Prima Secundae
Lecture 44: Intention as an Act of the Will

Transcript
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And there is, what, choice which intention differs from, right? Therefore, intention is not the act of the will, right? Obviously, Thomas has forgotten he's spoken of these three acts, right? In the frame of the question, eight. But against this is what Augustine says in the 11th book about the Trinity, that the intention of the will joins the, what, body seen to vision, right? And likewise, the species or form, existing in the memory, to the sharpness of the soul, inwardly thinking about it, huh? Cogitari, to agitate, to think together, right? Therefore, intention is an act of the will, huh? Well, obviously, Augustine is in contradiction with himself, right? Hey, Paul, yeah. Thomas will, hey, all things feel straightened out. I answer, it should be said, that intention, just as the name itself sounds, right, signifies to tend in something, right, huh? I think I said the other word, in there, all the time, huh? Because you tend to say, tend towards something, wouldn't you? You could, sometimes I translate that as into or unto something. Yeah, yeah. The into, yeah. That'd be closer to us, yeah. Now, towards something or into something, right, tends both the action of the mover and the action of the moved, huh? But that the motion of the movable tends in something proceeds from the action of the, what, mover, right? Sorry, bring the water up to me, right? And the mover of the glass, right? It's responsible for the glass tending towards my mouth, huh? Whence intention first and chiefly pertains to that which moves something towards an end, huh? Whence we say that the architect and everyone, what, commanding, moves by his command others to that which he himself intends, huh? But the will moves all the other powers of the soul to the end, as has been said above, right? Whence it is manifest that intention properly is an act of the, what, will. So the object of the will is the good, right? And the good is basically the same thing as the end, huh? As Aristotle brings out there in the, what, second book of metaphysics, right? So it seems as the will then is going to move things to their end, because that's its object, the end of the good, huh? Now, what about the first objection, or oculus would seem to be, you know? As Hammond said, you know, I see my father, and he said, where? I don't know, it's the ghost, right? He said, in my mind's eye, right, huh? So, to the first effort should be said that intention is what? Name the I, metaphoric, huh? Not because it pertains to knowledge, right? That's not because it pertains to an act of knowledge, right? But because it presupposes, what? Knowledge, huh? Through which is proposed to the will, the end to which it, what, moves, huh? Maybe a lot of these objections can be solved by pointing out that the act of reason is presupposed to the act of the will, right? Just as by the eye we foresee, we're to tend bodily, we're to tend bodily, right, towards something, huh? So we solved that, huh? What do we do about Thomas, huh? Aristotle says here, huh? Young poets are better at tying the knot than untying it. Same thing he said about the young philosophers, or even the old philosophers of the philosopher. They're better tying the knot than they are untying it, right? Now, to the second, it should be said that intention is called light, because it is, what, a known to, right? Or is manifest to the one intended, right? Whence also deeds are said to be, what? Darkness, huh? Because the man knows what he intends, but he does not know what is going to follow from the deed. As Augustine himself there expounds, huh? Okay, well, I've got some off there, okay, huh? To the third, it should be said that the will, to be sure, does not order, right? But nevertheless, it tends towards something by the order of, what? Reason, huh? Whence this name intention names the act of the will, but presupposing the ordering of reason, ordering something in, what? It's in, huh? When Thomas is explaining the word order, he says something like that, that the first thing involved in the meaning of order is distinction, because nothing is before or after itself, right? So there has to be some distinction, right? But then he kind of corrects himself, he says, but that's not really what order means. Order means a before and after, that's what it means. But that presupposes some distinction between what is before and what is after, right? So we could say distinction is presupposed to order, but it's not the meaning of order, right? So you find that a lot, right? Someone sent me an email and they wanted me to help them investigate this idea that false imagination is the cause of deception, right? Well, if you want to understand why false imagination is the cause of deception, you've got to begin by realizing that our reason depends upon images, huh? That images are to our reason, like the color outside the eye is to the eye, right? And I can't see the redness of the apple or the greenness of the apple without the apple there, right? And so our reason has kind of for its proper object, what it is, is something you can sense or imagine in a proximate