Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
12. Metaphysics IX: How Rational and Non-Rational Powers Pass into Act (Choice as Lord)
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/012-metaphysics-ix-how-rational-and-non-rational-powers-pass/

[0:00] be possible if when you posit it, there's something impossible. Yeah. Even if it's not the same thing. yeah. Dance because he worked every job at 11: 30 or something, you know. Let's hear a little prayer. Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and rouse us to consider more correctly. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:50] Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So let's look at the fourth reading now from the ninth book of wisdom. Thomas again divides us into two parts. First part, which is fairly short, talking about how in certain abilities the act seems to precede the ability. Strange that may sound, and then in the abilities where the ability precedes the act, how the ability goes from ability to act.

[1:31] That's what the thing is taken up mainly, huh? With the special reference to the reasonable powers. So let's look at the first part there, which is fairly short.

[1:51] He's talking about all the powers. Got him together there. He distinguishes three kinds, such as the natural powers, like the sense powers, other powers that are what

[2:11] gotten by custom, right? Ta men, the senses, are gotten by what sungenon I guess, was that mean? Born with, right? Sungenon Then there are the powers that are gotten by custom, like playing a guitar or playing the

[2:33] familiar instrument is, huh? And some by some kind of instruction, as that of the arts. Now, in the latter two, as the powers that are by custom and by reason, by learning, in these is necessary

[2:57] to pro and there ge santas to act before, right? So it's by playing the piano that I acquire the ability to play the piano, and by thinking, let's say, that I acquire the techne or the art, right? But in the case of the sungenon dunamion. Those inborn ones, or ones that come with birth, like the senses, it's not by seeing that you acquire the ability to see, but the ability to see first.

[3:33] Okay. He says the former ones, and this is not necessary that you have the act in some way before the ability, right? And also in those powers of undergoing, it's not necessary.

[3:51] Okay. Now he comes to the second part of this reading, but let's stop a little bit on that first part there. A little bit strange that you should

[4:04] have the act coming before the ability, because somebody might say, if you can do the act, then you already have the ability. So how can you say that by doing the act you acquire the ability?

[4:20] How can you say that? You don't have the ability. Okay. You gotta have the ability to play the piano in some way in order to practice, right? But Aristotle raises that similar problem there in the Nicomachean Ethics when he says that how do we become courageous? How do we become moderate, or how do we become generous? Well, it's by doing courageous things that we become courageous, and by doing moderate things become moderate.

[4:47] And he raises an objection: How can this be? If we're doing courageous things, aren't we courageous? So how can you say it's by doing courageous things that we become courageous? Well, there's a difference in the way you do them before and after acquiring the virtue, because before there's a what? Kind of a struggle to do, but it's courageous, and you can easily be diverted from doing what is virtuous.

[5:14] But then, when you acquire the habit, then you can do the activity with much more ease, and it's more agreeable to do it, because you're inclined that way by the habit, and there's a stability. The habit is a disposition that has some firmness or stability. But there has to be some kind of ability to begin to do the act, right? At least it may be something natural, right?

[5:41] But then this is a kind of acquired ability, which is after the what? The act, right? Okay. So Aristotle likes to note all these things. But now, in the rest of this, he's going to talk a bit about the two kinds of powers, the ones without reason, and how they go into act, and then the what? Rational powers, huh? Okay. So

[6:16] Thomas I think divides it into two parts, huh? And the first part is going to be explaining the the difference between these two powers a bit, and

[6:32] seeing more how the natural powers go into act rather than the rational powers, and why there's no it's kind of automatic the way the natural powers go into thing, and it's not that true about the rational powers, and you give the reason for that, huh? But then he has to go into the second part where he talks about the rational powers, and how they are what become actual.

[6:59] Okay, but he begins this first part, as Thomas says, by talking about a couple of things that are necessary to have in mind when you take up what comes later on. The first thing is what does it mean to say that something is able to do something, right? Okay. Epeidē to dunaton. Well, a number of things you got to take into account to say something is capable of something.

[7:30] First of all, it must be what t dunaton. It must be capable of something, right? Okay. There's no capability. That's an ability to do what? Nothing, huh? My my joking class is always purpose goes down to the employment agency, right? And the guy says, okay, I'll try to match you with a job, you know. But tell me a little bit about yourself, Mister Breakfast. I say, well, I get capacity.

