Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Unterschied zw. Plato und Aristoteles im Hinblick auf das Wissen: Identität - Anschauung

Kurzinhalt: One knows by what one is; the reason why we know is within us; It is the light of our own intellects

Textausschnitt: But it is well to grasp just where the strength of the Aristotelian position lies. One might side with Plato and say knowing of its nature is knowing the other. But this brings up insoluble difficulties with regard to knowledge in the absolute being; for even Plato was forced to admit, in virtue of his assumptions, that absolute being, if it knows, must undergo motion.
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Aquinas was quite aware of this profound cleavage between Platonist and Aristotelian gnoseology: 'Et hoc quidem oportet verum esse secundum sententiam Aristotelis, qui ponit quod intelligere contingit per hoc quod intellectum in actu sit unum cum intellectu in actu ... Secundum autem positionem Platonis, intelligere fit per contactum intellectus ad rem intelligibilem, [...]"
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The Thomist validation of rational reflection is connected with the Augustinian vision of eternal truth. Augustine had argued that we know truth not by looking without but by looking within ourselves.
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Now the Platonism of this position is palpable, for its ultimate answer is not something that we are but something that we see; it supposes that knowledge essentially is not identity with the known but some spiritual contact or confrontation with the known. Such a view Aquinas could not accept. One knows by what one is. Our knowledge of truth is not to be accounted for by any vision or contact or confrontation with the other, however lofty and sublime. The ultimate ground of our knowing is indeed God, the eternal Light; but the reason why we know is within us. It is the light of our own intellects; and by it we can know because 'ipsum enim lumen intellectuale quod est in nobis, nihil est aliud quam quaedam participata similitudo luminis increati.