sense, huh? But that doesn't show you why the imagination sees you, right? But it's presupposed to understanding, right? If reason didn't depend upon the imagination for thinking, then you wouldn't have, what? Yeah, yeah. So then you have to go to what's peculiar, right, to the imagination that it, as Thomas says there in one text, that it knows the likeness of things absent. And then you say, well, he's touching upon two causes there in deception, huh? Because likeness is very much the cause of deception, huh? And I was getting in this text from the sophists there where Plato says that likeness is a slippery thing, right? And you've got to be on your guard, most of all, against likeness. That's going to lead you astray, right? And Aristotle talks about likeness at the beginning of the book on sophisticated refutations, these bad arguments, huh? And it's funny how likeness deceives, but you might say seeing likeness, but not seeing the, what, difference, huh? I just got through rereading my favorite book, the first book of the Sumukha Gentiles. And there's a likeness between reason's knowing and the loving and the will's willy, right? And the likeness is that in the divine mind, the divine understanding, by knowing his very substance, right, he knows other things. His chief object is his own substance, huh? But in knowing his own substance, he knows other things as effects of his own substance, and like it in some way, et cetera, et cetera, right? Then you go to the will, and you say, what does God will? But chiefly, what he wills, what he loves chiefly, is his own substance, huh? And that's because his own substance is goodness itself, right? But in loving his own substance, then he loves, what? Other things, right? As ordered to his own goodness, huh? Well, when you take up, now, the divine understanding, knowing other things, means he necessarily understands all other things and understands himself. Then you might say, well, then, he's going to necessarily will other things, and willing his own, you know? Well, they're not alike in that way, right? You see? And then you have to see the difference, right? Because this end, which is the divine goodness, in no way depends upon other things. And they in no way, what? Add anything to his goodness, huh? The addition of creatures to God, Thomas, is like adding a point to a line. It's just no longer that it was. And so, then you see, you have to see the difference between the two, right? Now, in the part of logic that is about dialectic, in the book of places, which is not translated with the title in English, it's topics, right? It's not topics. It comes to the Greek word, topos, meaning place, right? So, it's called the book of places, right, huh? But when you get to the four tools of the dialectician, Aristotle gives, as a third tool, the tool of finding differences. And then the fourth tool is the tool of consideration of likeness, huh? And it's interesting, both the words he uses there and the order, right? But he puts the tool of finding differences before the consideration of likeness, huh? Because to, what? See, the likeness of things, without first seeing their difference, is apt to, what? Deceive you, yeah. And you see this especially in these things that are far apart, you know, we have a likeness of ratios, huh? You've heard me use a simple example there, you know, and I say, four is to six is two is to three. And I say, well, two and three are, what, prime numbers? So, four and six are, is a ratio of prime numbers. That's not the way that it's consistent, right? Or two and three, one is an even number, one's an odd number. So, four and six, one is even, one's odd, right? What way is four to six like two to three? What would you say? Not in those two ways, right? What way are they alike? The relation of parts. So, what Euclid would say is that four is the same parts of six, that two is of three, right? If you imagine, you know, six as being three twos, four is two of those three parts, just as two is obviously two of the three parts of three, right? So, but Aristotle, in the Greek, I think the word is skeptic, right? You get the word skeptic? It doesn't mean, you know, let's say skeptic, right? But it means you've got to stop and consider exactly what way are these two alike, right? Because things that are alike may be unlike in other ways, right? And this proportion, right? You know, that the knowing himself to knowing other things and loving himself to loving other things, there's a certain, what, likeness there, right? And Thomas would even argue for the fact that God knows other things in knowing himself, that he can love other things than loving himself, right? But then you've got to realize this great difference, right? That there'd be an imperfection in God if in knowing himself he didn't know everything else. I mean, there are things that are, there are things that could be, right? But there'd be no imperfection in God if in loving himself he didn't love anything else. There'd be nothing, what, selfish, right? That somehow the world is better, right, huh? As Thomas says, you know, God impeaches is no better than playing breakfast and the armor playing breakfast, you know? Because God contains all the goodness of