Gilson on Being and Some Philosophers
Doug Mounce
Hugh Williams
Doug et al,
What is the reference to Gilson by Lonergan in Verbum of which you speak below? Where is it to be found? I looked but could not find any of significance …
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As for Rahner’s understanding of sensibility … this is a much more involved topic. Nonetheless, I’m finding his treatment pretty amazing. Not an easy undertaking as you know. But after several attempts at it, I’ve achieved a bit of a break through to where I’m understanding some of what he is up to a little better.
We can recall Lonergan’s Verbum Ch 2 on Judgment p.72 where he says that it is only in judgment that intellect both attains correspondence to its object but also reflects upon and assures that similitude. But then Lonergan presents us with the classic epistemological puzzle of representation, of which Thomas is largely thought to avoid the dilemma by admitting a standard or representation in judgment that is neither the thing in itself nor its representation in the mind, but rather a matter of intellectual principle which Lonergan says he will discuss later.
My complaint is that I do not find Lonergan actually discussing this ‘puzzle’ in any satisfactory manner, whereas Rahner in this section on Sensibility, Ch.2, especially at pp.85-91, lays out his interpretation of Thomas’ way of ‘avoiding the dilemma’. It is a treatment that goes to the heart of many discussions held here on this list about so-called naïve realism versus so-called critical realism, and as to which position might be more faithful to Thomas. Rahner does not seem to have any problem with Thomas’ so-called ‘naïve realism’ because he says that when one finally comes to understand and appreciate its fundamental metaphysical presuppositions then one will see that he is more critical than any critical realism.
Rahner attempts to articulate these presuppositions in this way –
- 1) In external sense perception there is an (impressed) species; but this as such is not what is perceived.
- 2) External perception forms no expressed species, so that the object is apprehended in its immediate, real self.
- 3) An object can be apprehended immediately in its own self, that is, be intuited, only if it is in its own actuality an actuality of knowing itself.
Rahner admits that these statements all have different origins in Thomas’ corpus and so they may appear contradictory. Nonetheless, these statements have to be taken into account together where one begins to recognize how they mutually clarify one another yielding some rather amazing insights upon which Rahner proceeds to elaborate.
Just to give one example - when I am told of, and come to recognize the metaphysical origins of the third statement, i.e. its origins as pertains especially to Thomas’ very complex metaphysics of knowledge, and Rahner’s difficult discussion and development of this principle in CH 1 on Foundation, I find I do have to revise or reassess my presumptuous criticisms of that Chapter. It may very well be that we do not have another sophisticated modern subjectivism in Rahner, of which I am, with Gilson very suspicious, and in fact we may very well have here in SiW an extraordinary effort to overcome the underlying ‘subject-object’ dualism-dichotomy of the original epistemological puzzle referred to by Lonergan in Verbum.
And again, I would indicate that Rahner is gradually approaching in this extraordinary text, as near as I can tell, his first textual treatment of Thomas’ utilization of his elusive notion of esse, and he does so here in relation to sensible species.
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And if I
can editorialize on this adventure in catholic thought, ... if
nothing else, I see
more clearly how Rahner, along with Johannes Metz, who provides
the ‘forward’ to
this amazing text, may have provided the
philosophical-theological justification, or perhaps grounding,
for Liberation Theology’s renewed and refreshed theological
appreciation of, and
for, the material conditions of people’s lives … something that
is again much
needed … but actually in these times quite hard to come by in
any realistic sense in so many religious circles ...
So, it seems to me
Hugh
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Doug Mounce
York: Scribner's Sons, 1948), p. vi, had called the philosophies he studied
there 'a series of concrete philosophical experiments'; Lonergan had had a
fascination with history since the 1930s, and it was natural for him to latch
onto this phrase in Gilson; in his review of Gilson's Being and Some Philosophers
he speaks of those 'who can learn a lesson from the experiments conducted
by history'; and in Insight he referred again to 'what M. Gilson would call the
experiment of history in ancient, medieval and modern philosophy' (p. 15).
[226]"
assumption of purely discursive intellect to be false and, indeed, to be false,
not as a point of theory, but as a matter of fact. While M. Gilson (Archives d 'his-
5-149) has done splendid work on Scotist origins, there is needed an explana-
tion of Scotist influence [Gilson's articles: 'Pourquoi saint Thomas a critique
saint Augustin,' 'Avicenne et le point de depart de Duns Scotus,' and 'Les
sources Greco-Arabes de l'augustinisme Avicennisant']."
