[Aquinas_Catholic_Doctor] Does Aquinas explain Akrasia by reference to Consent or Concupiscence?
Date:15/09/07 7:53:31 AM Mountain Daylight Time
From:    pluviosilla@... (John Strong)
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REPLY:
Executable files are things which I dislike to download.  As to the title of the post on "akrasia, concupiscence and consent":-

Aristotle explains "akrasia", usually translated as "incontinence" in the Nichomachean Ethics, by reference to various passions, which would include both concupiscence and anger, as causative of acts which are contrary to those grounded by or upon a rational principle.

Aquinas, for his part, seems to follow Aristotle quite closely, although he does mention Augustine, among others, when writing about virtues and vices.  I take it (wrongly; I have now checked KB) that the author of your "zip" file was comparing/contrasting Augustine on "akrasia" (No!  It was freedom! KB) with various "moderns", such as Hannah Arendt, Kant and the former "Marxist-turned-Aristotelian", Alisdair MacIntyre, among others.  I heard no references to Aquinas (Whoops!  There was one vague reference!) in what I read of your author's "zip" file.

I have to admit that after the author's 3rd or 4rth "negative-hypothesis", without any clear CATEGORICAL proposition related to either the antecedents or the consequents of his multiplying hypotheses, I began to lose interest in what he was writing.  But more significantly, when he mentioned, at the outset, something to the effect that understanding Augustine's thesis (theses?) was outside his competence, I started to "turn him off" as one of a million modern sophists, even though I read more "names-dropped" and hypotheses.

Let me see if I can find what initially "turned me off", after I received your reference as to where I could find your author's theses...

SCHINDLER:
Needless to say, there is no room in the present context for a systematic account of Augustine’s views on the will and freedom, which in any event would lie beyond my
competence. (COMMENT: "Yawn!"  a.k.a. Why should I spend time reading a self admitted incompetent? KB)  I intend, instead, to think through the philosophical implications of issues raised by the conventional notion of freedom (so he was not writing about "acrasia" KB) and in particular the role of choice in that view, in the light of insights from Augustine and texts from some of his commentators.

COMMENT:
The above is where my "sophist-warning-light" ignited, especially since he implied with his opener that there really isn't any "conventional notion" of freedom at all:-

SCHINDLER:
The question concerning freedom warrants the same response Augustine gave to the question concerning time: “I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.”

Above, Schindler suggests that freedom, like time is a "baffling" thing to explain, although Augustine proceeded to explain time, and...

SCHINDLER:
Servais Pinckaers has observed that, since it (freedom KB) lies at the heart of any activity that belongs most intimately to us, we have a profound grasp of the meaning of freedom; but he adds, nevertheless: “[a]t the same time, freedom is what we know least, for no idea can encompass it, no piling up of concepts reveal it adequately.” [ie. Liberty or "freedom" is a transcendent KB] Precisely because it (freedom or Liberty KB) is freedom, we have difficulty giving a single determinate account of it; the term gathers up quite a variety of experiences, events, and realities without for all that disappearing into pure equivocity."

COMMENT:
The above is the usual "Kantian crap".  We have a profound grasp of things of which we have no idea or concept. Ergo, "Kantian-crap"!  Kantians constantly talk about attributes, entirely independent of substances.  However, from reading more of Schindler's thesis, I "get" why you mentioned "consent" in the title of your post.  I am not saying that this guy is a Kantian.  He simply talks like they do.  eg.

SHCHINDLER:
I propose that the notion of consent that Augustine here introduces opens up a way to overcome the dilemma at the heart of the problem of freedom, not only in relation to the divine activity of grace, but analogously in relation to the activity of the good upon the will in its normal operation. If the will always operates under the representa-tion of some good, we may say that each of its acts is, not the ex nihilo creation of values, but always an act of consent to something that precedes it. In this case, as we shall see, we avoid determinism insofar as we affirm the spontaneous agency of the will, but we also avoid nihilism insofar as we understand that agency precisely as the “letting be” of the good’s own activity.

COMMENT:
This guy sure wants "to avoid" a lot of things, including Aquinas.  He actually did mention Aquinas in one of his footnotes, referring to somebody named Kahn, whom he immediately dismissed in the same footnote.

In sum,  "ZZZZZZZZZZ..." is my basic reaction to all things "Kantian", either in their origins or in the "modern rebuttals" thereof, although I have no objection to arguing with actual modern Kantians.  Overall, the best that I can think to say of Schindler, is that his heart seems to be in the right place, in trying to "dodge" nihilism and determinism in "undetermined" (free) things.  But he has nothing to say about, or from, or by, Aquinas on either the will or freedom.  So, "ZZZzzzzzz"....

That reaction might seem a bit "parochial".  But check this quote, which is another source of "ZZZ-zzz-ing" for me...

SCHINDLER:
Thus, there is no teaching without learning. But the contrary is even more obviously true: there is no learning without teaching. Indeed, even if teaching is dependent on the active reception of the learner, it (teaching KB) has a certain priority over this activity, since it (teaching) is what initiates the learning.

Another thing about "Kantians":-  They are so full of "its" that "it" is entirely difficult to follow them as to from where or what they derive their goofy and sweeping overgeneralizations, such as "there is no learning without teaching."  Compare Schindler with Arisotle and Socrates, let alone Aquinas...

ARISTOTLE:
All men by nature desire to know...

Socrates (to Alcibiades) : Then how is it likely that you should know what is just and unjust, when you are so bewildered about these matters and are shown to have neither learnt them from anyone nor discovered them for yourself?

In short, teaching does not initiate learning, as the "prof" above, asserts, for people do discover things and truths without being taught.  And it is human nature which accounts for our desire to know, whether by teaching or by personal discovery, which Socrates distinguishes in Dialogue with Alcibiades.  [Once again, ZZZzzz..., with respect/(contempt) to Schindler, the modern "prof"].

AQUINAS:
There is will in God, just as there is intellect; since will follows upon intellect.  For as natural things have actual being by their form, so the intellect is actually knowing by its intelligible form. (etc. etc.)

[Summa I; Q. 19. Article 1. I answer that...]

Schindler and friends seem to be lacking "intelligible forms" to explain will, and or freedom let alone "free will". St. Augustine, on the other hand, probably didn't lack such intelligible forms, otherwise known as ideas or concepts.  Schindler, by his own admission may have lacked the competence to elucidate "it" (will? freedom?)!  Perhaps he should have read Aquinas to improve his competence or lack thereof in defining or explaining the will and/or why the will is free.  Of course, we don't have a quote by Schindler on "Akrasia" in his article, or do we?

If we do, John, then quote it and we may have a go at "akrasia" from there, although Aquinas is quite clear that we may have wrong desires, given that the moral principle is truth in conformity with right desire.

Kevin