78. Beauty, Goodness, Knowledge, and Likeness as Causes of Love

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Beauty Distinct from Goodness #

• Beauty as ordered to knowing: Beauty adds to goodness a specific reference (ratio) to the knowing power (potentia cognoscitiva)
• Sensory basis of beauty: Beauty is primarily known through sight and hearing, the senses that serve reason most directly
• Not all sensibles are beautiful: We call visual things and sounds beautiful, but we do not apply the term “beautiful” to tastes, odors, or tactile sensations
  • Example: We say “beautiful color” or “beautiful wine” (referring to color), but never “beautiful taste” or “beautiful odor”
  • We say “tastes good” rather than “beautiful taste”
• Definition of beautiful (pulchrum): That whose apprehension pleases; involves a reference to the knowing power

Knowledge as a Cause of Love #

• Knowledge is required for love: The good must be grasped (apprehensio) in order to be loved; love requires knowledge of its object
• But perfect knowledge is not required for perfect love: Love can achieve perfection through grasping the thing in itself, while knowledge requires step-by-step distinction of all parts and properties
• Distinction between reason and appetite:
  • Reason must distinguish among things and analyze them part by part
  • The desiring power (appetitus) regards the thing as it is in itself and can rest in that whole
• Something can be loved more than it is known: One can perfectly love God or a great work of art without knowing all its properties or components
  • The sick man has ability/potency for health and loves it even before fully knowing it
  • One can enjoy wine without distinguishing its ingredients
• Natural love in all things: Even non-knowing things have natural love (e.g., plants love water), caused by God’s knowledge, not by the things’ own knowledge

Likeness as a Cause of Love #

• Two kinds of likeness:
  1. Likeness in act: Both have the same form or quality actualized (e.g., two white things, two men)
  2. Likeness in potency to act: One has in ability what the other has in actuality (e.g., a young musician with potential loves a master musician in act)
• First kind causes love of friendship (benevolence): From the likeness of form, two become one in that form; each tends toward the other as toward another self
• Second kind causes love of wanting (concupiscence): The one in potency is drawn to actualize what the one in act possesses
• Likeness does not cause hatred per se: Rivalry and hatred arise not from likeness itself but from competition for goods—when likeness impedes one’s own good
  • Example: Two poets competing for the same reputation; two doctors competing for one hospital position
  • But two poets in different arts, or two poets not competing, can be friends through likeness of proportion
• Proportional likeness: When two unlike in act are alike in proportion to their respective natures
  • Example: A masculine man loves a feminine woman—not alike in the same way, but each is fulfilled according to his/her nature, creating likeness of proportion
  • Example: A good singer and good writer have likeness insofar as each excels in his own art

Key Arguments #

Objections to Knowledge as Cause of Love #

1. First objection: Some things are loved more than known (e.g., God in this life can be loved to himself but not known to himself)

   • Response: Perfect knowledge is not required for perfect love because love rests in the thing itself while knowledge must distinguish parts

2. Second objection: Things sought are unknown (e.g., one seeks medicine without knowing it perfectly)

   • Response: The seeker has foreknowledge in some way—knowing it by general description or by hearing it praised—which is enough to move love

3. Third objection: Love seems more perfective than knowledge in spiritual life

   • Response: Perfect knowledge requires knowing all details; perfect love requires only grasping the thing in itself. Thus one can love more than one knows

Objections to Likeness as Cause of Love #

1. First objection: Likeness causes hatred (potters rival each other; proud men fight)

   • Response: Rivalry arises not from likeness but from impediment to one’s own good. Two potters compete because they impede each other’s profit, not because they are alike

2. Second objection: We love those unlike us (e.g., a man loves an actor he would not wish to be)

   • Response: Likeness operates through proportionality—one has himself to what he loves as the other has himself to what is loved (his art)

3. Third objection: We love what we lack; lacking something means unlikeness to it

   • Response: One who lacks health has unlikeness in act but likeness in potency—the body’s ability for health has natural affinity to actual health

4. Fourth objection: We love beneficial people who are often unlike us

   • Response: Operates through likeness of potency to act; also, all men have seed-like reasons of virtue by natural reason, making them like the virtuous even before possessing virtue as habit

Important Definitions #

• Pulchrum (beautiful): That whose apprehension or sight pleases (id cuius apprehensio placet); adds to goodness a reference to the knowing power
• Bonum (good): That which all desire; the object of appetite
• Apprehensio (apprehension/grasping): The knowing or grasping of something; required for love but need not be complete
• Potentia cognoscitiva (knowing power): The power of knowing; includes reason and the senses (especially sight and hearing)
• Ratio (reference/relation): A reference or ordering toward something; beauty has a special ratio to the knowing power
• Similitude in proportione (likeness in proportionality): A likeness based on each thing having the same proportion in its own nature rather than the same quality in act

