91. Imitation in Art, Pleasures of Sense, and Natural vs. Unnatural Desires

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Art as Imitation of Nature #

• Art fundamentally imitates nature; this is the critical starting point for understanding all art
• Works differ by what they imitate and how they imitate
• Shakespeare exemplifies this perfectly in Hamlet: “To hold the mirror up to nature, show virtue of your own face… the very age and body of the time is form and pressure”
• Shakespeare (as poet-philosopher) and Plato (as philosopher-poet) are unusual in history for combining poetic and philosophical gifts
• Shakespeare’s knowledge of sources (e.g., Plutarch’s Moralia and Lives) shows through naturally in his work
• The borrowing and adaptation of earlier sources (as Mozart did with J.C. Bach’s concertos) is legitimate; imitation is the highest form of flattery

Comparative Analysis of Sensory Pleasures #

The Question of Sight vs. Touch #

• Sight’s superiority for knowledge: Sight is loved primarily for knowledge’s sake; it reveals many differences and distinctions in things
• Touch’s superiority for utility: Touch pertains to conservation of the body; it knows fundamental qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry)
• Resolution:
  • If we speak of pleasure by reason of knowledge, sight provides greater pleasure
  • If we speak of pleasure by reason of usefulness, touch provides the greatest pleasure
  • Simply speaking (absolute comparison), touch is more potent because it serves natural desires (food, reproduction) to which the body’s preservation is ordered
  • But if we consider sight as serving understanding, then sight’s pleasures are more potent than sensible pleasures

Why Other Animals Do Not Enjoy Sight as Humans Do #

• Animals without reason only delight in sensibles insofar as they serve usefulness (bodily conservation)
• A dog does not rejoice in the smell of food for its own sake, only because it leads to eating
• A lion does not delight in the sound of cattle’s voice but only in eating it
• Humans alone can enjoy a sunset or painting for knowledge’s sake alone

Natural vs. Unnatural Pleasures #

The Problem #

• If pleasure is rest in something suitable to nature, and natural appetite rests only in its natural place, how can unnatural pleasures exist?
• Aristotle states in the Ethics that some pleasures are “sick” and against nature

The Solution: Two Meanings of “Nature” in Humans #

Nature as reason and understanding

• This is what properly constitutes human nature
• Natural pleasures here = those befitting man according to reason: contemplation of truth, acts of virtue

Nature divided against reason

• What is common to man and other animals; what does not obey reason
• Includes conservation of body (food, drink, sleep) and reproduction

Unnatural Pleasures in Qualified Sense #

• A pleasure can be unnatural simply (absolutely contrary to human nature and reason)
• But it can be connatural (natural to this particular corrupted individual) through:
  • Bodily corruption: Sickness (fever makes sweet things taste bitter); bad complexion (people who delight in eating earth or coal)
  • Soul corruption: Custom (second nature). Examples: cannibalism, bestiality, homosexual acts

The Importance of Common Nature vs. Individual Nature #

• We must follow what is common to human nature, not what is unique or corrupted in individuals
• A student’s claim that the end is “fullest development of individual things” is flawed: this would make developing cowardice (if naturally inclined to it) a good
• Saints like St. Francis de Sales, naturally irascible, became mild and well-tempered by going against individual nature and toward common nature
• What makes a person precious is not uniqueness but what is common and shared: the image of God

Key Arguments #

For Natural Pleasures Being in What Serves Conservation #

1. Pleasure is rest in something suitable to nature
2. Natural appetite rests only in its connatural place
3. To be constituted in one’s proper nature is delightful (by definition)
4. What is natural to each thing is most potent
5. Pleasures of touch are those to which natural desires are ordered (food, reproduction)
6. Therefore: Simply speaking, touch pleasures are the greatest

Against Unnatural Pleasures (Initial Objection) #

1. A body at rest seeks its natural place; it does not rest elsewhere
2. Similarly, appetite would not rest except in something natural
3. Everything against nature is violent; everything violent is saddening
4. Therefore: Nothing against nature can be delightful

Against This Objection (Thomas’s Resolution) #

1. Some pleasures are demonstrably against nature (per Aristotle)
2. Nature in humans can mean reason (proper human nature) OR bodily appetites (nature divided from reason)
3. Corruption of natural principles can make the unnatural connatural to an individual
4. Example: Water is naturally cold; heated water naturally heats things
5. Analogously: A person with corrupted nature may naturally desire what is absolutely unnatural to human nature
6. Therefore: Unnatural pleasures exist in this qualified sense

Important Definitions #

• Pleasure (delictatio): Rest or peace in the affections of the soul, proportional to rest in bodies
• Natural pleasure: According to reason (for humans specifically) or according to preservation of body and species
• Unnatural pleasure: Against human reason and dignity; but can be connatural to a corrupted individual through bodily or spiritual defect
• Connatural (κατὰ φύσιν as applied to individuals): Natural to this particular thing due to its corrupted condition, though contrary to the nature of the species
• Nature (φύσις): Can mean either (a) reason and understanding as the formal constituent of human nature, or (b) appetites divided against reason, common to man and beasts
• Second nature: Custom, habit—what becomes natural to a person through repeated practice

