Habitude X

 To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that habitude can be generated through one act. For demonstration is an act of reason. But through one demonstration is caused the knowledge [scientiam] that is the habitude of one conclusion. Therefore habitudes is able to be caused from one act.

Further, just as one habitude happens to increase through multiplication, so an act happens to increase through intension. But acts being multiplied, habitude is generated. Therefore if one act is intensified a lot, it could be a generative cause of habitude.

Further, health and illness are sorts of habitude. But from one act a man happens to be healed or sickened. Therefore one act is able to cause habitude.

But contrariwise is what the Philosopher says in Ethic. I, that neither one swallow nor one day makes a spring, so certainly neither one day nor a short time makes beatitude or happiness. But beatitude is working according to a habitude of complete virtue, as is said in Ethic. I. Therefore the habitude, and for the same reason any other habitude, is not caused through one act.

I reply that it must be said that, just as has already been said, habitude is generated through act inasmuch as passive power is moved from some active principle. But in order for any quality to be caused in the passive, it is needful that the active wholly overcome the passive. Thus we see that because fire cannot at once overcome its combustible, it does not at once inflame it, but bit by bit casts down contrary dispositions so that, wholly overcoming it, it may impress its similitude on it. But it is manifest that the active principle that is reason, is not able wholly to overcome the appetitive power in one act because the appetitive power has itself in many ways and to many things; but through reason is judged, in one act, that something is sought [appetendum] according to determinate reasons and circumstances. Thus from this the appetitive power is not wholly overcome, so as to be brought mostly to the same thing, by the way of nature, as pertains to the habitude of virtue. And therefore the habitude of virtue is not able to through one act, but through many. 

But in the apprehensive powers it must be considered that the passive is twofold, one of which is the possible intellect itself, but another intellect which Aristotle calls passive, which is particular reason, that is, the cogitative impulse along with the memorative and the imaginative. Therefore with respect to the first passive, there is able to be some active that by one act wholly overcomes the power of its passive, as one proposition known through itself [per se nota] convinces the intellect to assent firmly to a conclusion, which indeed a probable proposition does not do. Thus it is needful for opinionative habitude to be caused from many acts of reason, even on the part of the possible intellect, but habitude of knowledge [habitum scientiae] is possibly caused from one act of reason as regards teh possible intellect. But as regards inferior apprehensive impulses, it is necessary to reiterate the same act many times so that something may be impressed firmly on the memory. Thus the Philosophers in the book on memory and recollection says meditation confirms memory. 

But bodily habitude is possibly caused from one act, if the active is of great force, as sometimes strong medicine at once induces health.

And from this is obvious the response to the objections.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.51.3, my translation. The Dominican Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here.]

Thus we get a basic account of habituation, and also the first reason why it was necessary to determine that habitudes are qualities. Qualities admit of contraries, and thus when you induce a qualitative disposition in anything, you have to do so against any contrary disposition it might happen to have. Thus, where such contrary dispositions exist, you have to act enough to overcome the contrariety, whatever it may be, and depending on the situation, it may take many actions to do so. In the case of the intellect affecting appetitive powers, there need to be many actions, as also there will need to be many actions for the internal senses, and, depending on the situation, possibly the body.  

But in purely intellectual matters that are certain, it is possible, as when understanding a proof at once gives you knowledge, for the habitude to arise from a single action. In other cases, as in probable matters, it takes many actions. (St. Thomas elsewhere characterizes opinion as arising from when we have reasons on both sides, but greater on one side, so this is again a case of action overcoming contrary disposition.)

A Poem Re-Draft

 A Bit of Thanksgiving 

 I thank you, Lord, for fruitful fields,
for wide and healthful skies,
and for the hopes that we can have
that are not marred by lies.
And thank you, God, for mysteries
still left for us to solve
upon this awesome floating ball
that rotates and revolves. 

 Thank you, Lord, for infant smiles
and children bright at play;
thank you for the silly souls
who goad us every day.
(We appreciate those most, O Lord,
those crosses that we bear,
and we thank you that we're not yet bald
from pulling out our hair.) 

