Autor: Melchin, R. Kenneth

Buch: History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Titel: History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Stichwort: Emergene Wahrscheinlichkeit (emergent probability) - Geschichte, Humanwissenschaften; Steuerung d. Weltprozesses; Geschichte bedingt durch d. Meinungen; Isomorphismus

Kurzinhalt: In short, man is that instance of world process wherein what is intelligible becomes intelligent ... The emergence of cognitionally actuated meaning onto the scene of world process introduces a new class of events onto this scene, a class of events ...

Textausschnitt: 4.5 Emergent Probability and the Human Sciences

32/4 Emergent probability would conceive man as the locus of the realization of a set of successively higher order systematic integrations of the materials and schemes of the four levels of physics, chemistry, botany and zoology. Like the plants, man possesses the capacities to systematize biologically various aggregates of chemical compounds, to adapt to environmental conditions, to develop, and to reproduce single cells and ordered manifolds of cells. With the animals man shares the sensitive appetites and schemes that systematize the lower order organic materials. But unlike the animals, man is characterized by the capacity to effect further systematic integrations of the outcomes of such sensitive schemes in acts of insight, judgment and decision. In short, man is that instance of world process wherein what is intelligible becomes intelligent. With man there occurs the possibility and the probability that the intelligibility immanent in every systematic process, every probability, every scheme of recurrence and every series of schemes can become cognitionally present to a knowing subject intentionally oriented to probably emergent world process. Acts of knowing are probably emergent, higher order systematic integrations of non-systematic manifolds of images and sense data. And as with all schemes and seriations, the higher order system realizes an intelligibility possibly immanent in the lower order manifold in accordance with probabilities. The intelligibility grasped in an insight, the truth affirmed in a judgment, and the value realized in a decision to act all emerge in dynamic processes whose operations are indentical in structure to probably emerging world process. It is this isomorphism which is the basis for Lonergan's affirmation that acts of knowing grasp and affirm the intelligibility immanent in being. The concrete actualization of possible and probable intelligibilities immanent in the non-systematic manifolds of world process constitutes the structure of the dynamic movement of world process. And the cognitional actuation of such intelligibilities immanent in the sensory and imaginative experiences of human subjects engaged in world process constitutes the structure of the dynamic acts of knowing world process.1 (111f; Fs) (notabene)

33/4 Emergent probability can offer to the human sciences a structured heuristic which could explain both the continuities and the discontinuities between the human order and the 'natural' orders of physics, chemistry, botany and zoology. Armed with such an explanatory heuristic the human scientist can carve out a domain of inquiry which is both distinct from those of the 'natural' sciences and linked to them within the context of an overall evolutionary structure. And since the most dramatic dimension of human activity is the act of cognition itself, a human science, so conceived, will have within its proper field of inquiry, the very activity of the natural scientist him- or herself and the relationship between this activity and its results. (112; Fs) (notabene)

34/4 However there is also a second way in which emergent probability can be of service to the human sciences. In addition to knowing intelligibilities immanent in world process humans also implement cognitional skills to constitute new events onto the scene of world process. The isomorphism between the structure of world process and the structure of knowing gives rise to the possibility of subjects coming to understand, not only something which has already occurred, but also the fulfilling conditions for the occurrence of something new, something which has not yet occurred. With the development of some level of cognitional and sensorimotor skills humans no longer need to wait for the appropriate convergence of conditions for an event to occur. Rather we can come to know what conditions need fulfilling and we can coordinate and implement a range of motor skills from our own repertoire (as well as from those of others) to bring these conditions into being. The emergence of cognitionally actuated meaning onto the scene of world process introduces a new class of events onto this scene, a class of events which are constituted by meaning. Consequently the study of world process, when it shifts its focus to include humanity, must now be alert to this new type of event, to the new complex of conditions for its occurrence and recurrence, and to a new set of emergent schemes and series in and of such events. For human history is not simply understood in acts of meanings. It is constituted by acts of meaning and by the structures which condition the recurrence of such acts. (112f; Fs) (notabene)

35/4 Finally there remains a third contribution which emergent probability can make to the human sciences. This contribution comes to light when it is understood that there stands a profound link between the understanding of history in acts of meaning and the constitution of history by acts of meaning. The fact is that we constitute our future history in accordance with our current understanding of ourselves and our history. Our interpretation of ourselves and our history informs the actions in which we shape our future. Consequently emergent probability applied to the field of human history, recognizes that central to the fulfilling conditions for ranges of human futures will be the accounts of human life, human pasts and possible human futures which are generally operative in culture. As human scientists seek to provide tools and materials for the responsible direction of history they discover, to an ever greater degree, that the way people understand themselves sets the ranges of possibility for their future responsible actions. Consequently emergent probability directs the human scientist to an increasing degree to the study of the world of human meaning, to the conditions for the wide scale transformations of meaning, and to the limitations imposed upon possible futures by the ranges of extant meanings operative in culture.2 It is to this constitutive function of meaning in practical intelligence and in history that the following chapters are devoted. (113; Fs) (notabene)