Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Zusammenfassung Kap. 3; Unterscheidungen; intellectus agens - possibilis; aktive - passive Potenz

Kurzinhalt: distinction between: efficient - natural potency; agent - possible intellect (intellectus agens, possibilis); intelligere - dicere; agent - terminal - final object; habit: science, wisdom

Textausschnitt: 240 First, there seem to be no notable variations in the concept of procession, and in particular there seems no reason for supposing that the doctrine of De veritate, q. 4, a. 2, ad 7m was retracted or revised later: the act of love with respect to an end is, as proceeding from the will, 'processio operationis,' but as proceeding from the inner word, 'processio operati.' (147f; Fs)

241 Second, the actio manens in agente is act and perfection; as act, it admits no further description; for description is of limitation, and limitation is due not to act but to potency; but as act of someone, it has the characteristic of being an ulterior actuation of what already is completed and perfected by the specific essence of the act; it is act beyond essence and so is contrasted with the act of the incomplete, which is act as process towards essence. Incidentally, it was Scotus who affirmed immanent action to lie in the first species of the predicament, quality.1 I have not noticed such a statement in Aquinas, but I suggest that it would be Thomistic to affirm that, as esse is substantial, so immanent act is qualitative;2 for the essence that esse actuates is substance and the essence that immanent act actuates is a quality. (??? 148; Fs)

243 Thirdly, among the various meanings of passio, pati, many are opposed to immanent act; but pati in the metaphysical sense of receiving is opposed only to the exercise of efficient causality in an equally strict metaphysical sense; hence pati is not incompatible with immanent act or with actio or operatio in the sense of immanent act; on the contrary, inasmuch as immanent act is a perfection received in a creature, necessarily it is a pati. (148; Fs) (notabene)

244 Fourthly, a distinction is necessary between efficient potency, principle of act in the other or in self as other, and natural potency, principle of act in the selfsame; the active and passive potencies of De potentia, q. 1, a. 1, and the active and passive principles of Contra Gentiles, 3, c. 23, are subdivisions of natural potency, and so both are receptive potencies and principles; hence the apparent paradox that an active potency or principle is also receptive. This paradox is only apparent: what is opposed to receptive potency is efficient potency and not some subdivision of natural potency. On the other hand, the appearances are impressive: just as Aristotle was handicapped in writing his De anima by the technical elaborations of his Physics, so Aquinas was handicapped both by Aristotle's lack of generality in conceiving the efficient cause and by the initial strong influence of Avicenna; for him to clarify the notion of potentia activa by appealing to the notion of causal efficiency was impossible, for the latter notion was just as much in need of clarification; hence only indirectly can we observe differences that are crucial: inasmuch as 'principium motus' and even 'principium activum motus' is not the 'movens' or the 'motor'; inasmuch as 'principium operationis vel actionis' does not mean the same thing as 'principium effectus, operati, termini producti' and does not even necessarily imply it; inasmuch as form is cause of esse and operation; inasmuch as subject is cause, active principle, somehow active cause, and productive of accidents which nonetheless emanate by a natural resultance. (148f; Fs)

245 Fifthly, the foregoing clarification of Thomist usage and principles is of paramount importance in grasping Thomist metaphysics as applied to psychology; a failure to distinguish between efficient and natural potency results in a negation of the division of objects into agent and terminal, and the elimination of the agent object provides a metaphysical scheme into which Thomist psychology does not fit; further, natural potency which, though receptive, nonetheless makes a most significant contribution to its act, tends to disappear to be replaced by efficient forms and habits in need of a divine praemotio physica which, I have argued elsewhere,3 cannot be said to be a doctrine stated or implied by Aquinas; and incidentally, we may ask whether this neglect of natural potency has not some bearing on unsatisfactory conceptions of obediential potency. (149; Fs)

246 The coherence of present conclusions with the psychological data already assembled may be noted briefly. The distinction between agent intellect and possible intellect is a distinction between an efficient potency that produces and a natural potency that receives. The distinction between the possible intellect of one that is learning and the possible intellect of one in possession of a science is a distinction between the De potentia's passive potency to the reception of form and its active potency to the exercise of operation in virtue of form. (149; Fs) (notabene)

247 The distinction between intelligere and dicere is a distinction between the two meanings of action, operation: intelligere is action in the sense of act; dicere is action in the sense of operating an effect. The distinction between agent object and terminal object is to be applied twice. On the level of intellectual apprehension the agent object is the quidditas rei materialis, not to ti estin but to ti ên einai, known in and through a phantasm illuminated by agent intellect; this agent object is the obiectum proprium intellectus humani; it is the object of insight. Corresponding to this agent object there is the terminal object of the inner word; this is the concept, and the first of concepts is ens, the obiectum commune intellectus. Again, on the level of judgment the agent object is the objective evidence provided by sense and/or empirical consciousness, ordered conceptually and logically in a reductio ad principia, and moving to the critical act of understanding. Corresponding to this agent object, there is the other terminal object, the inner word of judgment, the verum, in and through which is known the final object, the ens reale. (149f; Fs)

248 Here, as is apparent, metaphysics and psychology go hand in hand, and the metaphysical analysis is but the more general form of the psychological analysis. Souls are distinguished by their potencies, potencies by their acts, acts by their objects. The final object of intellect is the real; the real is known through an immanent object produced by intellect, the true; the true supposes a more elementary immanent object also produced by the intellect, the definition. This production is not merely utterance, dicere, but the utterance of intelligence in act, or rationally conscious disregard of the irrelevant, of critical evaluation of all that is relevant, of intelligere.4 This intelligere can be what it is only if there are objects to move it as well as the objects that it produces: the intelligere that expresses itself in judgment is moved by the relevant evidence; the intelligere that expresses itself in definition is moved by illuminated phantasm. But evidence as relevant and phantasm as illuminated are not mere sensible data; hence besides the sensitive potencies and the possible intellect there is needed an agent intellect. (150; Fs)

249 Finally, as the contrast between the labor of study and the ease of subsequent mastery manifests, there are forms or habits to be developed in the possible intellect - understanding for the grasp of principles, science for the grasp of implications, wisdom for right judgment on the validity both of principles and of conclusions; they come to us through acts of understanding; they stand to acts of understanding as first act to second; and like the second acts, they are produced by agent objects which themselves are instruments of agent intellect. (150f; Fs)