First table of contents for first chapter

THE FOUR SORROWS IN AQUINAS
OUTLINE OF THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS PERHAPS?
PROLOGUE
1. Aquinas’ context of the passions (for beatitude). Teleological aspect of human nature. Free causality of the human being’s teleological drive. “being in the image of God and the principle of one’s actions.”

2. “Intensio” and “inclinatio” - Thomas’ stand-in for what we have more recently called “drive”. Metaphysical underpinnings - “free” implications that have to do with the rational creature having cognition of his end - subtle distinctions from “drive“.

PART 2 - PASSIONS IN GENERAL
"THOSE ACTIONS WHICH HE HAS IN COMMON WITH OTHER ANIMALS"
A) Aristotelian metaphysics of actuality, potentiality, and change “passiones et motus” - passions as belonging to nature of men and also playing a role in happiness - as more than a means. “Passion” as “engagement” - a word I borrow temporarily here to get at that thing which is the intermediate between the actor of the acting and the passion of the undergoing. 3 “moments” of passion - being-given connaturality, being-given movement, rest. Passion and perfection - affinities and incompatibilities.
B) Passion in the more descriptive sense that Thomas describes in the first article of 22.
I) Implications of “loss” with “gain” - where “gain” is primary and where “loss” is primary in the perception of the appetite. The role of “unity” and its “ravage” or “disruption”. Presence of “presence”
C) Transmutatio corporalis - sine qua non of passion properly speaking.
D) Conjunctio ET perceptio in joy and sorrow
E) “Goodness and badness” of the passions
I) “Objective” or essential goodness
1. in themselves, simply good - mode of our being/nature
2. Instrumental - subsidiary role
Disposative causality:
Possible life of the passions as the mediation - temporal or simultaneous but metaphysical - between immediacy and the conscious and habituated life of virtue which is sourced in the rational principle - half-successive, half-simultaneous role depending on one’s view of the human being or perhaps depending on which human being. Not sure which I lean more heavily towards at this point - depends on what “passion“ means in each context. So I guess I am talking about passion which reason is LESS cooperative with.
A - “balancing” - Spinoza “outweighing one Affection by something under the aspect of a stronger affection). Aquinas - (moderate) sorrow as mitigating (excessive) pleasure to enable capacity for action; pleasure as remedying sorrow (and so on for others like hope and zeal which checks and urges)
B - Passion as point of access to that which exceeds our knowative capacity. (“approaches to God more by love, as it were drawn passively“).
II) “Moral“ goodness (“as subject to the reason and will”)
A) Discussion on what constitutes voluntary activity - “perfect knowledge of the end consists in not only apprehending the thing which is the end, but also in knowing it under the aspect of end, and the relationships of the means to that end. And such knowledge belongs to none but the rational nature. But imperfect knowledge of the end consists in mere apprehension of the end, without knowing it under the aspect of end, or the relationship of an act to the end.”
Implications of means, ends, and “imperfect voluntary” of the passions (by which animals and children are “voluntary”) and passions as infused with “perfect” voluntariety- as “subject to reason and will” - “consequent” as opposed to “antecedent” passion.
III) “The Bad” in passions
A) Causes of sin (here meaning lack of health, no voluntariety yet) outside the will - ignorance, weakness, contingency, surprise, etc. (Implications for "voluntary sin" - how excessive passion, which can be itself a "sin", is also a mitigation for sin and how this is possible. “Original Sin” (not the theology - philosophical description that “the nature of man is essentially good but nature fails”. “Healing taking place primarily in the reason”). Distinction between poena and culpa - extractions, importings, reinterpretations for philosophy.
C) “Medicina” as opposed to “therapy”.

SECOND PART

“SORROW: THE MOST PASSIONATE OF THE PASSIONS”
A. Sorrow in General
1. Sorrow as Appetitive Perception: Conjunctio et perceptio conjunctionis
I) Dolor et Tristitia
A) Distinct and interactive kinds of perception (exterior, interior AND imagination and intellect)
B) Qualities of Sorrow as Appetitive Perception
I) “affinity” and “convenience” with certain joys, loves
II) Useful consequences: fuga, repellendum, resistans, expellere
3. Sorrow as Passion: Fuga, Aggravatio, Constrictio,
A) per se impeditive to activity
I) per accidens motivation (“love felt more keenly“; “activity aimed at expelling the cause of sorrow would be increased (augeatur)“) paradoxically can be the occasion of assuming rational and voluntary command.
B) “Repugnant to vital movement” - Oppression run amuck. When the object of sorrow is perceived to exceed one’s power or when hope of succor is lost.
1. "Depriving of reason" - melancholia and madness.
2. From anxietas to acedia.

SUMMARY - Distinction between "useful" sorrow and "life-threatening" sorrow.
"Useful" sorrow is one that would be mitigated both by reason and other passions such as hope and pleasure. "Dangerous" sorrow will know no cessation of desire (which is a cause of sorrow) - Sorrow, I think, could impedes one's capacity for certain pleasure, as more pleasures seems "unfitting" to the person who's intention is drawn toward one thing - and yet, it increases their capacity for pleasure for what they think is important to their happiness. And yet also Aquinas "every pleasure is a medicine for every pain" - we'll have to look at why. But dangerous sorrow is when even hope is being choked. The downward gradation of acedia is not pretty. The litmus would be exterior immobilization. Imitating death.

SEGWAY INTO THE KINDS OF SORROW:
“External” reasons for the divisions - the effects and the objects.