THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORS:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH

Publishers:
VoL.

XL

The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017

APRIL, 1976

No. 2

THE A PRIORI IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE: KANT'S
CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON AND LONERGAN'S
INSIGHT*

1. Kant's reasons for his quest of the a priori.

K

ANT'S WORK is indissolubly bound up with two notions: that of the transcendental as a method of
analysis and that of the a priori as the result of such
an analysis. In the following pages we propose to study that
second notion as it appears in the Critique of Pure Reason,1
* I am very much indebted to the Reverend Frederick E. Crowe, S. J., of Regis
College, Toronto, for having gone through my manuscript improving the style and
clarifying a number of passages.
The present paper offers some key insights already treated more thoroughly
in a detailed study of Kant's writings in my book: Das Apriori in der menschlichen
Erkenntnis. Eine Studie iiber [(ants Kritik der reinen Vernunft und Lonergans
Insight, Meisenheim am Gian (A. Hain) 1971.
1 Kritik der reinen V ernunft, abbreviated
in this article as KRV, and referred
to according to the original pagination of the first (A) and second (B) editions.
References will be frequent, and so will be given in the text rather than in footnotes. The English translation will be that of Norman Kemp Smith, except for
minor changes and the addition of emphases.

179

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though this will often lead us to touch on the first notion as well.
Our aim is to set forth as detailed an analysis as the limits of
the present paper will allow. Without entering into the history
of the composition of the KRV, let us simply say that because
of what Norman Kemp Smith calls "the tentative character
of Kant's conclusions " 2 it would be an extremely long and
difficult task to establish the stages through which Kant's
thought evolved and to document the philosophical positions
to be found in this Critique. Our purpose is rather to clarify
the basic epistemological lines of the KRV in their various aspects, in their tensions, and in what seems to us to be their
common direction. The epistemology of Lonergan will not be
the direct object of analysis in this paper; rather it will be
presupposed and used to supply the key to our reading of the
KRV, as will be evident enough to those of our readers who
are familiar with lnsight. 8
2 Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique
of Pure Reason'.
New York,
p. 561.
•Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, London &
New York, 1957. References to this volume will also be given in the text rather
than in footnotes, with emphases added in some cases.
Perhaps the relation
Kant and Lonergan in this study should be clarified.
Directly the article is a study of Kant; it is, however, a critical study, a critique
of a critique. Now a critique proceeds from horizons, presuppositions, premisses,
positions, which are those of the critic himself. Thus, Kant's own critique of pure
reason proceeded from his position on the relation of understanding to the empirical,
and from the presuppositions that lay behind that position. Similarly, our critique
of Kant proceeds from presuppositions held by the author, and those presuppositions
are derived from the cognitional theory of Lonergan's Insight. However, we
judged it legitimate to omit a detailed presentation of Lonergan here; surely we
are not mistaken in thinking, after nearly twenty years and so many general
presentations of Lonergan's thought, that we can take the basic ideas of Insight
to be familiar.
There may indeed be a question about some of its particular ideas, whether
they have been superseded by Lonergan's later work, but that would have to
be proved in each case. In fact, Lonergan gives his own recent views on Insight
in the paper, " Insight Revisited" (A Second Collection, London, 1974), and though
he indicates some ideas that have undergone revision in his thinking of the last
twenty years, there is not the slightest hint that his basic cognitional theory and
epistemology, that which is presupposed in the present article, has been abandoned.
On the contrary, he repeats and underlines his basic purpose and strategy in

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181

Why did Kant set up his study of human knowledge in the
form of a quest for an a priori component in that knowledge?
He gives his own answer to our question: to ground the synthetic a priori judgments which constitute our scientific knowledge (B 19). We can express Kant's reason in the following
syllogism: Scientific knowledge is knowledge of the universal
and necessary. But universality and necessity cannot come
from experience; that is, they cannot be based on anything a
posteriori. Therefore they are a priori.
We will not examine the merit of the first premiss. However,
we must note that it contains an ambiguity that flows over
into the entire enterprise of Kant: Is the KRV the study of
human knowledge without qualification, or is it the study of
that particular type of knowledge which science is? The latter
does not in fact exhaust the scope of human knowledge. However, leaving this ambiguity aside, we cannot doubt that for
Kant scientific knowledge amounts to knowledge of the universal and necessary. It is the classical ideal of science, and
Kant not only fully accepts it but also carries it to its final
consequences. Today we cannot follow Kant along that road.
A modem analysis of knowledge must begin by getting rid
of the heavy burden of conceptualism we inherited from our
predecessors. They were forever in search of a universality
and necessity greater than the science of the last four centuries
has aimed at achieving; if we follow them we will be laboring to
find an a priori in order to explain a knowledge which we do
not in fact possess.
The need to change our approach is still more evident when
we consider the second premiss, viz., universality and necessity
cannot come from experience. What is experience? There are
at least two meanings of the term in the KRV, and we must
keep them in clear distinction if we would understand adequateInsight. The same point might be inferred from his continual references to that
work in his recent writings; it is clear that he regards it as expressing his fundamental philosophical position; see, for example, the Index of Method in Theology
(London,
s. v., Lonergan ... Insight.

GIOVANNI SALA

ly this principle which is so fundamental to Kantian epistemology. Both meanings are already found in the first section
of Kant's Introduction (B 1). Here, at the very beginning,
Erfahrun.g is equivalent to pure sense knowledge; its nature is
determined specifically by the fact that sense is a faculty which
must be moved by a material object in order to know. Hence
Erfahrung denotes that activity which, at the beginning of the
Transcendental Aesthetic, is called Empfindung (sensation [A
34]) . At the end of the same passage, however, Erfahrung
no longer designates sense knowledge alone, but human
knowledge in the full meaning of the term, including therefore
the sensible and the intellectual together. Now if experience
is taken in the second sense it is easy to see that, far from excluding universality and necessity, it essentially includes them,
in so far as it requires the constitutive intervention of the pure
forms of intuition and of the pure concepts of understanding.
If, on the contrary, experience is taken in the first sense, then
it is true that necessity and universality do not originate in experience.
The foregoing may seem obvious enough at first glance.
Nevertheless, more attentive scrutiny reveals a flaw in the construction of the syllogism with which we began. Between the
second premiss (experience can yield neither necessity nor
universality) and the conclusion (necessity and universality
are a primi) there is another premiss which must be made explicit before the conclusion is valid. This premiss is that the
cognitional phases which follow upon Empfinding are incapable
of raising the representation of the concrete sense object to
the status of the universal and the necessary. Here we touch
on one of the fundamental problems of Kantian epistemology.
The KRV clearly recognizes that knowledge is a composite,
in particular a composite of sensibility and understanding. But
his fundamental intuitionist conception of knowledge inclines
Kant to say-more or less explicitly according to the degree
that the intuitionist principle comes to the fore-that the
object of knowledge is given to us through the senses and only

THE "A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

183

through them; the later phases of the cognitional process do
not contribute a partial object of their own to the constitution
of the full and final object of knowledge. Let me put it more
precisely still: to understand the sensed object and to reflect
on what has been understood, is not, in the Kantian view, to
add a further, different content to our knowing; the content of
knowledge is simply repeated in shifting from the sense level
to the level of understanding, Verstand.4
Now Kant says of Erf ah rung that, taken as mere sense
experience, it " tells us indeed, what is, but not that it must
necessarily be so, and not otherwise" (A 1). Actually,
experience itself is knowledge neither of the " what" nor of
the " is " ; it is purely and simply presentation. To know
" what" is presented and whether this " what " really " is "
belongs to the intelligent and rational phrases which follow
the sensible phase. Kant tends to say that knowledge on the
first level already attains the " what is " of reality, though it
may be only in its singularity; and the reason is that he is
thinking according to the intuitionist principle. If, however,
this principle is abandoned, then both the " what " and the
"is", as well as necessity and universality, are found to have
a different origin. As formal determination is added through
understanding to an object which is otherwise a mere datum,
and as existence is then ,added through judgment, so the
universality of the formal determination as well as the factual
necessity of existence are added to the same sense object. We
have to consider the entire structure of knowledge in order to
•We shall see presently that Kant's a priori has its own objective content. It is
not true, under this aspect, that the object is simply repeated in passing from
one level to another. On the other hand, in so far as Kant recognizes an objectivecontent a priori, he feels constrained to qualify the known as reality-for-us. True
reality is (or rather ought to be) only the content of the first phase of knowledge.
In fact it is not, since our intuition is sensible. This simple hint is enough to
show that statements often voiced concerning Kant's epistemology must be recast
from complementary, if not contrary, points of view which are also to be found
in the KRV. One ought to keep this principle of interpretation in mind throughout this paper, even where it has not been possible to document it.

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grasp how a process, which clearly has its empirical side too,
can also have contents and qualifications which are not empirical-not empirical, at least, if one restricts " empirical " to
the first level of the cognitional structure.
2. Does the mind impose the a priori on reality or does it
question reality through the a prioii?
The Kantian conception of the a priori is open to two
opposing dangers. One danger is to empty it of any real
meaning. Kant finds himself in this danger whenever he insists on the empirical character of our knowledge. If indeed
reality is given to us through sense intuition, what are the
various a priori representations supposed to do? It might
be said: They make us think of the object and thus come to
know it with a properly human knowledge. But then we
would have to ask: What do we thus come to know that we
did not know already through sensation alone? The opposite
danger is to attribute too much to the a priori. This danger is
expecially grave when Kant underlines the constitutive-formative function of the a priori, according to the fundamental
statement of the Preface: " we can know a priori of things
only what we ourselves put into them" (B xviii).
We believe it is possible to overcome this tension and to
define more satisfactorily the nature and function of the a
priori, by bringing to completion that turn to the subject
(Hinwendung zum Subjekt) which is the purpose of transcendental analysis. A metaphor which Kant himself proposes
will illustrate our meaning. While for Kant this metaphor
helps clarify the function he assigns to the a, priori, for us it
indicates the way to overcome the insufficiencies of the Kantian
conception:
Reason, holding in one hand its principle ... and in the other hand
the experiment ... must approach nature in order to be taught
by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who
listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an
appointed judge who compels the witnesses to answer questions

THE" A PRIORI" IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

185

which he has himself formulated. Even physics, therefore, owes
the beneficent revolution in its point of view entirely to the happy
thought, that while reason must seek in nature, not fictitiously
ascribe to it, whatever as not being knowable through reason's
own resources has to be learnt, if learnt at all, only from nature,
it must adopt as its guide, in so seeking, that which it has itself
put into nature (B xiii f.).

Let us set aside the phrase, put into, as well as the question
of experimental method, and concentrate on the judge. 5 By
hypothesis the judge knows nothing of what has happened.
Yet the judgment of the case is confined :to him. Why? Because he possesses juridical science. In virtue of this he puts
precise questions to the witnesses. The latter are men of
common sense and so know the facts under the headings of
violence, tragedy, cruelty, and so forth. But knowledge under
those headings does not interest the judge. For him what the
witnesses say-aside from the question of their veracity-is not
yet the reality he seeks to know; their statements are for his
purpose only data which through his inquiry must undergo a
twofold promotion. First, they must be promoted to the level
of understanding, of data that are understood. Then the
judge must exercise his: juridical science in a critical reflection
that weighs all the factors pertinent to a legal judgment; by
this means the data are promoted to the level of sufficient evidence, and the judge achieves knowledge of the juridically
determined fact. It was just this juridical reality which he
wished to ascertain.
In this case it is easy to see what the a priori of the judge is:
juridical .science. It does not seem correct to say, according to
any acceptable meaning of the expression that there is
something which the judge himself has " put into " the
juridically determined reality. Rather we must say that he
has drawn an element from himself and put it into the data.
What is that element? It is the questions he asked in virtue
5 Here we expand Lonergan's analysis as it is found in the mimeographed notes
of his course at the Gregorian University, De methodo theologiae, Rome, 1962, p. 49.

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of his knowledge. By asking, seeking, reflecting, the judge has
come to know the reality. Now let us go behind this
specific a piiori: Juridical science in the judge, that complex
of knowledge in the witnesses termed common sense, those
various mentalities that form the pre-understanding (V orverstandnis) by which one man is an engineer, another a sociologist, a third a poet, all are specifications of a unique, basic
pre-understanding, the same for everyone, by which everyone,
whether he knows under this aspect or that, always knows
being or the real.
Thus, to say that there is an a priori at the root of knowledge
is to say that learning does not start from nothing. But
whereas in the case of the judge the starting point is knowledge
properly so called, when we go back further, to the point from
which all the different specific kinds of knowledge get their
start, we no longer find a knowledge of objects, of nature, or
of the human world, but rather a knowledge purely and simply
on the side of the subject. The presence of the subject to
himself (consciousness), in its immanent orientation toward
the universe to be known, is identical with the notion of that
objective toward knowledge of which the subject proceeds
intelligently and rationally. This is the a priori in its first and
proper sense, and particular objective a priori's are formed
within it. The constitution of the particular a priori' s is a
posteriori; it occurs within the cultural components of the
environment in which one is born and raised, and through the
personal experiences which constitute the life of the individual
in its unicity. The first a prim, on the contrary, is the a priori
in an absolute sense.
Now if, in virtue of his particular pre-understanding, the
judge is able to pose his specific questions, what questions are
we able to ask and what knowledge can we reach in virtue of
that pre-understanding which is
priori as human beings?
The question we can ask is the question about being, and the
knowledge we can reach is the knowledge of being. Questioning
creates within human spirit that space by which it is able

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

187

to manifest reality. According to Kant "we can know a
priori of things only what we ourselves put into them " (B
xviii); we believe that it is more according to common experience to say " we can know a priori of things only what we
ourselves ask about them." The questions we ask " invest "
the data, and only then do the data mediate reality to us, a
reality which is first intended and only subsequently known.
Moreover, it is in virtue of questioning, as forming the horizon
of our inquiry, that the data actually enter the field of
intelligent consciousness. The manifestation of reality is
possible because the question, in that anticipatory movement
which constitutes it as question, already has the meaning of
reality; without this primordial knowledge, which is of the
essence of spirit in so far as spirit is being in its luminousness,
and hence meaningful to itself, the datum could not be revealed to us .as reality.
Summing up as clearly as possible what the a prim is
according to Insight, we could say that primordially and
fundamentally it is the question. Questions constitute the
operator which promotes the successive expansions of consciousness in the transition from one level to another of the structure.
Questions for intelligence, questions for reflection, and, beyond
the strictly cognitional phase of human activity, questions for
decision-these are the a priori. This conception is paralleled
in Insight by the notion of reality as intrinsically intelligible.
Is reality what you can look at (whether the " look " be
conceived as an act of ocular or intellectual vision), or is
reality what you intend by asking questions? Insight maintains and fully develops the second alternative, which we shall
refer to as the rational conception of the real. The clarification
of such a conception of reality will hopefully be one of the
more important contributions of this study.
Human knowledge, then is inexplicable if we do not admit
a strictly subjective a priori which, without being constitutive
of the object as object, nevertheless makes it formally possible
for the object to be known. It is an a priori which 1 while not

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being itself determined as a category, still grounds the
possibility of every determination of whatever is known. To
speak of a primordial question implies that human spirit is
meaning in quest of meaning. The meaning with which man is
naturally endowed is merely heuristic; it is anticipatory of
reality. Hence a true search for something really unknown is
quite possible, and so is the recognition of reality once we
have found it. Human spirit betrays a total poverty at the
very same time that it reveals a total capacity for discerning
and judging by itself everything in the range of the true.
3. The Intuition Principle in the KRV and the Structure
Principle in Jnsi,ght.

It is well to preface an examination of the a priori on the
various levels of knowledge with a study of what we consider
to be the first principle of Kantian epistemology. Heidegger
has formulated it with extreme exactitude: " To understand
the KRV one must literally hammer into one's mind the
principle: Knowledge is primarily intuition." 6 The Transcendental Aesthetic opens with the enunciation of this principle:
" In whatever manner and by whatever means a mode of
knowledge may relate to objects, intuition is that through
which it is in immediate relation to them, and to which all
thought as a means is directed" (A 19=B 33). Intuition is
thus the unique means by which in the last analysis we are
able to establish an immediate cognitional relation with the
object. Consequently, given that knowledge consists in this
relation of the subject to the object, we must conclude that
knowing is intuition. That this is the first principle of the
KRV is to be presumed from the very frequency with which
Kant refers to it. He often says that intuition alone gives us
the object, or that intuition alone refers to the object; for
example: A 16=B 30, A 68=B 93, A 224=B 272, A 239=B
6

Martin Heidegger, Kant und das Problem dM" Metaphysik, Frankfurt am Main,

1965, p. 29.

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

189

'l98, A 271=B 327, A 320=B 377, A 719=B 747, etc. Elsewhere, mindful of the twofold structure of knowledge, he
formulates the principle as follows: through Anschauen the
object is given to us, through Denken it is thought; see, for
example: A 15=B 29, A 50=B 74, B 146, etc. On the basis
of these texts we can establish the following conclusion:
There are many activities which contribute to the constitution
of our knowledge; but, if we ask what constitutes knowledge
as knowledge of an object, and hence as knowledge simply and
without qualification,7 we have to answer: It is intuition. No
matter how many mediated relations other activities are able
to establish with the object, if we wish to avoid the nonsense
of a series of mediations, no one of which reaches the reality to
he mediated, we must say that there is a type of cognitional
activity whose very nature consists in setting up a bridge
between knower and known. This is intuition. Knowledge is
essentially intuition; therefore intuition is to be found in all
knowledge.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the
intuition principle in Kant's epistemology. It is present
everywhere, and commands the solutions of various problems
as they arise in the KRV. This is not to say that it constitutes
the whole epistemology of Kant.
Transcendental analysis, which is the aim of the KRV, implies a ,shift from
consideration of objects to consideration of cognitional acts
and, more generically, to consideration of the subject. Now
such analysis leads to a doctrine which is at loggerheads with
the intuition principle: we mean the doctrine of knowledge
as structure. This doctrine appears in the KRV in a rather
7 Of course, this takes it for granted that knowing is essentially knowing an object,
and hence that knowing essentially implies the duality of the knowing subject
and the known object. It is precisely this assumption that is at the base of what
we have termed the intuition principle. Kant is forced by this assumption to
conceive the a priori as itself an object. Lonergan's analysis, on the contrary, uncovers an a priori strictly on the side of the subject, thereby replacing the Platonic
duality of knowledge as confrontation with the Aristotelian theorem of knowledge
by identity.