Examples & Illustrations #

Literary & Artistic Examples #

• Shakespeare’s Hamlet: The famous instruction to “hold the mirror up to nature”
• Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: The clown speaks of profiting from enemies who tell him he is an ass, echoing Plutarch’s essay on profiting from enemies. The Duke expects him to reverse his statement, but he doesn’t—showing Shakespeare’s knowledge of Plutarch integrated naturally
• Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: Romeo does not love Juliet for her beauty at the play’s beginning because he has not yet seen her. The beautiful is known through sight; vision is the beginning of the motion toward love
• Mozart’s piano concertos: Mozart adapted J.C. Bach’s pieces (orchestrating them); modern numbering calls them 27, but older systems counted only the first ones as original
• Brahms: His variations on a theme by Haydn show imitation as the highest form of flattery

Personal Anecdotes #

• Insect in classroom: A bug crawled near the podium; Berquist insisted on saving it rather than crushing it, noting it would make a stink
• Discussion of sight vs. other senses: In a class exercise, most students said they’d rather go deaf than blind. One girl said she’d rather be blind than deaf because music was her thing. Beethoven, who valued music, would have felt similarly
• Taste loss: Berquist’s mother-in-law, dying, took no pleasure in food anymore—only ate to stay alive, which is “a horrible thing.” Leo Alvarez, losing taste buds, said ice cream tasted no different than a bologna sandwich
• Neighbor boy playing Romeo: Berquist planned to attend a high school production where a neighbor boy (who mowed their lawn) was playing Romeo
• Walter Gieseking concert: At the University of Minnesota, the audience was so respectful one could hear a pin drop. Gieseking played about 12 encores; he finally had to play “Clair de Lune” (“good night”) to stop the applause. He had performed once for Hitler, which caused the American government to temporarily ban him—unjustly
• Mick Jagger: Saw him perform in his 50s-60s, bouncing around stage for two hours—a cardiovascular genius
• Desert starlight: When driving through dry, dark desert at night away from cities, the stars are much more brilliant than usual; this stimulates thought about them. Saudi Arabia has particularly brilliant stars

Philosophical Examples #

• Socrates with steel ball: Aristotle supposedly held a steel ball to stay awake while thinking
• Plato’s water allegory (from the Phaedo): Those born underwater seeing the sun, moon, stars through water see them less clearly than those in air. Above air is ether, where these things are even more beautiful. After the soul leaves the body, it enters the ether and sees things more beautifully still
• Plutarch’s Moralia: Famous essay on profiting from enemies—they point out faults; friends might overlook them. Shakespeare uses this in Twelfth Night

Questions Addressed #

Are Pleasures of Touch Greater Than Those of Sight? #

Arguments for sight’s superiority:

• Losing sight causes total cessation of joy (reference to Book of Tobit)
• To each is delightful what he loves; love is most of all through sight (Aristotle, Rhetoric I)
• Sight initiates delectable friendship; therefore sight’s pleasure is greatest

Arguments for touch’s superiority:

• Aristotle says in the Ethics III that greatest pleasures are according to touch
• Touch concerns things of which the animal itself consists (hot, cold, wet, dry)
• To the order of conservation of nature, touch is nearest
• Other animals without reason only delight in other senses insofar as they lead to touch-pleasures

Resolution:

• If by reason of knowledge: Sight is greater (it shows many differences; it is more spiritual; the word “seeing” transfers to understanding)
• If by reason of usefulness: Touch is greater (it serves bodily conservation, to which natural desires are ordered)
• Absolutely compared: Touch is more potent because it serves natural desires for food and reproduction
• But: If sight is considered as serving understanding, then sight’s pleasures are more potent than sensible pleasures (because intellectual pleasures exceed sensible ones)

Can Pleasures Be Unnatural? #

Initial objection: No, because pleasure is rest in what is connatural; the appetite cannot rest except in something natural.

Aristotle’s counterexample: The Ethics speaks of “sick” pleasures against nature.

Thomas’s resolution:

• “Natural” has two meanings in humans
• Reason properly constitutes human nature; hence pleasures befitting reason are natural to man
• But nature divided against reason (bodily appetites) is also called natural, shared with animals
• Through bodily sickness (fever altering taste) or spiritual corruption (custom making unnatural things seem natural), what is against human nature becomes connatural to the individual
• Examples of spiritual corruption: cannibalism, bestiality, homosexual acts
• These are absolutely unnatural but can become connatural to the corrupted individual

Notable Quotes #

“To hold the mirror up to nature, show virtue of your own face, go on your own image, and the very age and body of the time is form and pressure.” — Shakespeare, Hamlet

“The better for my enemies, and the worse for my friends… because my enemies tell me that I’m an ass, and I am. And so I profit a knowledge of myself from them.” — Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, echoing Plutarch

“Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” — (Discussed by Berquist)

“What makes a man precious maybe isn’t what’s unique to him, but what’s common to him and all [other men].” — (Stephen Parker, cited by Berquist as an interesting insight)

“You are unique and unrepeatable, just like everybody else.” — (Berquist, as a humorous but serious point about the image of God)