Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Was ist ein Mensch, Transformation der Frage: klarere Sicht bei Thomas

Kurzinhalt: Umwandlung der 2. in die 4. Frage; What is a man?' = 'Why is V a man?; Sinn: Subjekt - Einsicht in Daten: Mittelterm - Begriff: Prädikat; causa essendi, Formalursache;

Textausschnitt: ... how to transform questions of the second type into questions of the fourth type in such ultimate and simple cases as, What is a man? What is a house? The clue lies in the fact of insight into sensible data. For an insight, an act of understanding, is a matter of knowing a cause. Presumably, in ultimate and simple cases, the insight is the knowledge of a cause that stands between the sensible data and the concept whose definition is sought. Though Aristotle's predecessors knew little of such a cause - for the cause in question is the formal cause - Aristotle himself made it a key factor in his system; and it was to the formal cause that he appealed when, in the Metaphysics, he attempted to settle the meaning of such questions as, What is a man? What is a house? The meaning is, Why is this sort of body a man? Why are stones and bricks, arranged in a certain way, a house? What is it that causes the matter, sensibly perceived, to be a thing? To Scholastics the answers are self-evident. That which makes this type of body to be a man is a human soul. That which makes these stones and bricks to be a house is an artificial form. That which makes matter, in general, to be a thing is the causa essendi, the formal cause.
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'What is a man?' is equivalent to 'Why is V a man?' - where V stands for the sensible data of a man, and the answer is the formal cause, the soul. Now this does not imply that one is to answer the question, What is a man? by the proposition, A man is his soul. That answer is patently false. The formal cause is only part of the whole, and part can never be predicated of the whole. The fallacy that leads to this false conclusion is that, while we have transposed 'What is X?' into 'Why V is X?' we have yet to transpose the formal cause, which answers 'Why V is X?' back to the answer of 'What is X?' That transposition is from formal cause to essence or quiddity. Neglect of this second transposition by Aristotle has led to considerable obscurity: for among the meanings of 'substance' Aristotle will write the causa essendi, the to ti en einai, the form. Very accurately Aquinas hit upon the root of the confusion: 'Essentia enim et forma in hoc conveniunt quod secundum utrumque dicitur esse illud quo aliquid est. Sed forma refertur ad materiam, quam facit esse in actu; quidditas autem refertur ad suppositum, quod significatur ut habens talem essentiam.' Questions of the second type ask about the suppositum: for example, What is a man? Transposed to the fourth type, they ask about the matter: for example, Why is this type of body a man? Common to both questions is inquiry into the quo aliquid est, which, relative to the matter, is the form, but relative to the suppositum, is the essence, that is, the form plus the common matter.