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complex manner. Various enumerations of acts and faculties
are found in various sections, indeed frequently in the very
same section, but we cannot find any means of reducing them to
unity or of sketching clearly the whole course of the cognitional
process. Kant contents himself with studying from time to
time this or that aspect of knowledge, under the pressure of
problems at hand, without becoming concerned as to how the
various faculties and acts combine to constitute a single
process.
Between the intuition principle and the structure principle
there is a tension in so far as the first tends per se to exclude
the second. The object is given in intuition; therefore Kant
inclines to reduce knowledge to this single act. Hence the
obscurity in which the entire Transcendental Analytic is
involved: Of what use are the phases of thinking and judging
which follow upon intuition? No matter how many functions
we ascribe to them, we cannot say that they are cognitional
activities if knowing is intuiting an object and these activities
are not intuitive but only transport from one level to another
(and what does that mean?) the very same object which has
already revealed itself to us immediately in the Ansohauung?
It is possible to eliminate this tension and give due recognition to the cognitional function of the various acts constituting our knowledge if we choose a different approach. We
must set aside the intuition principle, viz., the model of knowing
as looking, and consequently of the known as what is looked
at, whether it be the sensible singular or the intellectual
universal, and in its place we must examine knowledge in itself
and study it by introspection as it actually occurs. For this
reason Lonergan sets up his study of knowledge as a response,
not to the question whether we know, or whether our knowledge has objective validity, but rather to the question what
knowledge is. More precisely still: What happens when we
know? Or what kinds of acts do we perform in the process of
knowing? First must come understanding of the activity that
in fact occurs and is called knowledge, and only afterwards

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judgment on its validity as knowledge of objective reality.
Moreover, once the actual facts are understood, the problem
of objectivity appears in a different light. One realizes that
the investigation into the objective value of knowledge owes
its dubious or negative solutions to an erroneous conception
of the nature of cognitional activity, a conception which was
taken for granted as being too obvious to need examination.
Lonergan's method is therefore an introspective one, based
on the conscious character of the cognitional process. The
decisive reason in favor of such a method is that it can
highlight what is proper to the subject: not only the productions of the subject, but what the subject itself is, formally
as subject. Introspective analysis becomes transcendental
analysis when consciousness manifests itself as normative
throughout the entire cognitional process. It is here that the
contingent fact of knowledge, that is, our pragmatic engagement in the process of knowing (Jnsi,ght, 332) , manifests its
intrinsic necessity by revealing the norm according to which it
must unfold in order to lead to a true knowledge. We can
recapitulate the results of this analysis under two titles: (1)
the intelligent and rational intention which grounds and constitutes the entire cognitional process, (2) knowledge as a
formally dynamic structure, that is, as a whole composed of
parts, and those parts activities that are self-assembling in a
series.
We already described the first result when we spoke of
wonder, the primordial question, and considered it not only
as principle of the cognitional process from which spring
forth specific single questions, but also as penetrating the
cognitional process, regulating everything, and rendering every
single act meaningful. Our radical questioning, then, is a
dynamism towards knowledge, an intelligently and rationally
conscious dynamism, and one of unlimited scope. Because of
these characteristics Lonergan names our pure desire to know
the notion of 'its objective, that is to say, the notion of being.
The characteristics found in the object of this intention, when

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it is realized in a manner faithful to its immanent norms, are
anticipated by the subject itself, which is not content with data
alone, but confronted by the data poses questions in order to
understand and to reflect.
The second result is the doctrine of knowledge as structure.
Human knowledge occurs according to a structure of experience, understanding, and judgment.
The many acts
which introspective analysis brings to light arrange themselves on three essentially different levels, each one adding a
new and quite distinct dimension both to knowledge as immanent activity and to the objective content known, until we
reach on the one hand rational judgment and on the other
the corresponding object.
4. Relation of cognitional activity to reality.
According to the intuition principle cognitional activities
are objective, that is, cognitive of the object, in the measure
in which they resemble ocular vision. Thus it is established in
advance, on the basis of this analogy, what these activities
must be if they are to be cognitional at all. But if we
abandon the intuition principle, and instead consider the acts
we in fact continually exercise in the process of knowing, we
come to different conclusions (1) on what establishes the
immediate relation of our knowledge to reality, and (2)
on the way this relation is realized, that is, the way we pass
from a relation of intention towards reality to a relation of
actual knowledge. We have stated above the conclusions of
Insight on this subject.
Therefore to the question, What gives our cognitional
activities their relation to the object? we answer: Our pure
desire to know, which is our intention of being. Hence the
importance of the a prioii as tendency to the absolute. The
unrestricted scope of the objective of our primordial question
and the unconditional character we seek in the judgments by
which we move toward that objective, are interdependent.
Being, that which has absolute status, is the correlative of an

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

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unrestricted intentionality capable of tending towards its
object without any qualification or condition. But, to recognize
that a tendency to the absolute is the basis of our knowledge of
being, we must have have explicitly worked out a rational
conception of the real. Transcendental analysis will avoid
ending up in immanentism, if and only if, it operates on the
basis of the intrinsic intelligibility of the real.
If by being one means the objective of the pure desire to know,
the goal of intelligent inquiry and critical reflection, the object of
intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then one must affirm
the intrinsic intelligibility of being. For one defines being by
its intelligibility ... one denies that being is anything apart from
the intelligible or beyond it or different from it. (Insight, 499).

Kant did not get as far as the intrinsic intelligibility of
reality, even though he was opposed to empiricism and highlighted with all desirable emphasis the operations superior to
sensing. Precisely on account of that failure, when he comes
to decide on the objectivity of these operations, he can only
deny it. Man understands, conceives, and-according to a
certain meaning of the word-judges; he performs all these
activities in a manner coherent with their immanent norms.
But for all that, what does he know of reality? Nothing.
The intelligent and rational fulfillment of the cognitional
dynamism is not the means of knowing reality. And rightly so,
since by hypothesis reality is neither intelligible nor rational.
Such is the reality which Kant calls N oumenon: something
absolutely beyond our intelligent inquiry and our critical
reflection. Then, in order not to leave our knowledge without
an object, Kant assigns it another entity as object: the
Phenomenon, which is always in danger of vanishing into
nothing.
Let us try to clarify what we mean when we say that the
KRV presents an irrational conception of the real. In a
general way Kant admits that in order to know reality, other
acts beyond sensing are necessary; he states therefore that the
object is given through sensibility, but not thought without
1

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V erstand. But such generic statements do not yet prove a
rational conception of reality. Such a conception would require V erstand to have its own proper and real content not
given through the senses. It is just here that Insight differs
from the KRV. Insight not only states that intellect thinks or
brings to the concept the contents of sensible intuition, but it
qualifies this doctrine in a way which goes beyond that of
Kant; intellect grasps a new content which was not given in
intuition: the intelligibility of the sensible grasped in the
sensible. Understanding thinks, or brings to the concept, or
subsumes under the concept, the object of sense by adding to it
an objective element which is not sensible. If we fail to
recognize this, the term, to think, remains an empty term, so
that verbally one seems to ref er to knowledge as a structure,
but in fact one still understands knowledge as only intuition.
In order actually to overcome the intuition principle we must
deny it from the beginning, i. e., deny that the object of our
knowledge is given us in intuition. Instead we must say that
sense intuition has its own content, that the understanding
of V erstand has its own content, and, going beyond the binary
structure, that the judgment of Vernunft has its own content.
Hence it is clear that we can no more say thatintuitiongivesus
the object of reality, than we can say that understanding
gives us the object-except for the functional priority of the
sense act over that of understanding. Each cognitional act
gives us a partial object. It is the task of the entire structure,
which is brought to term in rational judgment, to give us the
proper object of knowledge, that is, being.
If the intuition principle is assumed, we can see readily enough
how Kant, in the measure in which he recognizes both the
intuition principle and the structure principle, has to relate
the various cognitional acts to reality. According to the
passage cited from #1 of the Aesthetic, intellectual activities,
termed generically Denken, refer to reality through sensible
intuition. This interpretation of the objectivity of knowledge
is confirmed at the beginning of the Analytic a propos of the

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activity of Verstand: " Since no representation, save when it
is an intuition, is in immediate relation to an object, no concept is ever related to an object immediately, but to some other
representation of it .... Judgment is therefore the mediate
knowledge of an object, that is the representation of a representation of it" (A 68= B 93) . In the Dialectic Kant treats
of our tendency to the unconditioned. In virtue of the same
intuition principle the activities of V ernunft, far from realizing
the immediate relation of knowledge to its object, are doubly
mediated instead, by Verstand and by Anschauung: "Reason
is never in immediate relation to an object, but only to the
understanding; and it is only through the understanding that it
has its own empirical employment" (A 643=B 671; see also
A
359, A 306 f.=B 363, A 335=B
A 567=B 595).
This is perfectly comprehensible: if knowledge can have an
immediate relation to the object only through a sort of
intuition, then V ernunft, as tendency towards the unconditioned, will resemble intuition even less than Verstand, as
faculty of the intelligible, resembles it.
Analysis of knowledge in its own terms, that is, analysis of
the sort adopted in this paper, will overturn the relationship
that Kant conceived. Relationship to reality is immediate
in the intention of being which is our dynamism towards the
unconditioned. We obviously mean an immediate relationship
to reality in so far as the reality is intended. The same
relationship to a reality which is no longer only intended but
rather attained, is immediate in judgment, in so far as judgment, as absolute positing, satisfies our intention of the
absolute. If we wish to use the image of seeing, we must say
that the act by which we see reality, andhenceareinimmediate
contact with it, is the judgment.
However, this relationship to reality is mediate in understanding and conceiving-in Denken, to use Kant's term. In
fact, the intelligibility grasped by understanding implies of
itself only the possibility of being; it will be promoted to the
level of knowledge in the full sense only when there is added to

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understanding the concrete judgment of fact in which the
intelligibility is absolutely affirmed. The same relation to
reality is doubly mediated in the data of sense and of consciousness. The datum in its pure givenness, far from constituting the moment of our encounter with the real qua real,
must be enriched by some intelligibility through the process of
inquiry, and this intelligibility must be shown in critical
reflection to be correct, before we are brought to knowledge of
that reality with whose datum we began.
5. The a priori of sensibility.

Kant distinguishes a passive and an active aspect in sense
representation. In so far as the representation is related to the
object through sensation (i.e., through the object affecting the
faculty of representation), it is entitled empirical intuition.
But in the same representation there is also a component
which arises from the activity of the senses. This component
is intuition in so far as it is from the senses, and a priori in so
far as it is not caused by the Empfindung.
The object known through intuition is thus a composite
object:
That in the appearance which corresponds to sensation I term its
matter; but that which so determines the manifold of appearance
that it allows of being ordered in certain relations, I term the
form of appearance. That in which alone the sensations can be
posited and ordered in a certain form, cannot itself be sensation;
and therefore, while the matter of all appearance is given to us
a posteriori only, its form must lie ready for the sensations a
priori in the mind, and so must allow of being considered apart
from all sensation (A fW=B 34).

This general principle is applied when Kant analyzes space
and time. Actually Kant does not adduce new elements at
that point to demonstrate that space and time are a priori
forms and, indeed, the only forms of sensibility.
Why is it that the formal component of sensible knowledge
cannot originate in the Erfahrung? The KRV does not give us

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197

the slightest response to this question; we find ourselves face
to face here with what is a tacit premiss for Kant. Nevertheless,
it is possible to give at least a psychological explanation of the
fact that Kant could consider as obvious a premiss which for
us obviously needs demonstration. Admittedly Kant attributes
an a priori origin to the synthetic, intelligible element of our
knowledge. The reason he was drawn to do so was that he
overlooked the act by which we grasp an intelligibility in the
sensible. So it was natural for him to attribute, by a sort of
argument from analogy, an a priori origin even to the unifying
forms of sensible knowledge.
The a priori of sensibility is thus a pure form of space and
time, which provides a form for the known object. But
what is the form? In the beginning, and more correctly, we
believe, the form is introduced as the relation or the system
of relations among the contents of the Empfindung. In this
sense it is hard to see what Kant can mean when he declares
that the form can be considered in itself, apart from all
matter (A 20=B 34), or that we can know space and time
prior to all actual perception (A 42=B 60). But the same
statement becomes more meaningful when Kant attributes to
the form a content of its own, independent of the a posteriori
content. In this sense he speaks of space and time as a
totality, or as an infinite magnitude given to pure intuition.
This conception of the a prwri is still clearer where he says
that the pure intuition contains a manifold which is likewise a
priori (A 77=B 103, A 76=B 102, B 137, etc.). We touch
here on the ever-present tendency in Kant towards a conception of the a priori in which it has an objective content of
its own. This tendency is even stronger in the Aesthetic
where he examines the intuition which is the very act of
knowing an object.
But this conception does not represent the entire Kantian
doctrine on the a priori of sensibility. Whereas the objectivecontent conception would lead us to think of the a priori as
a manifold which is laid upon or added to the empirical mani-

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fold, there is another conception according to which the sensible
a priori forms are seen as modes of sense receptivity. Thus, in
his reply to Eberhard, Kant explicitly rejects the interpretation
that the a priori is an objective representation; it is only the
ground (the subjective constitution) of the space-time representation. 8 We may term this latter conception '" operative"
in so far as it states that the a priori is the law of the sensitive
receptive operational power in respect to the impressions
caused by the alteration of the sense organ. On the basis of
this conception Kant says that space and time are nothing if
we prescind from the operational power the senses exert when
confronted with data.
It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can
speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the
subjective condition under which alone we can have outer
intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever .... The constant
form of this receptivity which we term sensibility, is a necessary
condition of all the relations in which objects can be intuited as
outside us (A 26 f.=B 42 f. For time, cf. A 34 f.=B 51).

It seems to us that what Kant says is exact, but it does
not lead to the theory of appearance as the only knowable
reality. To say that sense representation conforms to the
constitution of the sensing subject is not the same thing as
saying that the senses bring us to knowledge of mere appearance. To evaluate correctly the ontological import of the
object of our knowledge we must take into account the entire
structure of knowledge. Experience is only the presentation of
data for the sake of knowledge of reality. Now it is undeniably true that this presentation depends also on the
sensing subject. Presentation implies a relation between two
parties; here, between the material reality and the receptive
organ. Hence it will differ according to the different organs, and
8 Kants gesammelte Schriften, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin
1910-, VIII, flflfl.

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also according to the physiological state of the organ. To
prescind from the relation to the organ is to prescind from
the very presentation. When we say that a body is extended,
that is, that it has partes extra partes, or that it has a certain
smell, or that it is heavy, we are doing nothing more than
asserting our intelligence of this relation and affirming the
relationship. But the intelligence we are exercising is descriptive; its terms are experiential conjugates, that is,
" correlatives whose meaning is expressed, at least in the last
analysis, by appealing to the content of some human experience " (lnSi,ght, 79) . If we remember that descriptive
intelligence has this element of relation to our sensibility, it
will be meaningless to ask what color is independently of the
act of seeing, or what seeing is except the grasping of bodies as
colored. Nor will we ask what extension is apart from that
complex of sense acts of which it is the content. 9 Since
descriptive intelligence consists in grasping the connection
between content and act of sensation, it is evident that, if
we prescind from one of the two terms of the relation, we no
longer have the connection, and so there is no longer any
understanding and much less any resulting concept. Herein
lies the correctness of the statements of the KRV on the
relational element in the object of our sense knowledge.
Besides descriptive intelligence, in which the human subject
is the privileged point of reference in respect to which reality
is understood and expressed, there is the explanatory intelligence
of scientific knowledge, which consists in grasping the relations
of things to one another. The terms in which this intelligence
is expressed are pure conjugates, that is, " correlatives defined
implicitly by established correlations, functions, laws, theories,
• Representation of extension is correlative to a number of fundamental complementary sensations. Thus we understand how this representation, unlike--for
example-that of color, is always necessarily present when there is a minimum
of sensitive life. Kant relies on this impossibility of eliminating the experiential
conjugates of space and time from representation, when he assigns them a privileged
ontological status, intermediate between the mere illusion (blosser Schein) of
secondary qualities and the absolute reality of the thing in itself.

