Being: four pages

Being: four pages
Sku: 48100D0E060
Archival Number: A481 V811
Author: Lonergan, B.
Language(s): English
Decade: 1960
Open 48100D0E060.pdf

Description:
4 handwritten schematic pages on being and judgment. This is the sixth item in Batch V, folder 8, System & History.

Transcription:

48100D0E060

A481

Transcription by Robert M. Doran

Being

(1) What is to be known by the totality of true judgments

(2) What is to be known by understanding correctly everything about everything

(3) the objective of the pure desire to know

Equivalent (1) pure desire is unrestricted

(2) pure desire moves toward objective

by raising and answering qq

Qq are quid sit and an sit

Why should that be being? Every principle presupposes a notion of being

and so every argument for a notion of being

is involved in a vicious circle

Aq. I-II 66, 5 4m wisdom

wisdom (1) Ar first phil or (2) gift of HS

first an argument from authority except in case of

??? Noel etc - weakest of all arguments

second goes beyond phil to theol

What is genesis of wisdom?

Procedure: self-appropriation 1-8 insight

9-10 judgment

11 self-affirmation

12 notion of being

13 notion of objectivity

14 positions

counter-positions

Unless one says being is objective etc [?], one is in counterposition

one’s account of knowledge cannot be what is intelligently grasped

and rationally affirmed.

case of getting skeptic to talk

E.g., being is known by experience of resistance Scheler

qua rationally affirmed, it is not knowledge of being

qua experience of resistance, not rationally affirmed

Hence God not just Geist but Geist u. Drang

[page 2]

Being

Arguments: not as tho a basic notion can be derived

but in sense that basic notions can be defended

opposed positions shown to be erroneous [?]

Either being is what is known by totality of true judgments

or being is what is known by some true judgments

or being is what is known by false judgments

or being is what is known wt any judgment.

If what is known by totality

(1) then veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei

transpose: being is what is known by knowing truth

truth is what is known by knowing being

(2) since we do not reach totality and know we do not reach it

we know that we do not know being fully

If what is known by some

(1) then a pari by all

(2) otherwise which true j are knowledge and which are not

(3) [and otherwise] how can they be true if they do not correspond to being

[page 3]

If being is what is known by false judgments

(2) then being is irrational and unintelligible

e.g. A can be both B and not-B re et ratione is false

ergo being is what is self-contradictory

(1) Is this judgment false or true?

If false, irrational to assert it.

If true, then it is knowledge of nothing

for being is known not by true but by false judgments.

3 If being is what is known without judgment

then it is known α by experience alone

β by experience and insight

α is materialism

β is essentialist, Kantian, idealist, relativist, existentialist.

Scheler/ Heidegger/ Jaspers.

[page 4]

Being is what is known by totality of true judgments.

if on this basis there follow all the acknowledged properties of being.