Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Understanding and Being

Titel: Understanding and Being

Stichwort: 3 Probleme d. Objektivität, Tonquédec, Maréchal (Kant), Selbstwiderspruch im Subjekt

Kurzinhalt: The Problem of Objectivity, Erkennen nicht als Schau, sondern als Vervollkommnung (perfection), contradiction within the subject; Qualis unusquisque est, talis et finis videtur ei

Textausschnitt: () ... the notion of absolute objectivity as such does not exclude relativism. A relativist could admit that notion of absolute objectivity, but he would say we never actually reach it; we never reach the virtually unconditioned. It is only when we understand everything about everything that we really get hold of the unconditioned.
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Which way is right? Are we right in saying that normative objectivity is meeting the exigences of the pure desire to know? Or would it be more correct to say that normative objectivity is paying attention to the object, seeing what is out there to be seen?
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De Tonquédec works out a complete theory of knowledge in terms of seeing, confronting. His approach is entirely in terms of objectivity in the sense of taking a look, and he has a bit of difficulty handling judgment. Knowing is looking, and that position dominates his entire exposition and investigation. In Maréchal, however, we have just the opposite. For Maréchal, finality is the dominant notion.
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Different answers here will determine different criticisms of Kant. Thus de Tonquédec holds that what is wrong with Kant is his ideal of pure reason and the categories of understanding; Kant should be content with intuition, and put more stress on it. Maréchal, however, criticizes Kant for putting too much stress on intuition and not enough on judgment. My own position is that for Kant you have knowing when intuition operates in such a way that you have concepts. But he does not recognize judgment and grasp of the unconditioned; he does not make the unconditioned a key point.
There is, then, a problem of objectivity, and the problem has different aspects. The first of these is the question of the starting point.
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The point is to complete the circle. One way to complete the circle is to begin from knowing. But one can begin with the metaphysics of the object, proceed to the metaphysical structure of the knower and to the metaphysics of knowing, and move on to complement the metaphysics of knowing with the further psychological determinations that can be had from consciousness. From those psychological determinations one can move on to objectivity and arrive at a metaphysics. One will be completing the same circle,
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The second aspect of the problem of objectivity regards the directive notion of knowing. This is the basic issue. What is your dominant opposition? Is knowing, with de Tonquédec, a looking? Or is it, with Maréchal, basically a perfection? ... Consequently, Kant's position does not square with his theory.
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What is the fascination of the view of knowing as looking? Is it merely a mistake? Not entirely. There is involved another factor, the subject himself. We saw that self-appropriation involves development of the self which is to be appropriated, and the same problem recurs here.
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There is a contradiction within the subject. There is a dynamic of events in human development; it is animal, intelligent, and rational. Consequently, the weight that can be carried by the rational part of man is a variable, but we are always living. To meet the problem, one must shift one's basis. The shift from animal to intelligent level occurs philosophically as the shift from sensism and related positions to essentialism. The shift from intelligent to rational level occurs philosophically as the shift from essentialism to existentialism in our sense, that is, to a position which makes truth dominant and operative in a fundamental way in one's philosophy. Qualis unusquisque est, talis et finis videtur ei:
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There is, finally, a third aspect to the problem of objectivity, the cognitional problem of fact. What is true? What do we know? The conversion, on the intellectual side, is effected by the study of facts. Whether one adverts to it or not, the finality of the subject is operative; but through the study of facts one can bring the subject to a fruitful advertence to the conflict between what he holds as theory and what he does in actual knowing and practice.