Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Titel: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Stichwort: Fünf Regeln: Verstehe, verstehe systematisch -> Urteil; rationales Bewusstsein (Augustin, Thomas: geschaffene Teilname am ungeschaffenen Licht)

Kurzinhalt: My first two rules - Understand, Understand systematically ... My third and fourth rules - Reverse counterpositions, Develop positions

Textausschnitt: 40a I have been indicating the dimensions of the issue, and now I must attempt to clarify my position. My first two rules - Understand, Understand systematically - yield no more than bright ideas, hypotheses, theories; and none of these is knowledge. Of themselves, they are merely sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Only when one can go beyond them to affirm their truth, to assert that things are so, does one reach knowledge; and taking that step is a matter of good judgment. My third and fourth rules - Reverse counterpositions, Develop positions - introduce the problem of judgment, inasmuch as they are concerned not merely with the inner coherence of systematic understanding but also with a conversion of the subject that judges. It remains that the four rules together fall short of the present issue. (Fs) (notabene)

40b However, if we ask what good judgment is, I think it will appear that the four rules have a preparatory value. Whenever we understand, we feel called upon to judge; but it is only when we understand not merely the matter in hand but also its relevant context that we can judge well. Children understand many things, but we say that they reach the age of reason when they are about seven years old. A youth understands ever so much more than a child, yet he is accounted a minor in the eyes of the law until he reaches the age of twenty-one. Every cobbler is thought a fair judge, provided he sticks to his last. Finally, the universal principle of good judgment has been named wisdom; because it orders all things, it can judge all; but we must note that philosophy holds itself to be, not wisdom attained, but a love of wisdom and a movement towards it. (Fs)

40c In each of these instances the same feature recurs. Good judgment in a given area is not attained until, within the limits of that area, a certain fulness of understanding is reached. It seems to follow that my rules urging understanding, systematic understanding, and the coherence of systematic understanding head one to the limit where good judgment becomes possible. (Fs)

40d Still, possibility is one thing and actuality another. For judgment demands more than adequately developed understanding. It supposes a transformation of consciousness, an ascent from the eros of intellectual curiosity to the reflective and critical rationality that is the distinguishing mark of man. On that higher level, there becomes operative what Augustine named a contemplation of the eternal reasons, what Aquinas attributed to our created participation of uncreated light, what a modern thinker might designate as rational consciousness. On that level there emerges the proper content of what we mean by truth, reality, knowledge, objectivity; and by the same movement we ourselves in our own reasonableness are involved, for every judgment is at once a personal commitment, an endeavor to determine what is true, and a component in one's apprehension of reality.1 (Fs)
41a However, if I believe that there is no substitute for good judgment, if I believe that method, instead of seeking a substitute, has to make use of good judgment, it is not my intention to entrust the advance of science to the vagaries of individual opinion. No less than those that evade or deny the significance of good judgment, I too believe that a method has to include some technique for overcoming individual, group, and general aberration. Where I would differ is in the technique. I acknowledge the full significance of judgment and its personal element, but my third and fourth rules imply a further judgment on individual judgments. Developing positions and reversing counterpositions are equivalent to judging judgments; and the definitions of positions and counterpositions are based on ultimate philosophic alternatives, that is, on the diverse manners in which individual judgment can go wrong not merely incidentally but in the grand manner of a superficial or a mistaken philosophy. (Fs)
41b It is true, of course, that others may and will disagree with my account of the matter. But from the nature of the case, I think that disagreement in the main will be limited to naming positions what I name counterpositions, and to naming counterpositions what I name positions. There would result a number of distinct schools, but their number could not be very large, their epistemological assumptions and implications would be in the open, and the individuals that chose between them could do so with an adequate awareness of the issues and of their own personal responsibility in judging. (Fs)