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systems" (Insight, 80). Whence it is clear that the relational
element is no less present in scientific knowledge than in
descriptive. In every case understanding, which is indispensable for the constitution of our knowledge, grasps a connection.
But no subjectivist interpretation must be given to the
affirmation of a relational element as constitutive of human
knowledge. For, if knowledge is a structure, then the ontological value of its object can only bedetermined by considering
the whole structure. We have spoken of the relation component
in every content of understanding. But with understanding
we have not yet attained knowledge. What is still lacking is
the judgment which pronounces on the correctness of the
understanding and so goes further than a mere relation to the
knowing subject. If then experience verifies the descriptive
intelligence of reality as spatial, temporal, colored, etc., we
must admit that bodies as extended, temporal, colored, etc.,
are real. Reality here obviously means the reality as understood; other understandings of the same reality in different
contexts may also be verifiable.
In #2 Kant asks: " What, then, are space and time? " His
answer to the question of their reality is, in a certain sense,
secondary. More significant is the fact that he does ask this
question from the very beginning of the KRV, and from the
very beginning he answers it. The study of the sensitive phase
of knowledge implies, no doubt, that its object be determined,
since act and object are correlative. But to determine the
sense object is not yet to determine the ontological status
of the object; it is not yet to answer the question of being.
For that, we have to analyze what the datum becomes when
understanding and judgment are added to sensation. Now
examination of the structure enables us to integrate two
aspects of knowledge that are otherwise incompatible. This
incompatibility is at the root both of the Renaissance theory of
the unreality of the secondary qualities and of Kant's theory of
the ontological status of appearance which he attributes to
space and time. Now because in knowledge there are different

THE" A PRIORI" IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

201

components and different functions we can recognize that
intelligence is synthetic by its very nature, since it grasps
connections and relations in what is presented, and at the same
time we can see that this relational element is not opposed to
the truth of knowledge. In judgment, which is the absolute
positing of a correct insight (correct because it is verified) ,
reality is known. Human knowledge does not involve a
passage from phenomena to reality, or from a merely relative
reality known by means of empirical intuition, to an absolute
reality known through an intellectual intuition. The course of
the cognitional process extends rather from the given to some
understanding of it, according to the indefinitely different
configurations which understanding can assume, and from
understanding to the rational judgment in which reality is
known. Consequently, in critical inquiry as to the reality
of what we know, the crucial point lies in the passage from
understanding to judgment, from the relational component of
the former to the absolute character of the latter. Where this
distinction is not clear, the relational component of intelligibility
is claimed to be a sufficient reason for affirming the relativity
of the known reality.
6. The a priori of Verstand.

Parallel to what we have seen concerning the a priori of
sense there is in the KRV a twofold conception of the a pri,ori
of V erstanil. According to the first conception the categories
are functions of synthetic unity, that is, functions of a judgment without content (A 349). They express the spontaneity
proper to V erstand, by means of which the manifold of pure
intuition "is gone through in a certain way, taken up, and
connected if it is to be known" (A 77=B 102) . It belongs to
the categories to bring sense knowledge up to the level of
human knowledge; and this they do by means of a synthetic
activity which they exercise on the contents of sensibility. Not
by chance does the transcendental deduction of the pure
concepts of understanding begin with a detailed examination

GIOVANNI SALA

0£ the combination (Verliindung) , as 0£ that which "can
never come to us through the senses, and cannot, therefore, be
already contained in the pure form 0£ sensible intuition. For it
is an act 0£ spontaneity 0£ the faculty 0£ representation " (B
129 £.). Whether Kant speaks 0£ the modes 0£ combining the
manifold peculiar to our understanding (B 306) , or 0£ the
£unctions 0£ understanding (B 104, A 245), or 0£ the
Verstandeshandlung (B 130), or 0£ the pure Handlung des
Denkens, 10 it is always to point out the operative character 0£
the categories. Under this aspect, they are not objective
contents, but rather the ability 0£ V erstand to add an intelligible
content to the sense object by operating a synthesis upon it,
or the capacity 0£ " making a concept out 0£ any data that may
be presented" (A 239=B 298) .11
Characteristic 0£ Verstand, according to the KRV, is its
spontaneity, which manifests itself as an original synthetic
capacity. Such a spontaneity must be taken in the £ulness 0£
the capacity to which our intelligent consciousness witnesses.
In this respect Kant's analysis is not carried far enough. He
speaks 0£ twelve categories, indicating that our intellect can
have neither more nor less (B 146). It is the common view 0£
Kantian scholars that Kant erred in considering his table 0£
categories to be complete. But the error is not corrected
simply by increasing the number 0£ categories. The real
deficiency lies in the too formalistic or too logical conception
which Kant has 0£ the spontaneity 0£ Verstand. For him
this faculty is endowed with a certain number 0£ pure concepts,
a number determined a priori. Actually the spontaneity 0£
understanding cannot be pigeon-holed into any set 0£ concepts.
Every concept, no matter how general, is a posteriori; but the
10 Metaphysische
Anfangsgriinde der Natu?'Wissenschaft (Kants gesammelte
Schriften, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1910-, IV, p.
.
11 This is a line of thought that is certainly to be found in the KRV, though
not so explicitly as we have expressed it, since in the KRV the operative conception of the categories never goes so for !!$ to eliminate the objective-content
conception,

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

20$

operative intelligibility of understanding, that which makes
it an intelligent intelligible, is a priori. The concept, every
concept, is the product of this intelligence in operation, never
the norm of its operation.
To discover this operative intelligibility is to discover the
true a, ']Yl'iori of V erstand, which works within a very precise
structure, but is always superior to its products. "The
mind is not just a factory with a set of fixed processes;
rather it is a universal machine tool that erects all kinds of
factories, keeps adjusting and improving them, and eventually
scraps them in favour of radically new designs. In other
words, there is not some fixed set of a priori syntheses "
(Insight, 406) . There is no doubt that Kant tends to conceive
of the categories as a system of fixed processes and for this
reason Lonergan charges his a priori with being too rigid (Ibid.,
428) .
This insufficiency stands out even more if we consider
the second conception of the categories which is strictly
connected with the rigidity we have mentioned. We mean the
objective-content conception. Just before the table of categories we find this :
The same understanding, through the same operations by which
in concepts, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical
form of a judgment, also introduces a transcendental content into
its representations, by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition in general. On this account we are entitled to
call these representations pure concepts of the understanding, and
to regard them as applying a priori to objects (A 79=B 105) .

We do not insist on the affirmation of a content which would
be peculiar to the categories,12 ran affirmation which stands

in opposition to other texts stating that the categories do
not have a content (A 849, A 77=B 102). The difference
between the two series of texts seems at least partly verbal
12 Kant speaks of a transcendental content.
But this qualification is far from
unambiguous.

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and may be merely verbal. Much more probative of the
second conception of the categories is the very way Kant sets
up his quest for the a priori. In Introduction B, Kant refers to
the traditional theory of the composition of knowledge as the
basis of his inquiry into the a priori:
Though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not
follow that it all arises out of experience. For it may well be that
even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive
through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge
(sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies
from itself. If our faculty of knowledge makes any such addition
(Zusatz), it may be that we are not in a position to distinguish it
from the raw material, until with long practice of attention we
have become skilled in separating it (B 1 f.).

Whatever the a JYl'iori may prove to be in the course of Kant's
inquiry, it will in any case be an addition made by the cognitional faculty to the raw material of the sense impressions.
The context does not allow us to interpret this addition in
any other way than as an objective content added to that
other objective content which is the raw material coming from
the senses.
The a priori is then an objective content alongside the
a posteriori objective content.
Certainly the a priori is the
formal element in what is known, but this does not make it less
an object. In studying the Aesthetic we saw that the sensible
a priori is a manifold of intuition which can by itself be the
object of knowledge" apart from all sensation" (A 20=B 34) .
The same objective-content conception holds as well for the
a priori of Verstand, indeed it occurs in the text much more
often than the operative conception. On this basis Kant
speaks of an a priori knowledge of objects. Such an affirmation
is acceptable if it rests on the notion of an a; priori which is
itself an object, whereas it would be acceptable only with a
number of qualifications if it rested on the assumption of a
heuristic a priori. Moreover, the entire problematic of the
application of the pure concepts of understanding to a cor-

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

205

responding intuition, makes sense only because the pure
concept of understanding is precisely a content to be applied.
Likewise, the description of the a priori as something which lies
ready in the mind (Gemut) , or in the Verstand, obviously
indicates it to be an object. Finally, the affirmation that the
a posteriori of empirical intuition is only the occasion or
the opportunity for the mind to draw forth from itself the
formal a priori elements which it already possesses, points in
the same direction, for as regards a heuristic a priori, the given
is much more than a mere occasion.
It is true that from the beginning Kant says that " thoughts
without content are empty" (A 51=B 75), whereby it is meant
that the content is given through Anschauung. Similar statements occur throughout the KRV. But we must note in these
texts the prevalence of the intuition principle, which stands
in a relation of tension not only with the conception of the
categories as contents which ,are to be added to the a posteriori
contents of sensibility, but also, more generally, with the
conception of knowledge as structure, of which the doctrine of
the categories is a part. The intuition principle taken in all
its rigor excludes not only the conception of the categories as
a priori contents but even the conception of them as a synthetic
activity of Verstand in search of an intelligible objective content. In fact, according to the intuition principle, a content
of knowledge is possible only where there is an intuition-like
activity. But the very exclusion of a real objective content,
one known through the activity of understanding exercised on
the data of sense, led Kant to maintain an a priori content:
precisely, the pure concepts.
Extremely important for determining the notion of the
categories is the ample section of the Analytic known as the
Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding. Why does the problem of justifying the objective
reality of the a priori concepts arise at all? Kant begins the
deduction by viewing the problem provisionally from the
common sense point of view. To common sense it is evident

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that the object is given to us through sense intuition; from
this it is not difficult to understand why the a priori conditions
of sensibility are conditions of the object of sense knowledge,
and hence have objective validity; but one cannot see why the
same object must conform to synthetic a priori forms of understanding. But, whereas the objection against the objective
validity of the pure concepts of understanding is proposed
on the basis of the intuition principle, the response is given
on the basis of the binary structure of knowledge. Therefore
the answer denies the very basis of the objection; that is, it
denies that "appearances [objects] can be given in intuition
independently of functions of the understanding " (A 90=
B 122).
The appearances that enter our field of consciousness are
already fruits of the synthetic activity of
which works on the appearances through the imagination.
This is the final word of the Kantian critique. We have thus
set forth a course of thought which in this explicit form is not
formulated by Kant, but is the one towards which the various
inquiries of the KRV tend, no matter how they approach the
problem. The unifying moments of the pure concepts o.f
understanding, as well as of the pure intuitions, are the result
of the synthetic unity of consciousness which operates from the
very beginning of the cognitional process, and finds progressively
in the a posteriori datum what it has put there itself, and thus
goes ahead creating, on different levels of the structure, the
conditions of possibility of objectively valid knowledge. What
might seem to be the empirical condition antecedent to an
intellectual knowledge is actually a consequence (A 114, 123)
of the synthetic activity of imagination, and ultimately of
transcendental apperception, which is Verstand itself in its role
as the ground of unity of the pure concepts of understanding.
" The order and regularity in the appearances, which we
entitle nature, we ourselves introduce. We could never find
them in appearances, had not we ourselves, or the nature of our
mind, originally set them there" (A 125).

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

It is possible to find in the KRV quite a number of passages
in which this position is modified in the direction of a greater
realism, that is, of a conception of a really determining a
posteriori. But it is not too difficult to realize that in such
passages the strictly intellectual features of knowledge retreat
to the background, since in fact it is impossible to base them
on an a posteriori factor if the premisses of the KRV are
accepted. One such premise, contained in the principle that
universality and necessity cannot be derived from experience, is
the inability of understanding to penetrate the sensible; this
means that there is no act in the structure of knowledge capable
of effecting the passage from the concrete to the abstract,
from the singular to the universal, from the approximation to the
ideal-in a word from the datum to the concept. To place the
concept, precisely in its character of universality and necessity,
at the center of human knowledge, and at the same time to
overlook the act of understanding which preceded it, is to
take upon oneself a desperate task. The doctrine of the
construction of mathematical concepts, as well as the doctrine
of the imagination, and in part too of the schematism, are
attempts to find a substitute for that act which for Aristotle
is at the center of the cognitional process. The problematic of
the a priori in Kant, at all levels and above all at those of
sensibility and understanding, is indissolubly bound up with
his having overlooked the act of understanding that grasps an
intelligibility in the sensible.
If we interpret correctly the justification of the objective
validity of the categories, then we must say that the final
direction of Kant's epistemology is towards a totally thetic
knowledge. The a priori either posits or is itself constitutive of
the reality which it enables us to know. In respect to such an
a priori, expressions which would otherwise sound surprising
keep their literal meaning: put into (hineinlegen: B xii-xiv),
think into (liineindenken: B xii), prescribing laws to nature
(B 159) , reality must conform to our knowledge (B xvi) , etc.
On this thetic activity, which extends to the Anschauung,

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depends the ontological status of lmown reality. The obscurity, the tortuousness, and even the incoherence of the KRV,
are due to the aim of recovering empiricist realism within this
idealist perspective. What we consider to be the final word of
the KRV, whenever it is said and as soon as it is said, is subject
to correction and reinterpretation
within the empiricist
perspective-in a to and fro movement which shows in itself
no criterion for settling on any one definitive position.
7. The a priori of Vernunft.
Kant finds in the depth of the human mind a tendency to
broaden the field of knowledge beyond the limits of possible
experience as they have been ascertained in the Analytic.
What is the goal of this tendency? It is the unconditioned.
" What necessarily forces us to transcend the limits of experience and of all appearances is the unconditioned (das
Unbedingte) " (B xx). Not by chance does the term "das
Unbedingte" appear only on two pages of Preface B, and then
disappear until, the Aesthetic and Analytic completed, Kant
faces the problem of metaphysics as a science. In fact at the
beginning of the Dialectic the theme of the unconditioned is
taken up again. Parallel to what he did in the Analytic, Kant
here institutes a metaphysical deduction of the pure concepts
of reason, taking as a clue the formal and logical procedure of
reason, namely, the syllogism, which is the typical mode of
operation for V ern.unft. It is difficult to maintain that this
deduction has a truly philosophic value. What is significant,
however, is that Kant, having brought to a conclusion his
doctrine of knowledge in its objectively valid performance,
feels compelled to take into consideration the tendency towards
the unconditioned.
It is with this other factor that his
epistemology must reckon. We read in a Reflection: " The
unconditioned is the only theoretical idea of the V ernunft." 13
18 Reflexion 6414 (Kants gesammelte Schri/ten, Preussische Akadernie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1910-, XVIII, p. 709).

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209

What is the unconditioned? Here again we bring into
relief two aspects which, without being mutually exclusive,
and even without being clearly distinguished by Kant, constitute two different modes according to which the a priori,
representation of reason acts upon human knowledge. According to the first aspect, the unconditioned amounts to the
totality of conditions; according to the second it amounts to
what we can call the simply absolute. In the first two ideas
of reason the first aspect prevails, in the third the second aspect prevails.
In the course of our study we noted that Kant tends to
conceive the a priori as a content on the side of the object.
But we added that in Kant there is also present an operative,
heuristic conception. Now in the transcendental ideas there
is clearly present the conception of a content on the side of
the subject, that is, we find a dimension of consciousness as
norm of the cognitional process. " These concepts of reason
are not derived from nature; on the contrary, we interrogate
nature in accordance with these ideas" (A 645=B 673). This
statement recalls the formulation of Preface B: "Reason must
constrain nature to give answer to questions of reason's own
determining " (B xiii) , which we used as a basis for disclosing
a merely heuristic a priori. According to Kant we have here
something less than what the a priori ought to be if it is to be
objectively valid; actually we have here the true a
not a content which is added and hides another content, but
rather that which first makes possible the content of knowledge
in its rational character. It is rationality on the obverse
side, which requires and hence seeks unconditionality on the
reverse side, in the content presented by both the experiential
and intelligent levels.
How does reason satisfy this exigency? By means of an
indefinite regressive discursus. We saw that the systematic
way for discovering the transcendental ideas is to consider the
discursive-syllogistic activity of reason. This, according to
Kant, requires not only the search for the general condition

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GIOVANNI SALA

of a judgment, but even beyond that, the beginning of an
indefinite regress which is imposed on our mind just as the first
deduction of knowledge from a principle was imposed on it.
Thus, just as V ernunft, in its role as a faculty of principles,
passed from a particular to a universal, so it goes from a
universal to a still more universal principle, etc. The syllogism
is thus the beginning of an infinite regress of pro-syllogisms
(A 499=527, A 323=B 379). This means that it never
constitutes the attainment of any sort of unconditioned, but
rather is always merely transitional, a moment of passage
(A 33l=B 387 f.). The unconditioned is found only at the
end of the series or is the infinite series itself in its totality.
There is no sense in which it can be said to occur also at each
link of the chain.
Let us see what is said in Insight about our tendency to the
unconditioned. From the beginning of our study we have
insisted on the intelligent ,and rational dynamism which lies
at the base of our knowledge. Because of an intelligent a
priori in the quest of the intelligible, there is an intelligible
content, expressed in the concept, which is added to the
sensible content of presentation. Now the same consciousness
expands, setting up the new a priori which operates at a higher
level than that achieved in the concept. Spontaneously we
meet every concept with the question: Is it so? Such a
question expresses the dissatisfaction of our mind in respect
to any representation whatever which does not bear the mark
of the absolute, that is, does not claim the same value as
our dynamic orientation itself, which is unrestricted and
therefore unconditioned.
At this point it becomes necessary to overcome totally
Kant's conception of the a priori. The KRV is set up entirely
as a search for the formal conditions of the possibility of
having objective contents as objects of knowledge. From the
beginning of Preface B the search for the a priori means the
search for the formal addition which comes in to constitute
that composite which is knowledge. This approach is confirmed