 I thank you, Lord, for mercy!
It saves us from the brink;
and thank you, Lord, for righteous wrath --
we need more of it, I think.
But thank you for all gentle souls
who always tempers keep;
protect them, Lord, from the rest of us,
lest we kill them in their sleep. 

 I thank you, Lord, for cheerful sun
that rises every dawn,
and that my students learn to hide
the sound and sight of yawn;
that education is a joy
that overflows with awe,
and, on those crazy grading days,
that there are murder laws. 

 I thank you that we live here free
in houses without bars,
that there are things that we can own,
that no one owns the stars,
that joy and virtue freely flow
without a market price
while we have markets fully full
of grain and fruit and spice. 

 I thank you, Lord, for politics,
for presidents and such,
that they work so hard to get their way,
that they never get it much;
yea, for the limits you have placed
on corruption, fraud, and spite,
that we need only deal with them
a dozen times each night. 

 I thank you for the not-quite-hinged,
the high-strung drama queen,
who overreacts ten times a day
(and twenty more if seen),
and for the fact we have the right,
however the world may go,
to stand our ground, though he may wail,
and simply tell him, 'No.' 

 For those who make such trouble, Lord,
I thank you, too, for them;
they force us to be on our toes
and keep us fit and slim.
I thank you for our heartache-pains,
for things that go awry,
and thank you for each helping hand,
however small and shy. 

 Thank you, Lord, for critics harsh
who attack with whip and flail;
and because of harsh reviewers, Lord,
I thank you too for hell.
And thank you, Lord, for stupid folk,
that we can clearly see
in blatant view the foolish things
from which none of us are free. 

 And thank you for those shocking times
when we pedants who lecture all
on every foolish folly
into those follies fall,
for it teaches us the wisdom
of gentleness's restraint
lest we in turn be painted
with the brush by which we paint. 

 Thank you for your graces,
the good of little things,
which even in harsh and hurtful times
can make us laugh and sing.
And thank you for all wonders
that stimulate the mind --
no matter the occasion,
new truths our minds may find. 

 But I thank you most for absurdities --
they overflow every bank,
so that if I thank you for each one,
I'll never cease to thank!
And thank you for sweet irony;
it gives the wit to see
that all the things we moan about
may be thanksgiving's seed. 

 But most of all, I thank you, Lord,
that long before we die,
we can see ourselves with wry regard,
and laugh until we cry.

Eucharisteite

 We call you, brothers, to caution the disorderly, soothe the dispirited, hold on to the weak, be undauntable toward all. See that no one gives bad for bad to anyone, but always pursue the good both toward each other and toward all. Always rejoice. Unceasingly pray. In everything be grateful because of the inclination of God toward you in Jesus Christ. Do not suppress the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but all things test; hold tight the good. Keep away from every form of wickedness.

[1 Thessalonians 5:14-22, my very rough translation. Lots of interesting words here. Oligopsychia is usually pusillanimity or petty-mindedness, but the verb suggests that it is here indicating a weakness rather than a vice. 'Dispirited' is my guess, but I think it's probably reasonably close to what is intended. Antechesthe, here translated as 'hold on to', literally means to adhere or stick to something, and can be translated as 'care for', as well. Makrothymia is often translated as 'patience', but it's an active patience -- greatness of thymos, or great-spiritedness, the thymos being the part of you that rises to challenges. So for makrothymeite I've tried to capture some of that, with be undauntable. Chairete means 'rejoice'; but it's also related to the common Greek salutation. (Gabriel's Ave or Hail is in Greek Chaire.) 'Be grateful' is eucharisteite, which can also be translated as 'give thanks'.]

Habitude IX

 To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that no habitude is able to be caused by act. For a habitude is a sort of quality, as was said above. But every quality is caused in some subject inasmuch as it is receptive of something. Therefore since what acts does not receive something, but rather sends forth from itself, it seems that there is not able to be a habitude generated from act in an agent.

Further, that in which some quality is caused, is moved to that quality, as is obvious in a cooled or heated thing, but what produces the act causing the quality, moves, as is obvious with cooling and heating. Therefore if habitude were caused in something by its own act, it would follow that mover and moved, agent and patient, would be the same, which is impossible, as is said in Physic. VII.

