These are a couple manuscripts I was developing for publication, but one had too little data and other too much.
Influence of Master Agreements on Execution of Clinical Trial Project Agreements
Essays on Rahner's Spirit in the World - Introduction
Rahner and Lonergan both take from Thomas the idea that intelligence is central to our existence, but, whereas Lonergan, in Verbum, speculated that there might be a Thomist epistemology, Rahner investigates the possibility of an ontological intellectual intuition. Of course, Lonergan agrees that, "One knows by what one is", in the same way that Rahner says there is, "that prior understanding which man as man is." This intellectual intuition, however, would need something like Lonergan's method for a scientific investigation - a theory of knowledge. Rahner is more interested in the information and relationships that awaken our knowledge. "The human metaphysical consideration of what man is begins at this point because in every man there is already realized what is to be understood conceptually in what follows: the human, intellective soul has its face turned towards the phantasm."
Rahner believes there must be a foundation underlying the knower and the known. What is known, for example, is limited by cognitive power just as intelligence is limited by the objects of experience. The intrinsic possibility of knowledge is based on the intrinsic possibility of knowability. Different kinds of knowing, therefore, must be related to different kinds of objects, and measuring this unique relationship points to some ground that Thomas leaves as a question. A discussion of angels follows, similar to what Lonergan examines in Verbum, and Rahner concludes that Thomas meant to question how far intelligence can establish itself within these limits, and go beyond them. Rahner ends with a retorsion that if intelligence can transcend its own realm then forming the idea is evidence for that. If not then the possibility of such a position proves the idea.
So, Rahner discards the idea of a purely intellectual intuition. But how can there be metaphysics without a direct view beyond the boundary of our imagination? His conclusion is that the possibility of metaphysics must at least derive from what is possible in our imagination. The question is the possibility of transcendence without an intellectual intuition, at the level of the imagination, "and has an intimation in the limit idea (Grenzidee) of an intellectual intuition." Objects are proportionately ordered to the human intellect in this peculiar relation of the knower to the known. This gives some preliminary indication to what is involved with the question of what conversion to the phantasm means.
The possibility of moving beyond the boundary of our intellect must involve the relationship between knowing and known in our imagination and the turn to phantasm. Our different ways of knowing are developed by the limits imposed by intellect on the objects of experience as well as by the objects on that experience. In any case, we know by what we are, "Or", as Lonergan says, "is one to say that, since we know by what we are, so also we know that we know by knowing what we are?" I think it is at this point that the two philosophers diverge in their investigation. Lonergan obviously pursues rational reflection on ourselves, and Rahner will next give some preliminary indication of all that is involved with the questions raised by the conversion to the phantasm.
Section VII: The Second Part of the Third Section of the Corpus
. . . continuing . . .
Rahner says we grasp the intellect and object in a single act of comprehension. Whether we consider them as
one, or in parallel, an underlying, unified ground is implied. There is a double transcendence in this union
that is otherwise limited by space and time in our imagination.
I couldn't follow Rahner's references to the major and minor premises of Thomas' presentation, but the idea is that the intellect united with the corporeal is grasped in a single act of comprehension. He questions how it could be otherwise as-if the intellect were alone in its intuitions when it is in union. Likewise, there is no sense talking-about a corporeal insight into the nature of things without intelligent act. This union is the peculiar activity previously mentioned in regard to thinking about the essence of things in the first place. A few examples illustrating this single act might be useful, but this only is an introduction. And, it leads to the question, "where do we get this simultaneous comprehension of both at once?"
It begins with the limitation that space and time place on our imagination, and it implies a unified ground. I don't know if Rahner assumes this principle of space and time from Kant, and I don't think it's true, but he does explain, similar to Lonergan, that we think about things here and now in this or that place. The main idea is that some shared ground underlies the peculiar relation where thinking is restricted to objects of our attention and the objects are likewise restricted by our cognitive power. This is why he takes a stand on the idea that any metaphysical insight must be through our imagination which is itself limited by space and time. It struck me last night that the discussion of angels is an example of how our imagination can exceed these limits, but that's an idea I need to work-out on my own. Following Rahner here, the emphasis is on thinking and objects as they limit each other whether we consider one or the other in combination or in parallel. The insight gained through this investigation yields a double comprehension.
Trying to grasp the single whole from one or the other of its moments, or from both of them, one after the other, is what Thomas will investigate in the next section. The double apprehension will turn-out that both times the whole is grasped. The intellect is united with the corporeal, and some ground anchors them both. They are dependent one-on-another, although they can be considered in combination or in parallel, Our understanding is limited by our imagination which is naturally limited by space and time. We'll see what Rahner makes of this double apprehension. He thinks there can be transcendence in either case, and the single grasp may be leading us to a possible metaphysics.
