Prima Secundae
Lecture 69: Passion and Undergoing in the Appetitive Powers

Transcript
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Okay, time for another article, I guess. Okay, whether passion or suffering or undergoing is more in the, what, desiring part than in the, what, grasping part. Okay, just the way Thomas keeps on referring to the annoying part is the apprehensive, the grasping, and it's name from the, what, yeah, notice this is a, first meaning of grasp is what, the act of the hand, right? And then why is it carried over to the knowing power? Why is the act of the knowing power said to be grasping, huh? Yeah, so when I grasp something, it's contained within my, what, hand, right? And when the knowing power knows something, that's contained in it, huh? Now, it's giving you that kind of a sophisticated argument, but, I mean, there's a synopsis of truth in this. You say, what is a square? It's an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. And what is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral? That's a definition of a square. So the square is a definition of a square, right? Well, yeah, but that's because the thing known is in the, what, knower in some way, right? Okay? So knowing is getting something into your head. If you can't get into your head, you don't know it. And so when Augustine was trying to understand the, what, trinity, right, you know, they used this little sensible example, right, of the little kid there trying to put the ocean into the, what? Yeah, because Augustine, what are you doing? He's, you know, distracted by the little kid there going down to the ocean, getting some water and putting it up in this little thing he dug in the ground. He said, I'm going to put the ocean here. Why do you have to do that? You know? Well, maybe they can't put the trinity in your mind either, right? But if you can't get the trinity in your mind, well, you can't understand it, right? So you can't fully understand the thing, right? Reading all the treatises on the trinity that start with some kind of gentiles, right, because that starts with scripture, you know, gradually unfolds, you know, the scriptural text. It deals with all the misunderstandings of the texts, and so you get a good grasp, and then you can go to the Summa Theologiae, where it goes into a few more questions about it than the Summa Cagiotis, and go to the, yeah, The Potentia, you know, and then, yeah, but gee whiz, I really understand this. I can't even remember half of it by the time it turns out. Yeah, and you keep on trying to, you know, it's like all your studies, you know, converge upon this, right, you know, and if I hadn't studied this, I hadn't studied that, I wouldn't be able to understand this thing about the treatises, but I don't really understand the trinity, you know, the way we wait till, you know, face to face. You know, things in St. Gritidaire, you know, about the Feast of St. Bernard and the Feast of St. Gregory, you know, where the trinity is up there, right? It's in a sensible vision, right, that she's having. Okay, it seems that passion is more in the grasping part of the soul, right, than in the, what, desiring part, right, huh? So when they say bon appetit in the restaurant, what do they mean? Understand your supper. You have good desire for it, right? What is first in any genus seems to be what is most of all for those things that are in that genus, right? And the cause of others, as is said in the second book of wisdom, second book after the books of natural philosophy. But it's probably the problem with the translation of metaphysics here is that the first meaning of the word is not seen, but it's not really one word, it's three words, meta. Yes, you see that in the Greek text, it would say meta-ta-physica. That's not the title of Aristotle game, but it goes back to Andronicus and Romans. But undergoing is first found in the, what? But, yeah, so the music of Mozart has to act upon my ear before I can, what, love that music, right? For the desiring power doesn't undergo, unless it's a first and undergoing in the apprehensive power, right? Therefore, undergoing is more in the, what, grasping part than in the desiring part, huh? So don't translate that apprehensive, the apprehensive part. That might seem like a fear, right? The apprehensive. I'm a little apprehensive about it. But by the English word, grasping, huh? The grasping part. Moreover, what is more active seems to be less, what? For action is opposed to passion, right? But the appetitive part is more active than the grasping part, huh? Therefore, it seems that in the grasping part, there is more, what, passion, right? Because the, what, desiring power seems to move people to do things, right, huh? Okay? I want some food, so I go get some food, right, huh? I want to hit you, so I go hit you, right, huh? So it seems to be active, right, huh? I want to think about triangles, so I think about triangles, right? So it seems to be the more active, the desiring power, right? Therefore, it must be that the, that's, yeah, yeah. Moreover, the desiring power is a power in a bodily