[7:58] I get ability. What's he going to say to me? How many words a minute are you able to type, or how many? How many words can you do a minute, or something? See, I have to tell what I'm capable of, right? Otherwise, he can't match me with any job that he might possibly have. Okay. And there's all kinds of circumstances you have to bring in, because you're capable of something, but potent at a certain time, right?

[8:26] Thomas gives example of the tree, you know, can produce fruit, but maybe not in the winter, huh? Or can produce leaves, but when you say the tree is capable of producing leaves, what do you mean? Or you've got to add not only is it capable of producing leaves, but at this time of year, is capable of producing leaves, right? Okay. And and how? Faster, slow? Thomas says, or by what tools or instruments, right?

[8:57] There there are some things I can do when there's some light, and I got the tool to do it, right? Okay. So strictly speaking, when you're defining

[9:12] capable or able, you've got to bring in what you're able to do, and when you're able to do it, and how you're able to do it, and by what you're able to do it. And everything, and even without include, and nothing interfering, right?

[9:35] I can think, but I can't think when the rock and roll is playing or something, right? And whatever other things, right, are necessarily to be in the diorismos like the definition of what you are capable of, right? Okay.

[9:56] So that's one thing he wants you to have in mind in the subsequent discussion, right? When you say that something is able to do something, right?

[10:08] We haven't found everything is necessary or needed in order for it to do it, okay? Do you see that? And then the second thing he wants you to bear in mind before the second discussion is the distinction that we've seen before, and some things are able to move kata logon according to reason, right? And these powers are what with reason, huh? Okay. And some powers are what aloga without reason, and these powers are aloga without reason.

[10:52] And the former, the powers that are with reason, are necessarily found in the thing that is in soul, right? And with a understanding soul, right?

[11:09] But the other ones are in both. You find them in things that have souls as well as things that don't have a soul. So man has many abilities. I have my ability to digest, which goes on without my what reason, huh? Okay, like when I'm sleeping, you know. Okay. And so I have, and my my heart is pumping away, I guess, huh? And I'm breathing probably without thinking about it.

[11:38] So, not only in the lower animals, but even in man himself, you have these alogoi, huh? Without reason, powers, right? Then the second thing he's going to say is the difference now between these powers that are without reason and the ones that are with reason, huh? And what he's going to say is that the powers without reason, when the object that they're capable, right, of operating on is present.

[12:22] Then they're going to what produce the thing to which they are determined. But the rational power, when that which it is capable of acting upon is there, is not automatically going to produce anything at all in it. Okay, and then he's going to go on next and give the reason for that.

[12:44] So he says, "Tas men toiautas dunameis." These powers. Is necessary that as the maker is able, right, and the undergoing one, the pathetic one, the pathetic one,

[13:04] is plesiazosi. That's what is there, right? It's neighborly, right? The one to act upon, the other to undergo, right? Okay. But in the case of the others, that is to say, the powers without reason, right, it's not necessary, right? Okay. So he's distinguished these two powers in saying that fire, for example, would be a what power without reason, huh? And it's capable of burning things with all the things necessary.

[13:46] So when the paper is there next to the fire, then it's going to burn it, right, automatically. But if you bring the patient in to the doctor or something like that, right, or you put the wood in front of the carpenter, he doesn't necessarily do anything, right? Even though he's capable of doing something, and the thing he's capable of doing it to is right there, right, in prison, huh?

[14:11] Okay. Now, what's the reason for that? Well, it goes back to things we've seen before. For all these, meaning the powers without reason, one power is productive of one thing.

[14:30] So nature is determined to one, like Shakespeare says, or like Aristotle said before. But those, meaning the powers with reason or of reason, the rational powers, they are capable of contraries, right? So that if they were to automatically produce what they're capable of in the presence of the object, they would produce what contraries, huh? Okay. But that's obviously impossible, right? tout' adunaton. This is impossible. Okay.

[15:06] That ends the first part of the second part, right? And then Aristotle is going to go into in particular. Well, then, how is it that the rational powers go from ability to act, right? We see how the natural powers do it, or how the powers without reason do it, right? Because when they're capable of something, right, and they're capable of acting upon something in some way, and that something is there, right, they act upon it in the one way that they are determined to, huh?

