to battle tomorrow or not, right? You see?

[6:13] I was seeing somebody they're interviewing, they're having some program they're done in the the college down south in the Citadel, I guess, where it's in South Carolina. Of course, it's a military school, right? Everybody's head is like the military, all shaved and so on. And so the guy turns to the audience. He says, "How many of you have been to go to Iraq?" Everybody says, "yeah, everybody!

[6:32] I want to go." So, he's literally couldn't do much about that, you know. He's kind of outnumbered, right? But but that's a question of of what the singular, right? Huh? Is it? They're doing their. You don't fight battles in general. You you fight Iraq or you fight this man or this country, right? Okay. But ethics or political philosophy is something more what general, right? And so when you consider these things, there you're not really what doing anything, are you?

[7:13] That's where Aristotle speaks of the useless hearer of ethics. You know, the man who hears about these things and then he doesn't act on them, right? Okay. But you can be a useless hearer of these things. But that's not the nature of foresight. Foresight is involves not only console and judgment, but most of all, what command, right? Okay.

[7:44] So even if the looking reason should, you know, talk about something practical, it doesn't talk about it in a fully practical way, right? Okay.

[8:00] But now, what about this practical reason down here? You see, huh? Okay, the one says, "Now I should what? " Such and such. Eat no more of this dessert here, right? Or I should what? You know, charge that hill, right? Huh? Okay. Right.

[8:31] I'll take that hill, MacArthur said, "I won't come back. " He took it. Okay. But he says, often in the man that we call the incontinent man, right, the man who lacks self-control, what his reason says he should do, he what? Doesn't do, huh? Okay.

[8:58] Moreover, he says, even when the mind urges on and thought is saying to flee something or to pursue it, one is not moved, right? But acts according to desire, meaning what sense desire there, huh?

[9:15] Okay. The Greek word is what? Karatein epithumia. now, epithumia is the one for that sense desire that is concerned with what is pleasing to senses, right?

[9:34] Okay. Um. So Shakespeare, you know, talks about that in in some of the what sonnets, huh? Past reason hunted, right? Past reason hated afterwards, right? So the incontinent man does what his reason tells him he shouldn't do, right? Or doesn't do what his reason tells him he should do, right? Like the dental coward, right? I know a guy, professor, was a dental coward one time, right? His teeth were in bad shape.

[10:14] He admitted he's a dental coward. He should have been going to the dentist, right? But he just couldn't. Okay. And you know, sometimes. You know, I know, let's say a smoker. You know, who will say, you know, don't ever take it up. You know, but he can't give it up, right? And they make a joke, you know, about how many doctors actually smoke. So they may tell their patients, you know, don't smoke or something like that, and and yet they themselves do this, right?

[10:43] So how can you say even practical reason, right? Or you remember if you read St. Augustine's Confessions, there, right? Huh? He's going to repent now, huh? But not today. You know, he'll wait another week or something. So the man who's lacking self-control, right? Huh? So how can you say that even practical reason is the cause of motion? Reason tells you to get up and charge that hill, and you don't do it because you're scared stiff, right?

[11:15] Okay. Or reason tells you you should, you know, not drink the rest of the bottle, and and you drink it, right? I told you that story when I worked in the package store. Every Saturday, this guy would come in in the morning in the package store, and he would order seven half bottles of this whiskey, and he wanted me to put the seven half bottles in seven little bags, and then put the seven bags in one big bag.

[11:47] Well, I never had the audacity to ask him why he wanted this, but I think the reason was kind of obvious, right? That he was trying to pace himself, huh? And if you, now it's very uneconomical to buy seven little bottles because you're you're paying more for the same amount if you bought one big bottle. But apparently, if he had one big bottle, he would open and keep on drinking.

[12:10] Well, if he has seven little bottles in the thing in each separate bag, he takes one out and he finishes that bottle. That's that's it for the day, right?