tool, organ. It's a Greek word for tool. What am I saying here? Excuse me. Just as the desiring power, the sensitive desiring power is a power in the bodily organ, so is the, what, sense-grasping power, right? So, notice a little, a good example of the grammar in Greek or Latin is more follows the logical order, right? So, this, that's a genus, right? Apprehensiva, that's the first difference, right? And then sensitiva, right, is the second difference, right? You can't always do that, you know. You can't say that a square is a quadrilateral, that equilateral, right? You can say it's a quadrilateral, that it's equilateral, right? You've got to use that is or something. But Latin, you can do it, right? I get away with, you know, name, equivocal, by reason. It's, the grammatic order is the logical order, right? Those are two different things, the grammatic order and the what, you know. So, whether the adjective is put before or after the noun, well, we have to put it usually before, right? I don't know how to do it without name, equivocal, by reason. Now, against all this is what Augustine says in the ninth book about the city of God, right? That the motion of the soul, which the Greeks call what? Pathé, right? We, as Cicero, call what? Disturbances, right, huh? Some affections or affectus. Some, as in, had in the Greek, more expressly call what? Passions, huh? From which it seems to be clear that the passions of the soul are the same as affections, right? So, you speak of, you know, you spoke of these things earlier even as the, what? In the beginning of the premier, I'd consider about the passions of the soul, right? Well, you don't think of the sensing of the soul or the understanding of the soul, but the, what? Emotions, right? The affections, right? Okay? So, that's kind of a sign, at least, right? That there are more passions, right? So, that's kind of a sign. So, that's kind of a sign. So, that's kind of a sign. So, that's kind of a sign. So, that's kind of a sign. So, that's kind of a sign. Now, why is this, right? What does it say in the Bible? They became abominable because of things they loved. I used to say to my students, if you love disgusting things, you are yourself disgusting. But if I know abominable things, am I abominable for that reason? If I know disgusting things, does that make me disgusting? If I know evil things, does that make me evil? If I want, if I love evil things, that makes me evil, right? So, isn't love more affected by the thing loved than knowing by the thing known? If you love stupid things, you're stupid, right? If I know stupid things, does that make me stupid? So, it seems in some way I'm more affected by the thing I what? Love, huh? I have more to take on that, right? Are you more divine if you love God than if you just know God? So, let's see what the Master says here. I answer it should be said, that it has been said, in the name of passion, undergoing, right? It is implied that the one undergoing is drawn to that which is of the, what? The agent, the one acting upon him, right? But one is more, the soul is more drawn to the thing, through the, what? Desiring power, than through the, what? Grasping power. Because through the desiring power, the soul has an order to the things themselves, right? As they are in themselves, right? Whence the philosopher says, the sixth book of the metaphysics, that good and bad, which are the objects of the desiring power, are in the things themselves. I left my heart in San Francisco, right? Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be, right? So, good and bad are more in the things themselves, right? Why the thing known is in the, what? Knower, right? This is Aristotle's, it says in the sixth book of the metaphysics, you might miss it, you don't have Thomas' commentary, but it's, he's a quite smart guy, he's Aristotle, I know. Very good. But the grasping power is not drawn to the thing according as it is in itself. But one knows it according to the, what? Intention of the thing, which is in the mind, which it has in itself, right? Or which it receives in its own, what? Way, right? So it knows material things in a material way, right? Singular things universally, and so on. Whence it is said there also, right? In the sixth book of wisdom. That the true and the false, which pertain to knowledge, are not in things, but in the, what? Mind, huh? And especially in the second act, right? So I say to students, you know, where is truth, you know? You know, is it in the ocean, you know? I mean, I swum in the ocean, but you're up into a piece of truth there, right? Or, I dug in the ground, and of course you always had rock in New England here, but I never, oh, there's a bit of truth, right? You know? I flowed airplanes through the air, but I see some cloud of truth going by. That is my philosophy going. We've got problems because of all this oil over there in the Near East, in the Middle East, there's something, you know? Some say we've got more oil than we really realize, but do some countries have more truth than them, you know? Where do you find truth, really, huh? I used to say, well, you