Aquinas on Memory and Consciousness in Augustine and the First Procession in the Trinity
Aquinas on Memory and Consciousness in Augustine...
Hermeneutics of Transposition vs Hermeneutics of Recovery
To move toward an initial understanding about what could be meant by a “transposition of meaning,” one can look at what Matthew Lamb says in “Lonergan’s Transpositions of Augustine and Aquinas: Exploratory Suggestions,” The Importance of Insight: Essays in Honour of Michael Vertin, eds. John J. Liptay...
Two Rival Notions of Being: Rosmini, Heidegger, Rahner, and Lonergan rev. ed.
In the theology of Antonio Rosmini (d. 1855), one finds an understanding about human cognition where human beings work from an initial, ideal, indeterminate notion or idea of being which underlies and penetrates every kind of human inquiry and which is necessarily presupposed by all our acts of...
Using Aquinas to Understand Lonergan on the Meaning of Transcendental Laws
Br. Dunstan Robidoux, OSB In speaking about human cognitive acts and especially about human acts of understanding, instead of speaking about laws of nature and the intelligibility that these laws have, Lonergan prefers to speak about another kind of meaning or, in other words, about another kind of...
Identity in Human Cognition
It is no easy task to try to understand the principle of identity in human cognition. In order to do so, I would like to proceed by first looking at how confrontation exists in human cognition. In our individual lives and also in the history of philosophy, an understanding...
Moving through Conceptuality with Acts of Understanding: Augustine, Aquinas, Lonergan
To understand a bit better what could be meant by saying that acts of understanding, by their very nature, always transcend material variables and conditions, one can verify the meaning of such a claim or, on the other hand, one can discover the meaning of such a claim,...
Lonergan’s Notions of Consciousness Derived from St. Augustine’s Notions of Presence
In the De Trinitate, 10, 3, 12, St. Augustine distinguishes between two kinds of presence (which have been interpreted as two kinds of object). A first kind refers to something which exists as the terminus or term of a cognitional act (whether one speaks about an act of sense...
Aquinas’s Distinction between Natural Being and Intentional Being
by Br. Dunstan Robidoux OSB In Aristotle, De Anima, 3, 4, 430a 3-4, one finds a discussion which argues that in human cognition, if material coordinates or material properties are somehow omitted or abstracted out (perhaps one can say “bracketed”), an identity exists between an act of understanding and...
Matter as a Cause of Knowing in Aquinas and Lonergan
by Br. Dunstan Robidoux OSB In conformity with Aristotle’s understanding of human cognition, Aquinas argues, with respect to human cognition, that “it is as ridiculous to say, the soul alone understands, as to say, alone it builds or weaves.” Cf. Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 19, a. 1. Knowing exists...
Form as a Cause of Knowing in Aquinas and Lonergan
by Br. Dunstan Robidoux OSB When commenting on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Aquinas repeats what Aristotle says that form (forma) is ratio. Cf. Sententia super Metaphysicam, 8, 1, 1687. Form is an “intelligible structure.” In Aquinas, species as “intelligible species” (species intelligibilis) commonly refers to form. Form as species, as Lonergan...