these things, right, huh? So likeness is something apt to deceive you, huh? I kind of reminded that, you know, we had the turn your clocks back, right? And if you take the average guy on the street, right, and you ask him, now if you move your clock back, right, to an earlier time, will you be getting up earlier than you were before? Probably say yes, right? You think that, you know? Sure. I mean, you know. And actually going to be getting up what? Later, yeah. See, how can that be if I move the clock back to an earlier time, shouldn't I, you know? But you're being deceived by the imagination, right? Yeah, yeah. And then the spring, when you spring forward, as they say, right, huh? Mm-hmm. They're going to be, what? Getting up later, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see, how easily light just deceives you, right, huh? It's kind of strange, huh? Yeah. I don't know what they do. It's something to do with the light, you know, but are you getting more light at the beginning of the day or at the beginning of the day? It's got to have to do with money. That's all I know, right? It's got to have to do with it. Otherwise, nobody would do it. It's kind of audacious, you know. They should do this. When I was a bachelor, I'd always go to St. Paul's Cathedral. That was my parish. And every time they had that time change, I'd show up for the usual mass, I'd go to, oh, yeah, this is the day. I'd hang around for an hour for another mass or something, you know. We cheat in the spring. What we do is we decide we're going to lose an hour in the morning. Yeah. So we just get up at the regular time of the day before, and then we just turn the clocks on our head, and we just have everything an hour later. Okay. It regards the, what, end in three ways, huh? This is a beautiful example of what? Three is the first number about which we say all, right? So when Mary and Joseph went up to Bethlehem, did they all go there, or just both of them went there? Both went there. You've got to watch that. Seven, seven ways ticking sometimes, right? They both went, right? You wouldn't say they all went, did you? See? Yeah. See? But then when they fled down to Egypt there, right? They all went, right? Three is the first number about which we say all, right? It's often true. This is the example here, right? That's a beautiful thing there. But the will regards the end in three ways. Think about that. That's really something. In one way, absolutely. As, and that's what it's called, what? Voluntas, willing I guess, right? Insofar as absolutely we will, either, what, hell or something else of this sort. Another way, the end is considered according as, in it, one, what? Rests. Rests, huh? And in this way, fruition regards the, what? End. Third way, he considers the end according as it is the term, right, or end of something that is ordered to it, right? And thus intention regards the end, right? What were your intentions in doing that, huh? What were you intending? Well, I don't know. What were you trying to accomplish? What everybody else does. For not only from this are we said to intend health, right? Because we will it, right? But because we will to what? Arrive at it, do something else, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So when you were intending something, you were trying to arrive at that through something that you did, right? And you kind of see the order of these, because didn't you take out voluntas first, and then fruition, and then intention, and you kind of see the order of that, right? Especially the way voluntas would come before the other two, right? Because they seem more to be adding something to the idea of willing it, right? And these would be specifically different kinds of acts, in the way? Yeah, yeah. So their objects would be formally different? There's a little distinction there, yeah. So what's the philosopher's end? Wisdom, right? Well, knowledge is done, but wisdom, right? So he's named for that, right? But he's named from what? The love of wisdom, huh? So if wisdom is the end, what act of the will is this love of wisdom? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I was meeting Thomas this morning, which is wisdom even in a higher sense there. I was enjoying this wisdom, right? I've been through the times, right? Because I still see something I didn't see before, right? Okay. But I was talking to these guys last night there, and they're doing this logic, right? What does that got to do with wisdom? Yeah. Yeah, I was intending wisdom, right? Yeah. Through logic, right? Yeah. You see, Thomas is clarifying my thought, huh? Three, right, huh? Mm-hmm. See these pictures of Thomas? He's got his hand out there with the foot he's making, right? He was explaining a beautiful text there of the beatitude of God, you know, but you could take from there principles for man's own beatitude, right? He says, the beatitude has got to be the most perfect thing. And the most perfect thing is an operation of some sort. Now, the most perfect operation is four things you've got to take into account. He doesn't always say three, right? He says four. He says, the first thing is from the, what? The genus of the act. He refers to what Aristotle does in the ninth book