LLooyyoollaa UUnniivveerrssiittyy CChhiiccaaggoo LLooyyoollaa eeCCoommmmoonnss Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1935 TThhee AAppppeettiittuuss NNaattuurraalliiss iinn tthhee PPhhiilloossoopphhyy ooff SStt.. TThhoommaass AAqquuiinnaass Doris Barnett Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn Barnett, Doris, "The Appetitus Naturalis in the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas" (1935). Master's Theses. 41. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/41 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1935 Doris Barnett THE APPETITUS NATURALIS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS BY DORI S BARNETT A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Loyola University 1935 THE APPETITUS NATURALIS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Doris Barnett Loyola University April 12, 1935 . -1- I. INTRODUCTION The pre-Socratic thinkers tried to explain reality by what they saw around them, and their attempts were admirable however naive. Heraclitus with his constant tlux and Parmeni- des with his immutable one indicate the extremes to which their speculations went. They were physicists and, as such, they wanted a theory ot reality which would explain everything ma terially. Anaxagoras, whom the Stagirite describes as the only sober man among the early philosophers, was the first to pos tulate mind in the world. It was Aristotle himself who, with his doctrine of potency and act, pOinted out that there could be both one and many in nature. He exposed the limitations ot his predecessors and synthesised the truths contributed by all ot them. Curiously enough, we are facing today in our enlight ened age a situation not altogether unlike the epoch before Socrates. Modern science has taken over the ph11osophical tield and the new physics claims to have explained the universe Having discredited both metaphysics and teleology, conscious and intelligent design is disdained as hopelessly obsolete! In tact, any explanation of reality which is not evolutionary rITeleology,' article by Wm. Fulton, BAstings Encyclopedia ot Religion and Ethics, Vol. 12, p. 224, N. Y.; 1922. cit. Mar the ling, Order ot Nature in the Philosophy of St. thomAs AqUinas, p. 155. -2- is disregarded and stands very little chance of receiving recog nition. Notwithstanding the facts that for many centuries the world acknowledged Aristotle's four causes as a scientific ex position of nature, contemporary thinkers have preferred the less perfect theories of the early Greek philosophers. The philosophy of events as propounded by Bertrand Russell, Eddington, Sir James Jeans, and the rest, is nothing more than the flux of Heraclitus. The mechanistic theories plainly revert to Democritus, although we ordinarily trace them only to Descartes, and Spinoza's pantheism is merely a spiritualized statement of Parmenides' doctrine that there is only one substance. -Modern scientists deliberately ignore the origin of things. Everything is in process moving from an unknown prin ciple to an unpredictable end or rather to no end at all. Eddington writes, "It may be objected that.we have no right to dismiss the starting-off as an inessential part of the problem •••• But that is •••• a problem of the pack, not of the iso lated oard.12 The diffioulty that is here so nonchalantly passed off is very likely oaused by the fact that the majority of physioists refuse to admit anything but sense perception into their knowledge. Eddington in his introduotion to The Nature of the PhYsioal World illustrates this by his descrip tion of his scientific and familiar tables, where he attempts 2A. S. Eddington The Nature of the PhYsical World, p. 65 -~ to destroy the idea ot substance and replace it by thinghood which is in the order ot sense-perceptible. We may ask just exactly what is an event? Whitehead answers it is -the grasping into unity ot a pattern ot aspects~~ For Whitehead nature is composed ot events. For Russell, on the other hand, everything is one big event~ In spite ot dif terences ot this kind which crop out between various eventists they all agree that nature is a process. There are no such things as tinal and tormal causes. Nature does not operate tor an end; it merely operates. In Thomistic philosophy nature also operates but the writings ot Aquinas are permeated with the statement, -guod omne &gens agit propter tinem.- Nature develops and untolds in the thought ot St. Thomas as tully as it does in the doctrine ot any champion ot progress, but according to the Thomistic interpretation everything has a beginning and an end, and God Himselt operates in nature through the a~petitue naturalis to transtorm a static hierarchy ot being into a dyna mic ascent to Himself. Although teleology and causality are anathema among the greater number ot modern philosophers there are some con cessions made to them here and there. Max Planck, who intro duoed the quantum theory so idolized in the new physios, writes 3Soienoe and the Modern World, p. 174. 