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

in the Aesthetic and the Analytic-the a priori, is the formal
content 0£ the object 0£ knowledge. In the last section 0£
the Transcendental Deduction 0£ the Pure Concepts 0£ Understanding, in a paragraph which plainly recalls the beginning
0£ Preface B, the pure intuitions and the pure concepts 0£
understanding are said to be " elements 0£ knowledge, which
are found in us a priori" (B 166) . Such concepts, Kant continues, "make experience possible" (Ibid.). With this the
doctrine 0£ the a priori according to the KRV is concluded.
But the transcendental analysis is concluded only when,
going beyond the formal conditions according to which sensibility receives impressions and understanding thinks the contents 0£ intuition, it ·arri¥es at the subject which performs
all these actions. The question whether or not the subject
has fixed a priori forms is really 0£ secondary importance.
This other question, however, is decisive: Why and how does
the subject fulfil its cognitional activity? The answer is
that the subject is a rational consciousness which traces out,
in the orientation which constitutes it, the horizon 0£ its
search as the horizon 0£ being. In principle it is possible to
delimit any formal sphere 0£ consideration whatever: the
sphere 0£ mere appearance within which our experience is
confined according to the KRV, the sphere 0£ the purely logical,
within which mathematicians are contained in the elaboration
0£ their hypothetical deductive systems, etc. But it is not
possible to limit the sphere delineated by the intelligent and
rational concrete subject who marks off these domains. The
subject, when he performs all the operations brought to light
by the KRV and even others 0£ which the KRV is ignorant,
acts according to that a priori which he is.
An imaginary computer furnished with the two forms 0£
sensibility, the twelve categories 0£ understanding, the transcendental schemes, etc., would be able to accomplish all the
operations described in the KRV: the object 0£ operations
performed by means 0£ such formal equipment would be the
appearance. In what would such " knowledge " differ from

GIOVANNI SALA

that of man? In this, that in man the structure of knowledge is
actualized as a response to the questions which express the
dynamism of his consciousness. Sensible conditions and formal
elements, all are put into the conscious orientation towards that
absolute which we call being. Even conscious intelligence
in quest of the intelligible is a moment in the realization of
the subject which works necessarily within the horizon of
being. We shall later consider the function of the a priori
in respect to judgment. The importance of judgment lies in
the fact that it gives the answer, at least by way of successive
increments, to our tendency to the unconditioned. Much
more important, however, than the fact that it founds the
judgment as one phase of the cognitional structure, is the
decisive fact that the tendency to the unconditioned constitutes the operational power of the subject which enables it
to act on every level. Such a power of intelligent and
rational operation is really our a '[Yliori. It alone brings to
light, not just what the subject does or what it has, but the
subject itself which acts, and what it is.
We said above that there are two modes according to
which the Dialectic considers the unconditioned:
(1 ) it is
the to,tJality of conditions, (2) it is the simply absolute. In
neither of these cases, according to Kant, is the unconditioned able to acquire objective reference and thus become
constitutive of our knowledge. In Insight there are two senses
of the unconditioned which have a certain affinity with the
two senses of the KRV: (I) the formally unconditioned,
(2) the virtually unconditioned. The first has no conditions
whatever; the second has conditions indeed but they are
fulfilled (Insight, 280). Let us try to determine the difference
between the virtually unconditioned and the Unbedingtes as
the totality of conditions, so as to see why the first according
to Lonergan can enter into the constitution of our knowledge,
whereas the second according to Kant cannot.
According to Kant " the transcendental concept of reason
is directed always solely towards absolute totality in the

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

213

synthesis of conditions, and never terminates save in what
is absolutely, that is, in all respects, unconditioned" (A 326=
B 382) . The unity towards which reason tends is the unity
of a system (A 680 f.=B 708 f.). This conception of the
totality of conditions as constituting one system is particularly
evident in Kant's conception of nature. There is demanded
of the human mind a quest without end, in accordance with
the deterministic connections of natural events. This ontological conception of the universe as one system corresponds
to the conception of our discursive activity 'as the beginning of
an indefinite regress of pro-syllogisms.
Now it is possible to acknowledge a constitutive function
to the idea of the unconditioned, only if Kant's conceptions
both of the material universe and of the discursive capacity
of the mind are submitted to a revision. According to Lonergan
the whole universe is not such a pattern of internal relations
that no part and no ,aspect of it can be known in isolation from
any other part or aspect. The universe is not simply an
explanatory system, a system whose single parts are totally
determined by the internal relations which hold among themselves; for " its existents, and its occurrences diverge nonsystematically from pure intelligibility; it exhibits an empirical residue of the individual, the incidental, the continuous,
the merely juxtaposed, and the merely successive; it is a
universe of facts" (Insight, 345). In harmony with such a
universe Lonergan describes the act of judgment as follows:
" A judgment is a limited commitment; so far from resting on
knowledge of the universe, it is to the effect that, no matter
what the rest of the universe may prove to be, at least this
is so" (Ib'id., 344). The nature of judgment as limited
commitment determines the way we come to pronounce a
judgment: " So far from pronouncing on the universe, it is
content to affirm some single conditioned that has a finite
number of conditions which, in fact, are fulfilled " (Ibid., 345) .
The Kantian Unbedingtes is the comprehensive coherence
which embraces the entire universe and towards which we tend
1

214

GIOVANNI SALA

by asking questions for intelligence (Ibid., 345) . There is
no doubt that in this sense the unconditioned has a purely
normative function in our knowledge. In fact what we grasp
with the understanding is always a partial intelligibility,
which therefore is not unconditioned; in itself, as intelligibility of such a nature, it implies merely the possibility of
being, not being simply. But our cognitional structure brings
forward questions of another kind, those for reflection,
which turn precisely on those intelligibilities which embrace a
limited sphere of the universe. Now the reflexive inquiry
subsequent to these questions is capable of attaining an unconditioned which is the result of the combination of a conditioned (expressed by the concept) with the fulfilment of
its conditions. It is virtually unconditioned or de facto
absolute.
To parallel what we have said about the universe as proportioned to our knowledge, namely, that it is not a single
interlocked field of internal relations, but a universe of facts,
we must clarify the nature of the discursive 1activity of our
mind. 14 Prior to the reasoning found in the syllogisms dealt
with in formal logic, there is an activity, generically termed
reasoning, which is a movement towards understanding. In it
we must distinguish two levels: the movement towards direct
understanding and the movement towards reflective understanding. The first is a movement towards that intelligible
synthesis which is expressed in the concept, the second
towards that content which we have called the virtually
unconditioned. Just as the content both of sensible experience
and of direct understanding enter into the constitution of
human knowledge, so with no less truth does the content of
reflective understanding form a constitutive part of the same
knowledge. Upon it is founded the act of judgment.
"See Berna.rd J. Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas (Edited by
David B. Burrell), University of Notre Dame, 1967, pp. 54 ff.

THE " A PRIORI " IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

215

8. Judgment as adequate response to the a priori, of mind.

If it is the absolute character enjoyed by mental synthesis
that founds the judgment, then the judgment is not a
synthesis of concepts, a compositio et divisio, but rather the
absolute positing of the synthesis. The absolute positing is
the peculiar contribution of judgment to the cognitional
structure. What Kant calls analysis and synthesis are two
different kinds of understanding, and hence two kinds of
synthesis. Kant was all the more inclined to attach a fundamental importance to the distinction between analytical and
synthetic judgments since he was not at all clear on the a
posteriori origin of all our concepts. But once this origin is
brought to light, the problematic of judgment becomes totally
different. We must not overlook the intimate connection
between what we have said above on the a pioii of reason
according to Kant, and his doctrine of judgment as that
" in which the relation of a subject to the predicate is thought "
(A 6=B 10). If we assign to the a priori, as quest for the
unconditioned only the function of regulating the development
of our objectively valid knowledge, then the judgment, in the
measure in which it is nonetheless recognized as an act of the
cognitional structure, can only be conceived as a synthesis of
subject and predicate.
But the notion of absolute positing is not unknown to Kant.
It crops up especially when he treats the theme of our knowledge of reality. The entire treatment of the categories of
modality in The Postulates of Empirical Thought in General
elaborates this double theme: (1) only the first three groups
of categories have a function constitutive of the concept; (2)
the fourth group, while it designates the supreme character
of reality qua reality, nevertheless is not on the same plane as
the formal determinations which belong to the first three
groups. The same doctrine is found in the section on the
impossibility of an ontological proof for the existence of God.
Everything Kant says about Wirklichkeitor Existenz or Dasein
or Sein in opposition to the category of Realitiit (Qualitiit)
1

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GIOVANNI SALA

culminates in the notion of positing. In the tenth paragraph
of the section on the ontological proof we have the essential
elements of the Kantian doctrine of being as posited. " Being
is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not a concept
of something which could be added to the concept of a
thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain
determinations, as existing in. themselves" (A 598=B 626).
Again, " the object as it actually exists, is added to my concept
synthetically" (A 599=B 627). The concept as concept is
a determination of my state and hence it is in me; on the
other hand, the object as existent is outside my concept.
Similarly, the Lectures on Metaphysics tell us: "Die wahre
Erklarung des Daseins ist: eiistentia est positio absoluta." 15
We can establish two conclusions on the basis of the quoted
texts:
(1) from an ontological viewpoint, Wirklichkeit
(actuality) or Dasein means the positing of the thing in itself; 16
from ,a cognitional viewpoint actuality does not involve
any conceptual determill!ation beyond that involved in the
knowledge of possibility. Lacking in this Kantian analysis
is any indication of the cognitional act correlative to actuality.
Being means the thing in itself. But by what process do I
achieve this absolute positing of the thing in its being and
thus attain a knowledge of the thing in itself? The difference
between knowledge of possibility and knowledge of actuality
is that the first goes only as far as a conceptual content,
while the second reaches the thing itself, so that the existential
statement (Existenzia.lsatz) adds the thing itself to the concept.17 But how do we add the thing (!) to the thought of the
thing?
1 • Kant,
Vorlesungen iiber die Metaphysik, Erfurt,
Photomechanischer
Nachdruck, Darmstadt, 1964, p. 104.
16 In these texts " thing in itself " means the thing outside the concept. Whether
it belongs to reality as appearance or to absolute reality is a further problem which
Kant does not raise at this point.
11 Kant, Reflexion
(Kants gesammelte Schriften, Preussische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1910- XVIII, p. 548): "Durch das Pradikat des Seins
tue ich das Ding selbst zum Begriffe hinzu."

THE ''A PRIORI ,, IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

217

Faced with this question, after he has set forth the binary
structure of knowledge, and arrived at the notion of absolute
positing, Kant is always in danger of falling back into empiricism: " While possibility is merely a positing of the thing
in relation to the understanding ... actuality is at the same
time a connection of it with perception" (A 234=B 287 note).
In the same chapter Kant writes: " perception is the sole
mark of actuality" (A 225=B 273). It is impossible not
to notice a strange leap in Kant's investigation of the process
by which we arrive at knowledge of reality. Having reached
the decisive point he jumps over to the reality without showing
clearly how we make this jump or what act it is in which we
know the real. If he ever again happens to speak of cognitional
operations, he seems to attribute to perception alone the
activity of knowing the actual existent.
If we turn now to Insight we find that its whole doctrine
on knowledge of actuality can be summed up in this way: The
act of judgment is the means by which we know reality. A
mental synthesis which has the character of the absolute is
a true synthesis, and the true is the " medium in quo ens
cognoscitur." The true meaning mediates reality for man. To
speak of an absolute positing of a synthesis is not to speak
of perception alone, nor of perception plus concept, but rather
of an act which is at once empirical, intelligent, and rational.
There is only one way to safeguard the role which the senses as
well as the concept play in our knowledge of reality, and that is
to recognize that both intuition and concept are assimilated by
that absolute grounding by means of which the cognitional
process passes from thinking to judging.
Let us take another step in our analysis of the process by
which judgment brings us to knowledge of reality. To study
this process is to study the problem of the transcendence of
knowledge. Here again, as we saw in the general problem of
knowledge, the real question is not whether our knowledge is
transcendent, but what transcendence actually means. For our
part we place the transcendence of human knowledge entirely

218

GIOVANNI SALA

in the fact that it is knowledge of being qua being, being sub

ration.eentis, that is, being as something unconditioned. Neither
givenness nor intelligibility enjoys this absolute character.
The given is known as what has some relevance to biological
activity; it is " real " from this " viewpoint." The intelligible
is the object of spirit in its search for meaning; yet this alone
does not imply an absolute character, precisely because
intelligible means intelligible for someone. Being is that which
is known in answer to the question, An sit? But in the latter
case relativity to the subject is identical with transcendence in
respect to the same subject and in respect to any restrictive
qualification whatever, because in this case, and only in this
case, the subject is defined by a tendency to the transcendent.
In other words, in this case the viewpoint according to which
the object is sought is the transcending of all viewpoints.
If the a, priori which rules our cognitional acts is a demand
for the absolute, then only the unconditioned will constitute
an adequate fulfillment, and hence only in virtue of the unconditioned will the intention of the intending subject pass
from anticipation of being to knowledge of being. Obviously,
the representation as representation is in me, it is mine. But,
by reason of the unconditioned, the content is not relative to
me. An absolute, the representative content is a representation
under an aspect which does not mean relativity to the subject.
In brief, the representation of the unconditioned does not imply
relativity to any reality other than that which intrinsically
constitutes the unconditioned itself. It is in this sense that
we call it an absolute representation.
Now we know everything that is represented to us-independently of the question whether the represented content
transcends the representation. This principle, which is valid
for all phases of knowledge, must hold as well for the representation of the unconditioned. Therefore a faculty which
represents to itself an absolute content, if it knows anything
at all-and this is to be granted, once the irrational conception
of the real is overcome-knows precisely this absolute. But

THE" A PRIORI" IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

fll9

the absolute is what everyone understands-operatively-by
being. To ask whether we know being is the same as to ask
whether we are capable of a representation whose character,
formally as representation, is unconditionality. Our answer is
yes, since we saw that the cognitional process is capable of
representing the virtually unconditioned, by thinking of a
conditioned and grasping the fulfillment of its conditions.
The delicate point is, How is the content of our representation
grasped as absolute? And our answer is: Not by the direct
way of formal content, but by the indirect way of the
virtually unconditioned.
The a priori as quest of the unconditioned determines for
us the object of our knowledge, which we call reality or being.
Being is the objective of our intelligent and rational dynamism.
When the mental content, the representation qua representation, has acquired the character of the absolute, we have
a representation which by its very nature brings about that
transcendence that belongs to knowledge; arriving at it as
a mental representation is the means of reaching the thing
directly. The difficulty of recognizing this reflexively, even
though it is spontaneous in our performance whenever we
make a rational judgment, is the difficulty of intellectual
conversion-the shift from the animal extroversion with which
our psychic life first develops and which perseveres as a valid
function throughout our entire life, to the intellectuality and
rationality constitutive of our spirit, recognized and accepted
as the immanent norm of our knowledge of the universe of
being.
9. Expansion of the a ']YJ'i,ori: from knowledge of nature to
constitution of the human world.
The Kantian epistemology is highly obscure, fragmentary,
and even contradictory. One must disagree with Kant in
statement after statement of his analysis of knowledge. The
significance of the KRV lies much more in its setting the
problem than in its solving the problem. Its special merit

GIOVANNI SALA

consists in its having opened to philosophical reflection the
problem of the a piori in all its breadth and thus introduced
the study of the role of the subject in human knowledge. One
need only think of the importance that modern focus on the
subject has for present-day culture to be aware of the
epochal significance of Kant's quest of the a piori.
We have spoken of man as that being which is intrinsically
endowed with meaning. We have seen that this meaning is
his a priori: the dynamism, intelligently and rationally conscious, which lies at the source of the cognitional process and
penetrates it throughout, setting up principles normative of
the different phases of the structure in which it is realized. We
have eliminated from our interpretation of the a piori the
objective-content elements which are found in the Kantian
doctrine, thereby opposing the " hineinlegen " (putting into)
on which Kant relies so heavily. It does not seem to us
that an attentive analysis of knowledge, particularly in its
character of receptivity and development, confirms the a
piori as a knowledge of an object, or of a partial object, which
lies ready in the mind.
Kant's analysis considers mainly, if not exclusively, that
kind of knowledge which is natural science. But, once the
role of the subject in knowledge of nature is thematized, the
way is open to recognize the subject as the principle of
intentional activity in every other field as well. As a matter
of fact, the intelligently operative intelligible which, as subjects, we all are, is not only the capacity for bringing ourselves
to knowledge of ,a reality which already exists independently
of the conscious activity of man; it is also a principle which
creates a reality other than that of nature--man himself and
the human world. We have here a reality not only mediated
by meaning, but also constituted by meaning; hence this
section of the world can be correctly called the world of
meaning. That meaning, both receptively searching and
is that
creatively expanding, which we saw to be our a
by which man makes himself and his own world. Here we can

THE" A PRIORI" IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

221

restore in all its truth the thetic conception of the a. priori
of the KRV. As regards the human world, the affirmation
that objects must conform to our knowledge, i.e., to our
intentionality or to our capacity for giving a meaning, or that
we know of things only what we ourselves put into them,
must be taken literally. Here truly the spirit gives the law
to reality, raising nature to the ontological level of human
reality. Here knowledge of reality is essentially interpretation,
that is, knowledge of the meaning understood and realized by
others from the horizon of their own meaning.
But there is still another development. The expansion of
consciousness to the rational level is ultimate for cognitional
activity, but not for the conscious activity of man as a whole.
Our a priori is not only a dynamism which demands the truth of
knowing in order to attain being, but also requires, beyond that,
consistency between knowing and doing, in order to constitute
authentic human living on the basis of true meaning. This
makes still more evident both the importance of transcendental
analysis in order to thematize that a priori which constitutes us
as intentional beings, and the necessity of determining what
path it must follow to lead us to truth in our knowledge. We
are capable of a categorical imperative which constitutes our
interior anagke together with our supreme dignity, because we
are capable of the truth of being in the interior anagke of
rationality.
The merit of Insight lies in its having advanced the transcendental analysis begun in the KRV, bringing to light the
conditions for the possibility of objective knowledge. This has
resulted in a three-fold clarification: (1) of the a priori as the
conscious-subjective dimension of knowledge (2) of knowledge
as an empirical, intelligent, and rational structure, and (3) of
reality as intrinsically intelligible.
GIOVANNI
Hochschule fur Philosophie
Miinchen

SALA,

s. J.

