Posted on: August 12th, 2014 Everything’s Doing It: Being’s Appetite
Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P. does a great job of showing how, for Thomas, human psychology is rooted in metaphysics. To see this one need only to note that in ST I 5 the Angelic Doctor establishes that being is convertible with the good (everything that exists is good, and vice-versa), and that the good is that which is desirable, or “appetible.”
Hence all existing things, and not just animals (rational or otherwise) are characterized by desire or appetite: they all strive toward their perfection / fulfilment / telos.
As Lombardo rightly concludes: “Consequently, for Thomas, all being is ecstatic.” (Lombardo, _Logic of Desire_, 26).
Prior to reading this book, had someone asked me, “Why, for Thomas, is all being ecstatic?” I probably would not have known what to say. In fact, last semester I read deeply in John Wippel’s The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, and while I do recall his emphasis that being is “pure act,” I don’t recall him connecting being’s activity or ecstasis specifically to desire or appetite.
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