Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Understanding and Being

Titel: Understanding and Being

Stichwort: minor real distinction: Erfahren - Einsehen - Urteilen; Potenz - Form - Akt; kontradiktorische Prädikate können nicht ein und demselben zugeschrieben werden

Kurzinhalt: Form is neither potency nor act. Form is neither of the other two, because form is intelligible in itself. Neither act nor potency is intelligible in itself, if we are talking about finite act. But one and the same cannot have contradictory predicates ...

Textausschnitt: 1. 4 Unity and Distinction

17/9 We have put in more familiar terms what I was saying yesterday. Metaphysics is the integral heuristic structure of proportionate being. We are saying the same thing again. What is this heuristic structure? It is the use of a set of analogies, where the analogies have a fundamental determination from cognitional process. The use of cognitional process as the fundamental instance is justified by the relation between knowing and known. Why can we say that all proportionate being will stand within those analogies? It is because proportionate being is what we can know by experience, understanding, and judgment. (206; Fs)

Kommentar (07/08/08): Analog dazu: Lonergans Kategorien der Geschicht: Fortschritt, Süne, Gnade (Analytic Concept of History).

18/9 We have, then, three types of act, three levels of cognitional activity: the experiential, the intellectual, the rational. As act, these three levels also have content, and the content contained in the act is the content that is known. There is a content corresponding to experience, a content corresponding to understanding, and a content corresponding to judgment. Understanding presupposes and complements experience; judgment presupposes and complements understanding and experience. Consequently, since there are those relations between the acts, there will be relations of a similar sort between the contents. What we experience is what we inquire into; what we inquire into is what we understand; what we understand is what we conceive; what we conceive is what we reflec on; what we reflect on is what we grasp as virtually unconditioned; what we grasp as virtually unconditioned is what we affirm. That what is the content. There is a unity, then. It is always the same object that is being approached through experience, understanding, and judgment. (206f; Fs)

19/9 While there is a unity, there is also a distinction. The component that you know through experiencing is not the same as the component that you know through understanding. Understanding is not just another experiential element; it is a unification that supervenes upon experiential elements, and it stands in a different order. The affirmation of judgment, the 'is,' is a third component that closes the unity. Consequently, just as one knowing involves three components, so one known will involve three components; and one can establish, by setting up definitions of distinctions,1 that, of those three components, one really is not the other; they are really distinct. It is a minor real distinction, because it occurs within one and the same being; nonetheless, it is a real distinction. (207; Fs)

20/9 Form is what in itself is intelligible; it is the component in the known that is known precisely inasmuch as one is understanding. The experienced in itself is not an intelligible, but it is what can be understood; it is related to the intelligible, it is intelligible in the other. Act in itself has a certain intelligibility, but it is an incomplete intelligibility; it corresponds to the virtually unconditioned. Insofar as it is unconditioned, an absolute, it involves some type of intelligibility; but that intelligibility is a dependent intelligibility. It is a virtually unconditioned, an unconditioned that happens to have its conditions fulfilled; it is contingent. It has a reference to the other, and it must have that reference if it is to be fully understood.d (207; Fs) (notabene)

21/9 Now P and Q are really distinct if P is, Q is, and P is not Q. There is form, there is potency, there is act; but the three are as components in one being, and no one is the other two. Form is neither potency nor act. Form is neither of the other two, because form is intelligible in itself. Neither act nor potency is intelligible in itself, if we are talking about finite act. But one and the same cannot have contradictory predicates; one and the same cannot be both intelligible in itself and not intelligible in itself. If there are contradictory predicates, both of which are to be affirmed , then there have to be different subjects. Therefore, form is not potency, form is not act. That is a distinction that is true; therefore, it is a real distinction, it regards reality. (207; Fs) (notabene)

22/9 Again, while both potency and act are intelligible in the other, still it is a different other in which they are intelligible. Potency is intelligible in form; act is intelligible ultimately only in a formally unconditioned act an act that is not simply the virtually unconditioned, but a formally unconditioned that has no conditions at all. What is intelligible only in the formally unconditioned act is not the same as what is intelligible in form. (207f; Fs)

23/9 We may take another angle on this. One can ask, 'Are these three simply posited as real? Are they components of reality, or are they components of reality as known?' We spoke of all three in terms of their intelligibility and that would suggest that they are components of reality as known. However, if we go back to our definition of being - being is the object of the verb 'to know' - we note that it has an intrinsic relation to knowing. Being has to be intrinsically intelligible; otherwise understanding and understanding correctly could not be knowledge of being. (208; Fs)