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Hugh Williams
Doug et al,
I've always sensed that Lonergan had a general respect for Gilson's work
but that he does grow impatient with Gilson's firm and stubborn focus on Thomas'
metaphysics and his existentialist interpretation of this metaphysics.
It especially becomes tense for Lonergan over what is to have
priority -
the epistemology (psychology) or the metaphysics (ontology).
and then you and I both know that when one gets entangled/absorbed in these complex questions
especially this one of trying to account for human knowledge there are these 'plaguing difficulties'
that arise and that continue to puzzle at least some of us ...
if fact as I indicated the philosophical questions of species
and of matter were with Gilson until his final days ...
Hugh
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Pierre Whalon
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Hugh Williams
Doug, Pierre, et al,
Reading Karl Rahner’s ‘Spirit in the World’: A Strange Report
I am continuing to read Rahner’s ‘Spirit in the World’ (SiW) and
yes I’ve experienced a breakthrough of sorts. This, of course,
does not mean that I now find the text an easy read. It is easier
in some sense but not easy at all.
The strangest thought occurred to me in trying to communicate on
what is involved in reading a text such as this. And I seek some
analogy to express it …. There is a similarity in reading Rahner’s
SiW to my first experience in being introduced to Kant’s ‘Critique
of Pure Reason’. This was about 1970 in my early years at
university. Kant’s text first appeared about 1787; this means my
first attempt to read it (with the guidance of an able teacher)
was nearly 200 years following its first appearance.
In the case of Rahner’s text SiW, it first appeared about 1957.
This means that in 2024/25 I’m engaged in reading it only about 50
years after its first appearance.
So, in the matter of relative appearances among philosophical
texts and the relative recognition of their respective importance,
I think we can easily see by way of this analogy that recognizing
the significance of Rahner’s achievement is at best in its early
stages. At least this is the case in ‘my world’.
To try to get before people some sense of the significance of this
text, at least in catholic circles (and perhaps beyond) I have
spoken of how I see Rahner providing the philosophical-theological
basis for Liberation Theology. Ratzinger certainly saw this and
this is why in his ‘contrary’ moments he had Rahner in his sights
as someone to be opposed theologically in certain key aspects. (In
my view this was, in the Catholic world, a terrible mistake …)
In a more constructive light and pertaining to what remains of our
efforts here to wrestle with this extraordinary theological text,
I would offer that in some respects reading Rahner’s CH 2 on
Sensibility can help one to better appreciate what Rahner is
trying to do in CH 1 Foundation.
And the best way I can express it at this time is that Rahner by
wrestling with the ‘unity in duality’ in Thomas' treatment of
being (see pp.61-63), he also manages to find with his
extraordinary reading of Thomas’ metaphysics of knowledge some
amazing capacity for overcoming or going beyond much of the
dualism, say between ‘matter and spirit’ that is present in
scholastic thinking, and that lingers still in modern philosophy,
and dare I say even in Lonergan …
So, just as in developing an adequate philosophical appreciation
for the human subject, there is no shortcut around Kant, I do not
believe that in ‘overcoming this dualism’ (as in actually grasping
the ontological basis for any claim as to the isomorphism
of knowing and being) there is any philosophical shortcut around
Rahner’s difficult treatment of the question of being in SiW.
This means for me that Pierre’s brief allusion to what Lonergan
and Rahner knew of one another, and perhaps more importantly what
readers of Lonergan and readers Rahner actually know of one
another, a very intriguing question worth exploring. So, I would
ask others what they might know of this relationship? ... or was
there any relationship at all?
Hugh
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Hugh Williams
As an addendum to my most recent email below ...
I found this interesting note when I asked 'google' about the relationship between Rahner and Lonergan.
It is an interesting note obviously with an obvious Lonerganian bias that, having read a good deal of both thinkers, I thoroughly reject ...