Further, an effect is not able to be nobler than its cause. But habitude is nobler than act preceding habitude, which is obvious from this, that it renders act nobler. Therefore habitude is not able to be cause by an act preceding the habitude.

But contrariwise, the Philosopher in Ethic. II teaches that habitudes of virtues and vices are caused by acts.

I reply that it must be said that in an agent there is sometimes only the active principle of its act, as in fire there is only the active principle of heating. And in such an agent there is not able to be any habitude cause by its own act, and thus it is that natural things are not able to be accustoming or unaccustoming [consuescere vel dissuescere], as is said in Ethic. II. But some agent is found in which there is the active and passive principle of its act, as is obvious in human acts. For the acts of appetitive virtue proceed from the appetitive impulse [vi appetitiva] according as it is moved by the apprehensive impulse [vi apprehensiva] representing the object, and beyond this, the intellectual impulse [vis intellectiva], according as it reasons about conclusions has as its active principle a proposition known through itself [per se notam]. Thus from such acts habitudes are able to be caused in the agent, not indeed with respect to the first active principle, but with regard to the principle of the act that moves the moved. For everything that is endured and moved from another is disposed through the act of an agent; thus from multiplied acts there is generated a sort of quality in passive and moved power, which is called habitude; just as the habitudes of the moral virtues are caused in appetitive powers, inasmuch as they are moved by reason, and the habitudes of kinds of knowledge [scientiarum] are caused in the intellect, inasmuch as they are moved by first propositions.

Therefore to the first it must be said that the agent, inasmuch as it is agent, does not receivng something. But inasmuch as it acts as moved by another, it receives something from the mover, and so habitude is caused.

To the second it must be said that the same, according as it is same, is not able to be mover and moved. But nothing prevents the same being moved by itself according to diverse things, as is proved in Physic. VIII.

To the third it must be said that the act proceeding habitude, inasmuch as it proceeds from active principle, proceeds from a nobler principle than the generated habitude, just as reason itself is a nobler principle than the habitudes of moral virtues generated in appetitive impulse [vi appetitiva] by customary acts; and understanding of principles is a nobler principle than knowledge of conclusions [scientia conclusionum].

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.51.2, my translation; the Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.]

This, of course, gives us habitudes that are not natural in the sense that the previous article considered. It's easy to overlook, but this article is also an indirect discussion of free will and rational learning, which involve acts that cause habitudes.

The Wheel-Breaker

 Today is the feast of Queen Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Great Martyr, the patron saint of philosophers.

Raphael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Links of Note

 * Gregory B. Sadler, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Patroness of Christian Philosophers: Inspiration for Contemporary Christian Philosophy

* Daniel D. De Haan, Delectatio, gaudium, fruitio: Three kinds of pleasure for three kinds of knowledge in Thomas Aquinas (PDF)

* Virginia Weaver, Gender essentialism is inevitable -- and necessary for feminism, at "Overlong Memories"

* R. A. Nicolás-Francisco, On the Polish “Via Modalization” Approach to Paraconsistency (PDF)

* Ashley Frawley, Are We Not Catholics, Too?, at "Compact"

* Miguel Garcia-Godinez, Easy Social Ontology (PDF)

* Dirk Schlimm and David Waszek, John Venn's pluralism regarding logical forms (PDF)

* Tim Powers has a substack on writing fantasy. Orson Scott Card occasionally comments.

*Tim Juvshik, Why Be Realists About Artifact Kinds? (PDF)

* Bañezian Thomist, Domingo Báñez on the Logical Problem of the Trinity

Habitude VIII

Next we must consider the cause of habitudes. And first, as to their generation; second, as to their growth; third, as to their diminution and corruption. About the first, four questions are asked. First, whether any habitude is from nature. Second, whether any habitude is caused by acts. Third, whether habitude can be generated through one act. Fourth, whether any habitudes are infused into human beings by God.

