Insight Chapter 19
Sku: 41900DTE050
Archival Number: A419
Author: Lonergan, B.
Language(s): English
Decade: 1950
Open 41900DTE050.pdf
Description:
BL's typescript of chapter 19 of Insight
Database and descriptions © Copyright 2017 by Robert M. Doran
Transcription:
pt 634, l. - 20 (ts 1): ts has `an implementation of the integrated ...'
pt 635, l. - 17 (ts 3): ts has `or can go beyond it to the realm of transcendent being; and by transcendent being one may mean either the a relatively transcendent, which may lie beyond man, or the an absolutely transcendent, which is would be beyond everything else and the ultimate objective in the process of going beyond.' This was changed in ms B.
pt 635, par. Clearly (ts 3): ts starts par. `Clearly this process of going beyond, despite the imposing name of transcendence, is the elementary ...' Changed in ms B.
pt 636, l. 5 (ts 4): ts has `his need to go beyond his elementary, spontaneous, natural manner of trying to go beyond the hitherto ...'
pt 642-43, pars. Fourthly and It follows (ts 16-17): these two paragraphs were rewritten in ms B. In ms A there are the following two paragraphs:
`Fourthly, none of the foregoing activities enables one to answer the question, What is being? For if one is to know what being is, one must understand it; but apart from being, there is nothing, and so to understand being is to understand everything, to leave noquestions whatever unanswered. But the pure notion of being, though it raises all questions, is not itself the answer to any. The heuristic notion of being, though it envisages all questions and all answers, does not do so distinctly and determinately and, much less, does it answer all questions. Finally, restricted inquiries, acts of understanding, conception, reflection, and judgment answer only some questions.
`Hence, to suppose that there is an answer to the question, What is being? is to suppose an unrestricted act of understanding. Again, if we reserve the name, idea, for the content of an act of understanding, then to suppose an idea of being is to suppose the content of an unrestricted act of understanding. But an unrestricted act of understanding lies beyond the domain of man's inner and outer experience, and so it is at least relatively transcendent. Further, an unrestricted act of understanding leaves no questions to be asked, and so it excludes any further "going being"; it is, then, not only relatively but also absolutely transcendent. But if the unrestricted act of understanding is absolutely transcendent, its content, the idea of being, also is absolutely transcendent. As the pure desire desires, so unrestricted understanding attains correct understanding of everything about everything.'
pt 645, l. 14 (ts 20): ts has `they' for `the many'; this is changed in ms B by hand.
pt 647, l. - 14 (ts 23): ts has `and the intelligible that was not.' Also ms B.
pt 648, l. - 5 (ts 25): ts has `are what also is grasped ...' changed by hand in ms B.
pt 649, end of par. `Such is' (ts 26): ts has the following: `But, first we must recall how the notion of the non-systematic arises.
Its first presupposition is that one begins to understand the data of this universe by determining laws and developing systems. Secondly, one makes the discovery that such laws and systems are abstract; further determinations are always needed to effect the transition from general formulae to particular cases. Thirdly, one infers that in the ideal limit, in which human understanding would grasp the non systematic arises, for otherwise ...'
pt 650, l. - 19 (ts 28): ts has `are scattered'; also in ms B.
pt 651, l. - 4 (ts 30): ts has `an appropriate bridge'; changed in ms B
pt 655, par. `Our first step' (ts 35): ts: `... one was confronted at every turn with mere matters of fact with no possible explanation. The conclusion is that knowledge of transcendent being cannot be excluded. fact with no possible explanation. There follows at once the negative conclusion that knowledge of transcendent being cannot be excluded, if there is proportionate being, and being is intelligible. And there arises the twofold question of what the requisite transcendent being must be and intelligible. And this conclusion ...'
pt 656, l. 15 (ts 38): ts: `then no conditions are fulfilled simply at random. But if no conditions are fulfilled simply at random, then all are fulfilled ...'
pt 656, l. - 12 (ts 39): ts: `... and the intelligible is good, then the possibility of every possible universe must coincide with the possibility that it could be selected as a value by a rational choice.