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS 1

I

T IS NOT unusual to find the moral philosophy of Thomas
Aquinas described as naturalist. The meaning of the adjective must be sought in the still ongoing squabble between Prescriptivism and Naturalism. Doubtless there is always the danger of anachronism in the use of current labels to
speak of the thought of a predecessor and it is surely foolish to
borrow a recommendation of Thomistic ethics from the capital
of contemporary trends. Old wine, new bottles. But vintners
know that age is itself a recommendation. Nonetheless I think
there is something to be gained from seeing Thomas's moral
thought through the dust of today's controversies. To call him
a Naturalist in ethics is, as far as it goes, true. This paper is
an effort to see how far indeed it goes.
The Prescriptivist conception of ethics which has been developed by R. M. Hare is elevated on Hume's guillotine (Ought
cannot be derived from Is), the fact/ value dichotomy and,
more specifically, G. E. Moore's so-called Naturalistic Fallacy.
The acceptance of these as commonplaces can no doubt lead in
a number of directions, but Hare's position seems to arise
inexorably out of the sternest and most unrelenting adherence
to them.
Moore was concerned to show that it is a mistake to try to
explain the meaning of " good " by appeal to the characteristics
or qualities of the thing called good. No doubt it is because
the thing has certain qualities that we evaluate it as good, but
these qualities cannot be what we mean by " good." Hare has
a conveniently succinct way of showing why this is so.2 Let
1 This paper was read at a symposium held to commemorate the 700th anniversary
of the death of St. Thomas at Aquinas College. I am grateful to Professors Joseph
Boyle, Alan Donagan and Giles Milhaven for their comments.
• A flurry of footnotes would be needed to document this summary of Prescriptivism. Those acquainted with R. M. Hare's The Language of Morals and Freooom
and Reason will, I trust, find it accurate.

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

P .stand for the qualities of the good thing. Then, when we say
that " an X which is P is good," if " is P " were the meaning
of " good," the formula could be made to say, " an X that is
P is P" and that is not a very informative remark. In order
for evaluations to perform some useful function, then, it seems
necessary to distinguish the qualities the good thing has from
what we mean by calling it good. These qualities are sometimes
called the criteria of application of the term so that the distinction is sometimes expressed as one between the meaning of
" good" and the criteria of its application. This distinction
is given added force when we reflect that there is no single set
of qualities had by each and every thing called good. The
qualities we have in mind when we call a book good are surely
not those involved in calling a wife good. This might lead us
on to say what Hare himself does not, namely, that " good "
has many meanings. Hare does not .say this because, were we
to take just one of our alleged meanings of " good," say that
which is involved in the phrase, "a good book," we would of
course cite the qualities the book has as the meaning of " good "
in that instance. But Hare is every bit as intent to deny the
identification of the criteria of application and the meaning
of "good" in this case as in any other. His reason is that
"good" has one and the same meaning whatever criteria for
application may be invoked.
As an evaluative term, " good " bears the abiding meaning
of commending the object called good. Commendation, prescription-these, or this, is what constitutes the single, pervasive meaning of " good." This enables us to .see why Hare
is so insistent on denying that the meaning of " good " could
ever be identified with the descriptive qualities of the thing
called good. If such an identification were possible, it would
seem to follow that, in calling a thing good, we are engaged in
describing it. But it is perfectly clear to Hare that description
is not the standard function of sentences in which the term
" good " appears. Such sentences are standardly used to commend and prescribe.

224

RALPH MCINERNY

Sometimes Hare allows that the qualities of the thing, the
criteria of application of " good," constitute a meaning, the
descriptive meaning, of " good," but, for reasons already suggested, he does not want us to confuse the descriptive meanings
"good" may have with its single and abiding meaning as an
evaluative term. Hare remains faithful to the OED which informs him that " good " is the most common term of commendation in the English language. Let us not, then, misled by
the descriptive meanings " good " takes on in various uses, lose
sight of its chief role, and meaning, which is to commend.
If " good " can be said to have, over and above its chief use
and / or meaning which is to commend, other descriptive
meanings, there is no logical tie between the descriptive
meaning of " good," the criteria of its application, and the
single evaluative meaning of " good." Like Moore before him,
Hare maintains that anything whatsoever can be called good.
If there is no analytic connection, no logical tie, between factual
properties of a thing and its being commended, we have opened
up a gap which permits some surprising things indeed. If, in
commending an object, I must have in mind some qualities or
properties of that thing, it is nonetheless true that, in principle,
logically speaking, I can have in mind any qualities of the thing.
Hare's notorious example of the" fanatic" is proof enough how
seriously he takes the gap between evaluation and factual
properties. From the point of view of the logical behavior of
the term "good," in its commending function, it is possible to
commend an object on the basis of any qualities whatsoever. 3
Indeed, this possibility is, for Hare, the very root of our freedom.
That we are unlikely to select just any qualities of the thing
commended, is, according to Hare, a contingent fact.
Perhaps this is sketch enough of Prescriptivism for us to understand the misgivings of those opponents of Hare whom he
calls Descriptivists. It just .seems wrongheaded to them to sug8 Cf. my "The Poverty of Prescriptivism,"
(17)' pp. 80-91.

American Journal of Jurisp1'Udence

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

gest that a thing or action or person or whatever can be commended on the basis of any qualities or properties you please.
They want to say that, in the nature of things, there are constraints on the qualities which can be invoked in commending
what we commend. If you say that Alcibiades is a good man,
and I ask your reason for saying so, and you reply that he can
wriggle his ears, you have no doubt suggested criteria of application of the term " good " to Alcibiades, but you will forgive
me if I cease taking you seriously. The most charitable interpretation would be that you are speaking in riddles, in some
Delphic way which must be decoded. Hare too, let it be said,
would be surprised at that in Alcibiades which led you to call
him good. He is as aware as you or I that, taken literally, the
ability to wriggle one's ears is just not the sort of thing people
are likely to ground their favorable evaluations on. Nonetheless, Hare will defend to the death your freedom to do so and
he will be particularly concerned to defend you against the
charge of having made some logical mistake, of being insufficiently instructed on the evaluative meaning of " good." However Pickwickian your standards of evaluation, you do have
standards, and since no standards are analytically connected
with evaluation, yours are, from the point of view of the logic
of " good," as good as any others.
There are two quick ways in which his opponents have tried
to undercut Hare. (1) Some sentences in which "good" occurs can be said to commend, but others, such as questions
or the protasis of a hypothetical, are not so used and yet we
understand their meaning fully. "Is The Gulag Archipelago
good?" "If he is a good writer, I am Dostoievsky." Since
" good " can be understood here without reference to commendation, commendation does not seem to be the meaning
of the term. (2) It is further suggested that Hare has confused the elocutionary force of sentences in which " good "
occurs with the meaning of the term and even perhaps the
meaning of those sentences. Thus, " The Winds of War is a

RALPH MCINERNY

good book " may in given circumstances be used to commend
the novel, but that is not what the sentence means. 4
I think the second of these objections to Hare is more successful than the first. But neither is quite what we would get
if we turned to Aquinas and compared his teaching on such
matters with the positions of the controversialists of our time.
Indeed, it can be said that there is something mystifying in the
use that both Hare and his opponents make of such terms as
logfoal, logically and the logic of . . . If Hare maintains, somewhat obscurely, that logically I can commend an object on the
basis of any qualities whatsoever, some of his opponents have
a tendency to say that logically I cannot commend a thing on
any basis whatsoever. The sense of the adverb is hard to come
by in both cases. Let us look for some way to avoid this shared
obscurity.
What I propose to do is to turn to St. Thomas to see what
he might have made of commendation as Hare has laid it out:
An X which is P is good.
This is, it might be said, the logical form or the general structure of (some) sentences used to commend. What the Descriptivists wish to say is that a commendation has an addressee
and this is not an unimportant feature of the activity of commending. I commend something to someone for some reason
or other, where by " reason " I do not mean my motive but
rather the qualities or features the commended thing has. The
addressee, further, is presumably in the market for recommendations of this sort. That is, the recommendations will
work only if the addressee is in need of, desirous of, objects
having the features the thing called good has. In calling it
good, in telling him it is good, I am presuming that he will like
4 Cf. J. 0. Urmson, The Emotive Theory of Ethics, New York:
Oxford University
Press, 1968, p. 130 ff.; R. M. Hare, Essays on the Moral Concepts, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972, p. 55 ff.; Practical Inferences, same publisher, same
year, p. 74 ff., and Alisdair Macintyre, A Sh()Tt History of Ethics, New York:
[Macmillan, 1966,) p. 249 ff.

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

or want it because of those characteristics. In short, we have a
triad:
a) the thing commended
b) to someone who wants
c) a thing with such qualities.
This seems to entail constraints on commending and that is
what the Descriptivists or Naturalists want. When you say
"This is a good glass" and I ask why, your answer might be,
" When struck it gives off the C above Middle C." If I couldn't
care less, if nobody cared, it is silly to go about recommending
glasses on that basis. The introduction of the addressee of
recommendations thus opens up the possibility of finding in
the structure of the agent, who might act on the basis of advice
or recommendations, criteria for the correct use of " good."
That possibility suggests, of course, a central feature of
Thomas's ethics and one he shares with, because he borrowed
it from, Aristotle.
Let us approach the notion that it is somehow the structure
of the human agent which provides criteria of the human or
moral good by taking what is not really a detour through some
matters discussed by Peter Geach and Bernard Williams.
Williams is of especial interest because he pursues the Aristotelian path only so far and then decides that we cannot go
the full distance with Aristotle.
In his es.say entitled " Good and Evil," Geach introduces the
grammatical distinction between attributive and predicative adjectives to pry apart what Moore had joined together, namely,
"yellow" and "good." "Yellow" is a predicative adjective. 5
The force of this claim can be seen by noticing that " The
canary is a yellow bird " can be broken into " The canary is
a bird" and "The canary is yellow." Despite the assumption
of many, this is not how" good" modifies: it is an attributive
adjective. "Player is a good golfer" cannot be analysed into
•Peter Geach, " Good and Evil," reprinted in Phillipa Foot, ed. Theories of
Ethics, Oxford University Press, 1965.

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RALPH MCINERNY

"Player is a golfer " and "Player is good." " Good " is attributed to Player qua golfer and its sense cannot be grasped
independent of such roles or titles. Williams further illustrates
this difference by showing its effect on inference. 6 We can
reason thus:
The canary is a yellow bird,
A bird is an animal,
The canary is a yellow animal

but we cannot similarly reason:
Player is a good golfer
A golfer is a man,
Player is a good man.

The upshot of this is that since " good " occurs attributively,
that is, in such phrases as " a good golfer," " a good typist,"
and so on, it can only be explicated with reference to the role
or description under which the agent is envisaged. Thus, in a
phrase of the form " a good X," the meaning of " good " is essentially tied to what goes into the place of X. What goes into
the place of X is some term which signifies a role or function
of the thing called good. To call something a good knife is
to say that it possesses the qualities wanted in knives in order
that they might do their work well. And, insofar as there are
knives and knives and the function of even a paring knife is
somewhat various, there is a certain play in the qualities we
might have in mind in calling a knife a good one. The point
is that knives being what they are, which has built into it what
we want or expect from them, we are under constraints as to
what qualities we can cite in calling a knife a good knife.
In the case of men, we call them good insofar as they play
certain roles or perform given functions and we will have to
make reference to the role or function in explaining the meaning
of " good " in such phrases as " a good flautist," " a good novelist," "a good cobbler," and so on and on. In even the simplest
6

Bernard Williams, Morality, New York: Harper Torchbooks,

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

case, there is a range of aspects of the function or role which
may be brought into play in explaining the meaning of the
phrase, but the range is not infinite. Williams, having brought
his discussion to this point, now observes, "If there were some
title or role with which standards were necessarily connected
and which, by necessity, a man could not fail to have nor dissociate himself from, then there would be some standards which
a man would have to recognize as determinants of his life, at
least on pain of failing to have any consciousness at all of what
he was." 7 Who in reading this can fail to be reminded of the
following passage from Aristotle's Nicomacliean Ethics?
For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or any artist, and in general
for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the
' well ' is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be
for man, if he has a function. Have the carpenter, then, and the
tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he
born without a function? Or as eye, hand, feet, and in general each
of the parts has a function, may one lay it down that man similarly
has a function apart from all these? What then can this be? 8
When man is viewed as performing some role or function, we
assess his performance by appeal to the role or function. Man
as golfer, man as surgeon, man as hunter: so viewed we can
come up with standards which enable us to assess a man as a
good surgeon, a mediocre golfer and a bad hunter. Now, if it
were possible to see being human as a role or function, if we
could look at ourselves not merely qua hunter, qua surgeon,
qua whatever particular role or function, but qua man, well
then, we would be able to say what is meant by a good man
sans phrase. When Aristotle speaks of man qua man, he is not
of course looking for yet another particular role to put beside
the others. He is not proposing a list which would go like this:
hunting activities, healing activities, golfing activities andhuman activities. What he is rather looking for is the note or
characteristic which pervades all such particular human ac7
8

Ibid., p. 57.
Nicomacliean Ethics, 1097M5-80.

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RALPH MCINERNY

tivities and leads us to call them human. Particular human activities of the kind we have mentioned can be assessed in terms
of functions and roles; there is now the suggestion that these
same activities can be assessed from a more basic or fundamental point of view, as human.
St. Thomas makes quite explicit what may be only implicit
in Aristotle, and that is the identification of human acts and
moral acts. ". . . nam idem sunt actus morales et actus
humani." 9 This may seem a surprising identification since what
it means is that all our deliberate acts, all our conscious acts,
are as such moral. The only thing Aquinas contrasts with
moral acts, actus humani, are what he calls actiones hominis,
acts of man. Examples of the latter are scratching, thoughtless
movements of the head or hands and, we may perhaps add,
seeing, hearing, digesting food, etc. There are activities which
can be truly predicated of a man but which do not arise from
any deliberate intention on his part. The domain of morality
is thus bewilderingly vast and we may wish to ask what becomes of contrasts like that between the moral and legal, the
moral and prudential, the moral and the religious, etc. Furthermore, just as the move from man qua harpist, man qua surgeon,
man qua aquatic performer, to man qua man is not a move
down a list to a final entry on it, as if there were some few acts
which are human while the rest are something else, so too the
search for moral acts is not one which brushes away as irrelevant the surgical, hunting, golfing and other such activities
men engage in. On the Thomistic view, these are all moral acts
because they are human acts. Now that seems odd and odd on
Thomas's own assumptions. Our look at attributive adjectives
was to make the point that the good golfer is not, as such a
good golfer, a good man. Do we want to say that there must be
several ways of assessing such particular activities as golfing,
healing, hunting, etc., first, in the light of standards embedded
in the particular roles or functions, and, second, in the light
• Summa theologiae, lallae, q. 1, a. S. c.

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

of wider considerations? But does not this make the moral
assessment look generic and vague? We must return to this.
The identification of human acts and moral acts is implicit
in the following crucial passage of the Nicomachean Ethics.
Now if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows
or implies a rational principle, and if we say 'a so-and-so' and
'a good so-and-so' have a function which is the same in kind, e.g.
a lyre-player and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification
in all cases, eminence in respect of goodness being added to the
name of the function (for the function of the lyre-player is to play
the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this
is the case and we state the function of man to be a certain kind
of the soul implying
of life, and this to be an activity or
a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the
good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well
performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate
excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity
of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one
virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete. 10

The human good is the excellent performance of activities
which involve a rational principle. As we know, in arriving at this, Aristotle made a list of activities which
can be truly ascribed to man and suggested that not all
of them pertain to man as man. Thus, it can truly be said
that a man sees, feels, hears, fears, etc. But, if these activities
can also be predicated of beings other than man, as they can,
they cannot be peculiar to man and thus do not belong to him
as man. That is one of the significances of the qua-locution. Of
the many activities which are truly predicated of man, only
some are such that they are peculiar to or proper to man. These
are the activities which follow or involve a rational principle;
they are Thomas's conscious deliberate acts. This makes it yet
more clear that playing the flute, performing brain surgery,
using the sand wedge, are not to be contrasted with acts of man
qua man: they are instances of such acts. But we have also
seen that, once we have a class of activities which are peculiar10

Nicomachean Ethics, 109Sarn-Is.

