Rahner - possible metaphysics

[Doug Mounce]

So, I had a chance to drop-in at the Lonergan meeting.  Got to see Charlie present, and Peter and Catherine in attendance, but the remote sound was problematic on day one.

While we wait for comments on Pierre's article, I wanted to summarize what I understand about Introductory Interpretation, section III. the Videtur Quod Non of Rahner's SiW.  There's a long footnote about A. Hufnagel's ideas on intuition that contributed to what I describe as immaterial or incorporeal in our experience otherwise dominated by sense. 

The first problem simply is that intelligence, for the intelligible species, either is self-contained, or, I would say, is causa sui.  Because we only can reflect on our experience of this spirit in the world to understand, then, even given this foundation, we seem obligated to investigate why it would then, at least, only seem to play a minor role that returns us to the material world when inspiring us to reflect on this insight.  Rahner follows Aquinas in using propositional language to logically consider either/or categories.  Still, the question of how far our intelligence can stand alone on any scale is worth investigation.  Rahner say, ". . . the essence of the intelligible species is brought into the problematic by the question of this Article.  And thus it also becomes clear from this point of view how the whole of human knowledge is brought back into the question in this Article."

(Lonergan uses the same sentence, intellectum ess in actu est ipsum intelligere, in his development of identity between knower and the known, but Rahner thinks the grammar only supports the idea that the intellect knows what it already knows.)

The A. Hugnagel footnote on intuition is interesting because of its length.  I couldn't conveniently find an English translation of his work, but the basic question is, 'if there is a metaphysical knowledge, then, must there not also be a metaphysical intuition?'  This is a similar problem to the above experience-of-intelligence when we consider how there can be an intuition in the realm of experience of the world when metaphysics is the grasping of what is beyond the world.  Metaphysical knowledge, in other words, should be independent of experience.  On the other hand, if it is dependent then intuition is not really significant because then it would depend on an imagination which ultimately is constrained by space and time.  As Han Solo might respond, "I don't know, I can imagine quite a lot."  Rahner says that Aquinas does not shy away from this problem, and, indeed, feels somewhat abandoned by Aristotle in this regard.

Apparently, the philosopher has said that the soul does not know anything apart from the phantasm.  I think understanding soul-belief is of value here because the immaterial soul is the hope that our material being will somehow survive death.  Anyway, that's the insight I had about what I think is immaterial.  I understand that the intelligent experience of an object is different from the object, but I have been bothered by the materialist idea that ideas themselves depend on the brain thinking them, so there is no immaterial "thing" in any case.  The words immaterial, incorporeal and immortal only make sense like negative numbers in subtraction to indicate the soul is no more.  This dovetails with what Geach has written about existence and essence.  Of course, my insight heavily relies on what Rank says about our soul belief.

[jaraymaker]

Doug, thanks for filling us in on the Boston College Lonergan workshop. I will not here address your comments below, but I would like to note that I've started co-writing a book with the African Dominican priest Sebastian Nkoayissi, an erstwhile participant on this site. We explore the African tradition of COSMOGONY. For example, we refer to this from the Encyclopedia.Com, « An account of African cosmologies must first come to terms with a set of issues likely to generate controversy. Foremost has been the scholastic predisposition to regard them as of less interest because of their supposed comparative simplicity and lack of theoretical sophistication in articulating visions of a cosmos generally, even in mythical terms. This is linked to a view of indigenous religions in the African context as anachronisms that are the vestigial remains of cultures whose precolonial authenticity has been in a state of decline for several centuries. Christianity and Islam, on the other hand, are often portrayed as dynamic missionary enterprises, almost inevitably destined to prevail and thereby bring Africa and Africans into the domain of respectably articulated "world" religions—and cosmologies.

To counter these questionable yet still all too common stereotypes it is helpful to begin by pointing out that there are in the early twenty-first century at least eight hundred distinct language cultures in sub-Saharan Africa alone. The time is long past when scholars of these cultures could feel comfortable with cosmological and religious generalizations, supposedly common to all, on the basis of detailed studies of a few. Texts that were for too long taken as definitive accounts of African "traditional" religion are therefore challenged by new generations of scholars who reject the negative value judgments implicitly justified by cosmological paradigms derived from predominantly non-African sources. There is a growing consensus that Africa and Africans must finally speak for themselves, from the standpoints of indigenous believers, rather than defer to the potentially methodologically distorted interpretations of purely academic field-workers.” It is in keeping with the view that Africans must speak for themselves on this subject, that in chapter 2 we seek to expound on African views of cosmogony"end quote.