[12:23] Okay. You get the only people who have a problem this way, you know. And we have the other guy come in. Used to be from the store there, kind of the fore manager and like that. He always getting someone giving his nips, right? But he carries a little bottle of I don't know shaving, heavy shave lotion, something like that. He's always like that with his face, so that if someone gets near him, they don't smell the.

[12:51] Oh, I'm sure he has, but they get this. Yeah, so they're fairly strong. those things So reason might tell you that you shouldn't do this or you should do this, but you know,

[13:15] you don't do it, right? Or you don't not do it. So how can you say that even practical reason? Is what moves us when practical reason is saying here and now I should do this or I shouldn't do this, and yet you do it or don't do it.

[13:35] You know, okay. In general, he says we see that the one having the doctor's art does not always what doctor, right? Aristotle is always taking examples from the doctor's art, because his own father was what one of the greatest doctors of the time. His father became the medical doctor at the court of what Macedonia, and that's how Aristotle himself became known at the court of Macedon, and how he was selected then to be the teacher of the future Alexander the Great.

[14:11] So it's interesting connection there between Aristotle and Alexander the Great. Aristotle is supposed to have written a what a book on Homer just for Alexander, right? Whole book just on Homer. One of those things have been lost, but Plutarch in his Life of Alexander there, huh? He speaks about the time when Aristotle's Metaphysics is being what published, so to speak, right? And Alexander is writing Aristotle saying he didn't want him to publish it, he wanted to offer himself.

[14:46] Aristotle replies, says, "Don't worry, only those who already understand the subject will understand the book." I know that's authentic history or not, but Plutarch recounts this, but it's in the you know, in a sense, fits the Metaphysics, right? Only those who already understand the matter will understand the book.

[15:17] Well, now you're left to what emotions, right? It must be the emotions, huh, that make us what act, right? Okay. But now he takes the opposite thing: the man of self-control, right? The man who has a what? Struggle, right? But his reason, right, works out against his emotions, huh? But neither, indeed, neither is appetite lord of motion, huh? Okay. Of course, in the Greek, there he uses eventually the word epithumontes huh?

[16:05] For that word epithumia. So it's that sense desire for continent men, huh? Men of self-control, they can contain themselves, have appetite, right? And are desiring to do something, but they do not what? Do it, but they follow what? Mind, huh? Okay.

[16:28] So down, down, right? You know, like the Homer says, you know. So he's keeping his emotions there, but he he's got a what? A struggle, right? Huh? Okay. So with the with the what do you call it? The Alcoholics Anonymous, right? Huh? Okay. So these men have a hard time, right? And so they call up their buddy because they have a buddy or a system or something.

[16:55] You call up your buddy, and your buddy comes over and holds your hand or distracts you or or does something else, right? Huh? And

[17:05] so you don't always follow your emotions, right? What does the Greek? Does it actually say kurios for lord, or is that just for for lord of motion? You say? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kuria. Yeah. K U R I A. Emphasize it. Capital. Kappa Upsilon. Rho. Iota Alpha. Kuria That's where we get the word in the church too, right? The kuria. What's a kuria? You know, it's kind of I see it in.

[17:45] the early years. It's a kuria in the church? Yeah. It's a kind of rule, right? I don't know if you read it at the end of the book, there. I have to have titles for feminine? Is that why it's kuria? Um. Orexis. I don't know if Orexis is feminine. Yeah, it is. He orexis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like in Shakespeare's there, you know, since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, why does he say mistress rather than master?

[18:27] He's so close to the Latin, right? Yeah. To where soul is anima, is what. Feminine, huh? Sure. Okay. Okay, again, the word for mind? there is noose, huh? Right. When he says that the continent, desiring or kratountes kai epithumountes, I use that word for the sense desire, right? Okay. So you see that even a person who's dieting or fasting or something of the sort, right? They have a desire to what sense desire to eat, huh?