RALPII :MCINERNY

ly human-since they are conscious and deliberate, since they
follow or involve a rational principle-the diversity within the
class is explained by reference to a diversity of roles or functions, leading us to speak of man qua flautist, man qua surgeon,
etc. If we try once more to contrast what belongs to man qua
man and what belongs to him qua surgeon, say, we seem to
have nowhere to go except to the generic, more universal and
vague. Aristotle, in the passage last quoted, suggests another
possibility.
If human actions are the set of all the acts performed according to particular roles and not the performance of some
special function laid next to the others, the set may still be
an ordered one, that is, it may involve a hierarchy such that
some particular functions are on an appropriate basis more
human than others. If this should be the case, the human good,
of man qua man, could be read from them. Both Aristotle and
Aquinas lean in the direction of this solution, but not perhaps
in the way too commonly thought. If there is, on some appropriate basis, a hierarchy among the particular functions and
roles such that some human activities are more human than
others, it is nonetheless not the case that performing that or
those functions well is identical with, exhaustive of, the human
good, the good for man.
What have I tried to do thus far? Some contemporary
ethicians feel that we can grasp the meaning of " good,"
its single abiding meaning, by seeing that its function in
evaluative discourse is to commend. What is commended
is commended on some basis, because of descriptive qualities
or characteristics; nonetheless, there is no logical tie between
the evaluative meaning of " good " and such descriptive
meanings as might be fashioned from the descriptive qualities
of the things called good. Since there is no logical tie, it is logically possible to select any qualities whatsoever as the basis for
commending a thing. Descriptivists, on the other hand, wish
to say that it is not logically possible to commend something

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

283

on any basis whatsoever. Their misgivings seem to be based
on the fact that there must be an addressee o:f commendations
and the structure of the addressee introduces constraints on
what can be proposed to him as good. The notion that the
structure of the human agent is the locus of criteria for assessing
the good of man, the human good, is a feature of the moral
theory of Aristotle and Aquinas. What is it that belongs to
man as man? I have tried to show the ambiguity of the qualocution in the phrase" man qua man". Making use of Geach
and Williams, we arrived at one understanding of it by considering the assessment of man in different roles and functions:
qua flautist, qua surgeon, qua hunter. We figure out what is
meant by calling a man a good flautist by examining the role
or function of the flautist. But a good flautist does not seem
to be as such a good man. So it is asked, is there some function
or role, being human, which would underwrite the phrase " man
qua man " in such a way that, by examining that function, we
could tell whether a man is a good man without qualification?
The difficulty which arose was that either this function would
be merely a generic way of referring to the particular functions
or it would be a particular function among the others and then
the other:s would not be human activities. A second understanding of the qua-locution in the phrase " man qua man "
is based on distinguishing from among the activities which are
truly predicated of man, those which are peculiar or proper to
him. It is these which pertain to him qua man. They are said
to follow or involve a rational principle; they are deliberate
conscious acts. But this only brings us back to the set of roleor function-activities with which we began: playing the flute,
operating on patients, bagging a bird-all these are conscious
deliberate activities and belong to man qua man. The only way
out of the dilemma suggested is that some sort of scale or
hierarchy might be discerned among human acts such that
some are more human than others. Performing those well could
thus be said to constitute the human good by a kind o:f
synecdoche.

RALPH MCINERNY

Bernard Williams, who has followed the role or function way
of explaining " good " as attributive adjective, feels that the
effort to elicit unquestionable moral ends from distinguishing
marks of man's nature, is bound to fail. In support of this, he
puts forward three surprisingly weak and inapposite arguments.
First, a palpable degree of evaluation has already gone into the
selection of the distinguishing mark which is given this role, such
as rationality or creativity. If one approached without preconception the question of finding characteristics which differentiate
men from other animals, one could as well, on these principles, end
up with a morality which exhorted men to spend as much time
as possible in making fire; or developing peculiarly human physical
characteristics; or having sexual intercourse without regard to
season; or despoiling the environment and upsetting the balance
of nature; or killing for fun.11

Williams has made a list of things which man alone can do and
of course the remarkable thing is not that he has found so many
candidates but that he has contented himself with so few. It
would be easy to add such deeds as going to the moon, writing
novels, attending philosophical symposia, buying on the installment plan and thinking up objections to Aristotle's ethical
theory. No matter how prolonged, such a list is not such that
the distinguishing mark Aristotle himself pointed to could appear on it as another item. Indeed, it is clear that Williams's
entries as well as those I have added are all instances of what
Aristotle settled on. Such an objection, then, ends by paying
a backhand tribute to its target. For, Aristotle might ask, "And
now, Mr. Williams, what do all these items have in common
which led you to ascribe them to man and only to man? " That
there is some common note seems clear from the fact that,
once we see such a list, we are able to add to it easily and without any need for extensive and lavishly funded research.
Second, and very basically, this approach bears out the moral
ambiguity of distinctive human characteristics (though Aristotle
paid some attention, not totally successfully, to this point). For if
11

Op. eit., pp. 68-4,

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

it is a mark of man to employ intelligence and tools in modifying
his environment, it is equally a mark of him to employ intelligence
in getting his own way and tools in destroying others. 12

Williams goes on to point out that, if it is the mark of man to
have a conceptualized and fully conscious awareness of himself
as one among others, this is a precondition of both benevolence
and cruelty. "If we offer as the supreme moral imperative that
old cry, " Be a man! ', it is terrible to think of the ways in which
it could be taken literally."
In order for this second objection to work, it has to assume
that Aristotle is saying that any use of intelligence in action
is a good use. But of course what Aristotle was looking for was
a distinctive activity the good use or performance of which
would constitute man's good. "Be a man!", which is Kipling,
not Aristotle, and none the worse for that, of course, can function as a moral imperative only if it is understood to mean not,
act as you cannot help but act, viz. intelligently, consciously,
to some purpose, but: do this ccmime il faut, well. That
Williams has indeed gone so strangely astray is clear from what
he immediately adds: " Here we seem to encounter a genuine
dimension of freedom, to use or neglect the natural endowment,
and to use it in one way or another: a freedom which must
cut the central cord of the Aristotelian enterprise." Williams
can only regard this remark as pertinent on the assumption that
to say that it is the mark of the human agent qua human to
act intelligently is equivalent to saying that it is a necessary
mark of the human agent to use his intelligence well. Since it
was Aristotle who opined that most men are bad, it is witless to
interpret him in such a way. I suspect that Aristotle would
say that, while we are of course free to put our minds to the
perpetration of every conceivable sort of cruelty, debauch and
injustice, we are not free to constitute such behavior as perfective of the kind of agent we are.
Williams has a third objection which contrasts being helplessly in love and being rational, but discussion of it would lead
12

Ibid., p. 64.

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RALPH MCINERNY

too far afield. Despite the objections he brings against the Aristotelian view, Williams assures his reader that he is far from
thinking that considerations about human nature, about what
men are, what it is for man to live in society, do not contribute
to a correct view of morality: "one could not have any conception of morality at all without such considerations. In particular, they help to delimit the possible content of what could be
regarded as a morality." 13 What he questions is that there is
any direct route from such considerations to a unique morality
and a unique moral ideal. In that, I think he is both right and
not at odds with Aristotle (and Aquinas) .
To the objections raised by Williams against the notion of
a distinctive human characteristic or function, let us add others
raised by D. J. O'Connor in his brisk tendentious little book,
Aquinas and Natural Law. These objections bear on Aristotelian tenets which O'Connor rightly sees to have been accepted by Aquinas.
(1) The whole discussion seems to confuse two senses of ' good '
as (i) what is sought after, and (ii) what ought to be sought after.
What reason is there to suppose that there is any coincidence
between happiness and virtue?
What reason is there to suppose that human beings have
a characteristic function (ergon)? Aristotle's argument to show
that there is a function peculiar to man is a very poor one. . . .
(3) Granted that the good life for man must somehow be
grounded in human nature, how do we argue from the facts of
human nature to the values of morality? As Hume notoriously
showed, the gap between fact and value cannot be bridged by
logical argument.
(4) Although the relation of means to ends does entail that some
things are desired for their own sakes and not as a means to something else, we have no reason to suppose that there can be only
one final end to which all our acts are means. Indeed, our experience clearly shows that the ultimate objects of human desires and
activities are many and diverse. 14
13

Ibid., p. 66.
J. O'Connor, Aquinas and Natural Law, New York, 1968, pp.

14 D.

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

287

Of these four objections, (1) and (8) seem to involve pretty
much the same point; (2) may be taken to stand for the sort
of objections we have already found in Williams; and (4) is a
statement of the most common objection to the Aristotelian
and Thomistic ethical theories. We have then two objections
to consider:
(1) Does the ethical theory of Aquinas involve a fallacious
elision from what men do in fact seek to what they ought
to seek?
Does the notion of an ultimate end involve the fallacy which
has been illustrated in the following way: since all roads
end somewhere, there is somewhere that all roads end?

I think that it is undeniable that Aquinas thinks that there
is a way in which we can argue, or proceed inferentially, from
what men do in fact seek and pursue to what they should or
ought to seek or pursue. In noticing this, however, we are well
advised not to invoke dogmatically an alleged Humean feat,
namely, his having shown that from premisses of a descriptive
sort (Is-statements) we cannot conclude to a normative or
Ought-statement. H matters are to be settled by invoking our
predecessors, then the fact, as Hume noticed, that most
moralists make the disputed illation (including perhaps Hume
himself) is difficult to overlook. To admit impediments to so
common a practise might indeed involve notoriety, though perhaps not of the kind O'Connor has in mind. The point is that
slogans are of little help here. Let us look at what Aquinas does
and test his procedure in the usual way to see if it works.
The opening discussion of the moral part of the Summa
theologiae (IaIIae.1.1.c) seeks to establish that human action
is teleological, that it is a characteristic of human action that
it has a point, that men act for the sake of some goal or end.
(1) Of the actions which can be truly ascribed to men, only
those which pertain to man as man can properly be called
human.
Man differs from irrational creatures in this that he is
master of his own actions.

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RALPH MCINERNY

(8) Only those acts of which man is the master can properly
be called human acts.
(4) Man is the master of his acts thanks to reason and will.
(5) Therefore those acts are properly called human acts which
proceed from deliberate will.
(6) Actions which proceed from any faculty or capacity are
caused by it under the formality of its objects.
(7) The object of will is the end or good.
(8) Therefore, all human actions are for the sake of an end.

We may have special difficulty understanding (6); perhaps
some parallels will be helpful. Objects of sight are such under
the formality of color, objects of hearing are such under the
formality of sound. So here Aquinas holds that whatever we
do, whatever we deliberately choose to do, we do under the
formality of goodness, sub ratione bani. This way of speaking
suggests that we can distinguish what is chosen materially, the
particular course of action, say, and the formality under which
it is chosen. Just as mind is not restricted to a category of
objects materially depicted, so will, which is the rational appetite, has universal good as its (formal) object. (" ... obiectum
voluntatis est finis et banum in universali.") What we have,
then, is a kind of sandwich: the formality of goodness and the
(material) thing, action, whatever, which is judged to save or
sustain or exemplify that formality.
What is the " formality of goodness," the ratio bani? Thomas
takes from Aristotle the account of "good" as that-which-allthings-seek. And, in a passage which has occasioned some
Humean inspired outrage, he seems to make an inference from
bonum est quod omnia appetunt to bonum est faciendum et
prosequendum. 15 Now that does seem odd, not least because it
seems to make a virtue of necessity. If all men, say, do in fact
seek the good, it seems otiose to recommend that they do or
to say that they ought to. It sounds like a move from " Snow
falls in winter" to "Snow ought to fall in winter." (Carlyle's
15

Summa. theologiae, laIIae, q. 94, a.

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

289

retort to the woman who said she approved of the universe" You had better, Madam "-does not provideasimilaroddity.)
While sense can no doubt be made of the remark that it ought
to snow in winter, it does not seem to follow from the fact that
it does in fact snow in winter. Let us charitably assume that
Thomas is not simply urging men to do what they are already
doing and what they perhaps cannot not do. What then is he
doing? We must first ask what the force of the claim that the
good is what all things seek is. Seeking, appetition, desire, may
be said to be a "trying to get." Trying-to-get presumably involves something one has not got. Appetition thus suggests a
want or lack, a negation, in the subject of appetite, of the one
trying to get. Furthermore, the want, lack (or negation) will
be fulfilled if the trying-to-get is successful. Thus, having
got what one is trying to get is preferred to not having it and
this preference suggests the judgment that having it is fulfilling
of or perfective of the agent. Let us see if we can, on the basis
of these humble observations, construct a Thomistic argument
which derives Ought from Is.
(1) Men are de facto engaged in the pursuit of a vast variety
of objectives, ends, goods.
The pursuit of the good involves the judgment that, say,
a particular action, A, has the formality G, goodness; that
is, A is regarded as perfective of the agent.
(S) That A has G is the reason for, the justification of, desiring

A.
(4) It is possible that A, which is thought to have G, does not
really have G.
(5) One desiring A under the assumption that it has G who
comes to see that it does not have G, should not pursue A.
(6) If A is seen not to have G, there is no longer any justification of pursuing it.
(7) And if B is seen to have the G A was mistakenly thought
to have, one who ought not to pursue A, ought to pursue B.

Looked at in this admittedly schematic and general way, the
procedure from the fact that particular courses of action are

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pursued under a given formality, first to judgments that a
course of action ought not to be pursued and then to affirmative
judgments as to what ought to be pursued, does not seem to
fly in the face of reason. Any man may be presumed to act
in the light of what he thinks is truly perfective of the kind
of agent he is, and, because of the possibility that what is seen
in that light, what is brought under that formality, is not really
perfective of him, his judgments can be regarded as corrigible.
Further, as this type of analysis suggests, there is presumably
no action which could exhaust the formality under which it is
performed, as if the concrete and abstract could coalesce and
a particular action be identical with the ratio boni, the whatis-perfective-of-the-human-agent. That would mean that some
good is tantamount to goodness. (For Thomas, as we know,
it is because God is goodness that He can be man's ultimate
end in a way which would make no sense in moral philosophy.)
We can now profitably introduce the conception of an ultimate end. From a formal point of view, the ultimate end,
that for the sake of which man does whatever he does qua man,
is the formality of goodness or the ratio boni: whatever is perfective of the kind of agent man is. From the formal point of
view, there is little difficulty in saying that all men have the
same ultimate end, but, as Aristotle observed, so stated it is
little more than a platitude. Matters get interesting, difficult
and controversial, insofar as attention turns to the concrete actions which are brought under this formality. The .second objection that we have extracted from O'Connor's four brings
against the notion of ultimate end the fact that no single determinate type of action can be said to exhaust or be identical
with this formality. And this is of course true. It does not, however, as O'Connor and many others have thought, go contrary
to what Aristotle and Aquinas say.
Aristotle described the distinctively human activity as following or involving a rational principle. Human activity is
rational activity. To say this is not, as we observed against
Williams, to introduce a particular role or function irotn among

NATURALISM AND THOMISTIC ETHICS

others like shoemaking and performing lobotomies. Rather," rational activity " functions as the genus of such particular roles.
It is this genus that Aquinas expresses as deliberate voluntary
activity. To perform such activity well is the formal ultimate
end we have just been speaking of. The difficulty that the objectors see, and that Aristotle and Aquinas saw before them,
is that rational activity or deliberate voluntary activity is not
a particular kind of action. The next step, accordingly, is to
look for sub-genera, less general than rational activity and more
general than the sort of thing we and Williams have included
on our lists. To make a long and complicated story deceptively
short and easy, I shall simply say schematically that it is possible to distinguish between essential rational activity (which
involves a rational principle) and participated rational activity
(which follows a rational principle). That is, sometimes human
actions are simply the use of reason itself, at other times rational activity is acts of other faculties or capacities which can
come under the sway of, bear the imprint of, rational direction.
Essential rational activity is further distinguished into theoretical and practical uses of the mind. Well then, and this is
the point of so summary a recall, the excellences or virtues of
rational activity, subdivided in this way, are the constituents of
the human good. Do Aquinas and Aristotle identify the formal
ultimate end with the virtue of one of these subtypes of rational activity? The answer would seem to be yes and no. The
highest perfection of the theoretical use of our mind, contemplation, is sometimes spoken of as if in its case we could have that
coalescence of matter and form, of particular action and the
ratio boni, we spoke of earlier. Nonetheless, a careful reading
of Aristotle and Aquinas makes it clear that they do not really
hold this identification. 16 What emerges is rather that the human good has structure, that it is a set of virtues or excellences
which may be thought of as ordered in a variety of ways. Some
virtues are more necessary than othel'.s, some virtues are more
1•

Cf. ibid., q. I, a. 7.

RALPH MCINERNY

noble than others, but however the set is hierarchically arranged,
plurality is retained. Surely it is worse than a parody of the
material consideration of the ultimate end to suggest that Aristotle and Aquinas are interested in homogenizing mankind
so that the richness and variety of human occupations andin that jargon phrase-life-styles would ideally be overcome.
Our aim has been to look at Thomistic ethics from the vantage point of the problematic of our own day and to show that
Thomas shares certain hopes for ethical theory with Naturalists
and that, in his hands, those hopes develop in ways which involve great difficulties. The distinctive function of man must
not be viewed as yet another particular one, yet that is how it
is often objected to. No more did Thomas identify the ratio
boni with some particular activity. The fear that he violated
the Humean stricture against deriving Ought from Is was allayed by presenting his procedure so that one can judge for himself, independently of slogans, whether a fallacy has been committed. Williams and O'Connor, and in this they are hardly
unique, fear that talk of an ultimate end must end in laying
it down that every man is ideally destined for the same identical
vocation or career. The distinction between the formal and
material aspects of ultimate end enables us to see that while
the former is one, there is a necessary plurality, even limitless
variety, in the latter. Williams and O'Connor concede that
human nature provides the basis for a correct view of morality
and helps delimit its content. If this paper has succeeded in
removing misunderstandings about Thomas's views on this
point of agreement, the way is open to press on to the real
difficulties. In that further task, the thought of Thomas
Aquinas provides a sure and lucid guide.
RALPH MclNERNY

University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

T

HE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION to philoophical and theological thought that Bernard Lonergan
as made over the last few decades has not gone unnoticed. Indeed, considerable attention has been paid over the
years to his work in such areas as cognitional analysis, epistemology, philosophical theology, and, most recently, method
in theology. Less consideration has been given to his contributions in the field of ethics.
An important element in the development of Lonergan's
ethical thought has been his reflections on value. 1 Inasmuch
as these reflections are at once not only strikingly original but
also deeply rooted in the best of traditional and modern philosophical thought, they have the potential for making a major
contribution to the task of clarifying the foundation for a contemporary ethic.
However, because Lonergan's reflections on value have developed significantly over many years, and because they have
not been presented as a whole in an explicit, systematic integration, their full potential has never been readily available. It
is my intention in this brief article, then, to lay out in an explicit way the key elements and basic pattern of Lonergan's
developing reflections on value. This article will not attempt to
present a complete exposition of anything like "Lonergan's
Theory of Value " ; rather, it will concentrate on two central
issues in the development of Lonergan's reflections on this
topic: first, the explicit introduction of a transcendental notion
of value, and, .secondly, the relation of value and feelings.
1 This is most evident in the period beginning with Insight: A Study of Human
Understanding (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957; designated below as
Insight) and continuing up to the appearance of Method in Theology (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1972; designated below as MT) . An important point in the
course of this development is marked by The Subject (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1968; designated below as Subject) •

244

WALTER E. CONN

I. Transcendental

Notion of Value

The fundamental difference in modes of intending, and thus
also the principal division of sources of meaning, according to
Lonergan, lies between the categorial and the transcendental. 2
Categories are involved in asking determinate questions and
giving determinate answers through experiencing, understanding, judging, deciding. 3 Transcendentals, on the other hand,
" are contained in questions prior to the answers," 4 they
"ground questioning." 5 Transcendentals are, in fact, "the
radical intending that moves us from ignorance to knowledge.
They are a priori because they go beyond what we know to seek
what we do not know yet. They are unrestricted because answers are never complete and so only give rise to still further
questions. They are comprehensive because they intend the
unknown whole or totality of which our answers reveal only
part." 6
Most importantly for our interests, however, " the transcendental notions, that is, our questions for intelligence, for reflection, and for deliberation, constitute our capacity for selftranscendence." 7 In the following passage Lonergan further
clarifies the meaning of this radical thrust for self-transcendence
by distinguishing between transcendental concepts and transcendental notions:
. . . intelligence takes us beyond experiencing to ask what and
why and how and what for. Reasonableness takes us beyond the
answers of intelligence to ask whether the answers are true and
whether what they mean really is so. Responsibility goes beyond
fact and desire and possibility to discern between what truly is
good and what only apparently is good. So if we objectify the
content of intelligent intending, we form the transcendental concept
of the intelligible. If we objectify the content of reasonable intending, we form the transcendental concepts of the true and the
real. If we objectify the content of responsible intending, we get
•MT, pp. 11 and 78.
8 Ibid.
• Ibid., p. 11.

