Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Zusammenfassung Urteil, Thomas: Gegenseitigekeit von Introspektion und Metaphysik

Kurzinhalt: are above all psychological facts; inner word: insight into phantasm, expression of a reflective act of understanding

Textausschnitt: ... that Aquinas did practice psychological introspection and through that experimental knowledge of his own soul arrived at his highly nuanced, deeply penetrating, firmly outlined theory of the nature of human intellect. Hence the light of intellect, insight into phantasm, acts of defining thought, reflective reasoning and understanding, acts of judgment are above all psychological facts. The inner word of definition is the expression of an insight into phantasm, and the insight is the goal towards which the wonder of inquiry tends. The inner word of judgment is the expression of a reflective act of understanding, and that reflective act is the goal towards which critical wonder tends.
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No doubt, as expressed by Aquinas, these psychological facts are embedded in metaphysical categories and theorems. But without first grasping in some detail the empirical content so embedded, one risks, if not emptying the categories and theorems of all content, at least interpreting them with an impoverished generality that cannot bear the weight of the mighty superstructure of trinitarian theory. Conversely, it will be found, I believe, that our preliminary concern with psychological fact will lend a sureness, otherwise unattainable, to the interpretation of the metaphysical categories; for ...