ACTION AND PASSION

Two of the ten Aristotelian categories of being; ποιε[symbol omitted]ν and πάσχει in Greek, actio and passio in scholastic Latin. The history of these concepts reveals a shift of emphasis between aristotle himself and modern Aristotelians. In Aristotle, action and passion are uniformly taken for granted. The Categories —presumably because action and passion are assumed to be obvious—merely give examples, "to lance," "to cauterize," "to be lanced," "to be cauterized" (2a, 3). The Physics is concerned directly with questions about motion, and detailed consideration of action is given only because of a difficulty based on the reality of action (202a, 16; 202b 22). The same is true in the Metaphysics, where the difficulty is based on the actuality of action (1050a, 30). Among the Greek and Latin commentators as well as in St. thomas aquinas there is no dissent with respect to Aristotle's answer to these difficulties, that action is in the "patient" or recipient of the action. However, St. Thomas does give an occasion for later controversies by devoting a separate, formal consideration to action as being in the patient (In 3 phys. 5), and by making incidental statements that seem to contradict Aristotle's opinion (for example, C. gent. 2.9; De pot. 7.9 ad 7, 7.10 ad 1, 8.2). These apparent contradictions escaped early Thomistic commentators and it was left to T. de Vio cajetan to uncover the latent difficulty—though, curiously enough, even this discovery was not based on the difficult texts (In Summa Theologiae 1a, 25.1). After Cajetan, the shift in emphasis of the discussion was complete and the focus then shifted to various theories with respect to the subject of inherence of action considered as an accident.

This brief history omits the opinion of John duns scotus (Oxon. 4.13.1) and the Scotists, who, considering action as an extrinsic relation to the patient, maintained against Aristotle that action is in the agent.

Definitions. Action and passion, in this context, are limited to the sphere of physical or predicamental action. Predicamental action, which constitutes the category of action, is regularly distinguished from "immanent action," which belongs to one of the species of quality. The former is often called "transient" (or "transitive") action, since it affects something outside the agent because of its nature, whereas immanent action perfects the agent itself. In general, predicamental or transient action has the meaning of physical activity—any activity that because of its nature brings about some change or motion in another body. Thus, pushing, striking, painting, and even feeding are transient actions; knowing, willing and feeling, on the other hand, are not (St. Thomas, C. gent. 1.100; In 9 meta. 8.1862–65; etc.).

In the older Aristotelian tradition (with the exception of the Scotists), it was generally accepted that Aristotle meant this predicamental action, when he said that the action is in the patient. His argument is straightforward: "A thing is capable of causing motion because it can do this, it is a mover because it actually does it. But it is only on the movable that it is capable of acting. Hence there is a single actuality of both" (Phys. 202a, 16–19). The conclusion is stated clearly in the Metaphysics in terms of a concrete example: "The act of building is in the thing being built" (1050a, 30).

Passion, in this understanding, is simply the reception of the single actuality, motion-action. The sole reality in all three—motion, action and passion—is the motion itself, though each is distinct from the others in definition (In 3 phys. 5.7, 5.10). Accordingly, in this straightforward view, action is defined simply as "motion from an agent"; passion, as "motion [received from an agent] in a patient."

It is clear that this doctrine has a direct bearing on the Aristotelian notion of efficient causality. An agent, according to St. Thomas, is denominated such, precisely because of its effect on the patient (In 3 phys. 5.15). It would also seem clear that such a notion, of the agents' being determined from the effects they produce, could be of service in responding to difficulties raised by D. hume against the perception of causality in the physical order.

Subject of Predicamental Action. The straightforwardness of Aristotle's view about the subject of inherence of predicamental action, is lost in controversies after the time of Cajetan. Cajetan did not deny Aristotle's single actuality of action and motion, nor did he deny that this actuality is in the patient; but he added a second actuality—the perfecting of the agent whereby it actually comes to affect something else—to it and it is this, he claims, that is essential to action as a category and is subjected in the agent (In ST, 1a, 25.1). This subtlety, distinguishing two actualities with respect to action, one in the patient and one in the agent, led to a new definition of action as "the second act by which an agent is rendered actually causing" [as opposed to first act, in which it is only a potential agent; see F. suÁrez, Disp. meta. 48.1.15–20 (Vivès, 26:872–873); john of st. thomas, Nat. phil 1.14.3–4 (Curs. phil. 2:304–305, 310)].

In the aftermath of Cajetan's formulation, three well-defined schools of thought have developed relative to the subject of inherence of transient action: (1) many Thomists (for example, ferrariensis, F. Suárez and P. fonseca) continued to maintain the older view, that action is in the patient and the view still has its proponents (T. S. McDermott); (2) at the opposite pole, some Thomists [for example, J. P. Nazarius (1555–1646) and S. maurus], followed the lead of Cajetan, holding that action in the true sense is not in the patient but in the agent and again the view has contemporary proponents (J. Gredt, Elementa philosophiae 1.281); (3) finally, John of St. Thomas developed an intermediate position, maintaining that action is both in the agent and the patient, though in different senses, a view that also has presentday proponents (W. D. Kane).

Arguments can be proposed both for and against each of these positions, as follows.

Action Is in the Patient. Two arguments are presented in favor of this position. The first is based on the authority of Aristotle and maintains that the doctrine that action is in the patient, was universally held (with the exception of the Scotists) up to the time of Cajetan. Aside from the slighting of the Scotist position, this argument has little force apart from its further doctrinal justification; it can easily be countered, as is implicitly done by Cajetan: the traditional doctrine is not denied, but only complemented by a further consideration that is not touched on explicitly by the older tradition (In ST 1a, 25.1.6).

