Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: species, eidos: Begriff bei Thomas; Form als Prinzip des Verstehens und des inneren Wortes; operatio u. actio

Kurzinhalt: entsprechend d. Tätigkeit als principium actionis u. p. effectus -> Form als Prinzip d. Verstehens u. d. Gedachten; ebenso species: Aktuierung des Intellekts und inneres Wort; actio - operatio: Trinität

Textausschnitt: 6. Species, Intelligere

213 The Latin term species translates Aristotle's term eidos and shares its ambiguity. It may mean a form, and then it includes neither common nor individual matter; and it may mean a universal, and then it includes common but not individual matter.1 In cognitional contexts species occurs in both senses: 'similitude rei intellectae, quae est species intelligibilis, est forma secundum quam intellectus intelligit';2 'intellectus igitur abstrahit speciem rei naturalis a materia sensibili individuali, non autem a materia sensibili communi.'3 The former species is a form; the latter is a universal. To determine in which sense the term species is employed is not always as easy as in the above cases. However, our criteria may be extended: a form is known only by metaphysical analysis; but the universal enters into the knowledge of everyone. To the objection that intellect does not abstract species because, according to Aristotle, intellect knows species in the phantasm, Aquinas answered: (133; Fs)

Dicendum quod intellectus noster et abstrahit species intelligibiles a phantasmatibus, inquantum considerat naturas rerum in universali; et tamen intelligit eas in phantasmatibus, quia non potest intelligere ea quorum species abstrahit, nisi convertendo se ad phantasmata, ut supra dictum est.4

214 The generality of this statement, the fact that universals are being considered, the fact that the species are known in the phantasm, all favor taking species in the sense of a universal. On the other hand, to the objection that names signify things known and that, according to Aristotle, names are signs of the passions of the soul so that the things known are passions of the soul, Aquinas answered: (134; Fs)

Et utraque haec operatic coniungitur in intellectu. Nam primo quidem consideratur passio intellectus possibilis, secundum quod informatur specie intelligibili. Qua quidem formatus format secundo vel definitionem vel divisionem vel compositionem, quae per vocem significatur. Unde ratio quam significat nomen est definitio; et enuntiatio significat compositionem et divisionem intellectus. Non ergo voces significant ipsas species intelligibiles, sed ea quae intellectus sibi format ad iudicandum de rebus exterioribus.5
215 Here we have metaphysical analysis revealing the passion of the possible intellect being informed by species and its activity in forming definitions and judgments; species means form, and though the universal is referred to as the 'ratio quam significat nomen,' it is not here called a species. (134; Fs)

216 Our present purpose is to discuss the relation between species as form and the act intelligere. Our view is that this relation is expressed by Aquinas in two different manners - one according to what we have ventured to name the Avicennist definition of active potency, the other according to the Aristotelian concept of form as natural potency. (134f; Fs)

217 First, then, just as the De potentia conceives active potency as the principle of operation or action which takes place in virtue of form,6 so one may read that (intellect actuated by) species is the 'principium actus intelligendi,'7 the 'principium actionis,'8 the 'principium formale actionis,'9 the 'principium formale quo intellectus intelligit.'10 Again, just as the De potentia conceives passive potency as potency to the reception of form,11 and contrasts this passive potency with the active potency to operation and action, so one may read a parallel contrast between the reception of species, which is named a passio, and the subsequent operatio, which is an actus perfecti.12 (135; Fs)

218 Thirdly, just as the De potentia distinguishes between 'principium actionis' and 'principium effectus,13 and again between action and the term of action,14 so there is a contrast between the form which is the principle of the act of understanding and the thought-out form of a house which is the term of the act of understanding and, as it were, its effect;15 similarly contrasted are the species which is the form that actuates the intellect and is its principle of action, the action of the intellect, and the inner word which is term to the action and, as it were, something constituted by it.16 Finally, while we have seen that the terms operatio and actio sometimes mean simply act or being in act and sometimes mean the exercise of efficient causality, we now find that the precision of trinitarian theory led Aquinas to distinguish exactly between these two meanings with regard to the operation or action of intellect; when that operation is meant in the sense of act, it is termed intelligere; but when by operation is meant that one act is grounding another, it is termed dicere.17 (135f; Fs)


219 So much for a sketch of one scheme of metaphysical analysis applied by Aquinas to intellect. For it is only to be expected that there should be in his writings some evidence of another scheme of analysis that stands in more immediate conformity with Aristotelian thought. The most impressive example of such conformity occurs in the following incidental statement. (136; Fs)

... forma recepta in aliquo non movet illud in quo recipitur; sed ipsum habere talem formam, est ipsum motum esse; sed movetur ab exteriori agente; sicut corpus quod calefit per ignem, non movetur a calore recepto, sed ab igne. Ita intellectus non movetur a specie iam recepta, vel a vero quod consequitur ipsam speciem; sed ab aliqua re exteriori quae imprimit in intellectum, sicut est intellectus agens, vel phantasia, vel aliquid aliud huiusmodi.1 (notabene)