find the same place, you find falsehood. Speaking in general, not exactly the same place. And you find them in where? Statements, right? And the spoken statement is a sign of the statement in the mind, right? So truth and falsity are found in statements, right? So primarily in the mind, huh? But the love goes to the thing itself, right? So one is, you might say, contaminated for good or for bad, more by the thing desired than by the thing. So if you desire disgusting things, you are already disgusting, right? But not if you do them, right? Whence it is clear that the notion of undergoing is found more in the desiring power than in the grasping power, huh? Now, first objection, right? He's talking about how the grasping power seems to come before, right? In the cause, right? You're asking about that. The first effort should be said, that in a contrary way, is had in those things which pertain to perfection, and in those things which pertain to defect. For in those things which pertain to, what? Perfection. There is to be noted intensity, right? By the, what? Approaching to one first beginning, huh? To which the more one is near, the more, what? Is intense, huh? Just as the intensity of the lucid is to be noted by the approach to something most, what? The more you go to the fire, the more warm it becomes, right? But in those things which pertain to defect, intensity is to be noted not by access to something, what? Highest, huh? But by the recess from, the departure from the perfect, right? Because in this, the notion of lack and defect consists, right? And there, the more, the less one we see is from the first, the more it is, what? Less intense. Yeah. And in contrast to this, in the beginning, always there is found a small, what? But the more one proceeds, the more he's multiplied, right? These two, I take the patch, an example there of what? You know, the man who takes the wrong turn at the fork in the road, right? How far off is he from where he should be? At the beginning, that's far at the beginning. But the further he goes, the more off he is, right? So no mistake in the beginning is a great one in the, what? End time. There's a telescope, you say. I only moved it a fraction of an inch, but now I've gone 40 gazillion miles away from the moon. That's what you see in Mount Fosse, right? No mistake in the beginning is a great one in the end. Fetus Principle. But passio pertains to what? Deep end. Yeah. Because it is of something according as it is in, what? Potency or inability. Whence in those things which, what? Approach the first perfect thing to it, God, there is found, what? Less of the notion of potency and ability. Faction, right, huh? In others, however, what? More. And thus also, in the former power of the soul, the grasping power, there was found less of the notion of what? Faction, huh? A full explanation of the whole thing, huh? Mind and shoot for a while, right? You see in the Old Testament there that the animals that ruminate were more acceptable, right? That's because of the spiritual signification, right? You have to ruminate in your mind, huh? Pour it up again and shoot again. To the second, it should be said that the desiring power is said to be more active because it is more a beginning of the, what? Exterior act. And this it has from the fact that it is, what? Yeah, the fact that it is more passive because it has a, what? Order to the thing as it is in itself, huh? Because through the exterior action, we arrive at the things themselves, right? Because I mangle with you and then I end up hitting you and... Conical penalty. The third arm is just saying that because they are both bodily, right, huh? One is not more so the other, huh? To the third it should be said, that it has been said in the first part, In two ways, can a, what? Tool or organ of the soul be, what? Changed. Changed. In one way, by a change that is spiritual, right? According as it receives the, what? Intention of the thing, right? And this is, per se, found in the act of the sense power of grasping. Just as the eye is, what? Visible. Not that it itself is, what? Call it, right, huh? But that's that it receives the intention of the color. When he used to talk about knowing, he used to define it sometimes like this way, by saying that knowing is receiving the form of another as, what? Other, right? Yeah. So, when I receive the shape of that painting over there, which is rectangular, right? Does my eye become rectangular? You don't receive the form of another as your own, right? That would be kind of opposed to it. And let's take an example, you know, of something which is more material. In most material, the sense is kind of the sense of touch, right? And you get into the shower, right? And you have the water on. And after, in a while, maybe you, what? Turn up the heat of the water, right? And that's because you're not, what? Feeding the heat of the, or the warmth of the water as much. Because it's become, what? Your warmth, right? Right, huh? So you have to receive the warmth of the water as the warmth of the water, not as the warmth of your own body. And insofar as