Happy Tuesday!
Here we are, at the threshold of Spring. The Winter has yet to blow his last, dying breaths, and blow them he will, but the blossoming buds signal his inevitable defeat.
This chapter, the third and final chapter of my senior thesis from Christendom College, is strongly influenced by a point that was very much emphasized, indeed, drilled into my brain, by Dr. Cuddeback when I took his classes as an underclassman. This point is, as he constantly impressed upon us, that appetite affects vision. No, not just your bodily appetite for food, although it’s a part of it, but the appetites of your mind, body, and soul; the appetites that yearn to be satisfied by the true, the good, and the beautiful. I knew early on that I wanted to write my thesis on something related to language, but this premise on the relationship between appetite and vision was something that only entered the game a few weeks into my thesis semester. I hope you enjoy!
In mysterio Verbi,
James
Purifying the Prism
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated, “If we live truly, we shall see truly.” [1] While this statement is true at face value, Emerson did not intend its meaning in the same sense that Aristotle and Aquinas meant it, namely, that a man’s appetite affects his vision of the good. In the preceding chapter, it was shown that man interacts with reality in a triadic relationship, in general. The problem that was not raised, however, concerns why man fails to understand essentials or why he fails to live up to his words. In the introduction of this thesis (not included in TBB content), it was stated that men no longer trust one another’s words and, thus, relationships between men are jeopardized. While the proposed key to the semantic problem is the semantic triangle, as was demonstrated in chapter two, the moral problem now resides in the need for virtue, namely prudence, to clear away the vines of vice that enwrap and fracture this prism. Ideally, with prudence purging the prism of vice, man can see more clearly through the chaos of the world and apprehend the essentials of reality, of things, and, with that, their proper ends. Ultimately, man is to be able to speak of objective reality as it is, on the condition that he can see it as it is. That said, I aim to discuss three points in this chapter: first, as a basis, the Thomistic-Aristotelian notion of prudence as both an intellectual and moral virtue; second, the point that prudence involves apprehending essentials, even in language, among accidentals and thus apprehends ends; and my third point, that by apprehending essentials and ends through prudence, man unites the relationship between his words and reality more perfectly.
As is evidently clear, men, as rational animals in a life-death reality, use language for the sake of self-preservation. Yet, as Picard mentions in chapter one of this paper, “language contains more than man can use,” meaning that the human language transcends the merely physical world and points to something beyond merely surviving – it points, for one, to the notion of living well, which is an idea that goes beyond just fulfilling material needs, and it necessitates human acts of the intellect and the will. To ‘live well,’ one must cultivate the habit of prudence, for, as Aquinas believes, it is the most necessary virtue in such an enterprise.
“It should be said that prudence is a virtue most necessary for human life, for to live well consists of acting well, and this involves not only what one does but how one does it, acting according to right choice and not only from impulse or passion. Since choice is of means to the end, rectitude of choice requires two things, namely, a fitting end and that it be fittingly ordered to that end. A man is fittingly disposed to the fitting end by a virtue which perfects the appetitive part of the soul, whose object is the good and end. In order that he be fittingly ordered to the fitting end a man must be directly disposed by a habit of reason because deliberation and choice, which bear on means, are acts of reason. Therefore, it is necessary that there be an intellectual virtue in reason by which reason is perfected in order that it be fittingly related to the things that are for the sake of the end. And this virtue is prudence. Hence prudence is a virtue necessary for living well.” [2]
From this passage, one sees how prudence can be summed up as both a moral and an intellectual virtue. Prudence is a moral virtue in the sense that it involves ordering human actions toward an end, that of living well, which entails a moral code, a type of subscribed pedagogy, for reaching this end. On the other hand, prudence is an intellectual virtue in the sense that it involves reasoning, which seems clear enough.