 

Briefly said, cosmogony reflects traditional holistic views of reality and spirituality that tend to be overlooked in Western secular thought but which Lonergan retrieved and developed as essential underpinnings for a global-glocal approach to present world problems. This would include  also developing economic and ecological conversions as Pierre and I attempted in our book,  John 

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[Doug Mounce]

Sounds-good John, glad to hear you've got another book in you!  I expect to see comments on the fabulous fanany from South Africa.

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[Hugh Williams]

Doug et al,

Doug writes below in his final paragraph -

"Apparently, the philosopher has said that the soul does not know anything apart from the phantasm.  I think understanding soul-belief is of value here because the immaterial soul is the hope that our material being will somehow survive death.  Anyway, that's the insight I had about what I think is immaterial.  I understand that the intelligent experience of an object is different from the object, but I have been bothered by the materialist idea that ideas themselves depend on the brain thinking them, so there is no immaterial "thing" in any case.  The words immaterial, incorporeal and immortal only make sense like negative numbers in subtraction to indicate the soul is no more.  This dovetails with what Geach has written about existence and essence.  Of course, my insight heavily relies on what Rank says about our soul belief."

 

I do not know the work of ‘Rank’ but I have over a period of time distilled what I take to be Thomas’ argument for the immortality of the human soul and it is relevant to what in part Rahner (and perhaps Lonergan) is trying to do.

The argument is extensive and as an aide I rely here below on Kenneth Schmitz’s essay “Purity Of Soul And Immortality” in his The Texture Of Being (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2007) pp.200-220, for it treats of the same issue, arguably in my view, in a much more direct and clearer manner than one finds in Rahner (or perhaps Lonergan). Schmitz’s version of the argument - my gloss-

‘By knowing one is in the world in a new and distinctive spiritual way that is radically different from that of physical and chemical relations.

The knower comes to be present to the things known in an immaterially determinate way even if it is materially determinate things that are known by means of materially determinate conditions.

This is because to be able to know something the knower must be devoid of the actual physical reality of anyone thing known because that which would be physically present in the knower would impede or displace the knowledge of other things.

If our understanding can know all bodies in the sense of knowing what it is to be bodily, it must of its own ontological constitution (being) be free of corporeity.

The difference between perception and understanding is that understanding can grasp the relativity of the senses and thus goes beyond (transcends) such relativity in recognizing perceptual relativity in an absolute sense. This is the capacity that is the basis for moving from the claim – “it seems so” to “it is so”.

This is Thomas’ meaning in saying our senses do not know being except under the conditions of here and now but our intellect apprehends being absolutely for all space and time (ST I, 77, 6c).

Thus again, we see our human intelligence, in grasping the meaning of anything in any situation, as transcending the particular conditions from which and within which the meaning arises and thus the form in which meaning arises in the understanding is seen to be free from the particular material conditions in which its instance exists in reality.

This transcendence in knowing belongs not to the things known but to our manner of knowing them, and this capacity that enables this understanding is also at the root of our freedom. Thus, in this transcendent capacity to know and to act in freedom our reach exceeds our grasp always.

St. Thomas’ objector persists in asking – “In the operations of knowing and understanding is there not some use of a physical organ such as our brain?” This question is not an issue of the general relation of body and soul but rather more precisely of the nature or character of that relation.

St. Thomas insists that the human mind cannot grasp the nature of body unless it is constitutionally free of body, for if the intellectual principle knows and understands by means of a corporeal organ the determinate nature of that corporeal organ would displace, impede, or prevent knowledge of other and all bodies.

Therefore, it held that our understanding in its deepest nature is not bodily nor is it bodily in operation, and furthermore this “purity” is not limited to the order of mental representations but is about immaterial being, about an actuality. There is a connection of this power and capacity to an actually existing being that is immaterial.

In this discovery of an action in which the body does not participate, we discover an actual immaterial being existing in and through itself, i.e. subsistent.

But the objector continues – “Does not this operation of understanding depend upon the phantasm – an image provided through the bodily senses and organs and to be interpreted by the mind?”

The body is necessary not for the understanding’s operation but for its objective content. This relational nature of the soul still does not override its own individuality and operation for the intellectual soul performs in (the transcendent nature of) knowing and understanding an action in which the body cannot share as agent. Therefore, this reliance on the body for the objective content of the phantasm does not destroy the intellectual soul’s immaterial subsistence.

