Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Relationen: transzendental - kategorial 1; Vorbemerkung: Wissenschaft, Definition (3 Stufen); Terminologie: Kategorie, Relation: kategorial (predicamental) - transzendental

Kurzinhalt: Is the division of relations into predicamental and transcendental appropriate? ... Accordingly, since definitions express knowledge, we distinguish in the same way between initial, final, and intermediate definitions.

Textausschnitt: QUESTION 36
Is the division of relations into predicamental and transcendental appropriate?
Preliminary Note


719c Since science is the certain knowledge of things through their causes - something that is not very easily or very quickly acquired by human beings - there is an initial stage in the development of a science in which the causes are completely unknown, a final stage in which the causes are known with certainty, and many intermediate stages in which the knowledge of causes gradually increases. (Fs) (notabene)

Accordingly, since definitions express knowledge, we distinguish in the same way between initial, final, and intermediate definitions. (Fs)

Initial definitions, if they are more than nominal definitions, indicate nothing about things except their external appearance. (Fs)

Final definitions express the very essences of things, their intrinsic constitutive causes. (Fs)

Intermediate definitions are those that are based partly on some clarity about causes and partly on names or on a description of external appearances. (Fs)

721a Again, since the divisions of things necessarily follow their definitions, distinctions about divisions must be made in the same way as distinctions about knowledge itself and about definitions. (Fs)

Initial divisions, then, are those that are made in the initial stage of a science and are based upon initial definitions. (Fs)

Final divisions are those that are made in the final stage of a science and are based on final definitions. (Fs)

Intermediate divisions are those that are made in an intermediate stage of a science and are based on intermediate definitions. (Fs)

Terminology

721b relation: the order of one to another. (Fs)

appropriately, in accordance with a certain stage of a science; as is clear from the preliminary note, there is nothing to prevent the same division from being appropriate to one stage of a science and inappropriate to another stage. (Fs)

predicament [also category]: any of the ten categories that Aristotle listed in a short treatise on logic [The Categories]: substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, place, time, posture, and accessory. (Fs)

predicamental relation: a relation that is found only in the fourth category. (Fs)
transcendental relation: a relation that is not restricted to the fourth category. (Fs)