[19:14] And they don't always follow it. Okay. So how can you say sense desire and emotion is what what moves us, huh? Okay. Now maybe I'll leave you that problem, right? Okay. So he's going to start to say what is the,

[19:35] especially from the side of the soul, right? What is the origin of what motion from one place to another, right? But in the later books, like the parts of animals or the motion of animals, and the progression of animals, then he talks about the what bodily parts that are being used to move, and they're different in different animals, huh? In the fish, and the bird, and the dog, and the worm, and so on.

[20:03] There's some strange ways of getting from one place to another, right? Okay. Let me come back just a bit to the divisions of the powers of the soul. Thomas, in other places, when he talks about these divisions of the powers of the soul,

[20:43] he says that the division that Aristotle gives in the second book here of the soul, it's dividing the powers by their acts, and their acts by their objects, right? So ultimately, you're dividing the powers by their what objects, right? Okay. So that's the basic way Aristotle does in the second book, dividing the powers or abilities by their acts, and their acts by their objects.

[21:28] Now he says there's another way you could divide them, and sometimes Aristotle himself, huh? Divides in this other way, right? Okay. And this one is more by their what root, you might say, in the soul. Okay.

[21:53] And there they're thinking of the fact that the human soul is the most immaterial of the souls, right? Most rises above matter, right? And the animal soul, the sensing soul, not so much will rise above matter, but more so than the what feeding soul, okay? And so sometimes they'll divide it according to the understanding soul

[22:32] and the sensing soul and the feeding soul, the living soul. So in the feeding soul, you have what the power of feeding, obviously, but also the power of what growing, right? And finding the power of what reproducing, right? Okay. In the sensing soul, you have what the senses, the exterior senses, and maybe some of the interior senses, and then you have the desiring powers that follow upon sensing, okay?

[23:20] And that's the epithumia and the thumos that were talked about there. What they call the concupiscent appetite and the irascible appetite. And Aristotle here doesn't break down the various emotions, there are feelings, in the concupiscent or irascible, but Thomas does so very explicitly in the Summa Theologiae in the Prima Secundae and in the De Veritate, Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate. So that those emotions that are concerned directly with what is agreeable or disagreeable to the senses belong to the what concupiscent appetite.

[24:03] So I like what is agreeable to my senses, right? If I really like it a lot, I might say I love it, but I like or love it. And if I don't have it, then I what want it, right? There's kind of a sense desire for candy or whatever it is that's agreeable to my senses, right? And then if I get what is agreeable, if I get the candy, then I have what pleasure, right?

[24:30] I enjoy my licorice or chocolate or it is that I like, okay? And then there's three other emotions that are concerned of what is disagreeable. I dislike. In fact, I hate salmon. Okay. And so, if I can avoid salmon, I do.

[24:51] But I was invited somebody's house, and the lady was serving salmon. So, what am I supposed to do? Well, I'm forced to eat the salmon. I don't want to say, you know. So now I have sadness, right, or pain, right, as I eat this thing that I can't avoid. See.

[25:10] So those are the six emotions of the concupiscible huh Liking or love, right, Or the sense of love, right. Which gives rise to desire in the absence of what you like, but pleasure in the presence of it, right? And then this dislike or hate. I hate salmon. And then this turning away from it, what is forced upon me? Pain and sadness. These are produced from sadness. Some of them, I think.

[25:46] The only good. He used to say this terrible say, you know, the only good Indian is a dead Indian. You know, he used to say that. I said the only good fish is a disguised fish, right? Like fish and chips and like that. But I mean, salmon is a fish you can't disguise. It's a potent fishy character that comes out so strongly, right? Okay. So those six emotions are what in the epithumia, as Aristotle calls it, the concupiscible appetite.

[26:18] But we notice in the animals that they will what experience difficulty in getting what is pleasing to them. Or they will experience difficulty in avoiding what is painful, right? So there arise now other emotions in regard to the difficult good or the difficult bad. The good that is difficult to achieve, or the bad that is difficult. So in regard to a good that's difficult to achieve, there are two possible emotions: hope and what?

[26:56] Despair, right? Okay. Hope if you can think you can overcome the difficulties. And despair if you what? Think you can't, right? Okay. In regard to something bad that's threatening, huh?

