Autor: Liddy, Richard M.

Buch: Transforming Light

Titel: Transforming Light

Stichwort: Identität: Sein, Denken; Hegel, Feuerbach, Lonergan; Definition: Gewissheit; Mystik

Kurzinhalt: The sole explanation is that there is an ultimate identity of intelligence and reality; i.e., that in virtue of which other things are must be not only a cause but also an intelligence.'3 He specifies the meaning of this identity of intelligence and ...

Textausschnitt: 17/5 There is then the critical problem: 'What justification is there for the subject's demand to understand? Why may we suppose that evidence, a subjective experience, the illumination that comes of having things explained, should be an ear-mark of truth, that is, of the way things-in-themselves (so distinct from our minds) should be explained?'1 Lonergan pays tribute to Hegel. (81; Fs)

Hegel indicated the germ of a solution by positing an identity of intelligence and reality. His interest in theory made him give the upper hand in this identity to intelligence; for him the world is the idea gaining consciousness of itself and unfolding itself according to thesis, antithesis and higher synthesis. This is all very nice for the theoretical side of things, however misty, but what happens to the practical? Feuerbach solved this by turning Hegel's house upside down. He asserted the identity of intelligence and reality but gave the upper hand to reality, in particular material reality.2

18/5 At this point Lonergan inserts a handwritten note about Marx's dialectical materialism necessitating Communism and the unity of theory and practice as the basis of Bolshevism. It is obvious that his interest in philosophy goes hand-in-hand with his interest in the contemporary historical situation. He indicates his own position. 'The intelligibility of reality itself needs an explanation. The sole explanation is that there is an ultimate identity of intelligence and reality; i.e., that in virtue of which other things are must be not only a cause but also an intelligence.'3 He specifies the meaning of this identity of intelligence and reality: (82; Fs)

Now, though an identity of intelligence and reality is the solution, it does not follow that this identity need be verified in the actual world. A radical and fundamental identity is quite sufficient, the theist as opposed to the monist position. This sets up a pre-established harmony (I do not mean a psycho-physical parallelism) which makes the intellect of man apt to understand the right way, and so justifies the demand of the subject to understand, [and] gives a sufficient reason for the axiom 'ens et intelligibile convertuntur.'4

19/5 Referring to Newman, Lonergan then defines certitude: 'Certitude is therefore an assent to an idea, to a theory, as the sole possible explanation of the facts.'5 (82; Fs)

20/5 In a further page of these written fragments, Lonergan links this theory of 'intellect as immanent act' with mystical experience. 'The theory of intellection as immanent act fits in with a philosophy of mysticism; the mystical experience is sui generis because it is an experience, a transcendence, of the soul as soul and not merely as related to the body. The uniqueness of this experience is more readily understood, if our theory of ordinary knowledge does not postulate spiritual apprehensions,'6 At the same time, as in his early Blandyke Papers, there is in these notes an emphasis on the need for experience, imagination, the presentation, in order to understand.' [...] We have here an explanation of the need of phantasm, of diagrams in geometry, of experiments in physics. Parallel to this is the need of illustration in oratory and exposition, of the importance of similitude, parable, analogy in gaining ideas of things unseen. The last brings us to the most profound example of the idea in the concrete, the Incarnation; in the words of St. John: kai ho logos sarx egeneto.'7 (82f; Fs)

21/5 The ultimate aim of Lonergan's critical metaphysics is to consider human life, not only in its metaphysical character, but as it really is lived, with weakness but also tending toward a transcendent telos. As he quotes Augustine: Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. (83; Fs)