[15:46] But the rational powers, they don't do that, right? Because they're capable of contraries, and when the patient finds the doctor, he doesn't necessarily do one thing or another, right? Nor does the carpenter when the wood is there necessarily do anything he's capable of, right? And the reason seems to be that he's capable of what? Contraries, right? And so, if he just naturally did what he's capable of, he'd be doing contrary things to the same thing.

[16:16] He'd be making it straight and crooked at the same time, or healthy and sick, right? Okay. Or I could be what teaching you and deceiving you at the same time. I'm capable both, as I told you.

[16:34] So, what decides whether I teach you or deceive you? What decides whether the doctor, you know, delivers a baby or aborts a baby or something, right? What What decides that?

[16:47] Aristotle is going to do that in the next part, we know. It is necessary, therefore, that something other be the kurion the Lord, huh? That's what the word "Lord" comes" from. And what is that? I call this either desire or what choice, huh? As

[17:10] you might know, that men sometimes do things simply by choice, by desire. Since desire, but choice is more more rational. Now, whichever of the two contraries one desires, kurios huh, chiefly. This he does, huh? When he's capable of doing it, right? And when the pathetic one is present, huh? Okay. So I go into class, and there's these students there, pathetic ones. And and I'm capable of teaching them, or I'm capable of deceiving them, right?

[17:58] So if I desire to teach them, then I start teaching them, right? If I desire to deceive them, then I start deceiving them. And so the lord of what I do is my choice, my desire this time, right? Which side of the bed again I'll let this morning, or something. Okay.

[18:21] Now, that's interesting in terms of the first cause, because the the great thinker there, Anaxagoras, he said that the first mover is a mind, right? And he sees how the mind is open to all these things. He says the mind is unlimited, huh? So. But if the greater mind is the first cause, but it can do contrary things, right? Something else must be involved besides the greater mind.

[19:03] Well, then you go to Hesiod or something like that, and he says the first mover is love. Okay. And well, who's right? Is it love, or is it the mind that is the mover?

[19:21] What's the first mover? Depends whether it's something by reason or not. Well, mind is reason, right? Okay. So, what's the mover? Yeah, in a way, it's the mind too, right? But the mind is capable of contraries, so without the what? What? They're both

[19:53] in fullness. Yeah, but I have to, in a sense, choose one of the contraries before the mind will give rise to anything. Okay. Because I have to choose to teach you or to deceive you, before I do one or the other, right? I can't do both at the same time. I can't automatically do everything I'm capable of. And so, it has to be the kurios, the lord, the chief there, right?

[20:18] The lover, the choice, the desire, the choice that determines one of the two. That's what I'm going to do. So the will is the first. Well, you could say,

[20:35] more safely, that each of them has a part of the truth, right? Each of them has a part of the truth. And when you know the great Socrates following Anaxagoras starts to bring out what Aristotle is talking about—that there's the same knowledge of opposites, right? And you realize this can't be the whole explanation of the first mover, right? The first mover must not only be a mind, but it must also be what—Love or, choice, or be will, if you want to say that.

[21:12] It has love and choice. So Aristotle is going to, you know, conclude in the twelfth book that there's a mind behind the natural world, and so on. It's also got to be some kind of what—love or desire or choice—as well. Otherwise, nothing would proceed from the rational power. Something has to move the choice. What? Something has to move the choice. Because. Yeah. Well, Aristotle will speak of that.

[21:57] Yeah. That's developed in the De Anima, right? Because in the De Anima when he gets down to, he's taking up the vegetative powers, you know, the power to feed yourself and grow and reproduce, and then he takes up the

[22:18] sense powers, right? And then he takes up the intellectual powers, and finally, he's taking up what is it that moves the animal, right? And he sees it as being either thought or imagination, right? And desire, and then he kind of reduces them to the good, because it's the good as known that is desired, right? So the desire is kind of a move mover. It's kind of interesting the way Aristotle uses the term move mover there, because as you know, the word mover is equivocal, and sometimes we use the word mover with regard to the end or the good, and we say you're moved by the good.

