Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Understanding and Being

Titel: Understanding and Being

Stichwort: Objektivität und psychische Abnormalität

Kurzinhalt: Experiential Objectivity; Einsicht und Erfahrung als per se infallible and per accidens; die Welt des psychische Abnormlen: nicht Gegenstand d. Physik usw.; Kriterium für richtige Erfahrung: Intelligenz, Urteil

Textausschnitt: () However, what one is imagining may not be the same as what there is to be sensed, what can be sensed, what is given. Insight is per se infallible and per accidens makes mistakes. It is infallibleg because it is insight into what we imagine, and it is per accidens mistaken insofar as what we imagine may be very different from what is to be seen or heard or tasted or smelt or felt.
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The freely produced or what is produced by psychological aberration is a perfect counterfeit of what is given. Still, it is given not for normal living but for the science of abnormal psychology. From that given, you arrive at a true account of abnormal psychology. It is not a suitable given for doing physics, ...
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However, while the person in the pathological state cannot spot what is wrong, those who are not in that state can spot what is wrong with him. He does not have the freedom of control of the sensitive processes that permit correct judgment. You cannot settle this question of the difference between the given and the abnormally produced by saying that when you are normal you are able to take a look to see what is there, and when you are not normal you look and see what is not there. In either case, all you have is the look, and to know whether you are normal or abnormal you would have to have a super-look in which you would look not merely at your looking but at what it was looking at.