you receive the warmth of the water as the warmth of your own body, your body's warmed up, then you don't feel the warmth so much, right, huh? See? And that you're not really knowing, right? So, in knowing, you're receiving the form of another, not as your own, right, huh? It's like the frog in the pan, right? What? The frog in the pan, you turn up a little by little by little by little. He doesn't jump out. That's what they say. Oh, I see. Okay, so the eye is moved by the color, but not so that it becomes color itself, right, huh? And there is another natural change of the organ insofar as the organ is changed as regards its own, what, natural disposition when it is, for example, heated or what? Oh, you know, infrigidated, huh? Or another way, what, changed and dried out. And this change, or achigen, right, has itself to the act of the, what? Yeah. Yeah. You see? Because it doesn't help you to know it, right? If I receive the heat of the water in the shower there as the heat of my own body, it impedes my, what, feeding that, right? Okay. Just as if my eye became a sugary plum, you know, I wouldn't be able to taste the slave as well, right? Okay. So this is paratidans, as when the eye is fatigued, right, from a strong looking, right, huh? Or dissolved from the vehemence, the visible, right? Okay. Well, like when you hear, you know, they say these kids are going deaf in the ear when you hear the band, the side where they're exposed to the band. But we just noticed that down at my father's factory there, you know, some of these guys down there, you know, and they go, bam, bam, oh my God, how can they stand that? They don't hear it anymore. They don't hear it anymore, yeah. Oh, terrible thing. But to the act of the sense desiring power, per se, are ordered these, what, changes, right? So when a person is afraid, maybe you may have that tremble, coolnessness, that's part of what the emotion is, right, involves the body. Whence in the definition of the emotions of the desiring power, materially is laid down some natural, what, change of the organ. This is the old example that I was said to be, what, bubbling up of the blood around the heart, right, yeah, okay? Well, your heart's pumping, you're afraid, right, yeah? Remember having a little kid who's afraid of the dog, you know, feel them, you know, feel the, the way they're, the body's shivering, your spirit, huh? Yes, they can come with these beasts, you know? Whence it is clear that the notion of passion is more found in the act of the sense desiring power than in the act of the, what, grasping sense power. Even though both are the act of the, what, yeah, okay, so the natural change of the body is more appropriate to me. Got to stop nice there? Yeah. Okay. The course is becoming more passionate, right? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas de Ogracias. God, our Enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds. Order and illumine our images and arouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand all that you have written. Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Amen. I did a Mass this morning, where Moses is standing up to God there, you know. You're living here. Hold back that wrath, you know. Oh, yeah. I think he actually has a passion of anger, right? Yeah. Don't let the Egyptians say, you know, you let him out to the death of theirs just to get rid of him. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So he's got guns. There's a reason for them. But you get the impression, though. Moses really is somebody, you know, an intercessor like that for you. I mean, it's, you know, something, you know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, he appeals to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, he says in the text. Okay, I guess we're in the Article 3 here in Question 22, right? To the third, then, when it goes forward, thus, it seems that passion is not more in the sense desiring power than in the understanding desiring power, right? For Dionysius says in the second chapter, the divine names, that Herotheus, right, is what? Taught from a certain divine, what? Yeah. Not only learning, but also undergoing divine things. That's a beautiful text from Dionysius. But the passion of divine things, the undergoing divine things, cannot pertain to the sense desiring power, whose object is a sensible good. Therefore, passion is in the, what, intellectual appetite, desiring power, just as in the sense desiring power, right? Moreover, as an active thing is more potent, so the undergoing is stronger, right? But the object of the intellectual desiring power, which is the universal good, is more, what, potent, an active thing, than the object of the sense desiring power, which is a particular good, right? Therefore, the notion of passion, therefore, the notion of passion is more found in the intellectual desiring power than in the sense desiring power. Moreover, joy and love are said to be said in what? Passions, right? But these are found in the intellectual desiring power, and not only in the sense desiring power. Otherwise, they would not be attributed