From these points arises Aristotle’s third operation of the intellect, left unsaid until now (the first two were discussed in chapter two), which is, “that of reasoning, by which reason proceeds from what is known to the investigation of things that are unknown.” Aquinas goes on to explain that Aristotle’s second operation of the intellect, “is ordered to the third, for clearly we must proceed from some known truth to which the intellect assents in order to have certitude about something not yet known.” [3] The “known truth” could refer, then, to knowing through the senses, i.e., experiencing something sensually or presently apparent. If this is the case, Aristotle could plausibly mean “not yet known” to be the ends of things, which cannot be known presently. One might know the essence of something and, consequently, its proper end, but one cannot be sure that such an end will come about, thus making it unknown in some sense. If knowing essences, which are apprehended through the senses, entails also knowing the essences’ respective ends, it would follow that the third operation of the intellect must inevitably derive from the first operation of the intellect: that of knowing ends. One does not grasp the proper end of a thing the moment one understands its essence. At first instance, the end is unknown, unlike an angel who knows both essence and end immediately, but man must reason and deliberate to a proper end from the known essence; the knowledge of man is processional, i.e., it is a process. The proper end of a thing lies latently in its essence, or, in other words, the end lies potentially in the realized essence. The first operation of the intellect grasps the essence, the third operation reasons to its end based upon the work of the first operation. As will be demonstrated, prudence is required in both cases.
Aristotle’s trifold operation of the intellect answers, then, the intellectual facet of prudence, but there is also the moral facet of prudence mentioned above by Aquinas. Prudence, as a virtue, is likewise a habit and a capacity. Unlike other capacities, however, such as art, prudence involves a use according to Aquinas.
“Some habits have the note of virtue solely from the fact that they give the capacity to do well, whereas others give not only the capacity but also the use. Art gives the capacity only for a good work because it does not engage appetite, but prudence not only gives the capacity for doing well, but also use, for it looks to appetite, since it presupposes the rectitude of appetite.”
Art here, in this sense, could also be synonymous to doing modern science, which is capable of a good work, e.g., invention of cars, medical technology, etc., but only of a good work. One should always be attentive to the transgression of overstepping boundaries when scientists use practice science in contradiction to moral laws, e.g., in vitro fertilization. For someone to discern the boundaries of each art, however, prudence is a fundamental presupposition. While the arts hold no authority over the moral (they certainly have an influence over moral dispositions, however), the moral certainly has a place within prudence, as is further expounded upon by Aquinas.
“In human acts, ends function as principles do in speculative matters, as is said in Ethics 7.8. That is why a man must be well disposed with respect to ends, something due to right appetite, if he is to have prudence which is right reason concerning things to be done. Therefore, moral virtue, which rectifies appetite, is required for prudence.” [4]
While prudence generally appears to involve good acting at a practical level, prudence also needs good moral acting for it to holistically grow and develop in its truist form. Through this passages, one can see, then, that there appears to be a mutually reciprocating relationship between a rectified appetite and prudence; the more that we act rightly, the more our appetite is rectified, and from this our vision is rectified to see what is prudent. Prudence is the primary agent in an ecology of moral virtues. As such, by the rectification of all things pertaining to its guidance, i.e., the appetites, prudence itself is more and more rectified.
It is in the character of prudence’s ability to apprehend the essential natures of things that makes it the guide and the primary agent virtue of all the other virtues and arts. While the scientist, for example, may excel in his practice, be it biology or neurology, it is the wisdom of prudence that guides his vision of the moral good, of seeing things for what they are. To iterate a point from Sokolowski, it is by a person’s state of virtue, as opposed to vice, that he or she is able discern the virtue of a situation, that is, its essential character.
“Aristotle observes that there are many ways of failing in what we do, but few or only one way of being good; see Nicomachean Ethics 2.6.1106b28-31. Virtuous...agents are those who can bring out the essentials of a situation calling for action, while the...vicious are those who let the situation fall apart in its accidentalities.” [5]
The thick mist of accidentals leads many astray, but it is also among, or within, the crowds of accidentals that essences and forms reside. They can exist no other way, at least in this material world. Therefore, the only guide to seeing essences through the fog of accidentals lies in one’s capacity to form moral habits, especially prudence. Prudence, in this regard, could be summed up as a “rational ethics,” as Alasdair MacIntyre writes, which is a means of bringing about the proper ends of things. [6] Sokolowski additionally states that “Both the competent and the incompetent persons are actively engaged with the issue, but the mist of the accidental is too thick for the incompetent person to penetrate.” [7] So, again, it is by the capability, i.e., the competency, of the prudential agent that he or she can grasp ‘the point’ of each and every situation.
Furthermore, it is by apprehending essences of things that one reasons to and foresees the respective ends of those same things. For example, both Augustine and Aquinas saw man’s essence to be a rational creature, which led them to the conclusion that contemplation was the highest end of all man’s activities. [8] Aristotle also posited this belief.[9] The modern philosophers and scientists, on the other hand, reject that man’s rationality had such a capability and its function is merely mechanical. MacIntyre summarizes this rejectionist view of the modernists.
