Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Definition: intellektuelle Emanation; Wortklärung: Akt, real, natürlich, bewusst; intellektuelles Bewusstsein

Kurzinhalt: Intellectual emanation, then, is the conscious origin of a real, natural, and conscious act from a real, natural, and conscious act, both within intellectual consciousness and ...

Textausschnitt: 141a
Intellectual emanation, then, is the conscious origin of a real, natural, and conscious act from a real, natural, and conscious act, both within intellectual consciousness and also by virtue of intellectual consciousness itself as determined by the prior act. (Fs)

141b Act: not defined through genus and species, but clarified by a familiar proportion, namely, act: form : potency :: seeing: eyesight: eye :: hearing something: the faculty of hearing : the ear :: understanding something : the intelligible species : the possible intellect :: willing : willingness : will :: existence : substantial form : prime matter. (Fs)

real: that to which, each in its own way, the act of existence belongs. (Fs)

141c natural: the real is divided into the natural (for example, a horse in itself) and the intentional (for example, a horse as intended). Hence, there are two aspects to psychological acts; for the same psychological act is intentional insofar as it refers to some other, and natural insofar as it is considered in itself. (Fs)

141d conscious: present to the subject. In every sensitive and intellectual act, whether apprehensive or appetitive, there are three things that occur simultaneously: (1) the object is intended; (2) the intending subject himself is rendered present to himself; (3) the act of the subject is rendered present to the subject. Distinguish sharply between the presence of the subject to himself and the presence of the object to the subject: the object is present as that which is intended, the act is present as that by which the object is intended, the subject is present as that which intends. In a similar way, distinguish this presence of the subject through consciousness and the presence of the same subject through reflection or introspection: reflection or introspection renders the subject present as an object, as that which is intended; but this could not be were not the subject already present to himself through consciousness, as subject, as that which intends. (Fs)

141e within consciousness: within a reality in accordance with a psychological, not a metaphysical, consideration. What metaphysically is an accident inhering in a substance or an act received in a potency is psychologically a conscious event within the field of consciousness. Note, however, that the distinction of a psychological consideration from a metaphysical consideration in no way implies that 'conscious' adds something beyond 'being'; for 'being' is not a genus, and what is thought of as above, outside, beyond 'being' is nothing. 'Conscious,' therefore, refers to being at a certain degree of perfection. (Fs)

141f intellectual consciousness: constituted by acts both of intellect and of will while prescinding from sensitive acts. Certainly, in one human being there is just one consciousness; still, that one consciousness is not simply homogeneous but diversified in accordance with the diverse nature of the acts. (Fs)

143a conscious origin: within consciousness act originates from act: a real, natural, conscious act from a real, natural, conscious act. Thus, if one sees a large fierce-looking dog without a leash, one spontaneously feels fear. Just as seeing is a real, natural, conscious act, so too is fearing. And these two acts are not unrelated: the dog is feared because it is seen. (Fs)

143b by virtue of consciousness itself: whenever a conscious act originates from a conscious act, consciousness itself mediates between the two, so that (1) the conscious subject as conscious is the principle-which of the procession; (2) the conscious act as conscious is the principle-by-which of the procession; (3) the procession itself has an intrinsic modality that is lacking in an unconscious procession such as a chemical procession; (4) the act that in some way proceeds consciously is because of and in accord with the act from which it proceeds. Therefore, the phenomenalism of consciousness that would deny causality, or the mode of causality proper to consciousness, is excluded. (Fs; ??? letzter Satz)

143c by virtue of intellectual consciousness: when act consciously originates from act, sensitive consciousness mediates in one way and intellectual consciousness in another. A sensitive act originates from another sensitive act according to a particular law of nature. But an intellectual act originates from another intellectual act in accord with the conscious, transcendental exigencies of intellect itself, which are not bound to any particular nature but are ordered to all that is intelligible, all that is true, all that is being, all that is good. (Fs)

143d as determined by the prior act: there are two ways in which an act originates within intellectual consciousness and by virtue of intellectual consciousness. In the first and more spontaneous way, an act originates as if from some potency; thus we proceed from speculative or practical or existential questions to acts of understanding. In another, more autonomous way, a subsequent act originates from a prior act and is proportionate to the prior act; thus, we define because we understand and in accordance with what we understand; again, we judge because we grasp evidence as sufficient and in accordance with the evidence we have grasped; finally, we choose because we judge and in accordance with what we judge to be useful or proper or fitting or obligatory.1 (Fs)