Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Third Collection

Titel: A Third Collection

Stichwort: 4 Grade d gemeinsamen Bedeutung (common meaning); Sinn; Natur - Geschichte, Tradition (kleine, große Authentizität)

Kurzinhalt: Such common meaning has four degrees: existential, authentic or unauthentic; major, minor authenticity or unauthenticity; for a subject to take the tradition uncritically is for him to realize what: progress - decline

Textausschnitt: 34/13 Community is not just a by-product of a geographical frontier but the achievement of common meaning. Such common meaning has four degrees. It is potential when there is a common field of experience, and to withdraw from that common field is to get out of touch. Common meaning is formal when there is common understanding, and one withdraws from that common understanding as misunderstanding and incomprehension supervene. Common meaning is actual inasmuch as there are common judgments, areas in which all affirm and deny in the same manner; but common meaning is diluted as consensus fails. Common meaning is realized by decisions and especially by permanent dedication, in the love that makes families, in the loyalty that makes states, in the faith that makes religions. (212f; Fs)

36/13 It is momentous, for it can be authentic or unauthentic, and this can happen in two distinct ways. There is the minor authenticity or unauthenticity of the subject with respect to the tradition in which he was raised. There is the major authenticity or unauthenticity that justifies or condemns the tradition itself. As Kierkegaard asked whether he was a Christian, so divers men can ask themselves whether they are authentically religious, authentically philosophers, authentically scientists. They may answer that they are, and they may be right. But they may answer affirmatively and still be mistaken. On a series of points they will realize what the ideals of the tradition demand; but on another series their lives diverge from those ideals. Such divergence may be overlooked from a selective inattention, a failure to understand, an undetected rationalization. What I am is one thing; what an authentic Christian or Buddhist is, is another, and I am unaware of the difference. My unawareness is unexpressed. I have no language to express what I am, so I use the language of the tradition that I unauthentically appropriate, and thereby I devaluate, distort, water down, corrupt that language. (213; Fs)
37/13 Such devaluation, distortion, dilution, corruption may occur only in scattered individuals. But it may occur on a more massive scale, and then the words are repeated but the meaning is gone. The chair remains the chair of Moses, but occupied by scribes and Pharisees. The theology is still Scholastic, but the Scholasticism is decadent. The name of science may be invoked but, as Edmund Husserl has argued, all significant scientific ideals can vanish to be replaced by the conventions of a clique. So the unauthenticity of individuals becomes the unauthenticity infecting a tradition. For a subject to take the tradition uncritically is for him to realize what objectively is unauthentic but for him subjectively is thought authentic. (213; Fs)