Hugh
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"They (Rahner and Lonergan) are both trying to update and adapt Thomas in light of modern philosophical developments, which accounts for many broad similarities, but they engage slightly different figures and traditions. Rahner is more conversant with existential philosophical traditions and with Heidegger. Lonergan is conversant with the philosophical tradition broadly but also economics and psychology. If I had to pinpoint the main difference between them, I’d put it this way: Lonergan has a worked out cognitional theory, which grounds his metaphysics; Rahner has a vague notion of how cognition works, which is grounded in his metaphysics. In Insight, Lonergan works out cognition and then posits being as that which is known through the dynamic cognitional structure of experience, understanding, and judgment. Metaphysics is worked out as isomorphic to knowing. Rahner essentially starts with a Thomistic metaphysics and then tries to correlate knowing to being by positing a kind of innate human anticipation of being (The Vorgriff, NB the Heideggerian resonances) that is articulated in terms that allow for negotiating Thomist debates on the natural desire for God via the supernatural existential. But because Rahner hasn’t worked out a cognitional structure, much of his epistemology is muddled. It also doesn’t help that Rahner is a confused writer and thus difficult to read and understand. Lonergan on the contrary is quite clear and organized. Its actually pretty interesting how both get lumped together as Transcendental Thomists. I have often thought it was a lazy mischaracterization mostly to contrast a kind of Balthasarian or du Lubac patristic ressourcement approach to catholic theology. Rahner and Lonergan both have great occasional pieces of theology and fantastic spiritual writings, but as a philosophical theologian, Lonergan is superior. PS I’m on mobile so sorry if the wall of text is not super duper clear."
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jaraymaker
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Doug Mounce
own choice this "nothing" which is the "whence" of his questioning,
he would already be with being in its totality in such a
way that he would have mastered it and would not have to
question any more."
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Hugh Williams
Doug et al,
It is in this study of Rahner, especially his 'Spirit in the World', that one (such as I) may have to acknowledge or confess the challenge in reading Kant properly. This is especially important and relevant if one grants that Rahner’s primary interlocutor (in addition to Thomas ...) is Kantian, and further … if one makes the mistake of characterizing Rahner’s philosophy as Kantian, one can fail fatally to recognize how different Rahner’s account of knowledge is from that of Kant.
Risking vulgar simplification, one may understand Kant as arguing that our objective knowing, though depending upon experience, ... because of the a priori structure of my experiencing, can construct the appearances of experience into an objective world having validity for everyone.
The subtle point of contention and controversy resides with the nature of this a priority … does it rest solely with the knowing subject’s mind or is it an a priority intrinsic to the ontological structure of being itself, both known and knowing in the deeper unity of being.
In Rahner “the a priori of knowledge does not conceal the nature of possible objects (the thing in itself ?), but has already and always revealed it.” (SiW p.98) It seems that in Rahner we have a very deep and complex account that nonetheless because of the principles (as foundations - see the three principles articulated way below in this thread from Feb 3's email) he has been able to draw out and clarify from Thomas’ corpus (metaphysics of knowledge), fundamentally, subjectivism is avoided or transcended …
… this it seems to me is very very important, and if it is as solid as it is beginning to seem to me, it is a major achievement in modern-contemporary philosophy.
Hugh
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Doug Mounce
- 1) In external sense perception there is an (impressed) species; but this as such is not what is perceived.
- 2) External perception forms no expressed species, so that the object is apprehended in its immediate, real self.
- 3) An object can be apprehended immediately in its own self, that is, be intuited, only if it is in its own actuality an actuality of knowing itself.
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Hugh Williams
| Subject: | Re: [lonergan_l] reading Karl Rahner's 'Spirit in the World': A Strange Report |
|---|---|
| Date: | Tue, 18 Feb 2025 18:04:05 -0400 |
| From: | Hugh Williams <hwil...@nbnet.nb.ca> |
| To: | Doug Mounce <doug....@gmail.com> |
Doug,
this is very good and very concise ...
i'll have to ponder this 'turtle paced' some more
as it hovers around something that seems to me to be uniquely Rahner
and a major contribution to the philosophical discussion
and as well as profoundly consequential ...
textually, it throws me back upon/into his discussion in 'Foundation' ...
where I've not yet been able to fully appreciate what he is trying to do
and so have perhaps been presumptuous in some of my comments ...
thanks again
Hugh
(i've ordered a work by Karen Kilby on Rahner to see if she can
help ...)
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