[27:15] Like you're gonna beat me up or something, and I kind of sense it, right? If I think I can handle you pretty easily, then I have boldness, right?

[27:26] But if I don't think that I'm gonna be able to handle you, you might beat the heck out of me. Then I have what? Some some some fear, right? Okay. Yeah. But now, if you are actually inflicting pain on a man, and I think I can do something about it, then there arises an emotion called what? Anger, right? Okay. So if you're stepping on my foot and I say, "Hey, you're on my foot," do you know that?

[27:57] And you say, "So what?" Then I start to get angry, you see. Okay. But there's no em emotion, irascible, that arises from pleasure, because then the soul is what the animal soul at least is satisfied, right, with pleasure, right? But the animal soul doesn't accept pain if it can avert it. So you get angry, right?

[28:23] Yeah. The fear and boldness would arise from aversion, feeling of aversion. And could you say that anger would arise from sadness? Yes. Sadness inappropriate. Yeah, sadness or pain. Yeah. But when I think I can do something about overcoming it, right?

[28:50] Now, as I mentioned before, I think the two main forms of fiction, tragedy and comedy, right, are about what they consider the principal emotions here. So tragedy is about what pity, which is a form of sadness, and fear.

[29:16] And Plato, Aristotle, when they define tragedy, they put pity and fear in the very definition of tragedy. And if you look at the proemium of not proemium, the prologue of Shakespeare to Romeo and Juliet, that's the two emotions he he mentions: pity and fear. The fearful passage of their death-marked love, right? Whose misadventured piteous overthrows, he says, right? So Shakespeare is right on the nose there, right?

[29:47] Um. But in comedy, you have a form of what joy, which is called mirth and hope, huh? Yeah. So and now when you go to music, you know, classical music, you see that let's say Mozart was the most accurate of all in his use of the keys. He'll tend to use certain keys for certain what emotions, right? So sadness will be in in a minor key always, and joy will be in a major key.

[30:32] Hope will tend to be in a major key. Despair in a what minor key? Boldness in a major key. Fear in a what minor key,

[30:46] anger in a minor key, right? So, like in the piano concerto, which are very much imitative of these things, the in the D minor piano concerto you have representation of anger, right? Okay. Of course, they don't stay in the same key all the time, right? And at the end of the D minor concerto, you turn to to joy, right? Okay, and confidence. But we're representing the the the anger.

[31:13] He's using the minor key, and in the Requiem or in the Don Giovanni, he's going down to hell or Leporello is fearing for his life in the thing. Right, D minor in all those cases, huh? And in in the 24th piano concerto, you know, some of that anger too, but it's in C minor, huh? And sometimes you'll see in those little plot, you know, where he goes from hope to despair, and he'll bring back the same melody, goes in the major key, and put it into the what minor key, right?

[31:46] Okay. But you tend to use say D major for a march, huh? For boldness, more, or C major for hope, you know. But you tend to use G major or B flat or something of that sort, more for concupisable joy, huh? It's the, same tendency to use these keys, so.

[32:11] What's that? Just a certain feel for the key, huh? So, but in the sensing soul, you see, you have the senses to begin with, but then following upon them, you have this what we might call sense desire, right? Okay. Or in the understanding soul, you have the the acting upon understanding, right? The undergoing understanding, but then the will that follows upon them, right? Like in that passage, I was quoting from Shakespeare.

[32:50] Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, right? Now, choice is the act of the will, huh? And could have been distinguished, right? Say, by his reason, huh? Her election, in other words, for choice has sealed before herself, right? Once his reason was developed to the point that he could see the differences among men, right? Then he chose, right? As his friend, what Horatio, right? As he says in the words, "Give me that man that is not what passion slave, right?

[33:31] Now, where in my heart's core, in my heart of hearts, core, I do thee, right? Okay. So it's reason that would see that difference between. The man who's a slave of some passion, right? Like the coward is a slave of his fear, and the impotent man maybe of his sense desire, and so on. The irascible man is a slave of his anger, and so on. But Horatio is what—not the slave of any passion, right?