To the first one proceeds thus. It seems that no habitude is from nature. For of those things that are from nature, the use is not subject to will. But habitude is that which one uses when one wishes, as the Commentator says on De Anima III. Therefore habitude is not from nature.

Further, nature does not do by two what it can do by one. But the powers of the soul are from nature. Therefore if the habitudes of the powers were from nature, habitude and power would be one.

Further, nature is not defective in matters of necessity. But habitudes are necessary for working well, as was said above. Therefore if any habitudes were from nature, it seems nature would not be defective in causing all necessary habitudes. But this is obviously false. Therefore habitudes are not from nature.

But contrariwise is that in Ethic. IV, among other habitudes is put understanding of principles, which is from nature, whence also first principles are said to be naturally cognized.

I reply that it must be said that something is able to be natural to someone in two ways. (1) In one way, according to the nature of the species, as it is natural for a human being to be risible, or fire to rise. (2) In another way, according to the nature of the individual, as it is natural for Socrates or Plato to be illness-prone or health-prone, according to his temperament [complexionem]. Again, according to both natures, something is able to be said to be natural in two ways, (i) in one way, because it is wholly from nature, (ii) in another way, because according to something it is from nature and according to something it is from an external principle; just as when someone is healed through himself, health is wholly from nature, but when someone is healed through the help of medicine, health is partly from nature and partly from external principle.

So, therefore, if we speak of habitude according as it is a disposition of a subject ordered to form or nature, in any of the aforesaid ways habitude can happen to be natural.  For there is some natural disposition that is due to human species, outside of which no human being is found. And this is natural according to the nature of the species. But because such a disposition has a certain latitude, it happens that diverse gradations of this sort of disposition can be appropriate to diverse human beings according to the nature of the individual. And this sort of disposition is able to be either wholly from nature or partly from nature and partly from exterior principle, as was said of those who were healed through art.

But habitude that is a disposition to working, whose subject is a power of the soul, as was said, is able to be natural both according to the nature of the species and according to the nature of the individual: According to the nature of the species, according as it is held on the part of the soul itself, which, as it is the form of the body, is a specific principle; but according to the nature of the individual, on the part of the body, which is the material principle. But in neither way does it happen in human beings that there are natural habitudes so that they are entirely from nature. (In angels this does happen, in that they have naturally innate [inditus] intelligible species, which do not belong to the human soul, as was said in the first place.) 

There are therefore in human beings some natural habitudes as it were existing partly from nature and partly from external principle, in one way in the apprehensive powers and in another in the appetitive powers. For in apprehensive powers there is able to be natural habitude according to incipience [inchoationem], both according to the nature of the species and according to the nature of the individual: according to the nature of the species, on the part of the soul itself, as the understanding of principles is said to be natural habitude. For from the nature of the intellectual soul itself, it is appropriate that a human being, cognizing what is whole and what is part, cognizes that every whole is greater than its part, and likewise in other things. But what is whole and what is part, he is not able to cognize save through intelligible species received from phantasms. And because of this is the Philosopher, at the end of the Posterior [Analytics], shows that cognition of principles comes to us from the senses.  But according to the nature of the individual, there is some cognitive habitude according to natural incipience, inasmuch as one human being from the disposition of organs is more apt to understand well than another, inasmuch as we need sensitive virtues for the working of the intellect.

But in the appetitive powers, there is no natural habitude according to incipience on the part of the soul itself according to the substance of the habitude itself, but only as to certain principles of it, as principles of common right are said to be seminal virtues. And this is because inclination to proper objects, which seems to be incipience of habitude, does not pertain to habitude, but pertains more to the very notion of powers. But on the part of the body, according to the nature of the individual, there are some appetitive habitudes according to natural incipience. For some are disposed from their own bodily temperament to chastity or gentleness or to some such.

To the first, therefore, it must be said that this objection proceeds from nature as divided over against reason and will, whereas reason and will themselves pertain to human nature.

