Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Lonergan, was ist X;

Kurzinhalt: (1) whether there is an X, or (2) what is an X, or (3) whether X is Y, or (4) why X is Y. Meno; Grasping the cause is, not an ocular vision, but an insight into the sensible data

Textausschnitt: The superficial eye will pair off the first two questions together and the last two; but the significant parallel is between the first and the third, and between the second and the fourth. In modern language the first and third are empirical questions: they ask about matters of fact; they can be answered by an appeal to observation or experiment. But the fourth question is not empirical; it asks for a cause or reason; and, at least in some cases, the second question is identical with the fourth, and hence it too is not empirical, but likewise asks for a cause or reason. Thus, 'Why does light refract?' and 'What is refraction?' are, not two questions, but one and the same. Again, to take Aristotle's stock example, 'What is an eclipse of the moon?' and 'Why is the moon thus darkened?' are, not two questions, but one and the same. Say that the earth intervenes between the sun and the moon, blocking off the light received by the latter from the former, and at once you know why the moon is thus darkened, and what an eclipse is. The second and fourth questions, then, ask about causes; but a cause supplies the middle term in the scientific syllogism; and if the cause exists, its consequent necessarily exists. Hence, all four questions are questions about the middle terms of scientific syllogisms. The first and third ask whether there is a relevant middle term; the second and fourth ask what the relevant middle term is.
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But this answer only raises a further question. Granted that we know what is meant by 'What is X?' when that question can be recast into an equivalent 'Why V [sic] is X?' yet one may ask, quite legitimately, whether there always is a V. It is simple enough to substitute 'Why does light refract?' for 'What is refraction?' But tell me, please, what I am to substitute for 'What is a man?' or 'What is a house?'
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In the Posterior Analytics he remarked that, if a man were on the moon during its eclipse, he would not have to ask the first question - whether there is an eclipse - for the fact would be obvious; moreover, he would not even have to ask the second question - what an eclipse is - for that too would be obvious; he would see the earth cutting in between the sun and himself, and so at once would grasp the cause and the universal. Grasping the cause is, not an ocular vision, but an insight into the sensible data. Grasping the universal is the production of the inner word that expresses that insight.
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And, Aquinas explains, if one reached the universal from such brief acquaintance, that would be a matter of conjecturing that eclipses of the moon always occurred in that fashion.