Examples & Illustrations #

On Beauty and the Senses #

• Wine and color: The color of wine is beautiful (appeals to sight); the taste is good but we don’t call it beautiful
• Tea: We admire its beautiful color but do not speak of beautiful taste
• Steak: Sometimes we might say it’s beautiful, but this refers to appearance (color, form) not taste
• Mozart and Shakespeare: Mozart exhibits more beauty; Shakespeare more wisdom. Beauty is more object of love, wisdom more object of knowing
• Heisenberg on beauty: Great scientific discoveries are tied to the beauty of the theoretical structure; physicists value beauty in their work

On Knowledge and Love #

• Wine and ingredients: One can perfectly enjoy wine without distinguishing the grapes it’s made from; can love it greatly even with imperfect knowledge
• Mozart’s melodies: One can love Mozart’s piece without knowing he combines five melodies together; enjoyment doesn’t require analytical knowledge
• Analyzing music: Taking apart Mozart reveals subtlety, but analysis can interfere with enjoyment; the untrained person may love it more than the analyst
• Coleridge on Shakespeare: In early works like Venus and Adonis, one sees Shakespeare will be great through his melodious verse and natural music of language
• Bohr and Heisenberg: Bohr saw potential in young Heisenberg through a single question he posed, demonstrating likeness in potency to act
• Root beer float: A perfect example of two goods combining; enjoyment doesn’t require knowing how vanilla ice cream and root beer complement each other chemically

On Likeness and Love/Hatred #

• Two widow sisters: Two sisters, both widows, both maintaining homes alone—why not live together? Because even similar women do things differently; proportionality matters
• Two professors teaching philosophy and science: Warren and Berquist agreed on what to teach but taught it differently; similarity didn’t require identity of method
• Movie actress vs. rival in love: All can love the same movie actress on screen without competition because her image impedes no one’s enjoyment. But two pursuing the same available woman will compete
• Two poets and two painters: Poets and painters can be friends (likeness of proportion in excellence) without competition, unlike two novelists competing for the same audience (Dickens and Thackeray)
• Masculine and feminine: A truly masculine man wants a truly feminine woman—not likeness in the same quality, but likeness in proportion (each fulfilled according to his/her nature)
• Prisoners and justice: Even convicted prisoners recognize injustice with righteous indignation toward one wrongly arrested, showing natural inclination to justice despite their own unjust acts
• Cowardly man loves the brave: A coward loves the brave man not because he is like him in act, but because bravery is his potency actualized

Questions Addressed #

Is knowledge a cause of love? #

• Answer: Yes, but not as a prior efficient cause. Rather, knowledge is a cause on the side of the object—the good must be grasped to be loved. As the philosopher says in the ninth book of the Ethics, bodily vision is the beginning of love, and similarly contemplation of spiritual beauty is the beginning of spiritual love.

Can something be loved more than it is known? #

• Answer: Yes. Something can be perfectly loved even if not perfectly known, because love requires only grasping the thing in itself, while knowledge requires distinguishing all its parts and properties.

What is the distinction between reason and appetite regarding knowledge and love? #

• Answer: Reason must distinguish among things and compare them to understand them fully. The desiring power regards the thing as it is in itself. Therefore, reason requires step-by-step analysis for perfection, while appetite can achieve perfection by grasping the whole.

Does likeness cause love or hatred? #

• Answer: Likeness properly causes love. Apparent hatred between similar things (like rival potters) is caused not by likeness but by impediment to one’s own good. True hatred seems more often caused by unlikeness (difference in race, custom, appearance).

How does proportional likeness work as a cause of love? #

• Answer: Two things unlike in act can have likeness in proportion when each has himself (his own excellence or perfection) as the other has himself—as a good singer and good writer have likeness insofar as each excels in his own art according to its own nature.

Notable Quotes #

“The beautiful adds above the good a certain order to a knowing power.” (Thomas Aquinas, responding to the definition of beauty)

“The good is that which simply pleases the appetite; the beautiful [is that] the apprehension of which pleases.” (Berquist, articulating the distinction)

“Something is more loved than it is known because it can be perfectly loved even if it is not perfectly known.” (Thomas Aquinas, resolving the apparent paradox)

“Love is in the desiring power which regards the thing as it is in itself. Whence, for the perfection of love, it suffices that the thing be grasped in itself… But for the perfection of knowledge, it is required that man knows step by step whatever is in the thing.” (Thomas Aquinas, on the difference between reason and appetite)

“Likeness is not the cause of [hatred] but insofar as [the similar one] is impeding his own good.” (Thomas Aquinas, distinguishing per se from per accidens causes of hatred)