The point may be reinforced by considering alternatives. First, then, efficient and exemplary causality reveal a transcendent being that grounds everything else. The transcendent being is either necessary or contingent; but it is not contingent, for then it would be a conditioned with conditions to be fulfilled and so in need of an efficient and exemplary cause. Secondly, in any given universe of conditioned beings there is one actual order, and its selection either is necessary or contingent though other orders are probable and many more are possible. It follows that the actual order results from some selection the possibility ...'
pt 657, l. 7 (ts 39): ts: `Being cannot be arbitrary, and contingent being cannot be necessary. It follows that contingent being must be a reasonably realized possibility.'
pt 658, l. 1 (ts 41): ts: `... manifest that there it is one and the same answer to be given to the two questios, What is being? and What is God? thing to understand what being is and to understand what God is.' The paragraph ends here. The sentence `The present section' appears neither in ms A nor in ms B.
pt 658, l. 14 (ts 41): ts: ts has `so' for `therefore'--corrected by hand in ms B
pt 658, par. Fourthly, sentence For (ts 42): ts has `For the unrestricted act is identical with the primary being, so that primary being is identical with what is grasped by the unrestricted act, and so the primary being has all the perfection grasped by the unrestricted act.' The same appears in ms B.
pt 658, l. - 7 (ts 42): ts: `also is the primary truth and being and the primary good;' changed in ms B
pt 659, l. 6 (ts 43): ts does not have `and'
pt 659, l. 11 (ts 43): ts has `unconditioned' for `unconditional'; also in ms B
pt 659, l. - 12 (ts 43): ts: `would not be primary beings'
pt 659, l. - 7 (ts 44): ts: `merely empirical is not completely intelligible self-explanatory.'
pt 660, l. - 2 (ts 45): ts: `is grasped by us in grasping the generative principle of the series.' Changed by hand in ms B, where it reads: `is grasped by us in the insight that is the generative principle of the terms and relations of the series.'
pt 663 (ts 50): The following start on the par. `In the twentieth place' is crossed out in ts: `In the twentieth place, God would conserve. For the reality of efficient causality is the effect as dependent on the cause. More explicitly, the metaphysical condition of the truth of the proposition that A is the efficient cause of B is the reality of a relation of dependence in B with respect to A. For efficient causality is not constituted by an imaginable "influence proceeding from A to B; nor is it constituted by a change in A'
pt 664, par. In the twenty-second place (ts 52): ts has the following two starts on the par.
`In the twenty-second place, God would be the ultimate final cause of the universe. For in an intelligently ordered universe, every potency is for its form, and every form for its act; every manifold is a potential good in which higher unities and orders are realized with effective probability; every realization of higher unities and orders is for the realization of the total order, and every failure to realize order of the total order; finally, even men's failures to be intelligent and reasonable generate a dialectical tension that heightens the demand for order and makes it more secure when attained. But the order of the universe is the object of God's necessarily wise and reasonable choice; it is the highest of created actual values, containing within itself as its parts all other created values; and finally it is a value
`In the twenty-second place, God would be the ultimate final cause of the created universe and the ultimate objective of all finality'
pt 665, par. Moreover (ts 57): ts has the following start on the par., crossed out: `Moreover, because every possible world order is grasped in the primary intelligible and derived from it, and because actual world order is chosen by a willing that not merely is in accord with unrestricted understanding but even is identical with it,'
pt 665, l. - 10 (ts 54): ts has `are designed'
pt 666, l. 18 (ts 55): ts has `... course of action. This notion of basic sin follows from the analysis of will as the capacity to respond to an intellectual presentation of the intelligible good This notion of basic sin Thus, basic sin ...'
pt 667, par. `Now it is not difficult' (ts 56): ts had the following start, crossed out: `Now there is a clear difference between physical evils that are independent of the surd of basic sin and, on the other hand, moral evils that presuppose basic sin; moreover, since basic sin is an irrational'
pt 667, l. 9 (ts 57): ts has `physical evils.'
pt 667, l. 13 (ts 57): ts: `there may be palliatives and extenuating circumstances;'
pt 668, par. `Clearly' (ts 58): ts has the following, crossed out, at this point:
`There follows a profound difference between physical and moral evils; for physical evils are independently of basic sin; but moral evils are the evils that result from basic sin. The two, then, merit separate consideration.
`Now it has been seen already that the good is the intelligible and that it may be divided into the potential, formal, and actual good according as it is potentially, formally, or actually intelligible. But the order of the universe is intelligible: even for our restricted understanding it is an incredibly brilliant emergent probability; and for unrestricted it would be still more intelligible for the nonsystematic would vanish. It is true that such an order because it is dynamic, because it advances from the lower to the higher, because its ways are those of effective probability, involves much that is only potentially good, much that is incomplete in order and so disorderly, much that is insecure, or unfinished, or confined. It also is true that the'
pt 669, l. - 16 (ts 61): ts: `Is then God ...' Also in ms B.
pt 669, l. - 14 (ts 61): ts: `These three further questions ...' Also in ms B.
pt 669, l. - 7 (ts 61): ts: `... is not to ascribe to him the Existenz or geworfel-in-der-Welt-sein of existentialist thought.' Also in ms b.
