FACOLTÀ. — The immediate proximate principle of activity in the living being. It expresses the concepts of power, energy, force, and capacity.
The doctrine of the f., as presented by traditional philosophy, may be deduced from a fourfold order of considerations: a) the soul is not always active or conscious; it therefore presupposes the reality of forces that induce it to act from a relative inertia; b) our senses likewise act according to discontinuous rhythms; c) our actions are of different and often discordant natures when compared with one another; d) notwithstanding this multifaceted and intermittent activity, we experience a convergence in the unity of the principle to which we attribute all our spiritual, sensitive, or vital action. St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 78, a. 4) and St. Bonaventure (I Sent., d. 3, p. 2, a. 1, q. 3 ad 3) define the f. as « principium proximum et immediatum operationum animae ». It does not follow from this definition that all the f. reside exclusively in the soul. While it is the sole seat of inorganic powers (intellect and will), the entire human composite is the subject of the f. that are exercised through the organs (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 77, a. 5 and Quaest. disput. de anima, s. 12 ad 16).
Insofar as they are powers, the f. have an intrinsic relation or tension toward act, and this act differs according to its object. The diversity of acts and objects provides the foundation for the distinction and multiplicity of the f. (Sum. Theol., loc. cit., s. 3), whereas Scotus locates it in the proper formality of the individual powers (Quodl., q. 13, n. 30). The Aristotelian classification (De anima, II, 3) admits five genera of f.: the vegetative f. (θεραπτικόν), the appetitive (δεραπτικόν), the sensitive (σλοθητικόν), the locomotive (κινητικόν), and the intellectual (νοητικόν). The Scholastics accepted the Stagirite’s classification without making any substantial modifications to II. Here is the schema of the f. according to St. Thomas: the vegetative power, divided into nutritive, augmentative, and generative; the sensitive power, specified in five external senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) and four internal ones (common sense, imagination, estimative sense, and memory); the appetitive power, which is divided into sensitive and rational (will); the locomotive or motor power; and the intellectual power, for cognitions that transcend the sphere of sensibility. The classifications of the f. as active and passive, higher and lower, are self-evident and therefore require no explanation.
Once the definition according to which the f. are principles through which the soul acts is admitted, the necessity of establishing a distinction between the soul and the f. is evident. Their nature, however, is controversial. Albertus Magnus, Thomas, Giles of Rome, Vasquez, Suárez, and, more generally, the Thomists defend the real distinction, adopting the Angelic Doctor’s principle: « Cum potentia animae non sit eius essentia, oporret quod sit accidens » (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 77, a. 1 ad 5). Scotus, on the other hand, together with his school (and probably also St. Bonaventure), with the intention of safeguarding the unity of the soul, which seems to him compromised by the opposing view, asserts that between the soul and the f. there is only the formal distinction (Oxon., II, d. 16). Occam and the Nominalists, finally, maintaining the real identity between substance and attributes, admit between the soul and the f. a simple distinction of reason.
Distinct from one another, the f. have their own hierarchy and an order of priority and dignity. Hierarchically, the vegetative f. are subordinate and ordered to the sensitive, and these to the rational. As for priority, it may be considered under a twofold aspect: temporal-soteric and empirical. Under the first aspect, the successive functional differentiation of the f. is emphasized, so that the newborn displays a typical predominance of the vegetative powers, to which affective and motor sensibility is soon added, whereas the full exercise of intelligence and will coincides with a later stage of bodily development. Under the empirical aspect, priority is considered in the sense of predominance; that is, one seeks to determine which of the f. prevails in the life of the average adult human being. The answer is relative to individual psychism: according to the predominance of sensibility, intelligence, or volition, there will be a directive-operative predominance of the corresponding f. Finally, the dignity of the powers gave rise to the Scholastic controversy between intellectualists and voluntarists. Here too the two tendencies respectively polarize around St. Thomas and Scotus. The Angelic Doctor, an Aristotelian, writes: « Si ergo intellectus et voluntas considerantur secundum se, sic intellectus eminentior invenitur » (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 82, a. 3), and demonstrates his intellectualism both from the greater nobility of the object and from the influence that reason exercises upon the will. Scotus, following in the footsteps of St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure, defends the primacy of the will, basing himself principally on the greater excellence of the love of God in comparison with knowledge of Him and on the directing function that the will exercises over intellectual activity (Ovoid., IV, d. 49, q. 4). « Non convenir in parte intellectiva hoc imperare nisi voluntati » (loc. cit., d. 14, q. 2, n. 5).
Modern philosophy, from its very beginnings, rejected the Scholastic conception of the f. Descartes, identifying the essence of the soul with thought, abolished every distinction between the soul and its powers. Spinoza and the Monists formally rejected the f. Leibniz reduced them to possibilities. The best-known opponent of the doctrine of the f. is Herbert, who, however, did not attack it in its classical formulation (which he declares to be « psicologia mitologica »), but rather in the form assumed from Kant, who classifies the f. as representative-operative, affective and convictive. Beneke likewise denies their reality as original and distinct psychic forces, reducing them to acquired habits.
A singular place in the modern interpretation of the f. is reserved for the Scottish school, which, proceeding from the analysis of psychic facts and the observation of their multiplicity, admits a series of aptitudes or capacities, causes of the specific manifestations of conscious life. But although, in opposition to the Associationists, Reid and his followers vigorously affirm the existence of the f. and of the soul, they nevertheless hold that the study of its nature does not belong to psychology, which must concern itself only with those realities that we are able to know empirically, namely, operations and f.
Fouillée, Renouvier, Ribot, etc., emphasizing the unity of psychic function, disregard the f. in the traditional sense. Likewise, for reasons of systematic consistency, they are rejected by the Positivists, who, with Paulsen, reduce the powers to forms of thought, dynamism (v.), which identifies energy entirely with reality.