Ibid., p. 74.
Ibid., p. 11.
7 Ibid., p. 105.

0

0

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

245

the transcendental concept of value, of the truly good. But quite
distinct from such transcendental concepts, which can be misconceived and often are, there are the prior transcendental notions
that constitute the very dynamism of our conscious intending,
promoting us from mere experiencing towards understanding, from
mere understanding towards truth and reality, from factual knowledge to responsible action. 8

.According to Lonergan, the subject operates on different
levels of consciousness, qualitatively distinguished by questions
for intelligence, for reflection, and for deliberation. It is important to emphasize here that these distinctive and functionally interdependent " levels of consciousness are united by the unfolding of a single transcendental intending of plural, interchangeable objectives." 9 Lonergan formulates the dynamic
movement in this way:
What promotes the subject from experiential to intellectual consciousness is the desire to understand, the intention of intelligibility.
What next promotes him from intellectual to rational consciousness, is a fuller unfolding of the same intention: for the desire to
understand once understanding is reached, becomes the desire to
understand correctly; in other words, the intention of intelligibility, once an intelligible is reached, becomes the intention of the
right intelligible, of the true and, through truth, of reality. Finally,
the intention of the intelligible, the true, the real, becomes also the
intention of the good, the question of value, of what is worth while,
when the already acting subject confronts his world and adverts
to his own acting in it. 10

The many levels of conscious intentionality, then, are, as
Lonergan says, just " successive stages in the unfolding of a
single thrust, the eros of the human spirit." 11 And this single,
radical drive is the principle of the relation and interdependence
between the levels of consciousness. For the image of " levels "
of consciousness is no more than a metaphor denoting the successive and sublating enlargements of consciousness that occur
with the unfolding of the subject's fundamental drive for tran8 Ibid., pp. 11-12.
• Subject, p. 22.

10

11

Ibid., pp. 22-23.
MT, p. 13.

246

WALTER E. CONN

scendence. These successive enlargements and sublations of
consciousness are brought out clearly in the following passage
as Lonergan first runs through the " levels " from " top to bottom," then reverses the direction:
To know the good [the human spirit] must know the real; to know
the real, it must know the true; to know the true, it must know
the intelligible; to know the intelligible, it must attend to the data.
So from slumber, we awake to attend. Observing lets intelligence
be puzzled, and we inquire. Inquiry leads to the delight of insight,
but insights are a dime a dozen, so critical reasonableness doubts,
checks, makes sure. Alternative courses of action present themselves and we wonder whether the more attractive is truly good.
Indeed, so intimate is the relation between the successive transcendental notions, that it is only by a specialized differentiation
of consciousness that we withdraw from more ordinary ways of
living to devote ourselves to a moral pursuit of goodness, a philosophic pursuit of truth, a scientific pursuit of understanding, an
artistic pursuit of beauty. 12
Lonergan further suggests that the transcendental notions
not only promote the subject to full consciousness and direct
him to his goals, but they also
provide the criteria that reveal whether the goals are being reached.
The drive to understand is satisfied when understanding is reached
but it is dissatisfied with every incomplete attainment and so it
is the source of ever further questions. The drive to truth compels
rationality to assent when evidence is sufficient but refuses assent
and demands doubt whenever evidence is insufficient. The drive
to value rewards success in self-transcendence with a happy conscience and saddens failures with an unhappy conscience.13
Value, then, in this analysis, is a transcendental notion, that
is, it is " what is intended in questions for deliberation, just
as the intelligible is what is intended in questions for intelligence, and just as truth and being are what are intended in
questions for reflection." 14 But we must emphasize again, with
Lonergan, that " such intending is not knowing.'' 15 " When I
19

1•

Ibid.
Ibid., p. 85.

u Ibid., p. 84.
'"Ibid.

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

ask what, or why, or how, or what for," he says, "I do not
know the answers, but already I am intending what would be
known if I knew the answers." 16 Likewise, "when I ask whether
this or that is so, I do not as yet know whether or not either
is so, but already I am intending what would be known if I
did know the answers." 17 And so, "when I ask whether this
is truly and not merely apparently good, whether this is or
is not worth while, I do not yet know value but I am intending
value." 18
Again, to repeat a fundamental point, just " as the notion of
being is the dynamic principle that keeps us moving toward
ever fuller knowledge of being, so the notion of value is the
fuller flowering of the same dynamic principle that now keeps
us moving toward ever fuller realization of the good, of what
is worth while." 19
Readers of Insight will recognize that the analysis of value
I have outlined here does not correspond to the treatment given
in Insight under the title, "The Notion of Value." 20 The fact
is that Lonergan had not yet worked out a transcendental notion of value at the Insight period of his development. In Insight, value is the good of order with its concrete contents as
a possible object of rational choice that comes to light in moral
consciousness.21 Ten years later, however, in The Subject
(1968), Lonergan presents an explicit consideration of the notion of value as transcendental. Here, however, the transcendental notion seems simply to replace the former notion of value
developed in Insight as part of a threefold division of the good:
the particular good as object of desire, the good of order, and
value. For in The Subject Lonergan says that the transcendental notion of value is " distinct from the particular good that
satisfies individual appetite, such as the appetite for food and
drink, the appetite for union and communion, the appetite for
Ibid.
Ibid.
18 Ibid.
1•

n

Subject, p. 24.
••Insight, pp. 601-602.
• 1 Ibid., p. 601.

19

248

WALTER E. CONN

knowledge, or virtue, or pleasure." 22 Further, he says, the
transcendental notion of value is " distinct from the good of
order, the objective arrangement or institution that ensures for
a group of people the regular recurrence of particular goods.
As appetite wants breakfast," he says, " so an economic system
is to ensure breakfast every morning. As appetite wants union,
so marriage is to ensure life-long union. As appetite wants
knowledge," Lonergan continues, " so an educational system
ensures the imparting of knowledge to each successive generation." 23 So far, what Lonergan has said here about particular
goods as objects of desire and those objects as ordered corresponds exactly to his position in Insight. 24 He continues in
The Subject, however, by saying that "beyond the particular
good and the good of order, there is the good of value." 25 But
this value that is beyond the particular good and good of order
is the transcendental notion of value, not the good of order itself
with its concrete contents as a possible object of rational choice,
as in Insight. 26 This transcendental notion of value in The Subject functions as a norm, for Lonergan says that " it is by appealing to value or values that we satisfy some appetites and
do not satisfy others, that we approve some systems for
achieving the good of order and disapprove of others, that we
praise or blame human persons as good or evil and their actions as right or wrong." 27 But while introducing this transcendental notion of value, The Subject does not explicitly discuss the notion of value worked out in Insight, and by discussing the transcendental notion of value in the context of
and in relation to the particular good and the good of order,
The Subject has the effect of allowing the reader to confuse the
two notions of value, or to think that the concept of value of
Insight has simply been replaced by the new transcendental
notion of value.
Method in Theology finally introduces some measure of
••Subject, p. 23.

••Ibid.
24

Insight, p. 596.

25 Subject, p. 23.
••Insight, p. 601.
27 Subject, pp. 23-24.

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

clarity to this question, but while both notions of value are
treated here, the discussions are .separate and not explicitly
linked. Further, Method in Theology adds the issue of judgments of value to the whole question. So while there is some
degree of clarity to this latest work, it is in something of a
potential form that needs to be actualized through some direct
explicating and relating.
Three key terms central to our question occur at various
places in Method in Theology: judgments of value, terminal
value (as in Insight), and the transcendental notion of value
(as in The Subject). Judgments of value are related to terminal
values through decisions or choices, inasmuch as terminal values
are objects of possible choice or, indeed, actually chosen, 28 and
choices, when they are responsible, conform to judgments of
value. Terminal values, indeed, are the primary and basic
instances of value discussed in Insight under the title " The
Notion of Value," in relation to the particular good and the
good of order, a threefold division that is maintained in Method
in Theology. 29 In Insight, Lonergan explains that these values
of reasonable choice.80 In Method, however, he emphasizes true
values, describing terminal values as " true instances of the particular good, a true good of order, a true scale of preferences
regarding values and satisfactions." 81
As we have seen above, Method also discusses the transcendental notion of value, but without explicitly and clearly relating it to the notion of terminal value. We may recall, however, that in discussing the transcendental notion of value,
Lonergan likens it to the notion of being. "Just as the notion
of being intends but, of itself, does not know being," he says,
" so too the [transcendental] notion of value intends but, of itself, does not know value." 82 There are further similarities be••Insight, p. 601; and MT, p. 51.
•• Insight, p. 601; and MT, pp. 48-51.
80 Insight, p. 601.

81
82

MT, p. 51.
Subject, p.

250

WALTER E. CONN

tween the transcendental notions of being and value that
Lonergan points out which will, I think, be helpful to note here:
Just as the notion of being functions in one's knowing and it is by
reflecting on that functioning that one comes to know what the
notion of being is, so also the notion or intention of the good
functions within one's human acting and it is by reflection on that
functioning that one comes to know what the notion of good is.
Again, just as the functioning of the notion of being brings about
our limited knowledge of being, so too the functioning of the
notion of the good brings about our limited achievement of the
good. Finally, as our knowledge of being is, not knowledge of
essence, but only knowledge of this and that and other beings,
so too the only good, to which we have first-hand access, is found
in instances of the good realized in themselves or produced beyond
themselves by good men.88

The first point in the above passage will be especially important
in helping us to understand the relation between Insight's
notion of terminal value and the later transcendental notion
of value. Just as we can distinguish the being or reality intenrled in questions for reflection and the being or reality known
through true judgments, so we can distinguish between the
value intended in questionS' for deliberation and the value
known and realized in true judgments of value and reasonable,
responsible decisions or choices that conform to those true judgments. There are, in other words, the reality and value that are
intended in questioning (the transcendental notions) and the
concrete instances of reality and value that are known and
realized in correct judgments and authentic choices. We may
say, then, that the transcendental notion of value stands to
the notion of being as terminal values stand to the reality
known through true judgments, or, in more direct response to
our original question, that terminal values stand to the transcendental notion of value as the reality known through true
judgments stands to the notion of being. As the notion of
being functions as a criterion for the judgments through which
18

Ibid., pp. ft5-26.

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

fl51

reality is known, so the transcendental notion of value functions as a criterion for the decisions and choices through which
terminal values are realized.
II. Value and Feelings
We have considered several aspects of the question of value
thus far, but we must now turn our attention to one aspect
that seems central, the relation of value to feelings. For while
we have discussed values and their judgments and choices in
relation to the cognitive operations, Lonergan makes a point
of the fact that " the apprehension of values and disvalues is
the task not of understanding but of intentional response." 84
And "such response is all the fuller, all the more discriminating," Lonergan says, " the better a man one is, the more
refined one's sensibility, the more delicate one's feelings." 85
Briefly, and quite simply, Lonergan puts the matter this way:
" Intermediate between judgments of fact and judgments in
value lie apprehensions of value. Such apprehensions are given
of feelings." 86
Lonergan's most interesting consideration of feelings, perhaps, is in connection with his analysis of symbolic meaning,
through which "mind and body, mind and heart, heart and
body communicate." 37 Because of " internal tensions, incompatibilities, conflicts, struggles, destructions," 88 the need for
this internal communication is basic, and symbols, obeying" the
laws not of logic but of image and feeling," 89 have the power
of recognizing and expressing the internal tensions and conflicts
that logical discourse abhors. 40 "Organic and psychic vitality,"
says Lonergan, " have to reveal themselves to intentional consciousness and, inversely, intentional consciousness has to secure
the collaboration of organism and psyche. Again," he says,
" our apprehensions of values occur in intentional responses,
••MT, pp. H-5.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid., p. 87.
BT Ibid., p. 67,

•• Ibid., p. 66.
••Ibid.
' 0 Ibid.

WALTER E. CONN

in feelings: here too it is necessary for feelings to reveal their
objects and, inversely, for objects to awaken feelings." 41 Most
basically, according to Lonergan, "a symbol is an image of a
real or imaginary object that evokes a feeling or is evoked by
a feeling." 42 Though we do not have the space to pursue
Lonergan's analysis of symbolic meaning here, we should remember that this is the primary context in which his discussion
of value and feeling must be interpreted, the issue which we
must now consider directly.
Relying on the phenomenological analyses of Max Scheler
and Dietrich von Hildebrand, Lonergan distinguishes in the
realm of feelings between "non-intentional states and trends"
and "intentional responses." 43 Non-intentional states are fatigue, anxiety, bad humor. Trends or urges are, for example,
hunger, thirst, sexual discomfort. Such .states and trends have
causes or goals, and the feeling is related to the cause or goal
simply as effect to cause, as trend to goal.44 " The feeling itself," says Lonergan, " does not presuppose and arise out of
perceiving, imagining, representing the cause or goal. Rather,
one first feels tired and, perhaps belatedly, one discovers that
what one needs is a rest. Or first one feels hungry and then one
diagnoses the trouble as a lack of food." 45 Now values are
apprehended not in these states and trends, says Lonergan, but
rather in the intentional responses that he contrasts to them
in the following description:
Intentional responses, on the other hand, answer to what is
intended, apprehended, represented. The feeling relates us, not
just to a cause or an end, but to an object. Such feeling gives
intentional consciousness its mass, momentum, drive, power. Without these feelings our knowing and deciding would be paper thin.
Because of our feelings, our desires and our fears, our hope or
despair, our joys and sorrows, our enthusiasm and indignation,
our esteem and contempt, our trust and distrust, our love and
hatred, our tenderness and wrath, our admiration, veneration,
" Ibid., pp. 66-67.
••Ibid., p. 64.
•• Ibid., p. 30.

"Ibid.
'"Ibid.

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

reverence, our dread, horror, terror, we are oriented massively
and dynamically in a world mediated by meaning. We have
feelings about other persons, we feel for them, we feel with them.
We have feelings about our respective situations, about the past,
about the future, about evils to be lamented or remedied, about the
good that can, might, must be accomplished.46
But, further, intentional responses are not all of a kind, and
values are not to be apprehended in every intentional response.
For, as Lonergan explains, "feelings that are intentional responses regard two main classes of objects: on the one hand, the
agreeable or disagreeable, the satisfying or dissatisfying; on
the other hand, values, whether the ontic value of persons or
the qualitative value of beauty, understanding, truth, virtuous
acts, noble deeds." 47
Response to the agreeable or disagreeable, the satisfying or
dissatisfying is, unfortunately, ambiguous. "What is agreeable," says Lonergan, " may very well be what is a true good.
But it also happens that what is a true good may be disagreeable. Most good men," he says, " have to accept unpleasant
work, privations, pain, and their virtue is a matter of doing so
without excessive self-centered lamentation." 48 In contrast,
according to Lonergan, "response to value both carries us toward self-transcendence and selects an object for the sake of
whom or of which we transcend our.selves." 49 For, he says, "we
are so endowed that we not only ask questions leading to selftranscendence, not only can recognize correct answers constitutive of intentional self-transcendence, but also respond with
the stirring of our very being when we glimpse the possibility
or the actuality of moral self-transcendence." 50
Feelings, then, in Lonergan's analysis, respond to values, but
they do not respond simply; rather, they respond in accord
with a scale of preference. So Lonergan suggests that we may
distinguish" vital, social, cultural, personal, and religious values
••Ibid., pp. 80-81.
u Ibid., p. 81.
••Ibid.

.. Ibid.
•• Ibid., p. 88.