[23:02] It's not as the third kind of cause, but it's a causality of the fourth kind of cause. So you speak of the of the good as moving desire, and the desire is moving the bodily parts that move the body, other parts of the body, and you say that

[23:21] the desire is a move mover. You've got two kinds of movers there. It's not like you have within the same genus of cause. That's kind of an interesting thing.

[23:39] analogous, difficult by reason. But sometimes, you know, we use the word make, you know, for the formal cause. So we might say that geometry makes me to be a geometer. or health makes me to be what healthy, right? Well, that's not the third cause, the mover or maker, is it?

[24:05] Or you might say that it's the shape of a of a ball that makes it, you know, to be a ball, right? The shape of the rubber that makes it to be a ball, but that's not the third kind of cause, maker, is it? They're using the word make there for the formal cause, and it's effective. Kind of

[24:32] strange the way we do that, huh? So this is how the reasonable powers are go from ability to act in a different way than the natural or without reason powers do.

[24:58] The one is kind of automatic, you might say, that once it has the ability to do something, like the fire's ability to burn, and the pathetic or the undergoing one is there, like the paper in front of the fire, the fire is going to burn it automatically, okay? But the power with reason, the the art of the teacher or the art of the doctor, whatever it may be, he can he can't just automatically do what he's capable of when the object is there, because if he did, he'd be doing contraries at the same time, and that's impossible.

[25:44] So there needs to be something else, like desire, he says, or choice, something appetitive that determines it to do this contrary rather than that, right?

[26:02] So it's it's a desire, he might say, the choice of the doctor that determines whether he delivers the baby, right, or he aborts the baby or something of that sort, okay? And you know, there's doctors that are putting people to death, right? You know, but that's that's there's the medical art enables them to maybe keep you alive and to end your life, right? And so the master, so to speak, or the lord of whether he keeps you alive or ends your life is something other than his knowledge, right?

[26:44] And what is that? Well, it's a desire or what choice? So he chooses to keep you alive or to end your life. Yeah. At first, kind of where things meet, most of that happen. It doesn't happen; it's natural. You know, once once the paper is there where the fire can act upon it, the fire is going to act upon it, huh? That's it. That seems to me to be very very much like the second law of thermodynamics.

[27:18] Why is that? Because that's that's what happens. Spontaneous things have free energy. It's just saying that certain kinds of things happen going to spontaneity; they just don't happen. Yeah. There's more than that. Even the second law is in there. Yeah, maybe the same. If there's an increase in free energy,

[27:44] it becomes more. Yeah. Same, but the universe running down too, isn't there? There's something it's in randomness, you know. About it. Now. So he says, "What is capable by reason? Huh? Necessarily, when it desires that of which it has the ability, and as it has it right,

[28:17] then it what? Does it right? Huh? If it doesn't, it's not what capable of doing it? Huh? And then it's kind of a parenthesis. Thomas says he excludes a certain objection. Someone might say, "Well, shouldn't you add now if nothing interferes? " You know, Aristotle says, "Well, no, that was understood when he said back

[28:48] defining what capable means. Right? Capable means that you what are capable of something now with the instruments and including nothing impeding you, right? Because you're not capable of something impeding you. So that's already one of the conditions, you might say, of saying you're capable of something. You're not capable of something when there's something there impeding you from doing it, right? Okay. So he says, if you understand what we mean by capable, we told you up there above there a few pages there a few few sentences what we meant by saying you're capable of something, right?

[29:25] See, and so strictly speaking, is the tree capable of producing leaves? Yes or no? See, Aristotle says you can't just say it's capable of producing leaves. You've got to add at this time of year, right? And if you know there's nothing impeding it, right? Etc. Right? It impedes the production of leaves, and maybe this guy has something, some sap or something to do it. I don't know, right?

[29:56] See, so everything that it needs in order to be capable of doing it, when it has all that, that's when we say it's capable, right? Okay. In the strict sense, you can say is a tree capable of producing leaves? Any time? Is it? No, no. So when you speak of capable, able, you've got to specify everything that you need to, in fact, produce the thing, right? Yeah.