[34:02] So reason sees that difference, huh? I mentioned I happened to just by chance we read André Maurois' biography there. Disraeli, you know, the British Prime Minister, very interesting thing there. But he wanted to marry this woman, right? And he kind of proposed to her, and she said, "Give me a year," she said, "to study your character." So what a what a dumb remark, right?

[34:33] And she finally didn't marry him, you know, but but she had friends who were saying he's in love with your money, you know, which he wasn't really. But I mean, she was a a widow, you know, and she was actually what twelve years I think older than he was, right? So helping in love with a woman twelve years older than himself, yeah, he must be after her money, which wasn't really true, I don't think.

[34:54] But said, "Give me a year to study your character." Well, you know that that's that's you know choice, right? That's not something passion, right?

[35:07] I mean, I know my brother Richard got married, and the priest was you know was quite happy to marry them, but but but he speaks, you know, you know, how many times he's asked to marry people, he doesn't think should be what married, huh? That they're not really ready, you know, really know what they're doing, right? And and

[35:32] you know, when the priest says, "Do you take so and so as your wife?" You know, not asking you. You have a wonderful feeling about her. Is what you do? That's who's asking you. He's saying, "Are you choosing? " You know, this person, right? This is a choice, and that really depends upon what some deliberation, right? Give me a year to study your character. That's marvelous, you know.

[36:07] George Washington married a what a widow too, huh? Right, yeah. Martha Washington, but I don't think she was twelve years older. I don't think so.

[36:27] So no, it's that's a different way, huh? So sometimes Aristotle will say the will is in reason, and what does he mean by saying that, right? He means that the will is in the rational part, huh? Okay. Now,

[36:48] sometimes in Christianity, they'll speak of this part as being the the mens, which we translate as mind, but maybe doesn't give the full meaning of it. But the the image of God is in this part of the soul.

[37:09] So you have to bring in the reason and the will, right, to see the what image of the soul, an image of God in the soul, right? Okay. But then you're saying the image of God is found in this part of the soul, in the in the mens, as they say in Latin. But the mind here includes not only the mind, the reason, that is to say, but also the what will, right?

[37:34] So this is another way of dividing the parts of the what soul, right? But you're looking at they're kind of root in the soul here, and the soul is something rising more or less above what ordinary matter, and so

[37:59] this is more the immortal part, and this is the part that is like what you have in the what angels, right? Because in the angels you have understanding and you have will, right? But you don't have feeling in the ordinary sense. you don't have a body, right? And you don't have what the senses or emotions, huh?

[38:22] Of course, to us the emotions and the sensing part are more known in a way than this higher part, huh? And therefore it's hard for us to understand sometimes the angels or God, and the kind of shackle will say they have no emotions, you know? It's like something strange, huh? And C. S. Lewis, you know, he's trying to to I guess understand angels better. He speaks of the love of the angels as being what ferocious.

[38:50] It's an all-consuming love, right, huh? And sometimes even scripture speaks about about God, right? That His love is all-consuming, right? And therefore He's metaphorically said to be what jealous and so on, huh? You see, and but their love is more what unified and therefore more intense than our love is, huh? We're kind of you know divided between our will and our emotions, and you know have that same unity and intensity that they can have, huh?

[39:28] Kind of amazing thing, huh? It's not that losing something because they don't have have these things, right? But they have a more unified what everything that we have divided into these two, huh?

[39:45] That's what I was saying before that the pleasures of the fine arts involve both the sensing soul and the understanding soul. See, where the pleasures of philosophy are more pleasures just of the understanding soul, huh? So we have to kind of ascend from the the pleasure of the fine arts of good music and good painting and good fiction, so on, to the pleasures of philosophy and what theology and so on.

[40:26] And I think I think even the metaphors in Scripture, you know, they're more ordered to the reason than they are to pleasing the imagination. Although