of wisdom. Aristotle distinguishes between two kinds of acts, huh? One that remains within the doer, right? Like sensing or understanding or even loving, right? And then one that proceeds to something outside of you, like making or, you know, directing or ruling, you know, that sort of thing, right? Okay? And he says, well, is the most perfect act that's going to be beatitude, which genus is going to be in? Yeah, because that's the perfection of the doer, right? By making a table is a perfecting of the table, not of the maker, right? Contrary to Marx, right? Okay? And, you know, directing the army, right, is a perfection of the battle of the army that it conducts, right? But it's not a perfection of the maker, right, huh? So that's the first thing he says. It's got to be in the genus of an act that remains in the doer. That's true for us, right? So, maybe it could be my listening to Mozart, right? Did you look at Jupiter last night? You told it to? Was it that's the moon? Yeah. Yeah. I noticed the bright star next to him. Yeah, that's the moon. It was a bit. I'd never seen Jupiter look so bright in my life, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just, you know, I came out of the class at about nine o'clock, where you go from seven to nine, and I came on, I said, look up at him, and he said, where is it? And I was just, it's brilliant. It's magnificent, huh? So, my seeing that in Jupiter last night, maybe that's my beatitude, right? At least in the genus, right? You look at that like that, huh? And what's the second thing you think he said? It's got to be an act of that genus, right? Yeah, I would think an act of the highest power, right? Yeah, of the highest power, right? Which in us is the understanding, right? Okay. Well, maybe it's my understanding of the Greek theorem, maybe, then, huh? Could be, you know? But no, that's not my beatitude. It's got to be what? It's got to be understanding God. Yeah. See? So it's got to be understanding God, right, no? Okay? It's true for God himself, too. Is it? I think that he could understand. Okay? And then what's the fourth and last thing? Perpetual or something? He calls it the form of the act, huh? And he says four things. That it'd be perfect to act, right, huh? It'd be, what? Easy. It'd be firm, right? And it'd be delightful. You know? And beautiful, right? And so, this is all true about God, right? He perfectly understands himself. The best thing there is to understand, right? It's easier for him to understand himself. It's a firm thing in God, right? There's no change in God, right? And because of that perfection, it's most delightful, right? But you can apply that, you can take it down, and apply it to know the investigation of what RBI food is, right? There's got to be an act that's a perfection of the doer, right? It's got to be of the highest power, the understanding. It's got to be required to the best of all things to understand, which is God himself. And it's got to be perfect and so on, so that he brings in the vision, huh? Maybe that's it, huh? Okay. So, it's beautiful. It is enough. First of all, you know, in the first book of the physics, Aristotle's looking for what's found in every change. Everybody thinks that there is, what? Opposites in every change, which is true, right? But then Aristotle said there must be a third thing besides the opposites. But then he stops and says, that's enough. You know? There's enough to have a change, right? So, if that cold becomes hot, can coldness itself become heat? You know, there must be a third thing to be the subject, which the contraries are, right? You know? But that's kind of the first place you see this, to me, is enough, right? If you go to the poetics there, and you come to the greatest tragedy end of all, right? Sophocles, right? He introduced the third actor, right? Once you did that, he wrote the most perfect plays ever, you know? They used to say about Sophocles, that's Homer writing tragedy. And Homer is Sophocles writing epic. The Greeks had that say, right? Because they saw the excellence of these two guys, you know? It's incredible. They introduced that third actor. Sartre used to play there about the three-fold down in hell, wasn't it? Yeah, no accent. Yeah. Oh, you used to the actors, right? But they're all miserable because of the thing. Hell, you know, all fairs getting his altar, I guess, with the meaning of the play, or the hesitant meaning. I thought of him yesterday because of the doctor's office. They had a sign on a closet for safety purposes. It says, not an exit. I said, just change. He said, no exit. No exit. No exit. So we go to Article 2 here. To the second one goes forward thus. It seems that intention is, what, only of the last end, right? Now, you know, if you know Aristotle, Aristotle will say, you know, that not only is the last thing the end, but there can be, what, the intermediary ends, right? I assume Thomas will be influenced by that. For he said in the book of the Sentences of Prosperus that Clamor Adeum, that the crying out to God, right, is the intention of the heart. But God is the last end of the human heart. Therefore, intention always regards the last end. Moreover, intention regards the end according as it is