[30:27] Can I voice the problem again Um, we said it was a problem earlier that some people held that there isn't such thing as possibility ability. It sounds getting near that in natural things when we say they only have the ability when things are present, which would be the same time as when they're actually doing. So that fire has the ability to burn only when the paper is there and not when paper is not there.

[30:56] Is this to say? Fire doesn't have the ability, or there is don't doesn't have the ability, only except when it's active. It seems too very close together, or too close together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:17] Are they really contradictory? You think those two things he's saying? I don't think so. I'd like to see distinction better. Better. He didn't include here. I don't think what was needed for ability that the thing undergoing was present.

[31:47] If it has the ability and the thing is present, then yeah, it will act. It could have the ability. and the subject isn't present Yeah. I think you have to say that a little bit, like we were saying before, that

[32:08] it's fully capable, right, of it when it has all these things, and then when you say it's capable of this with some of these missing, then you're not saying what it's capable of fully, right? You're saying something that's more partial. And he was arguing the more partial thing before, right? There's a.

[32:40] Yeah, it seems like there's a whole lot of trouble that someone could make with Aristotle at this point, because he's saying that that it's necessary that the will, when the desirable object is there, that it choose it. I mean, I'm maybe speaking imprecisely here.

[33:02] Yeah. With for whichever two it desires chiefly, this it will do when as it is able is present and it's it's close to it. If I really chosen to teach the student, right? You see, so I really want to teach the student, and now he's present, and I'm capable of teaching him. I'm going to be teaching him, right? You know, but you're thinking maybe when he's not really wanting to do something, huh?

[33:33] My heart's not really in it, right? I don't want to really teach today, but I got to get paid or something, you know. Well, then I really haven't what chosen to teach these guys. I don't really want to teach them, right? So maybe doing something less than. And teaching, telling stories, or something today.

[33:58] And the other thing is that when it desired another place, it seems like where someone could could pick a fight is when you say that which he desires chiefly. I don't know. You could say. I mean, we can choose what we know to be a lesser good.

[34:23] I don't know. It seems like you might. I don't think he's denying that here, but but. I could choose to talk about something less important, right? Something very unimportant, right? If I'm going to talk about something less important, you know, so that's because that's my choice at this point. He doesn't seem to be saying anything about what determines your choice. No, I mean he's not. I mean he talks about choice and you know, the Nicomachean Ethics, right?

[34:54] That's where he goes into choice. He's just saying that that it's choice that determines what you do. Yeah. The chief, but you you may want many things, and you said you choose that which is chief, which you desire chiefly.

[35:09] I'm just thinking of the case where you choose something which you know to be a lesser good, something that you know to be less desirable, and yet you choose it. So he's thinking of what you chiefly want at this point. It doesn't say you're a chief good or a better good. Right. I mean, what you chiefly want now, right? And that you're capable of—that's the one you do.

[35:30] I think that's right, but I'm just thinking someone could raise that objection. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's a little kind of parenthesis there around sixteen. That you don't have to add now, nothing outside preventing, right?

[35:51] Because b as we've defined ability before, it's including, right, in the full sense, right? You are fully capable of doing something when you have everything you need to do it. And you don't have everything you need, then you are not fully capable, right? And so, are you capable of playing the piano when you don't have a piano?

[36:17] Well. In some sense, you haven't lost the ability to play the piano, right? You still have the art of playing the piano. In that sense, so you talked about that before, right? But are you capable of playing the piano without having a piano?

[36:29] No, see. So, in the full sense, I am capable of playing the piano. Among other things, when there is a piano there, right? And and and there is no bar holding, you know, from you know it's not locked up the door or something to the piano. See, but all that's included, right? See, it doesn't spell those things all out because you couldn't do that. But you are fully capable of something when you have everything you need to do it, right?

[36:59] That's kind of common sense, so. And so, if you add that, right? Then you say, when the rational ability, right, is capable of something, and wants to do it, right, and the object is there, that it does it, right. You don't have to add now if nothing prevents, because then if something was preventing, it would not at that moment be in fact fully capable of doing it,

[37:31] right? So it was not of all, but of having it in some way, in which was taken away. Among the conditions, right, of being fully capable. Those outside things that are preventing you from doing it.