The formal argument in favor of action as in the patient is more cogent. In one form or another, it usually recapitulates the argument of Aristotle: since the whole reality of action is motion as from an agent (it is defined as motus ab agente ), it follows that action will be found where motion is found. Therefore, since it is solid Aristotelian doctrine that motion is in its subject and not in the agent, action also must be in the subject (now denominated "patient," as receiving motion from the agent). The counterargument proposed against this is that this action is not denied, but it is not the essential constituent of predicamental action. Such a counterargument is not convincing in every way, if only because it is precisely this notion of action in the patient that St. Thomas uses to establish action in his derivation of the categories (In 3 phys. 5.15).

Action Is in the Agent. The first argument in favor of this view, proposed by Cajetan, is based on a difficulty in theology. All the divine perfections are in reality identified with the divine essence. If, therefore, the perfection of an agent is in the patient, it is difficult to see how the action of God producing effects in creatures without the intermediate cause can be identified with the divine essence. If, on the contrary, action is taken to be the perfection of the agent as actually causing it, the difficulty vanishes. It is hard to see this as a serious difficulty; the question here is clearly one of an action properly immanent and only virtually transient.

What then of the argument occasioned by this difficulty? It states that, because action is the perfection of the agent as actually (and no longer only potentially) causing it, it must be in the agent. Confirmation is sought from St. Thomas's statement that action is the actualization of a power (actualitas virtutis—ST 1a, 54.1).

As opposed to this it can be argued that: (1) the distinction between immanent and transient action cannot be adequately sustained in such a formulation; (2) St. Thomas finds no difficulty in placing the perfection of a power in its affecting something outside itself—he does precisely this, in fact, in order to distinguish transient from immanent action (In 9 meta. 8.1864); and (3) in Aristotelian doctrine the primary type of motion is local motion. In such motion it is difficult to see what added perfection a moving body would acquire by moving another body in a collision—obviously a most important case of the action of a physical agent.

Action Is in Both the Agent and the Patient. To this formulation is usually added: in the agent "inchoatively," in the patient "formally and terminatively [consummative ]." Before arguments can be proposed in favor of this position, the very terms in which it is stated must be clarified.

John of St. Thomas, the chief proponent of this view, explains the term "inchoatively" in two ways. First he says that it means "after the manner of an emanation" (though obviously he does not mean this to exclude a secondary aspect of inherence in a subject). Then he shows how it is possible for something to be in two subjects at once, provided that it is formally or simpliciter in only one, by appeal to the way in which a virtue can be in the will as imperating and yet at the same time be formally in the sense appetites (ST 1a, 2ae, 50.3; 56.2).

The terms "formally and terminatively" are then clear from the preceding account: action receives its ultimate formality in producing its effect in the patient, and this formality lies in the completing of the emanation from the agent in the patient.

In defending this position, John of St. Thomas feels that the principal burden falls on the defenders of action as only in the patient, to explain away the apparently contrary texts in St. Thomas and to show that an aspect in the agent is unnecessary. (He feels that the position of those holding for action in the agent need not lead them to deny that it is also in the patient, but only to affirm that it is in some way in the agent.) His refutations of arguments in favor of action as only in the patient can be reduced to a distinction between "action-as-effected" and "action-as-effecting," and he is forced to say that both Aristotle and St. Thomas, in the majority of texts, wished to lay such stress on the terminative and formal aspect that they passed over the inchoative or emanational aspect [Nat. phil. 1.14.3–4 (Curs. phil. 2:304–314)]. Such an argument seems odd for a professed Aristotelian and Thomist, and this aspect of the whole position can be countered by the same arguments proposed earlier against action as in the agent.

A Simpler Position. Finally, against all three positions adopted after the time of Cajetan, it can be objected that they are needlessly subtle and are based on a false notion of what is required to constitute a category (P. Hoenen, 237–247). This view has much to recommend it, both in its simplicity and its return to the traditional view. However, it must explain away the difficulties in St. Thomas's texts if it is to be completely successful as a Thomistic interpretation. In summary, this explanation runs as follows: For St. Thomas and the earlier scholastics in general, a purely extrinsic denomination—without any instrinsic form as foundation—was sufficient to establish the last six categories, and St. Thomas is explicit in affirming that action and passion are based on extrinsic denomination and not on any intrinsic form. Nevertheless, it is still the agent that is denominated by this extrinsic reality, and it is this aspect—the agent as denominated from its effect and as subject of predication—that is referred to whenever St. Thomas refers to action as in the agent (Hoenen, 245–246).

Importance. Whether in its simple or in its subtle form, this question has an important bearing on several areas of scholastic philosophy. One aspect, in the defense of a realistic view of causality against Hume, has already been touched upon. In addition, the theory has an important bearing on the proofs for the existence of God as an unmoved mover and on the way in which free agents move and are moved by God (see motion, first cause of). Further, the doctrine is of supreme importance both in explaining the difference between physical action, the acts of knowledge and affectivity, and in explaining the interaction of soul and body, knower and known, in psychology.

See Also: action at a distance.

Bibliography: p. h. j. hoenen, Cosmologia (5th ed. Rome 1956). t. s. mcdermott, "The Subject of Predicamental Action," Thomist, 23 (1960) 189–210. w. d. kane, "The Subject of Predicamental Action according to John of St. Thomas," ibid. 22 (1959) 366–388. j. a. mcwilliams, "Action Does Not Change the Agent," Philosophical Studies in Honor of the Very Rev. Ignatius Smith, ed. j. k. ryan (Westminster, Md. 1952) 208–221.

[p. r. durbin]