Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Aristoteles: Synthese des Verstandes vielleicht gebildet nach Empedokles' Vorstellung der Entstehung

Kurzinhalt: Beispiel: Diagonale, Maß, irrationale Zahl: ich kann jedes dieser Elemente einzeln verstehen: it is a third to see that an irrational cannot be a measure; 2 Begriffe verschmelzen in einem

Textausschnitt: Mental synthesis is of concepts. As one defined term proceeds from one insight into phantasm, so two defined terms proceed from two insights. Such multiple insights and definitions may be separate, isolated, atomic. But it also happens that one insight combines with another,
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For he appealed to the naive evolutionary theory of Empedocles that fancied an initial state of nature in which heads existed apart from necks and trunks apart from limbs ...
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In like manner, Aristotle contended, intellect puts together what before were apart. It is one thing to understand that the diagonal stands to the side of a square as root two to unity; it is another to grasp that that proportion is an irrational; it is a third to see that an irrational cannot be a measure.
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Note the nature of the conjunction: it is not that two concepts merge into one concept; that would be mere confusion; concepts remain eternally and immutably distinct.b But while two concepts remain distinct as concepts, they may cease to be two intelligibilities and merge into one.
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where before there were two acts of understanding, expressed singly in two concepts, now there is but one act of understanding, expressed in the combination of two concepts. This combination of two, as a combination, forms but a single intelligible, a single though composite object of a single act of understanding.