[37:56] So the fire, let's say, for that matter, you can say that the fire burned the paper. If there is a big wind blowing against the fire, maybe in the opposite direction. Maybe not, right? Because that's preventing the fire from acting upon the thing.

[38:14] Okay, so these things were taken away in the diorismos huh Interesting word, diorismos. I think Aristotle uses the word horismos sometimes to mean a definition. Sometimes he'll use, well, the word definition itself. Imagine you can see it comes from the idea of limit, huh? And here, kind of, it's like a definition in a way, right? But in the, if you can speak of the the definition of what it is to be capable of something, right?

[38:46] And that is to have everything you need. To be able to do it, What is the prefix die? What? Di or the what's the die? usually Um I suppose they have the idea of of

[39:04] through or by the the limit, right? Yeah, I think it's related to horizon, you know, or the the limit of the sky and the land. Now it's a divided thing. It feels like in the definition you have DE there too, huh? But the basic root there is finis, huh? And of course, in in in the fifth book of wisdom, there, when Aristotle takes up the word horos, limit, the last meaning of horos or limit is definition.

[39:35] So, see something like that? The etymology of the word diorismos Okay. Now the last. Now, the last... A little bit in this fifth, fourth reading here is talking about how you don't have to worry about him doing contraries at the same time, for the simple reason that he's not capable of doing contraries at the same time.

[40:06] You can say the doctor is capable of of keeping you alive or ending your life, or maybe making you healthy or making you sick, but he's not capable of doing both at the same time. I am capable of teaching you, I am capable of deceiving you, but maybe at the same moment I can't teach and deceive you at the same time. So my ability is is to do one or the other at one time anyway, but not what together, right?

[40:39] Real together, you know. Part of my talk deceive you, part of my talk teach you. But exactly the same, I can't be doing both. So

[40:51] you don't have to worry about that. He says, right? You don't have an ability to do that. He says, even if the person wanted to do both, right? Both wanted to teach you and deceive, which would be kind of a crazy thing to do, but I still wouldn't do both because I am not capable of doing both at the same time. Okay.

[41:16] So he's saying you necessarily do what you're capable of doing when you want to do it. And somebody might say, well, what if I want to do both, right? A little hate relationship, you know that sort of thing. But but I'm not capable of doing both at the same time, right? So don't worry about it. He says, right? Because we said you do what you're capable of doing when you want to do it, but you're not capable of doing contraries at the same time.

[41:48] So if you want to do them, you know, if you don't mix them, you still wouldn't necessarily do it because not do it at all, because you're not capable of doing it, even though you want to do it. I mean, sometimes people want to have their cake and eat it, right?

[42:07] But you're not going to have your cake and eat it. I'll show you that. Even though you want to do both, right? Because you're not capable of it, not capable of eating the cake and still having it. It's beyond your power. Yeah. So where? I'm just wondering if more could be said about about the contingency of the will and how the will is able to turn,

[42:43] you know, that it. The indeterminacy, if you will, that even having made a choice to do something, the will can turn and choose to do the opposite, almost

[42:57] immediate. Yeah, that's true, but but then you wouldn't be wanting it, right, at that moment. huh? The person, like you think of a person like who's in a temptation, right, And something in him is saying, "don't do this." Something in him is saying, "Doing it," right? But at at the moment he does it, he does it because he wants to do it, right?

[43:28] How about this question? If if when the the desirable is present and the the willer has made the choice for that object, how at that point, if it necessarily has to do what it's chosen to do, how is that sort of causality different from natural causality, where you know the thing is determined to one? Once you've made a choice, you're determined to one. So at that point, is the is the causality of the will just like natural causality?

[44:03] It's determined to that one object, and it necessarily pursues that one object. Well, well, there's some likeness there, yeah, that you have to be determined to one or the other because the common is not going to result in anything, right? The ability to do both is not going to result in either one unless something determines you to do one rather than the other.

[44:26] So the indeterminacy, the indeterminacy of the will is prior to the choice being made. Yeah, Aristotle is not going into the the a defense, if I'm to put that, or an explanation of of why the will is is free, right? That's something that he seems to do in the Nicomachean Ethics, on the third book, right It takes up

[44:50] choice. Now rather than go on, I think to the fifth reading, it should be appropriate to begin.