Autor: Vertin, Michael -- Mehrere Autoren: Lonergan Workshop, Volume 8

Buch: Lonergan's "Three Basic Questions" and a Philosophy of Philosophies

Titel: Michael Vertin, Lonergan's "Three Basic Questions" and a Philosophy of Philosophies

Stichwort: Philosophie der Philosophien begriffliche prä-empirische Grundlegung (conceptual pre-empirical foundationalism); Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Marx

Kurzinhalt: (i) If and only if specific apparent knowing occurs in me, then valid knowing occurs in me, and the latter is TOTALLY IDENTICAL with the former; (ii) that assertion is based upon PRE-EMPIRICAL CONCEPTUAL EVIDENCE ...

Textausschnitt: ii. conceptual pre-empirical foundationalism

239a What distinguishes philosophers in our second major group from those in the two further groups is their stand on the basic phenomenological-epistemological issue. All the persons in this group agree on at least three contentions. The first is that valid cognitional operations are to be identified not with apparent cognitional operations tout court but only with some specific kind of apparent cognitional operations, though the specific kind varies from subgroup to sub-group. For some, the requisite cognitional operations are intentionally intuitive, involving the bipolar functional immediacy of cognitional act and distinct cognitional content. For others, they are nonintentionally intuitive, with the monopolar functional immediacy of cognitional act that is its own cognitional content. For others, they are intuitive in either of these two senses. And for still others, they are characteristically non-intuitive, discursive. The second common contention is that the evidence one invokes in establishing the first contention is the pre-empirical evidence constituted by the very concept of valid knowing, a concept that is logically self-evident, whether the logic be formal or transcendental. In other words, rejection of the first contention inescapably involves the rejector in some type of logical contradiction. And the third common contention is that the first two contentions outline what is methodologically the most basic of all philosophical stands. We may name this threefold contention "conceptual pre-empirical foundationalism" and state it in summary form:
A. 2a (Conceptual Pre-Empirical Foundationalism):

(i) If and only if specific apparent knowing occurs in me, then valid knowing occurs in me, and the latter is TOTALLY IDENTICAL with the former;
(ii) that assertion is based upon PRE-EMPIRICAL CONCEPTUAL EVIDENCE and thus is CONCEPTUALLY INCONTROVERTIBLE; and
(iii) the first two assertions constitute the general form of the fundamental determinative member of the integral set of basic philosophical stances. (Fs)

240a The stand that a philosopher in one of these sub-groups takes on the basic epistemological issue is of course a function of his stand not just on the basic phenomenological-epistemological issue but on the basic phenomenological issue as well. Thus Rene Descartes, for example, combining "intentional intuitionism" with a ("divinely guaranteed") conviction that the requisite intentionally intuitive cognitional acts do indeed occur, concludes on this basis that valid knowing does indeed occur, a view often named "(epistemological) naive realism" (Descartes, 1641: III-VI). Immanual Kant, likewise maintaining a version of "intentional intuitionism" but convinced that the requisite intentionally intuitive cognitional acts do not occur, concludes on this basis that valid knowing does not occur, a view sometimes called "(epistemological) critical idealism" (Kant, 1787: B 33, 45,66-72, 74-75,92-93,295-315). On the other hand, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, combining "nonintentional intuitionism" with a conviction that the requisite nonintentionally intuitive cognitional acts do in fact occur, judges on this basis that valid knowing does in fact occur, a stand that we may call "(epistemological) naive idealism" (Fichte, 1801: I-VI). Again, Karl Marx, similarly maintaining a version of "nonintentional intuitionism" but convinced that the requisite nonintentionally intuitive cognitional acts do not occur (that is, not yet), judges on this basis that valid knowing does not occur (that is, not yet), a view sometimes called "(epistemological) relativism" (McInnes, 1967: 173-76). Finally, for the various versions of the conceptual pre-empirical foundationalist stand on the basic phenomenological-epistemological issue there are correlatively specified stands on the basic epistem-ological-metaphysical issue; and the latter combine in turn with various basic epistemological stands (such as the ones just noted) to yield a range of stands on the basic metaphysical issue. (Fs)

241a Over against this second group of philosophers (with its several sub-groups), our two remaining groups both take a different tack regarding the basic phenomenological-epistemological issue. Notwithstanding their important disagreements, they concur that valid cognitional operations are not some conceptually pre-specified kind of apparent cognitional operations, whatever the latter turn out to be; that the essential reason this claim must be accepted is that any effort to affirm the opposite cannot but involve one in a specifically operational contradiction, performatively invoking the very claim that verbally one would reject; and hence that one's most fundamental philosophical assertion must be methodologically prior to the stand one takes on the basic phenomenological-epistemological issue. We may label this composite view "operational pre-empirical foundationalism" and put it concisely as follows:

A. 2a (Operational Pre-Empirical Foundationalism):
(i) If and only if apparent knowing occurs in me, than valid knowing occurs in me, and the latter is TOTALLY IDENTICAL with the former;
(ii) that assertion is based upon PRE-EMPIRICAL OPERATIONAL EVIDENCE and thus is OPERATIONALLY INCONTROVERTIBLE; and
(iii) therefore no stance on the basic phenomenological-epistemological issue can constitute the general form of the fundamental determinative member of the integral set of basic philosophical stances. (Fs)