pt 671, par However (ts 64): ts has a start on this par, crossed out: `However, one may wonder whether there is a valid argument from the fact of an unrestricted desire to understand correctly to the possibility of an unrestricted act of understanding'
pt 672, par. On the one hand (ts 65): ts has a start of a par., crossed out: `Finally, if we reject all forms of the ontological argument, if we deny that a reasonable affirmation of God's existence presupposes an outer or inner experience of him,'
pt 673, par. Moreover (ts 67): ts has a start of a par., crossed out: `Moreover, the real is being. For every counter-position issues in its own reversal. It may appear coherent, as long as one does not state explicitly that is is grasped intelligently and affirmed reasonably. But that explicit statement cannot be refused by an intelligent and reasonable being; and once it is made, the incoherence of the counter-position comes to light. For then'
pt 673, par. If this (ts 68): ts has a start of a par., crossed out: `This coincidence of the real and being presupposes an acceptance of the positions and a rejection of the counter-positions. But there would be little point in attempting to summarize here the reasons that have been presented over and over again in the preceding pages'
pt 673, par. If the real (ts 68): ts has a start of a par., crossed out: `If the real is completely intelligible, then complete intelligibility is real. But complete intelligibility is the idea of being and, primarily, the idea of being is the notion of God'
pt 675, par. It is a fair (ts 72): ts: `... but to answer it a distinction has to be drawn between 1) the affirmation of an existence that turns out to be God's and 2)
can be linked with the affirmation of God's existence and 2) the affirmation of link between affirma
has to be drawn ...'
pt 676, l. - 17 (ts 73): ts has, crossed out: `And if we are not, then we know quite well what intelligibility is. It is what is grasped by understanding; primarily, it is identical with the act of understanding; secondarily, it is formulated in acts of supposing, considering, defining; thirdly, it is grasped as unconditioned; fourthly, it is affirmed; fifthly it is what the affirmed is. But the affirmed either is or is not intrinsically independent of the material residue; if it is not, it is not completely intelligible; if it is, it is spiritual, intelligent as well as intelligible'
pt 677, l. 15 (ts 75): ts has Greek
pt 677, l. - 2 (ts 76): ts: `a metaphysics of proportionate being that genetically is prior to our knowledge of God and so prescinds from the notions and theorems, such as contingence and causality, that pertain to the transition to the fuller metaphysics proportionate being that is true ...'
pt 679, l. 16 (ts 78): ts:`... metaphysics of proportionate being can be related to concrete existences and occurrences through be developed ...'
pt 679, par. There follows (ts 78); ts has a start, crossed out: `In this connection it may be noted that the intellectualist, Aquinas, granted the most perfect instance of human knowledge, namely, the knowledge of Christ, to include all actuality and all that lies in the power of creatures but denied that it included all that ies in the'
pt 679, par. Seventhly (ts 79): ts has a start, crossed out: `Seventhly, our account of the notion and the affirmation of God is, it would seem, excessively complex and difficult. But the complexity and difficulty have their source, not in the issue itself which really is very simple, but in the complexity of man's polymorphic consciousness and in the difficulty created'
pt 680, l. - 11 (ts 81): ts: `so other answers (apart from the mystic's affirmation of the ineffable and the believer's affirmation of a divine revelation so other answers (at least ...)'
pt 681, l. 4 (ts 81): ts has `provide'
pt 681, l. - 20 (ts 82): ts crosses out by hand `the' before `practical'
pt 681, l. - 9 (ts 82): ts: `Time divides the Old, the Middle, and the New Academies. The Lyceum turns to empirical research. and the New ...'
pt 682, l. 10 (ts 83): ts: `for irrationalism on the other. Philosophy yields place to scientism, and in the name of unacknowledged counter-positions, science counts the earth amongthe planets, man among the brutes, God a projection from the psychological depths, and religion
and not without an unacknowledged debt to the counter-positions science counts the earth among the planets, man among the brutes, God a projection from the psychological depths, and religion irrationalism on the other. To fill ...'
pt 684, l. 3 (ts 86): ts: `... to reach him. Indeed, if I may speak with the world of Aquinas and employ the name, love, to denote not only the rational affection of the will but also all conscious desire and all unconscious'
pt 685, l. 8 (ts 88): ts: `... counter-philosophies. Can one assign a reason for doubting that man's desire to understand correctly is unrestricted without suggesting some object lying beyond man's limited horizons and then asking whether there is such an object? Could one doubt the desire to be unrestricted, unless in fact it were unrestricted? Can one call the desire illusory, when all else that we mean by illusion has its root in the obscurantism that does not permit the desire to dominate? Can it be the spirit of inquiry that refuses to raise the question of the notion of God? Can it be the critical reflection But it is not ...'