in Scripture to God and the angels. Therefore, passions are not more in the sense desiring power than in the understanding desiring power. This is forgetting the first meaning of passio, right? Which involves the body, right? But against this is what Damascene says in the second book, describing the, what, animal passions, right? That passio, passion undergoing, is a motion of the sensible desiring power, right? On the imagination of the good or the bad. And in another place, passion is the motion of the irrational soul through the suspicion of good or bad, right? You know, Thomas answers simply, that passion is properly found where there is a bodily, what, change, huh? You know, it's kind of, some student there, Wednesday night there, asked me to add something on the, you know, text on my own, and the words equivocal by reason, right? And so I found one in my thing and brushed it up a bit and so on. But, you know, I was thinking of how it's different, huh? The way that you have a fundamental or a first meaning, you know, in the different kinds. So, I mean, if you have, you know, one where something is said equivocally by reason of its ratio to another thing, or by other ratios to the same thing, right? That to which you have a ratio is in the definition of the other, right? So, Thomas' example is that of being said of substance and quantity. It's a quantity by reason of its ratio to substance. It's the measure or the size of substance, right? So, substance is in its very definition. So, substance is the first meaning there of what, or fundamental meaning of being, right? If you have things with other ratios to the same thing, like being is a sort of quantity and quality. One is the measure of substance. The other is the disposition of substance, right? Again, substance is first in definition, right? When you get to these most interesting names where you have a likeness of what? What? Ratios, right? Then the first one is the one that is most, what? Sensible, right? Okay? So, when you take, for example, before there in the 12th chapter, the categories, right? What's the first meaning of before? Time or in motion. Yeah, yeah. And as Shakespeare says, things in motion sooner catch the eye, but not stirs, right? So, it's the very definition of time, so before and after there, right? So, that's the first meaning, right? Or, when Thomas orders the meanings of what? Being in, right? He starts with the one that Aristotle sees as being first also. We're in this room. Okay? There are teeth in my mouth, right? And you start with things that are more sensible, right? Okay? But then you get to these ones where it becomes equivocal by dropping out part of the meaning. And this is the example of pasio, right? Well, the first meaning of pasio involves not that you're acting upon something, but that you're changing that thing, right? And that you're changing it for the worse, right? And then you drop off the idea of the worse, but keep the idea of changing, right? And finally, you stop that, and then you're just kind of receiving and being perfected, right? What should we see, right? And you say, well, if you're dropping out some of the meanings, you go on, why wouldn't that come first, right? Like when Thomas was explaining, he said, communitaire, right? And then, mean is probably appropriate. It's like, was it a more general, enter into the particular, right? Well, I think you might think that at first, but maybe the more concrete one is what? Closer senses, right? So that I'm acting upon you when I stick my pin into you, or I stick my knife into you. It's more clear to you that I'm acting upon you than when you see me, right? And it's more sensible, right? It's more sensible to be hit with a, to receive a pin or a knife than to receive the shape of me in your eye, right? So that's going to be like the first meaning, right? And you kind of carry it over, right? So the first meaning of passio involves this, what, bodily change, right? Which is found, he says, in the acts of the sense power, right? There's a bodily change, right? And not only a, what, spiritual change, right? As there is in the senses apprehending something, huh? But it's also a natural change, huh? But in the act of the intellectual desiring power, there is not required of some, what, bodily change, right? Because this kind of desiring power is not the power of some organ, some bodily ring. Once it is clear that the notion of passion is more properly found in the act of the sense power than the understanding desiring power. And then he follows the authority to the unseen, right? As is clear to the definitions of the unseen that were brought out in the siddhanta there, huh? And so when you apply that first one of Dionysius, right, huh? I think there's a lot. If you understood me, Dan, you said it doesn't go into here, because it's not, it's purpose, right? He says, that passio divinorum, it says to be a, what? An affection to divine things, right? And I suppose you're thinking more of the fact that you're undergoing more with the desiring power than with the knowing power, right? And so if you have this