To the second it must be said that something is able to be naturally superadded to power that nevertheless is not able to pertain to the power itself, as in angels it is not able to pertain to some intellectual power that it be through itself cognizant of everything, because that would need to be the act of everything, which is God's alone. For that by which something is cognized needs to be the actual similitude of what is cognized, whence it would follow, if the power of the angel through itself cognized everything, that it would be the similitude and act of everything. Hence it needs to be the case that some intelligible species, which are the similitudes of intellectual things, be superadded to the intellectual power itself, because through its participation of divine wisdom, and not through its own essence, their intellects can be actual for those things which they understand. And so it is obvious that not everything that pertains to natural aptitude is able to pertain to power.

To the third it must be said that nature does not equally have itself to causing all the diversity of habitudes, because some are able to be caused by nature, some not, as was said above. And thus it does not follow that if some habitudes are natural, all are natural.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.51.1. The Dominican Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here.]

So this mazy article is a partial taxonomy of habitudes. We are considering only those habitudes in some way caused by nature, and we have to consider a prior distinction in habitudes, namely, habitudes insofar as they are ordered to nature or form, and habitudes insofar as they are ordered to operation. The classification looks something along these lines:

NATURAL HABITUDES INSOFAR AS THEY ARE ORDERED TO NATURE

(1) According to the nature of the species
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (e.g., natural disposition pertaining to human species, presumably those natural balances that are necessary for vital human functions)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (e.g., one's vital functions as restored or corrected by medicine)

(2) According to the nature of the individual
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (e.g., variant forms arising from the latitude of the natural disposition pertaining to human species, such as sickly or healthy physical temperament)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (perhaps as examples we could include healthiness in part from dietary regimen, or physical fitness, which refine the natural health of the body)

NATUR AL HABITUDES INSOFAR AS THEY ARE ORDERED TO OPERATION

(1) According to the nature of the species (in human beings, on the part of the soul)
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (do not exist in human beings, although angels have them, e.g., innate intelligible species through which the angel understands by nature)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (in natural incipience or inchoation)
--- --- --- --- (a) in apprehensive powers (e.g., understanding of first principles)
--- --- --- --- (b) in appetitive powers (do not properly exist, although in a loose sense seminal virtues in the apprehensive powers, insofar as they prepare for appetitive operation, can be considered as standing proxy for them)

(2) According to the nature of the individual (on the part of the body)
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (do not properly exist)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (in natural incipience or inchoation)
--- --- --- --- (a) in apprehensive powers (e.g., sensitive virtues, i.e., better disposition of the physical organs so as to facilitate understanding, like quickness of imagination or clarity of memory)
--- --- --- --- (b) in appetitive powers (e.g., bodily temperaments facilitating character)

So since 1.i, 1.ii.b, and 2.i  of those ordered to operation are empty classes for human beings, there are seven kinds of natural human habitudes. This is, of course, not a complete taxonomy of habitude, but only covers natural habitudes; there are other habitudes that are acquired in ways that make them not natural in any of these senses, which the next articles will go on to discuss. From what we see here, the natural habitudes insofar as they are ordered to nature are the principal foundation for health and medicine; the natural habitudes insofar as they are ordered to operation are the principal foundations for human social and cognitive life; but we should not consider this as a sharp separation (e.g., since we are naturally social, there could be socially-oriented natural habitudes ordered to nature, and 2.ii.a and 2.ii.b clearly intersect with medical concerns).

An interesting question for understanding how natural habitudes work in principle is how many kinds of natural habitude angels have. As far as I know, St. Thomas never addresses this, but I am inclined to say four: they can have all of the natural habitudes insofar as they are ordered to nature, but there is no distinction between individual and species at the angelic level, at least in St. Thomas's account -- every individual angel just is its own species of angel, carrying everything that is possible to that species. Thus these collapse to two. The same occurs for natural habitudes according to operation, but the reason for denying the existence of 1.ii.b to human beings seems quite general and thus would apply to angels. So of those natural habitudes, angels would have at least innate intelligible species (1.i) and innate apprehensive habitudes for understanding (1.ii.a). One could perhaps argue that these latter also collapse in angelic intellects; but I think both angelic self-knowledge and angelic communication, as St. Thomas characterizes them, allow for 1.ii.a that is not 1.i.