Intellect and will

Started by Kephapaulos, April 23, 2017, 09:10:23 PM

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Kephapaulos

What do you think about this? Doesn't St. Thomas teach that the intellect precedes the will and that the will in turn has an effect on the intellect afterward?


LouisIX

What do you mean by "the will has an effect on the intellect afterward"?

Certainly for St. Thomas the will is just the appetite of the intellect, so intellect and will are more properly one than they are two separate aspects of rational existence.
IF I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Kephapaulos

Quote from: LouisIX on May 08, 2017, 02:11:27 PM
What do you mean by "the will has an effect on the intellect afterward"?

I said that because I had gathered that from Geremia on the St. Isidore Forum.

That's interesting. I did not think of looking at the intellect and will as one.

Is it really true though that Plato and Aristotle were pitted against each other concerning the intellect and will?

Michael Wilson

The way I've understood St. Thomas, the intellect doesn't make decisions, what it does is that it presents choices to the will; the will is blind until the intellect presents these choices; then the will decides which of the choices presented biy the intellect it desires; once it makes this choice, the intellect goes about putting this choice into action.
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

LouisIX

Quote from: Michael Wilson on May 18, 2017, 02:02:14 PM
The way I've understood St. Thomas, the intellect doesn't make decisions, what it does is that it presents choices to the will; the will is blind until the intellect presents these choices; then the will decides which of the choices presented biy the intellect it desires; once it makes this choice, the intellect goes about putting this choice into action.

Even there, 'desire' tends to refer to an appetite which is rooted in the sensitive faculties and not the intellectual.

The will is a rational apprehension and inclination toward the good.
IF I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.