Below is the summary he gives from the end of VII.
"The essence of human knowing and that of its object can
only be apprehended in a single act of comprehension because
they are reciprocally the ground of their intrinsic possibility and
therefore ultimately spring from a single ground. Hence
whichever of the two is to be apprehended, this apprehension
always comprehends both of them. Not taking this into account,
one can try to grasp this single whole from one or the other of
its moments, or from both of them, one after the other. This
double apprehension is what Thomas is undertaking here.
Thus the two following parts of the third section of the
corpus treat the essence of the object of human knowledge and
the essence of human knowledge one after the other. In so
doing, it must turn out that both times the whole is grasped."
Is he justified in saying that there is an intrinsic possibility for the essence of knower and known, and therefore they spring from a single ground?
VIII. The Third Part of the Third Section of the Corpus
There's a comment on quiddity and what it implies about our knowledge of objects. Sensation is entertained as a possible companion to intellect in this process. In summary, this is the section of the whither and the whereat.
An admittedly awkward combination of words, but they are derived from what quiddity means in our modes of apprehension which always turns to an object. Lonergan, I would say, agrees that we always apprehend some thing, and in this process Rahner distinguishes quiddity as the essence of the knowing of the nature of a thing. Knowing is always about something, and knowing itself has an essence. The knowing is of the nature such that the knowing is not about its own essence. The essence of our knowledge remains unknown because our knowing refers to knowledge of corporeal matter. Turning to the thing takes us away from the act of acting, although I suppose Lonergan might counter with his idea of self-appropriation. Thomas may be saying that the turning only is accessible in the phantasm of the human imagination which Rahner says will be taken up in the next section.
For now, he raises several questions about what it means to be in the world in regard to our knowing. Sensation is evaluated as a possible companion to intellect, and left as a suggestion that sensibility and intellect together might explain the one human, objective intuition. There's not enough here to evaluate except to say that our knowledge is about things and those things are known to us through our senses. Rahner asks a few questions about whether or not sensation could be like intellect in the knowing process. No doubt that intelligence and our senses combine in our experience and understanding. For Rahner, the importance of this combination is how it sets the knowing over and against the objects of experience whereas an identity of knower and known might have meant a direct intuition. This makes sensation a necessary feature that simply is different from intellect with no particular explanation.
Which brings us to the heading for this essay - the whither and the whereat. Rhaner's interpretation of Thomas is that his use of "whither" in the quiddity of the knowing refers to the necessary turn to objects, and the whereat to the object of intelligent sense. Otherwise, the nature of cognition and sensory participation only are preliminary assumptions. The only certainty is that, "the vantage point of our enquiry [is], namely, the world of experience. . . What distinguishes intellect and sense and what unifies them originally in this single knowing of the world, this has remained obscure. Up to now, only one thing has been clarified to some extent: the one knowing of the world is a relating of the known to an undefined "whither" in which the known becomes the thing standing opposite, so that this thing itself discloses itself as the unity of an intelligibility and the "whereat" of an intelligibility."
So, there is a required whither in our knowing leading to the whereat of the objects in our intelligent sense. Our knowing is through sensation which at least appears to be a feature alongside our intellect. The quiddity of knowing implies an unknown feature in this process of our turning to the world of objects. Thanks for reading. I always hope the next section will be easier!
IX. The Fourth Part of the Third Section of the Corpus
In this section from SiW, Rahner begins summarizing the Introductory Interpretations. He assumes the basic feature of our knowing is the mode of apprehension where a limit-idea applies to both the knower and the known. This peculiar feature of our knowing derives from an emptiness underlying our intelligence sans sensibility, and also what sensible objects, taken one-by-one, can reveal to our overall understanding. In any case, there is a unity to all of this in the one human knowing.
"A thing of the world is to be apprehended in a unity of the knowable and of matter as the "whereat" which sustains the knowable and in which it first comes to be as limited and becomes an object for us. How can such a thing be apprehended?"
There are four features to consider. They are the intellect, sensation, imagination, and conversion to the phantasm. Intellect has that empty feature because it can't do anything on its own. The senses obviously contribute a great deal, but are not intelligent. A metaphysical understanding, Rahner says, must be based on our imagination, but he hasn't distinguished imagination from sense. In this particular section, he refers to what is universally known as the "concrete phantasm", but what he means by "phantasm" is pending.
Intelligence doesn't know a universal quiddity prior to sensibility, but Rahner says there is, "no intellectual knowledge at all . . . without its always and already being a conversion to the phantasm from the outset." There will be a lot more about that in the next section. Rahner only says here that Thomas is emphasizing the one human knowledge. This may confirm Hugh's mention about how Rahner assumes the *prior* individual. "It follows," Rahner says, "moveover, that for Thomas what is known first is the concrete individual." The individual, in this sense, refers to the singular human knowing. Rather than different cognitive powers, human knowledge has one ground in its unity and in the duality of its roots.
