Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Conceptualization, inneres Wort, Begriffsbildung als Produkt des Verstehens (reasoning)

Kurzinhalt: inner word, in jeder Frage geht es um einen Mittelterm: when one asks what a stone is, one asks for the middle term between

Textausschnitt: Apart from certain natural concepts, of which we shall speak later, it cannot even be suggested that Aquinas thought of conception as an automatic process. Conceptualization comes as the term and product of a process of reasoning. As long as the reasoning, the fluctuation of discourse, continues, the inner word is as yet unuttered. But it also is true that as long as the reasoning continues, we do not as yet understand; for until the inner word is uttered, we are not understanding but only thinking in order to understand. Hence understanding and inner word are simultaneous, the former being the ground and cause of the latter.
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f one is willing to take a broad view on reasoning, to conceive syllogism with some of the intellectual suppleness of Aristotle, one will be willing to grant that every question either asks whether there is a middle term, or asks what the middle term is; that when one asks what a stone is, one asks for the middle term between the sensible data and the essential definition of the stone; between those two, there has to occur an act of understanding, and leading up to such understanding there is the discourse or reasoning of scientific method ... Already we have seen that from the fact that human understanding had its object in phantasm, Aquinas deduced that human intellect was mostly reason; one should not be surprised when he goes on to affirm that we have to reason in order to form concepts.