4Russell, Philosophy, pp. 276-291 -4- "it is essential tor theheaIthy',development of physics, that among the postulates of this science we reckon not merely the existence ot law in general but also the strictly causal char acter ot that la• • 15 Indeed, it is absurd to aoknowledge a law without recognizing causality at the same time, and this is pre cisely what many scientists want to do. The very fact that they all admit natural and physical laws would indicate that their exclusion of causality is nominal, since they unconscious ly have recourse to the principles ot causality in their prac tical experiments. Moderns complain that the idea ot causality is vague and hard to grasp. This is because they consider it only in the light ot experience. St. Thomas did not have this ditticulty, tor causality was tor him a metaphysical idea and, as such a manner ot being he contemplated it. Practically all current philosophy is stamped with an evolutionary character. It it isoentered on anything it is homocentric. St. Thomas is definitely theo-centric in his world view, tor God is both First Cause and Final End ot all creatures. All things move toward Him and the appetitus natur alis is the reason tor this movement in the universe. It is the purpose of this thesis to study the place of the appetitus naturalis in Thomistic thought. It is, indeed j the principle in nature which 1s responsible tor the order 1n ~Planck, the Universe 1n tge L2ght of Modern Physics, p. 84, cit. Marling, opus cit., p. 141. -5- the universe. Before examining this principle in particular, however, it is necessary to understand that St. Thomas insisted on finality in ·the world. All things work toward ends, and they do so by mesns of their va.rious appetites. From this standpoint, the working of things toward ends, appetites gener ally, and the appetitus na.turalis, as such, will be discussed. -6- II. ALL THINGS WORK TOWARD ENDS According to St. Thomas Hemne agens agit propter bonum,-l and the good is that Which all thlngs seek. A creature then, only desires an end ln so far as it is good, or at least appears to be good, for lntelllgent beings move toward a good through the will which desires good, as such. Irratlonal belngs on the other hand, must seek an end ln one of two ways: elther by an intelligent agent dlrecting lt or by a prlnciple put into lts nature by the Flrst Cause. An arrow flylng toward a target ls dlreoted ln its movement by the archer, but a stone falllng to the earth ls moved by its natural lncllnatlon, .and thls inclination ls an princlple placed ln the belng by the lnt~lnsic Creator. However, the movement by wh1chthe arrow goes to the target ls outside its nature and ls somewhat violent. • The natural necesslty lnherent in those thlngs whlch are determ1ned to a partlcular thing ls a klnd of impression from God direot lng them to their end; as the necessity whereby an arrow ls moved so as to fly towards a certain point is an lmpression from the archer, and not from the arrow. But there is a dif ference inasmuoh as that whlch creatures recelve from God is their nature, Wh1le that whioh natural things receive from man inaddltion to their nature is somewhat violent. Wherefore, as the violent necesslty ln the movement of the arrow shows the C. G. III, ~s! 3 -7- action of the archer, so the natural necessity of things shows the government of Divine Providence~2 Now objects tend toward definite ends, for if they did not they would not do one thing rather than another. "Everything that tends definitely to an end, either fixes its own end or has its end fixed for it by another: otherwise it would not tend rather to this end than to that. But the oper ations of nature tend to definite ends."3 Such indifference would cancel the efficacy of activity and nothing would be pro duced in nature at all. Therefore, action must be directed. One might suppose that action is directed by chance, but if this were so the gains of nature would not be the rule rather than the exceptions and the fact that they are is apparent from the order in the universe. Moreover, because we do not see deliberation taking place we must not conclude that thereis no purpose. As Aristotle said, this is absurd. Art does not deliberate. If the shipbuilding art were in the wood, it would produce the same results by nature. If, therefore, it is pres ent in art, it is present also in nature~ It is clear, then, that there must bea definite purpose to an action even if the action is done for its own sake~ for to every act there must be two termini - a beginning and an end, and the end is that for 2 3S. Theol. q.103, a.l, ad 3 S. C. G. I, 44 4Phls. 11, 8,199b 5·S.C~Qt. III, 2