However, this means that upon the decomposition of death the soul will require another mode for obtaining objective content.

This philosophical argument and evidence advanced by St. Thomas for the human soul’s immortality is based upon the soul’s spiritual agency in knowing and understanding. This is the basis for the soul’s separate substance from the body and its organs. Though reliance on the body is acknowledged in the soul’s dependence on the phantasm for its object, St. Thomas does not consider this reliance as an ontological dependence that in anyway would destroy the soul’s separate subsistence.

This philosophical argument clearly involves the metaphysics of existential act in which the human soul itself is seen as an actually existing, but yet as an incomplete, substantial form through which the whole human substance as union of body and soul (matter and form) receives its act of existence.

However, because of the original intimacy of this bond between soul and body where the soul is meant for union with the body there is the unhappy evil of their separation in death where the human soul’s immortality then remains incomplete and imperfect.

This unhappy situation and evil are addressed in sacred theology in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and which is received as a matter of Christian religious faith and hope.’

 

What I've come to find most interesting and important in this Thomistic version of the argument is the subtle but distinctive emergence of another question of the soul's need in death of 'another mode' for objective content, and of this problem of the 'unhappy evil' of any separation from the body in death ... this all indicates to me a profound dissatisfaction in Thomism with any Platonic 'escape' from bodily or material existence. There may be 'transformation' in some way, but complete or total  'escape or abandonment' of material/relational existence does not seem to be 'in the cards' ...

This also may be why some Marxists with their strong social ontology have had an enduring respect for aspects of Thomism and perhaps vice-versa. 

Philip McShane, at least, seriously entertained this prospect in his latter years ... perhaps because of his lifetime of wrestling with Lonergan's abiding concern for the question of human economy and human survival ...

 

Hugh

[Doug Mounce]

Thanks Hugh, this is worth saving for future reference.  I've also got Schmitz' article now, so looking-forward to that.  Rank was Freud's "golden child" who specialized in the new ethnography studies of that time.  He fell out of favor and was ostracized from the Vienna club when he said psychology couldn't be all biology like Freud wanted.  He continued to critique Freud, Adler and Jung as trying to establish ideologies after their own grand designs.  His recognition of soul-belief as a central concern for all people in all cultures inspired Becker to write Denial of Death.  Carl Rogers says that after an encounter in 1936 he became "infected with Rankian ideas", and Lonergan once said that Insight basically is Rogers' patient-centered therapy.

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[jaraymaker]

Doug, your remarks on Freud, Rank and others of the early psychiatry movement complements some of the remarks Lonergan makes in Insight (1992) pp.227-231 sec. 2.7.7 "A note on method". Basically after having been Freud's principal and favored collaborator, Rank turned against him--as one can read at these two links:

 

https://thephilosophicalsalon.larbpublishingworkshop.org/no-more-insight-than-a-small-boy-rank-on-freud/

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=Rank+on+Freud&sca_esv=a5295d27d6bcdf79&source=hp&ei=WZSDZrr2NJSUxc8PmZicUA&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZoOiaYfS84b7RnASRf2RCfqUuLOytBqX&ved=0ahUKEwj6hqHz04eHAxUUSvEDHRkMBwoQ4dUDCA8&uact=5&oq=Rank+on+Freud&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6Ig1SYW5rIG9uIEZyZXVkMgYQABgWGB4yCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFMgsQABiABBiGAxiKBTILEAAYgAQYhgMYigUyCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFSIVLUAdYzjhwAXgAkAEAmAHfAaABqgqqAQU5LjMuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCDaAC5wqoAgDCAgUQABiABMICCxAuGIAEGNEDGMcBwgIFEC4YgATCAg4QLhiABBjRAxjUAhjHAcICCBAuGIAEGNQCwgILEC4YgAQYxwEYrwHCAggQABgWGB4YD8ICCBAAGBYYChgewgIIEAAYBRgNGB7CAggQABiABBiiBJgDApIHBTkuMy4xoAfBXw&sclient=gws-wiz

 

These links open up much material for long discussions on "possible metaphysics of the soul" as salvaged by Lonergan. I'm in the process of writing a book with the African Dominican priest, Sebastian, and I would like to figure out with him the applications, relevance of Western writings on the psychic to African realities, studies, & publications thereon. Complicated topic, but worthwhile delving into....,. I am cc'ing Seb to get his views on the matter, 

 

John

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