Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Der Akt des Verstehens 6 - Quidditas, Washeit; Aristoteles: Demonstrativpronomen in Grundfragen (2 Bedeutungen); quod quid erat esse (Formalprinzip); Mittelterm (propter quid ) zw. Verstehen und Wort; Hylemorphismus

Kurzinhalt: 'This' can stand for sensible or material things, and then one must say that the form or cause of being of the thing is that because of which 'this' pertains to the being of a man or to the being of a house. But again, 'this' can stand for a supposit ...

Textausschnitt: Vorher:
581a In certain cases, however, it is not easy to show that a person who asks What? is really asking Why? In Posterior Analytics Aristotle left this problem unsolved, but took it up again in the Metaphysics. There he concluded that the questions What is a man? and What is a house? are really asking, Why is this (pointing to a man) a man? and Why is this (pointing to a house) a house?

581b In these reformulated questions, however, there is an ambiguity in the word 'this.' 'This' can stand for sensible or material things, and then one must say that the form or cause of being of the thing is that because of which 'this' pertains to the being of a man or to the being of a house. But again, 'this' can stand for a supposit, and then one must say that the quiddity is that because of which this is a man or that is a house; for this is a man because of humanity, which is the quiddity of man, and that is a house because of the quiddity of house. Hence St Thomas writes in his commentary:

Similarly, when we ask, 'What is a man?' it is the same as if we were to ask why this being, namely Socrates, is a man, the answer being that there is in him the quiddity of a man. And it is also the same as if we were to ask why a certain organic body is a man. For this is the matter of a man, as stones and bricks are the matter of a house. Thus it is clear that in such questions we are asking about 'the cause of the matter,' that is, why the matter pertains to the nature of that which is being defined. What we are looking for in asking about the cause of the matter is the species, that is, the form by which something is. But this is substance, that is, that substance which is quod quid erat esse. (In VII Metaphys., lect. 17, §§1667-68)1

581c About this quod quid erat esse, note that in its primary meaning it is 'neither genus nor species nor an individual, but the formal principle of all of these' (In VII Metaphys., lect. 2, §1275). But whether it is a form or a quiddity is not clearly determined on account of the ambiguity we mentioned. For matter pertains to the existence of a man because of a human-soul, which is his form, while the supposit pertains to him because of his humanity, which is the quiddity of man. One can only marvel at Aristotle's subtlety. It is commonly said that he transposed Plato's Ideas from some noetic heaven into material things. But the Platonic Ideas were universals, and Aristotle did not at all think that there are universals in material things, since he taught that this individual man was composed of this matter and this form. (Fs)

583a One can only marvel at the acuity of his mind. Kant thought that it was not possible for anyone to penetrate to the very generative principles of intellectual knowledge from conceptual categories. But Aristotle did. On the one hand, he located the beginning of all knowledge and philosophy in that wonder that asks questions, and since all questions can be reduced to two types, he concluded to two intellectual operations. On the other hand, since it is clear from logic that all teaching and learning consists in finding and verifying a middle term, he sought the middle term that would bring together sense data and primary concepts. For just as in an explanatory syllogism the middle term is the reason why a predicate is added to a subject, similarly in the genesis of primary concepts, which are not predicated of anything else, a middle term is the form or the cause of being or the quiddity because of which the existence of such a substance is attributed to this particular matter. (Fs)

583b One can only marvel at his discovery of rational psychology. Understanding is our soul's 'proper act, perfectly demonstrating its power and its nature' (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 88, a. 2, ad 3m). But acts of the soul are known only through their objects (ibid. q. 87, a. 3 a), and the object proper to the act of understanding is the 'because of which' that is discerned in the phantasm and grounds a concept. (Fs)

583c One can only marvel at his discovery of hylomorphism. Just as the intelligible species is to the phantasm in which it shines forth, so is substantial form to prime matter. Aristotle did not state that all material things were composed of form and matter because he had perceived a form or quiddity in each and every sensible object; rather, because he had thoroughly understood the nature of human inquiry and intelligence, he came to the conclusion that material things were humanly knowable insofar as they consisted of two elements, one material, known by the senses, and the other formal, known through the intellect. For this reason, no matter how much human knowledge advances, it will always progress by means of sense and intellect and therefore always know a thing constituted by matter and form. (Fs) (notabene)