Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Akt d. Verstehens, inneres Wort 2; Unterschied in Terminologie: Avicenna, Aristoteles; Sein als bewegendes Objekt?; visio beata: esse als Beweger und Ziel d. Intellekts

Kurzinhalt: Now, certainly I would by no means deny that what moves the senses or the intellect is being. But the being that moves a sense faculty is not being in its full extension but only a certain kind of being, such as color or sound ...

Textausschnitt: 607a There is, however, another difficulty, one that is metaphysical rather than psychological, in fact, more semantic than metaphysical. For understanding is an act or operation in one sense, whereas defining or uttering an inner word is an act or operation in another sense. Understanding is an act, second act, an act of what is complete (actus perfecti), energeia, like seeing and hearing and willing. But defining is a kind of making; when we utter interiorly we form and produce an inner word, either a simple inner word, such as a definition, or a compound inner word, a proposition. In Avicenna's terminology the intelligible species received in the possible intellect is to the act of understanding as the principle of an action, the formal principle of action; and the same species is to the uttered word as the principle of something done [principium operati), the principle of an effect. But in Aristotle's terminology active potency is not contrary to act but rather is grounded in it (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 25, a. 1, ad im); hence, the potency to utter an inner word is not contrary to the act of understanding but is grounded in it. Besides, in the same terminology, since a making is the effect produced considered as being from the maker, whereas a passion is this effect considered as being in the product, it follows that uttering is the inner word itself considered as being from the act of understanding, and being uttered is that word considered as being in the possible intellect. Moreover, according to Aristotle's terminology as slightly modified by St Thomas, to utter would regard the act of understanding itself as related to the word produced, while being uttered would regard the inner word inasmuch as the word results from the act of understanding. Finally, in Avicenna's terminology the relationship between understanding and the inner word is that the word is the term of the action of understanding.1

609a Here one might raise the objection that the formal object of the intellect is being, and that since there is motion from being, therefore being is a motive object and not an object as an end. (Fs)

609b Now, certainly I would by no means deny that what moves the senses or the intellect is being. But the being that moves a sense faculty is not being in its full extension but only a certain kind of being, such as color or sound or flavor, and the like. Likewise, the being which moves our intellect in its present state of union with a body is not being in its full extension but only corporeal being; hence, we cannot know separate substances except by way of certain analogies (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 88), and the proper object of our intellect is defined as a quiddity or nature existing in corporeal matter (ibid. q. 84, a. 7 c). Still, those who reach the beatific vision behold the very act of existence itself and in it all other things, according to the degree of perfection of their vision; then, perhaps, it could be said that being in its full extension is not only the end but also the mover of the created intellect. (Fs) (notabene)