“Reason does not comprehend essences or transitions from potentiality to act; these concepts belong to the despised conceptual scheme of scholasticism. Hence anti-Aristotelian science sets strict boundaries to the power of reason. Reason is calculative; it can assess truths of fact and mathematical relations but nothing more. In the realm of practice therefore it can speak only of means. About ends it must be silent.” [10]
From this stance, the modernists also hold that, “no valid argument can move from entirely factual premises to any moral or evaluative conclusion,” which would directly oppose the Thomistic-Aristotelian view that posits essence-to-ends. The modern view, in its more radically inevitable form, rejects that reason, which is sheerly calculative and factual, could ever “reason” to something moral, or to something that does not appear in the premises. Such views, in all their forms, are basically rejections of the is-ought fallacy, or what MacIntyre calls the “ought-from-is” argument. MacIntyre states in his defense of Aristotle, however, that “there are several types of valid argument in which some element may appear in a conclusion which is not present in the premises.” [11] Thus, the proper and essential function of a thing reveals, in some part, the end of that thing.
The “ought-from-is” argument, then, segues into my third and final point: that the prudent man, who discerns essences and ends, an ought-from-is, is the same agent that unites language and reality. Prudence is the guide of man, who, in turn, mediates the union between signifier and signified. To illustrate this, I want to raise two points: first, prudence is in man and is not something extraneous to him; second, there is a triadic relationship between prudence, essences, and ends that corresponds to the triadic relationship of man, signifiers, and the signified.
The first point, that prudence is within man, finds its primary source in the authority of the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition. In the words of Aquinas, “The good of prudence is in the agent himself.” [12] The notion here carries the important implication that man is free, not in the radical existentialist form of freedom, but free to seek out, or not to seek out, his highest end according to his nature, i.e., his essence. It also entails that prudence is not an external force outside of us, but an inherent capability sown in our souls. Whether we do or do not choose to nurture and to develop this inhering capability is up to each one of us individually. This capability comes from our reason. No other earthly creature can apprehend its end in the same way that a human can, and, from this, choose to fulfill or reject that perceived and proper end. Animals, excluding man, the rational animal, do not live by distinctions but simply by ‘instinctions.’
There is something in man’s reason that, as Sokolowski writes, “is manifested in many other ways besides calculation and inference.” From this point, Sokolowski continues, “our rationality is exhibited and our personhood is made manifest in our very ability to use the first-person pronoun.” But within the I, the first-person pronoun, there is also a dual-faceted implication, that is, two different ways of using the term, according to Sokolowski: “informational” and “declarative.” While both uses of the term entail man’s rationality, the latter includes a huge intimation, and that is the profound assertion of the moral. Sokolowski writes that this latter usage, “expresses me, the speaker, as a rational agent and hence as a person or an agent of truth...this usage does not say that I am a rational agent; it does not predicate rational agency of me; rather, it directly expresses me as acting as a rational agent.” The declarative use of the term ‘I’ unites description and act. Whether the agent is speaking rationally or not, the first-person pronoun betrays humanity’s inherent rationality, even if mostly unrealized. Put briefly, Sokolowski declares that “It shows and does not tell.” [13]
Related to this inherent character of man is Aristotle’s notion of the subject-predicate aspect of language. As Aquinas estimates, Aristotle posits names for subjects and verbs and predications as the principle, and most primordial, parts of the human language. No other parts of language are essential in forming “simple speech.” Language can be reduced to this subject-predicate form. [14] Aristotle’s first two operations of the intellect are the first means, further, by which simple speech is possible. Prudence within man, who is the active and declaring “I,” then, is used to apprehend the essence of a thing and by understanding the thing can declare what it is and, perhaps, why it is. The simple, fundamental underlayment of speech is this subject-predicate form of speech. From this triadic relation there subsists, one could say, a prudential triangle: prudence, essence, and end.