"But where in the characteristics of human knowledge determined so far does there lie a point of departure for distinguishing in it two sources of cognitive power? "
Lonergan, in my view, simply takes scientific method (methods that result in knowledge) as the first, most natural deconstruction to explain the combination of our operations and their outcomes. Rahner has an unfortunate idea that space and time are the two important features in our universe. In any case, he relies on an over-against-itself operation where, "the empty "whither" [of intelligent understanding] is set over against the knower himself, then knowing must set itself over against itself. It must have the world and therefore be the world itself, and it must make it into an object in that it sets itself over against itself. Could we say that sensibility is this being-always-and-already-in-the-world and this being-itself-world, and that intellect is the capacity to objectify world and self?"
Lonergan's discussion of the already-out-there-now-real is similar to this relationship. And this kind of self-reference is also a feature of modern studies of cognition, like Hofstedter's Goedel, Esther, Bach.
For Rahner, it is all-about the "whither" and the "whereat". The intellect, empty until moved by the "whither", knows what is universally known by a "whereat" instance of sensible experience. In this way, the knower sets himself apart with an objective transcendence of the known because it is not just sensibility but at the same time "intellect". The relation to imagination and phantasm discussed in the next section will elaborate. I have an intimation that these ideas could have application to understanding LLM hallucinations (as-if LLMs dream?) and should naturally emerge in that research if applicable.
X. The Fifth Part of the Third Section of the Corpus
This is just a paragraph about the "limit-idea" of an intuitive intellect. It's mostly a negation of the idea that an object of experience could be a separated form with, "an essence apprehending itself in unobjective knowledge: an intuitive intellect which possesses itself in an undifferentiated knowing. Hence the separated form would be the angelic itself". There would also be no need for any conversion to the phantasm.
XI. The Answers to the Objections
Finally getting to the end of Rahner's Introductory Interpretation. The first paragraph clarifies relations among the intellect, sensibility and conversion to the phantasm.
First of all, the intellect is a species so there's the Aristotelian concern with the parts. One of those, of course, is how the intellect doesn't know anything by itself without the foreign "whither" that reaches out to the senses. This "whither", furthermore, already is present in sensibility, but as phantasm, not as a determinate material. This implies that phantasm is an image, or even a concept, but the nature of the species is dynamic. A conversion to the phantasm, for example, is necessary to understand sensibility as an independent "other", and possibly the intellect also sets the phantasm over against the knowing subject.
What he means by this is, "the possibility of a bringing-self-back from its abandonment in the other of sensitivity by setting the knower apart from the definite other which is present in sensibility." It's not clear to me how he intends to use all this setting-apart stuff. He does note that if intellect does this with the phantasm as its habitual existence then this possibility does not yet imply any actual knowing.
Anyway, that's where I am now. The next part discusses the role of imagination and then the possibility of a metaphysics on the basis of the imagination.
Here's one more stick for the fire. The second paragraph to The Answers describes the relation between imagination and sensibility, and maybe Hugh can say more about what imagination meant to Thomas.
I assume the brain is part of the whole body, like the senses, and our senses, Gibson has shown, participate (with imagination?) in the data collection, but they are not intelligent.
Rahner says that the intellect, imagination and sense are three coordinate, independent faculties. He parenthetically adds that we don't have any criterion for distinguishing imagination and sense as they bear in themselves the "individual likeness". I don't know what he means by that.
So, the brain reaches out because it doesn't have any sense of its own (except memory) and needs a conversion to the phantasm in order to make sense of the imaginative "whither" of things. Imaginative sense has direct experience and doesn't need a conversion to phantasm. Could he mean our senses are epistemological like the eye both "seeing" and interpreting something like a "table" because a table was expected to be there? This is like Lonergan describing method in levels, and explaining that linear movement between the levels is not prescribed. Adrial once wrote that Vertin likewise thought there was an immediate movement between data collected and interpreted meaning (the first and second levels).
In any case, this is where a conversion to phantasm intrigues me. What is going-on with the brain that it needs a conversion to the phantasm for its understanding of imaginative sensibility?
I'm attending to the section where Rahner argues for a possible metaphysics based on the imagination which is where a conversion to the phantasm places human knowing. I don't think he really justifies that because he hasn't explained all that the conversion entails. He argues that metaphysics is in the realm of the imagination because an object outside this realm would be unimaginable. This is like the idea that we are incapable of imagining any "science" fiction outside the physics of our universe.
"Therefore," Rahner says, "such metaphysical apprehension must belong to the a priori conditions of man's being situated on the basis of the imagination itself."