Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Titel: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Stichwort: Subjekt; Bewusstsein: conscientia-experientia; unumquodque cognoscitur secundum quod est actu;

Kurzinhalt: On this view the subject in act and his act are constituted and, as well, they are known simultaneously and concomitantly with the knowledge of objects; for the sensibile actu is the sensus actu, and the intelligibile actu is the intellectus actu.

Textausschnitt: 165b How, then, can one account for this constitutive function of consciousness? One cannot reject the principle that knowing simply reveals its object; one cannot suppose that knowing exercises a constitutive effect upon its object. It is true that the mode of the knowing may and does differ from the mode of the reality known. But it is fantastic to suggest that knowing an object changes the mode of reality in the object. (Fs) (notabene)

165c The alternative, I suggest, is to deny that consciousness is a matter of knowing an object; the alternative is to deny that only objects are known; the alternative is to reject the tacit assumption that unumquodque cognoscitur secundem quod est obiectum, and to put in its place the familiar axiom that unumquodque cognoscitur secundum quod est actu. On the basis of this axiom, one can assert that whenever there is a sensibile actu or an intelligibile actu, an object is known; and whenever there is a sensus actu or an intellectus actu, the subject and his act are known. On this view the subject in act and his act are constituted and, as well, they are known simultaneously and concomitantly with the knowledge of objects; for the sensibile actu is the sensus actu, and the intelligibile actu is the intellectus actu. Again, on this view the object is known as id quod intenditur, the subject is known as is qui intendit, and the act is known both as the intendere of the subject and the intendi that regards the object.14 (Fs) (notabene)

footnote 14:
14 Consciousness, accordingly, is not to be confused with reflexive activity. The ordinary operations of intellect are attending, inquiring, understanding, conceiving, doubting, weighing the evidence, judging. Their objects may be either the self or other things. In the former case they are named reflexive; in the latter, direct. This difference is not formal but material; in both cases the formal objects are ens, quidditas, verum. Now by both direct and reflexive operations the subject in act is constituted and known, not as object, but as subject; this constitutive knowing and being known is consciousness. Hence, in direct activity the subject is known once, and as subject; but in reflexive activity the subject is known twice, as subject by consciousness, and as object by the reflexive activity. Finally, there is a functional relation between consciousness and reflexive activity: just as the data for direct activity are supplied by sense, so the data for reflexive activity are supplied by consciousness. Hence, just as I think of 'this' by a backward reference to sense,1 so I think of T by a backward reference to the conscious subject; in both cases one is thinking of the particular; and we think of particulars, not because we understand particularity, but because our inquiry and understanding suppose and regard data. Similarly, just as our judgments about material things involve a verification of concepts in the data of sense, so our judgments about our feelings, our minds, our wills involve a verification of concepts in the data of consciousness. It was this parallelism in function that led me to speak of conscientia-experientia.

166a On this position, which for other reasons I named conscientia-experientia, the constitutive as well as the cognitive aspects of consciousness are satisfied. For cognitive acts certainly constitute a prime substance as actually knowing sensible and intelligible objects; on the view I favor, they also constitute the prime substance as consciously sentient, consciously intelligent, consciously the one principle of many acts, consciously rational when one act supplies the known reason that motivates another act, consciously free when one act is the principle of other alternative acts, consciously responsible when the consciously free subject knows by other acts the consequences of his free choices.1 (Fs)

166b Such, then, is one difference between conscientia-perceptio and conscientia-experientia. It remains that we listen to Fr Perego's objections. (Fs)