The prudential triangle, then, brings us back to the phenomenon of the mysterious “is,” the immaterial, unifying fixture of the signifier and signified discussed in chapter two. While prudence is the mediator and means between the essence and end, prudence only exists in a virtuous man, as stated earlier. By means of prudence, then, man apprehends the essences and ends of things, and from this he declares them to be what they are to the best of his ability. Man “apposes,” as phrased by Percy earlier, a signifier to the signified. In the broader context of this concept, the prudential triangle could be said to be a microcosm of the semantic triangle, but it is within man.
To clarify: prudence grasps and understands essences but also the essential ends (the teloi) that naturally follow from, and flows from, the essence. Prudence is within man as a means and man uses this means to understand things, and, from this point, names the things in accord with the wholeness of what they are, both essence and end. The logos within things, their raison d’etre, is interpreted by man and given a new form in language that is both natural by nature and conventional by man; the natural and conventional are united more perfectly the better one’s use of language. That said, the more conformed to nature a language is, the greater its capability to express the truths of nature. As Percy declares, “there is a difference between the way things are and saying the way things are.” [15] There is certainly more than one way of saying the way things are, indeed, there are many ways of saying the way things are, but they could all be representing the same thing if they correctly interpret the logos of nature. For example, there are plenty of ways to paint a beautiful face, but some versions represent it, or certain characteristics, better and more clearly than the others.
To conclude, then, this chapter is based on the notion that a man’s appetite affects his vision of the good, and so man’s appetite must be rectified in order that he may see the good for what it is. If prudence is not guiding language and human action, then the two inevitably become corrupt. But by what means is man’s appetite to be rectified? The answer is by prudence, which, as an intellectual virtue, sees the good of things clearly and the proper ends of things through their essences. As a moral virtue within man, on the other hand, a prudent man can ideally choose that which he sees as the good, the better, and, sometimes, the best. The essences of things are made manifest to us by accidentals; the natural and the conventional are fittingly entwined. As Sokolowski articulates, “It is never a matter of having the culture here and the nature there, but of distinguishing the two within a context, and of distinguishing the essential and the accidental in regard to each other.” [16] Prudence thus makes such distinctions, not just in culture, but also in language. Furthermore, as Josef Pieper writes, the corruption of language is also detrimental to human existence and human interaction.
“Word and language form the medium that sustains the common existence of the human spirit as such. The reality of the word in eminent ways makes existential interaction happen. And so, if the word becomes corrupted, human existence itself will not remain unaffected and untainted.” [17]
I would like, then, to add that prudence is the necessary guard against such corruption. Without prudence purifying the prism of our triadic relationship to the world, language becomes disconnected from reality and truth, and consequently, man also becomes disconnected, not only from truth, but from his fellow men. These points were made, then, in response to the issues raised in the beginning of this chapter: why man fails to understand essentials in reality and why he seems to fail to live up to his words. The problem is both semantic and moral. The key to the semantic problem is, as argued here, resolved by the semantic triangle, while the moral issue is resolved by the prudential triangle.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” ~ Matthew 5:8
[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, Vol. II (New York: The Riverside Press, 1895), 68.
[2] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Prima Secundae, Question 57, article 5, corpus. Dominican House of Studies Priory Online (accessed November 3, 2020). All subsequent references to the Summa Theologiae will be from this translation and edition, and will follow the standard notation, e.g., ST 1.2. Q. 84, a.1.c.
[3] Aristotle, and Jean T Oesterle, On Interpretation: Commentary by St. Thomas and Cajetan, Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation, No. 11 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962), 17.
[4] ST 1.2. Q. 57, a.4.c
[5] Sokolowski, “Knowing Essentials,” The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 47, No. 4 (June, 1994): 693. JSTOR (accessed October 7, 2020).
[6] MacIntyre, 53.
[7] Sokolowski, “Knowing Essentials,” The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 47, No. 4 (June, 1994): 693. JSTOR (accessed October 7, 2020).
[8] ST 1.2. Q. 3, a.5.c.
[9] Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. by Richard McKeon (New York: The Modern Library Classics, 2001), 1104.
[10] MacIntyre, 54.
[11] MacIntyre, 54-58.
[12] ST 1.2. Q. 57, a.5.c
[13] Sokolowski, The Phenomenology of the Human Person (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 10-11.
[14] Aristotle, and Jean T Oesterle, On Interpretation: Commentary by St. Thomas and Cajetan, Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation, No. 11 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962), 19-21.
[15] Percy, 45.
[16] Sokolowski, 698.
[17] Josef Pieper, Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, trans. by Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 15.