Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Akt d. Verstehens, inneres Wort 1; Illumination, phantasma -> Verstehen; 1., 2. Tätigkeit d. Intellekts: verschiedene Objekte; Beispiele: Mondfinsternis, animal rationale; Verstehen, actus perfecti, energeia (wie: Hören, Sehen, Wollen)

Kurzinhalt: ... it may perhaps not be so easy to see why the same intellectual operation, whether the first or the second, has two different objects, the object of the act of understanding and the object of an act of uttering an inner word.

Textausschnitt: 17 The Act of Understanding and the Uttering of an Inner Word

603a The operations of the soul are distinguished by their respective objects (De anima, II, 4, 415a 14-22; In II De anima, lect. 6, §§304-308; Summa theologiae, 1, q. 77, a. 3 c; q. 87, a. 3 c). Accordingly, the act of understanding, or insight (intelligere), and the uttering of an inner word (dicere) are different from each other inasmuch as their objects are different. (Fs)

603b An object can be either that which moves something else, or an immanently produced term, or an end or goal. (Fs)

603c There are two objects that move us. We are moved to eliciting a direct act of understanding by the illumination of a phantasm, and in that phantasm we grasp a species that shines forth, or a cause of being, or a quiddity, as we explained above in appendix 2, §3. We are moved to eliciting a reflective act of understanding by sufficient evidence as sufficient; and we arrive at this act when we have resolved what we have conceived to its principles, namely, sense, self-evident principles, and the light of the intellect itself (see Theological Studies 8:1 (1947) 36-52 [Verbum 61-78]).1 (Fs) (notabene)

605a Again, there are two terms that are produced immanently. When we have directly grasped a species or cause of being or quiddity, we inwardly conceive, or utter, the definition, the meaning [ratio], of a thing; and when we have by reflection grasped the sufficiency of evidence as such, we inwardly conceive or utter a proposition.2

605b Finally, since we define in order to judge and judge in order to know truth and being, the end of our entire intellectual operation is being, the formal object of the intellect. (Fs)

605c With regard to the distinction of these objects, some things are quite clear while others need some explanation. The distinction between the first operation, which has to do with the question, What is it? and the second operation, which answers the question, Is it? is quite clear. Also quite clear is the distinction between terms that are immanently produced and the end for which they are produced; for we inwardly formulate definitions and propositions in order that through them, as means-in-which, we may come to know being. But it may perhaps not be so easy to see why the same intellectual operation, whether the first or the second, has two different objects, the object of the act of understanding and the object of an act of uttering an inner word. (Fs)

605d The difference between these two is that the object of an act of understanding is that from which and because of which the object of the act of uttering emerges. In the case of the second intellectual operation this is easy to see. Why do we judge? Because we grasp that there is sufficient evidence to make such a judgment. We surely grasp the sufficiency of the evidence before we make our judgment. But the sufficient evidence that is grasped is certainly different from the judgment that the sufficiency of evidence enables us to make. (Fs) (notabene)

605e But the reason is exactly the same in the case of the first intellectual operation. What is a lunar eclipse? It is the darkening of the moon caused by the shadow of the earth, which has come between the light of the sun and the moon which it illumines. But the interiorly conceived and uttered definition of an eclipse is surely not the same as the realization by the intellect that the moon will necessarily be darkened if its light from the sun is blocked. What is man? A rational animal. But why do we say 'rational animal'? Granted that animal is something we see and hear; rational, however, is something that is neither seen nor heard. But what we cannot know by our senses we could never express by an inner word unless we somehow grasped it by our intellect; and what this grasp is, we have sufficiently explained. Present in the sensible data through which we come to know man there are indications of rationality. These indications are the matter of the cause, while the rationality which they point to is the cause of the matter, that is, the formal principle by reason of which these sensible data are the sensible data of a human being, and the cause of being by virtue of which this particular matter comes to exist as human. And yet it is one thing to discern rationality in external indications, and quite another to say 'rational animal'; and again, it is one thing to understand an intellectual soul being in such a body, and quite another to define or utter that composite of soul and body. (Fs) (notabene)