the, what, terminus, huh, the end. Aristotle takes up the word terminus there in the fifth book of Wisdom, right? But terminus has the notion of what is last, huh? Therefore, intention always regards the last end. Moreover, just as intention regards the end, so also does, what, fruition. But fruition is always of the last end, and therefore also intention, right? Must he be deceived by likeness here? Yeah. But against all this, huh, the last end of human, what, wills, is one, to wit, beatitude, huh? If therefore intention was only the last end, there would not be diverse intentions of men, huh? Which is clearly, what, false, huh? Well, it was that guy who said, you know, I had three intentions. I was going to get married, get rich, and be governor or something. I mean, it's not the governor. You gave me a ball, too, I guess. I answered, it should be said, this has been said, intention regards the end, huh, according as it is the, what? The end of the motion of the will. In motion, however, one can take an end in two ways. In one way, the, what, last end itself, huh? In which one, what? One rests, huh? That was made as for thyself, right? Our hearts are rested until they rest in you. So your heart can't really come into complete rest until you achieve that, huh? You went to Vanity Fair there, what's in the model, in the Vanity Fair? By Thackeray, the novel, huh? For who in this place, he says, ever gets what he wants? Or having gotten it, it's satisfied. You think, if I could get that, you know, I would be satisfied, you know? And you get it, and you're not satisfied, right, huh? You know? Yeah, yeah. The first million, you know? You're going to be happy? No, you've got to get a million, no. A million, now, I guess. That's what they asked the Walmart guy, whatever his name was. In his old days, he'd make gazillions of dollars. And I said, you've made gazillions and zillions of dollars. Like, what do you want now? I want to make more. Is that what he said? Yeah. Another way, something in the, what, middle, right? Which is the beginning of one part of the motion, but the end or limit of, what, another. Just as in the motion by which one goes from A to C through B. C is the last limit, right? But B is however, what? A limit, but not the last. And of both of them, there can be an intention, right? Because both of them are an end. Whence, although it is always an end, right? It is not however necessary that it always be the, what, last end. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that the intention of the heart is said to be a crying out to God. Not that God is the object of intention always, right? But because he is the, what, intention. Or because that when we pray, we direct our intention to God, huh? Which intention has the strength of a crying out to him, right? It's kind of beautiful. I was reading, you know, the Katina Ori and John there. I was talking about Christ. And he says, you know, I've come not to do my will, but the will of the one who sent me. It becomes even more dramatic, of course, in the garden of Gethsemane and so on. But the Church Fathers were remarking upon, this shows his, what, humility, right? And so that when we pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we're in a way praying for, what, humility, huh? Never kind of really thought of it that way, you know, but, you know? That's in a sense, it's in very beautiful, that text, huh? And so when they say, let's say, hallowed be thy name and thy kingdom come, then that's the end, right? Thy will be done as the means, huh? But he says, Lord, Lord, that's thy will. I'm reminded every time, I don't know what you say in your master, but in the part after the consecration there, you say, you know, you want to go to heaven with Mary and so on. And all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages, you know? He said, keep some. How well chosen the words are in that prayer, you know, if you hear it all over here. To the second should be said that terminus, right, has the notion of something last. That is true, right? But not always with what is last in respect to the whole, right? But sometimes in respect to what? Some part. To the third, it should be said that fruition implies rest in the end, right? And that pertains only to the last end, huh? Thou hast made us for ourselves, right? For they suffer more in our hearts, our rest is still the rest in you. But intention implies motion to the end, not all our what? Rest, right? Once the reason is not simonies, right? We're deceived by the lectis there, right? It's a false imagination, huh? Okay, take another article right before we take our review. Yeah, that sounds good. Okay. One can at the same time intend two things, right? Why does your style talk about simul, or hama in Greek? In physics, right? Yeah, but even before that, in the categories, right? Because in the chapter, after the chapter, and before and after, right? Then he takes one and simul, right? Because simul is known by negation of before and after. Two events are simul, hama, together, when one is neither before nor after the other. Okay? Actually, actually, where Aristotle, you know, it's kind of a difficult thing to understand, but in the tenth book there, he says