Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Titel: Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas

Stichwort: Das Objekt der passiven Potenz ist aktiv -> auch das intelligere ist ein pati; auch der Wille als pati

Kurzinhalt: that sentire is a pati and that intelligere is a pati; he will moves itself only inasmuch as it is in act with respect to the end

Textausschnitt: 225 In the passages quoted Aquinas states that the object of the passive potency is active, not with respect to the species alone, but with respect to the act, the action, the operation of the potency. The coherence of this position with general Thomist doctrine has engaged us through considerations of actus perfecti, pati, potentia activa, and duplex actio. We may perhaps be permitted, after this somewhat lengthy preamble, to point out that Aquinas as a matter of fact actually does say that sentire is a pati and that intelligere is a pati, and then to present our daring hypothesis that perhaps Aquinas meant what he said. In the following passages the reader will note that Aquinas is speaking not of some prior condition of sensation but of sensation itself and that Aquinas does not say that sensation has a prior condition or cause in some change but that it consists in a change and is completed in a change. I quote: (140; Fs)

... sentire consistit in moveri et pati.1 ... sentire consistit in quodam pati et alterari.2 ... cognitio sensus perficitur in hoc ipso quod sensus a sensibili movetur.3 Anima igitur sensitiva non se habet in sentiendo sicut movens et agens, sed sicut id quo patiens patitur.4... si vero operatio ilia consistit in passione, adest ei principium passivum, sicut patet de principiis sensitivis in animalibus.5 ... sensum affici est ipsum eius sentire.6... sentire perficitur per actionem sensibilis in sensum.7 ... duplex operatio. Una secundum solam immutationem, et sic perficitur operatio sensus per hoc quod immutatur a sensibili.8 ... cognitio sensus exterioris perficitur per solam immutationem sensus a sensibili.9

226 With regard to external sense it would seem that the object is active, not merely inasmuch as it causes the species, but also inasmuch as it causes the act, action, operation of the sensitive potency. (142; Fs)

227 Aquinas had the habit of quoting Aristotle to the effect that 'intelligere est quoddam pati.' In the Sentences, discussing the mutability proper to creatures, he concludes that creatures are mutable both inasmuch as they can lose what they possess and inasmuch as they can acquire what they do not possess; the latter is a true mutability, though in a broad sense, as when all reception is said to be a pati and moveri, for example, 'intelligere quoddam pati est.'10 Again, discussing the meanings of pati, he urges that there is no pati proprie in the intellect because it is immaterial, but still there is there an element of passion inasmuch as there is reception; and that is the meaning of 'intelligere est pati quoddam.'11 (142; Fs)

228 Again, meeting the objection that the divine essence cannot be the object of created knowledge because the judged is to the judge as passive, he answered that on the contrary the sensible and intelligible objects are to sense and intellect as agent inasmuch as sentire and intelligere are a pati quoddam!12 Arguing against Averroes, he made an antithesis of agere and pati and then urged, 'Posse autem intelligere est posse pati: cum 'intelligere quoddam pati sit.'13 Proving that the possible intellect was a passive potency, he concluded, 'Sic igitur patet quod intelligere nostrum est quoddam pati, secundum tertium modum passionis. Et per consequens intellectus est potentia passiva.'14 (142; Fs)

229 In these passages it is quite clear that Aquinas said that the act of understanding itself, intelligere, was a pati. Such statements fit in perfectly with the general doctrine of agent object and passive potency; they fit in perfectly with the general Aristotelian scheme of analysis that distinguishes neatly between nature, which is a principle of movement in the thing moved, and efficient potency, which is a principle of movement in the other or, if in self, then in self as other; nor is there any incompatibility between them and the Avicennist scheme of analysis except the merely apparent incompatibility that arises from the blunder of confusing what Aquinas distinguished - active potency as the principle of an operation and active potency as the principle of an effect. (142f; Fs)

230 But this, the reader will perhaps say, is all impossible. I am afraid I have not here the space to discuss abstract impossibilities. I am concerned with matters of fact, with what Aquinas said; and lest there be any misapprehension about Aquinas's ideas on the actio manens in agente, I proceed to observe that not only sentire and intelligere but also velle can be a pati.b For with respect to the interior act of the will, the grace of God is operative and the will of man is 'mota et non movens.'15 Though not stated so explicitly, the same is true with respect to the act of willing the end as conceived in the De mala and the Prima secundae; for in these works the will moves itself only inasmuch as it is in act with respect to the end, but to that act it is moved by an external principle, God.16 Finally, what is true of these later works with respect to willing the end is true more generally in earlier works in which there appears no mention of self-movement in the will.17 (143; Fs) (notabene)