Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Thomas und Epistemologie; Unterschied zw. Sinn u. Intellekt

Kurzinhalt: Thomas wusste darum, dass sich die Wahrheit vom Wissen um uns selbst herleitet

Textausschnitt: The act of the thing as sensible is the act of sensation; the act of the thing as intelligible is the act of understanding; but we can proceed from these identities to valid concepts of essence and true affirmations of existence, because such procession is in virtue of our intellectual light, which is a participation of eternal Light. Such is the Thomist ontology of knowledge. But is there also a Thomist epistemology?
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Now there happens to be a text in which Aquinas did maintain that our knowledge of truth is derived from our knowledge of ourselves. Sense knowledge, because unreflective, is irrelevant to the procession of the Word.
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Sense knowledge is true; sense is aware of its own acts of sensation. But sense, though true and though conscious, nevertheless is not conscious of its own truth; for sense does not know its own nature, nor the nature of its acts, nor their proportion to their objects. On the other hand, intellectual knowledge is not merely true but also aware of its own truth. It is not merely aware empirically of its acts but also reflects upon their nature; to know the nature of its acts, it has to know the nature of their active principle, which it itself is; and if it knows its own nature, intellect also knows its own proportion to knowledge of reality. Further, this difference between sense and intellect is a difference in reflective capacity. In knowing, we go outside ourselves; in reflecting, we return in upon ourselves. But the inward return of sense is incomplete,