that we know equal through more and less. It's if you negate more and less, right? You and I have the, of equal height, if I'm either taller or shorter than you. It's if you have a couple negations. It's like that with this before and after, right? And hama. In Greek, or simul, I don't know. It's kind of funny when you speak it in English, though. I mean, we use the word together, right? I don't know how else you translate simul, huh? I'd say simultaneous, but I didn't even know. At the same time. Yeah, yeah. All at once, yeah. Sometimes I even stick to the other way. I explain the eternity, right? The all at once and perfect possession. Totosimo, right? All at once, at once. Yeah. You didn't catch it exactly. Before and after. So you can't serve two masters, right, huh? What'd you say? Before and after at the same time. For Augustine says in the book on the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount, Sermon on the Mount, we call it in English, huh? That a man is not able, at the same time, right, to intend God in a bodily, what, commodity, right, huh? Therefore, for a like reason, do you there any other two things, huh? You can't serve two masters, right? I just read in St. Elizabeth's seat, when she first got married, she was wealthy. She was happy. There's a lot of goods in this world. And she feared. More of her intention names the motion of the will to its, what, end. But of one motion, there cannot be many, what, terms from one side, one side. Therefore, the will cannot, at the same time, what, intend many things, huh? The same line of action has two ends, or I'm being deceived, if I like this. Moreover, intention presupposes an act of reason or the understanding. But one cannot, at the same time, understand many things, according to the philosopher, right? Yeah, I don't know. Therefore, also, neither is it possible, at the same time, to intend many things, huh? This time's going to do it, this, huh? But against this is that art imitates nature. But nature, from one tool, intends two, what, utilities. Just as the tongue is ordered to taste and to, what, speech. So, yeah, we teach at Katsurk, you know, to say, you know, we're talking all day long, you know, using this tongue. Now I'm going to have a good dinner. I can worry, you know, with the gusto. You know. And she's going to have a wife's around there to make sure she has a good dinner. And she can't make a good dinner, then she's got to work and go out and have a good meal in the restaurant. Yeah. Therefore, for a like reason, art, or reason which imitates nature, right, is able at the same time to order something one to two, what, ends, huh? And thus is able at the same time to, what, intend, yeah, the same, I mean, thanks, yeah. Okay. I can kill two bridges with one stone. It's terrible, right, to blow up two people. They intend to blow up everybody in this room or something, you know? Make a double plane. Two miles with one get. It's not all at once, is it right now? Answer, it should be said. Some two things can be taken in two ways, right? Either as ordered to each other, right? Or as not ordered to each other. And if they are ordered to each other, it is manifest from what has been said, that man is able at the same time to intend many things. For his intention is not only of the, what, last end, but also of the, what, yeah. For at the same time, someone intends the proximate end and the last end, huh? Just as the making of the medicine, right? And what? Health, right? So am I intending to perfect myself in logic or am I intending wisdom? Yeah. Because one is a means to the other, right? If our one takes two things not ordered to each other, right, huh? As he kind of dictates himself. So also, together, man is able to, what? Which is clear from this, that a man, what, refers one to the other, right? Because it is better than the other, right, huh? But among, what, other conditions by which one is better than the other, one is that it is, what, valuable for many things, huh? Once he's able to, what, put before another, for the fact that it is, what, useful to many already, or it's, how do you translate valet, valet, yeah? One thing can be chosen and practiced for another because of the greater number of purposes for which it is available. Okay. So that evidently a man can do several things at the same time. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting, huh? So in this political season, right, and tend to say something that will, what, amuse my friends and annoy my enemies. Why did you vote? Rather than somebody who just does one, right, huh? If I can accomplish both of my ends with this one biting remark. Some policy or proposition he made that he just wasn't Christian, he asked him, what did you think of that when she said that? And he said, I just turned the other cheek. That's pretty good. The first effort should be said that Augustine, right, in his, what, book on the Sermon on the Mount, understands man cannot at the same time contend both God and a bodily, what? Yeah. As last ends, right? Because this has been shown above, there cannot be many last ends of, what? One man, right, huh? Now, what about a one motion? five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five,