wisdom that is tied up with charity, right? Like the Holy Spirit's gift of wisdom, right? Then you're kind of having a, what? A knowledge of God, right? Because you're undergoing this love for God, right? So there's some things to be said about what he's saying there, right? But it's a, what? Affectio, he says, to divine things, right? And a union to it through, what? Love, huh? Which nevertheless comes about without a, what? Bodily change, right? So that's the idea of passio, right? The original meaning, right? And then again he says in regard to the second one. That the magnitude of a passion not only depends upon the power of the agent, but also on the, what? Patient undergo. Because those things which are very, what? Sensitive, you might say, right? Suffer much, run to go much, even from likely active things, huh? So although the object of the understanding, desiring power, is more active than the object of the sense power, right? Which he admits. Nevertheless, the sense power is more, what? Passive, huh? So it's falling from the possibilitate, what's the emphasis, right? That's more effective, huh? Now to the third, it should be said that love and joy, and others of this sort, when they are attributed to God or the angels, or even to men, according to the intellectual desiring power, signify a, what? Simple act of the will, with the likeness of an effect, right? Without, what? Passion. Once Augustine says in the ninth book of the city of God, that the holy angels, without anger punish, and without the, what, compassion and misery, they come to our help, right? And nevertheless, right, the names of these passions, right, by the custom of human speech, right, also are, what, usurped in them, right, huh? On account of a certain likeness of the things done, right, but not on account of the infirmity of the affections, right? I was looking at that thing from the, the Committee on Doctrine there, you know, for the American Catholic bishops, right? Where they're examining that book by that theologian at Fordham there, what's your name, Sister? Sister Mary Ann, Sister Mary Ann, Frank. Was it Sister Elizabeth Johnson, something like that? But anyway, the first thing they criticize, of course, is that she's saying that everything said of God is a really metaphor, right? She's denying that she's saying that, but that they give the affections, you know, to indicate, that's, it doesn't mean it's a metaphor, but I mean, she's saying the things that can be said literally to God, right? You know, and things of that sort. And so, all you can say is like, you know, God's angry or something like that, right? But you can't say something properly to God, huh? Thomas is a beautiful place there where, whereas I'm reading one of the texts in the, the very topic it was, where he's talking about how there are some names who's, like the word, say, good, good, wise, and so on. These names are first placed upon something in creatures, right? But the thing meant by these words, right, is found more in God than in the creature, and is found first in God, right? So here's established pursuing wisdom there, in the, in the 14 books of wisdom, and he says wisdom is the most divine knowledge, because it's the knowledge about God, and the knowledge that God most of all has, right? Well, he placed wisdom first upon the human knowledge, right? The human knowledge of the first cause, but knowledge of the first cause is found most of all on God, and, but first of all on God, right? Okay, okay. Well, when you say, you know, that the, the Lord is my rock, well, then the, the meaning of the word rock is not really found in God, and it means something in the material world, right? And there's some likeness of God to a rock because of the solidity of the rock, and it's supporting things and so on, right? Right, yeah. So metaphorically, rock is said of what? God. God, yeah. Now, if you take, if you take something like good or just, right, this is first placed upon something human, right? And, but the, so in the order of the imposition of the name, the place of the name upon it, it's placed upon something in the creatures, and then later on placed upon God, right? But what is signified by the word just, right, or what is signified by the word knowing, or whatever it is, is actually found more in God than in the creature, and it's found first in God, right? You know, you know, this is all gone with, with the sister there for, before him, right, you know? You didn't finish her philosophy. Everything just that, you know, just, just a metaphor, yeah. This is kind of the despair of the moderns, having read about anything, most of all, one of them. Yeah, yeah. Just a couple years ago. Yeah, since the last year was in the news, she got all angry at the bishop for quashing the book because... She misunderstood me, she said. They should have dialogued, they didn't dialogued, and then came back, yeah, you should have initiated the dialog by asking for an intermoder, and she wouldn't do that. That's her problem. Okay, now we go to question, what, 23, huh? The difference of the passions to each other, right, huh?