Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Topics in Education

Titel: Topics in Education

Stichwort: Weisheit, wisdom;Wahl des richtigen Verständnisses von Sein (being)

Kurzinhalt: There is no first principle that does not attain a different meaning according to the different meaning you give being; Why do you prefer Aristotle to Plato and Aquinas to Scotus?

Textausschnitt: What is the step, then, from the analytic proposition to the real world? In the Prima secundae of the Summa, question 66, article 5, ad 4m, St Thomas asks why wisdom is the highest of the intellectual virtues. He distinguishes three speculative virtues of intellect: ...
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49/7 What does that mean in language familiar to nonscholastics? It means that there is no knowledge of truth contained on the second level of consciousness, or on the first and second combined. Wisdom's selection of terms is the selection of one meaning of the term 'being' rather than another, and once that selection has been made, the rest is settled. For example, there is Parmenides' notion of being, Plato's, Aristotle's, Avicenna's, Averroes', St Thomas's, Scotus's, and Hegel's. They all differ. There is no first principle that does not attain a different meaning according to the different meaning you give being. How do you pick out which is the correct notion of being? Picking out the correct notion of being is putting in a fundamental determinant in the meaning of all possible principles you may ever appeal to. Why do you prefer Aristotle to Plato and Aquinas to Scotus? That is the function of wisdom. Wisdom governs the selection of basic terms, the selection of basic terms governs first principles, and first principles govern conclusions. Because we move up to wisdom, because wisdom is not a foundation from which we start but towards which we tend, it is by studying different philosophic systems, comparing them, and seeing the different consequences of the different systems that one arrives at the wisdom of one's own that entitles one to prefer one notion of being to another. That preferring one notion of being to another is a strategically very important judgment, and it is a judgment of fact. Which notion of being is the real? To select the notion of being that is the notion of real being as opposed to false conceptions of being is the fundamental wisdom of the philosopher. It is de facto true, and he makes it in a particular judgment in which he grasps a virtually unconditioned. Just what that judgment is, is a further question. (156f; Fs)