!iZ54

WALTER E. CONN

in an ascending order." 51 He sketches the character of these
various types of values in the following passage:
Vital values, such as health and strength, grace and vigor, normally
are preferred to avoiding the work, privations, pains involved in
acquiring, maintaining, restoring them. Social values, such as the
good of order which conditions the vital values of the whole community, have to be pr.eferr.ed to the vital values of individual
members of the community. Cultural values do not exist without
the underpinning of vital and social values, but none the less
they rank higher. Not on bread alone doth man live. Over and
above mere living and operating, men have to find a meaning and
value in their living and operating. It is the function of culture
to discover, express, validate, criticize, correct, develop, improve
such meaning and value. Personal value is the person in his selftranscendence, as loving and being loved, as originator of values
in himself and in his milieu, as an inspiration and invitation to
others to do likewise. Religious values, finally, are at the heart
of the meaning and value of man's living and man's world .... 52

It is also important for the ethical theorist to note, as
Lonergan does, that feelings develop. While they are fundamentally spontaneous in their origin-not lying at the beck .
and call of decision, once arisen, feelings " may be reinforced
by advertence and approval, and they may be curtailed by
disapproval and distraction." 58 Lonergan continues by pointing
out that
such reinforcement and curtailment not only will encourage some
feelings and discourage others but also will modify one's spontaneous scale of preferences. Again, feelings are enriched and
refined by attentive study of the wealth and variety of the objects
that arouse them, and so no small part of education lies in
fostering and developing a climate of discernment and taste, of
discriminating praise and carefully worded disapproval, that will
conspire with the pupil's or student's own capacities and tendencies,
enlarge and deepen his apprehension of values, and help him
towards self-transcendence. 54

Before returning more directly to the question of value, we
Ibid., p. 81.
•• Ibid., pp. SI

01

58 Ibid., p. 82.
"'Ibid.

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

should note with Lonergan that feelings are not merely transient,
that while some easily aroused feelings just as easily pass away
and while some feelings are repressed into an unhappy subterranean life, still
there are in full consciousness feelings so deep and strong, especially when deliberately reinforced, that they channel attention, shape
one's horizon, direct one's life. Here the supreme illustration is
loving. A man or woman that falls in love is engaged in loving not
only when attending to the beloved but at all times. Besides particular acts of loving, there is the prior state of being in love, and
that prior state is, as it were, the fount of all one's actions. So
mutual love is the intertwining of two lives. It transforms an " I "
and "thou" into a' we" so intimate, so secure, so permanent, that
each attends, imagines, thinks, plans, feels, speaks, acts in concern
for both. 55
Lonergan concludes his brief consideration of feelings by
noting that besides development there are also aberrations of
feelings, and that " it is much better to take full cognizance of
one's feelings, however deplorable they may be, than to brush
them aside, overrule them, ignore them." 56 This issue, which
has received so little consideration from moral philosophers,
seems to lie at the heart of the question about an adequate
ethical theory, for such a theory must be able to come to grips
in a satisfactory way with the nature of personal authenticity,
itself intrinsically dependent on genuine self-knowledge. And,
as Lonergan says,
to take cognizance of [one's feelings] makes it possible for one to
know oneself, to uncover the inattention, obtuseness, silliness, irresponsibility that gave rise to the feeling one does not want, and
to correct the aberrant attitude. On the other hand, not to take
cognizance of them is to leave them in the twilight of what is
conscious but not objectified [what Lonergan thinks at least some
psychiatrists mean by the unconscious]. In the long run there
results a conflict between the self as conscious and, on the other
hand, the self as objectified.51
Just as transcendental method rests on a self-appropriation, on
•• Ibid., pp. Sf.l-88.

66

Ibid., p. SS.

67

Ibid., pp. 88-84.

WALTER E. CONN

attending to, inquiring about, understanding, conceiving, affirming
one's attending, inquiring, understanding, conceiving, affirming, so
too therapy is an appropriation of one's own feelings. As the
former task is blocked by misconceptions of human knowing, so
too the latter is blocked by misconceptions of what one spontaneously is.58

To conclude, now, our discussion of value, we may point out
with Lonergan that in judgments of value three components
unite. First, says Lonergan, " there is knowledge of reality and
especially of human reality. Secondly, there are intentional
responses to values. Thirdly, there is the initial thrust towards
moral self-transcendence constituted by the judgment of value
itself." 59 This is simply a more explicit and systematic way
of saying what we have already noted with Lonergan, that " intermediate between judgments of fact and judgments in value
lie apprehensions of value." 60 There are, in other words, first
the issues on which practical reflection itself can reach virtually unconditioneds. Thus Lonergan says that " the judgment
of value presupposes knowledge of human life, of human possibilities proximate and remote, of the probable consequences
of projected courses of action." 61 In this regard Lonergan notes
that " when knowledge is deficient, then fine feelings are apt
to be expressed in what is called moral idealism, i. e., lovely
proposals that don't work out and often do more harm than
good." 62 But, as our consideration of value and feeling has
indicated, " knowledge alone is not enough," and, Lonergan
says, "while everyone has some measure of moral feeling for,
as the saying is, there is honor among thieves, still moral feelings
have to be cultivated, enlightened, strengthened, refined, criticized and pruned of oddities." 63
Finally, says Lonergan, "the development of knowledge and
the development of moral feeling lead to the existential discovery, the discovery of oneself as a moral being, the realization
•• Ibid., p. 84.
•• Ibid., p. 88.
00 Ibid., p. 87.

Ibid., p. 88.
••Ibid.
0 Ibid.

•1

BERNARD LONERGAN ON VALUE

that one not only chooses between courses of action but also
thereby makes oneself an authentic human being or an unauthentic one. With that discovery," he states, " there emerges
in consciousness the significance of personal value and the
meaning of personal responsibility." 64
We may bring this article to an appropriate close, I think,
while anticipating further discussion, by pointing out with
Lonergan that " it is by the transcendental notion of value
[the fullest manifestation of man's radical exigence for selftranscendence] and its expression in a good and uneasy conscience that man can develop morally. But a rounded moral
judgment is ever the work of a fully developed self-transcending
subject or, as Aristotle would put it, of a virtuous man." 65
This point inevitably brings us to the question of the conversions from which such subjects emerge. But they must be the
topic of another paper.
WALTER

St. Patrick's Seminary
Menlo Park, California

0 ' Ibid.
•• Ibid., p. 41.

E. CONN

SOME ARGUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLE
OF SUFFICIENT REASON AND COSMOLOGICAL
PROOFS

R

"Laws like the principle of sufficient
reason . . . are about the net and
not about what the net describes."
(Ludwig Wittgenstein)
"What a pity science cannot resolve
to keep people under discipline and
to keep itself in check!" (Kierkegaard's Vigilius Haufniensis)

CENT literature concerning cosmological proofs for
the existence of God has stressed their employment
of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR). Though
in the past many critics of theistic arguments have not only
not recognized the operation of this principle but also have
criticized theists for employing a version of the principle of
causality explicitly rejected by many in the theistic tradition/
contemporary criticism has generally acknowledged the functioning of the PSR. This is not to .say, however, that the
principle has not been found wanting. In fact, confining
ourselves just to discussions of what we might call in a preliminary way its " truth," two types of criticism seem to have
been advanced. The first type, developing a characterization
used by James F. Ross, might be called "Humean" so as to
stress its epistemological character as well as its similarity with
standard empiricist procedures against the principle of causality.
The other type, which might be called " theological," attempts
to reveal the incompatibility of the PSR with the existence of
1 See W. Norris Clarke, S. J., "A Curious Blindspot in the Anglo-American Tradition of Anti-Theistic Argument," The Monist, 54 (1970), pp.

SUFFICIENT REASON AND COSMOLOGICAL

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fl59

a free creator God; the PSR must thus be repudiated by
traditional theists themselves.
Our first concern, in section I, will be a presentation of
various " Humean" arguments as they have been developed
by Professor Ross 2 and by Professor William L. Rowe. 3 In
section II we shall develop and discuss their criticisms of the
PSR in an effort to come to a correct understanding of the
meaning, status, and function of the principle. Our contention will be that both critics and defenders have not always
been clear on these issues, especially on the difference between
" Rationalist " and " Aristotelian " understandings of the PSR
and cosmological argumentation. We shall argue that there
are at least two ways the PSR oan be denied, that there is a
different type of absurdity involved in each denial, and that
the context and nature of the denials must be stressed by one
who would successfully defend the principle. In view of the
complex structure of the " theological " ·argumentation of both
Ross and Rowe, and since much of what we would say in
response would be a reiteration of what was developed earlier,
we shall confine ourselves in section III to a presentation of
what we consider the basic claims of this type of critique. Our
analysis in section IV will stress the essential modesty of the
" Aristotelian " PSR; instead of providing the basis for an
overbearing rationalism, scientism, and determinism, this PSR
seemingly functions to render philosophical theology a discipline which attains its goal in a simultaneous recognition of
its essential incompleteness with regard to possible truths about
the divine.
2 James F. Ross, Philosophical Theology (Indianapolis and New York: The BobbsMerrill Company, 1969).
3 In "The Cosmological Argument and the Principle of Sufficient Reason," Man
In "The Cosmological Argument," No-Us, 5
and World, 1 (1968), pp.
(1971), pp. 49-61, Rowe presents a "theological" argument, but in the process
clarifies his formulations of the PSR. (Our essay was written previously to the
publication of Rowe's more detailed analyses in his The Cosmological Argument
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975)).

260

CHARLES J. KELLY

I.
The following four objections to the PSR have been advanced
(the first two by Jam es F. Ross, the third and fourth by William
L. Rowe):
1. Since the principle that everything has (must have) an
explanation or sufficient reason is assumed without proof, how
is it known to be true? Any attempt to establish it as true
runs into the dilemma:
a) If the PSR is known by induction its absolute universality
cannot be established. It can only be a synthetic principle of
doubtful truth, since a finite body of evidence is available which
could falsify it.
b) On the other hand, if the PSR is a necessary truth, then
"there is something for whose being there is no explanation "
is self-contradictory. But this means that one has to establish
this negation of the PSR as self-contradictory. No one has
done this. " Experimental attempts with propositions like
' There is no explanation for the existence of the moon ' will
show that the contradiction is at least elusive, if not absent." 4

2. One cannot say that the denial that everything has an
explanation leads to absurdity. That would be similar to the
mistake of saying that the denial of the principle of noncontradiction ( PNC) necessarily leads to absurdity. "For if
a man says there is one exception to the principle of non-contradiction, he denies the principle, but as long as he does not
pretend to offer us that exception-the proposition which is
both true and false-he will not fall into the wilderness of
confusion Aristotle anticipated, since his statement that there
is such a two-valued proposition has only one truth-value." 5
So one could say that not everything has an explanation without having to designate which, if any, things are unexplained.
3. Assuming the PSR has not or cannot be demonstrated in
'Ross, op. cit., p. 97.
5 Ibid., p. 98.

SUFFICIENT

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261

the way Locke, for instance, imagined, it does not follow that
it cannot be known as true (for not everything can be proved).
An examination must be made of the claim that the PSR is
a necessary truth, known a priori.6 Before doing this it is
important to distinguish the strong form of the PSR (PSR1)
from a weak form (PSR2). PSR1 is a restatement of the first
premise of Samuel Clarke's version of the cosmological argument, "Whatever exists is either a dependent being or an
independent being," where " dependent being " means " a being
that has the reason of its existence in the causal efficacy of some
other being" and" independent being" means" a being which
has the reason of its existence within its own nature." 7 Thus
PSR1 states: Whatever exists must have a reason for its
existence either within the nature of the thing itself or in
the causal efficacy of some other being. 8 "PSR1 implies only
that every existing thing has a reason for its existence." 9 On
the other hand, PSR2 claims only that whatever comes into
existence must have an explanation of its existence. 10
Now, if the PSR is necessarily true, either it is analytically
true or it is a synthetic a priori truth.
a) Is PSR1 analytically true? Clearly it is not logically true.
" Nor ... does the mere notion of the existence of a thing
definitionally contain the notion of a thing being caused." 11
6 Rowe's considerations here will be different from those presented in Ross's first
argument.
7 Rowe, " The Cosmological Argument and the Principle of Sufficient Reason,"
p. 280.
8 Ibid., p. 282.
•Rowe, "The Cosmological Argument,'' p. 57. Rowe's or other quoted author's
emphasis unless otherwise indicated
10 This formulation of the weak form of the PSR (what we have called PSR.)
must be distinguished from what Rowe himself calls PSR 2 in his Notis article,
namely, " Every actual state of affairs has a reason either within itself or in some
other state of affairs " [p. 57]. This is explicated as a stricter form of PSRi, and
it is this stricter form which Rowe like Ross finds incompatible with a free divine
creation. We shall discuss this PSR, which we shall call PSR., in sections III and
IV below.
11 Rowe, " The Cosmological Argument and the Principle of Sufficient Reason,"
p. 282.

CHARLES J. KELLY

With regard to PSR2, though " Every effect has a cause " is
analytically true, " Every event has a cause " is not. An event
like a leaf falling does not seem to contain the idea of something causing that event.
b) The difficulty with the view that either PSR1 or PSR2
is necessary, though not analytic, is " that we do seem able to
conceive of things existing, or even of things coming into
existence, without having to conceive of those things as having
an explanation or cause." 12 It seems conceptually possible
that something should exist and yet have no cause or explanation of its existence. The Humean claim (that since the
separation of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning
of existence is possible in the imagination, the actual separation
of those objects is also possible) reveals the lack of a necessary
connection in reality between 1a cause and a coming into
existence. In fact, many assert thait there is no way of proving
that uncaused ·and unoriginated events do not occur. These
may be possible, and so the denial of the PSR is true.
4. In view of these difficulties some defenders of the cosmological argument adopt the more modest view that the PSR
is a metaphysical assumption, a presupposition we as scientists
are forced to make in order to make sense of our world. But
does a scientist in his work really assume that everything that
happens has a cause (PSR2)? Perhaps, since the failure to find
causes does not lead anyone to abandon the causal principle,
and it has been argued that it is impossible to obtain empirical
evidence against the principle.
Though a case might be made for the weak form of the PSR,
can the strong form of the PSR be argued to as a presupposition
of reason itself, remembering that PSR2 is only concerned
with what happens or comes into existence, while PSR1 pertains to whatever exists? If we imagine a star that has always
existed, it is doubtful that we presuppose that there must be
an explanation for the eternal existence of this star. It is true
18

Ibid., p. fl85.

SUFFICIENT

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PROOFS

that the question, " Why does this thing exist?," may be
sensibly ·asked about an eternally existing star, but this is
quite different from arguing " that all men presuppose that
there must be an adequate answer to that question .... " 18

II.
1. The question, "How is the PSR known to be true?",
resulted in considering whether the PSR was established
either by induction or by its recognition as a necessary truth
whose denial resulted in a self-contradiction. In our examination of these alternatives we shall attempt to show the inappropriateness of asking about the truth of the PSR and to
reveal in what sense the PSR can be considered both as known
by induction and as necessary without being subject to the
objections posed.
a) According to Ross's analysis of it as a truth known by
induction, the PSR seems to emerge as a universal affirmative
synthetic a posteriori proposition. Like the perennial " Every
swan is white," " Everything is explainable " seemingly is to
be regarded not only as a truth confirmed by past and present
experience, but also as one which future experience could
falsify. But should the PSR be considered as a universal
proposition? We think not, for the predication of "explainable " of " thing " distorts the meaning of the PSR. It is
not things or substances which are regarded as explainable, but,
as Richard Taylor has argued, states or changes of things or
substances. If it is then countered that the PSR could easily
be reformulated as the universal proposition, " Every fact is explainable," it emerges that the subject does not refer to substances or things as does an ordinary subject, but rather to
complex states of affairs which are usually regarded as expressed
by a total proposition.
If the description of our present working formulation of the
PSR as a universal proposition is unnatural, perhaps we never1•

Ibid., p. !'l89.

CHARLES J. KELLY

theless can see it as standing in a close relationship to propositions. Let us take it as saying that every true proposition
or every fact which it reflects has an explanation. The PSR
is thus at least oriented to an expression of the relation of
propositions to other propositions or to the relation of facts to
other facts, if not to the relation of propositions to facts. It
is not a proposition in that it does not reflect that which is
the case, but rather attempts to say what propositions themselves do or can do, but do not say they do or can do. Considerations of this sort open up the possibility of treating the
PSR as a rule directing us to search for the grounds of some
of the truths which we regard ourselves as expressing in our
language. Just as it would be inappropriate to ask about the
truth or falsity of the rules of formation or transformation of
a propositional calculus, so it would be inappropriate to ask
about the truth or falsity of the PSR. The rules of a
logical system are concerned with the interrelations among the
parts of a system and the development of a system such that
they decide what will be admitted into a system and what
moves are permissible within the system. One can talk of the
truth or falsity of the axioms and theorems in a system, but not
about the truth value of the rules of a system.
Logical systems, of course, are quite consciously constructed,
with the rules often being placed near or at the beginning of
the presentation of the system. Rules determine whether a
token is eligible to enter in the system as well as its behavior
as an element in the system. The game of the system cannot
be entered into, much less fully engaged, without an abiding
by the rules. Let us, however, envision a situation in which
one becomes conscious of being in medias res, in the midst
of a game, and discovers himself abiding by rules, though not
knowing exactly the nature of those rules, or even what game
he is playing. M. Jourdain, who did not know he had been
speaking prose all his life until so in£ormed by the maUre de
philosophie, was abiding by some grammatical rules, though
he might not have been able to state what they were or even

SUFFICIENT

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PROOFS

if there were any rules at all. Now in the playing of a
logical system an instructor could point out to a neophyte
that a certain move he had made was the source of all his
subsequent confusions and difficulties. l£ the student is to
avoid future mistakes in his work in the system, he must
follow the rules. But the student can decide he is not capable
of such a commitment, and terminate his logical studies, escape
from the system and its rules. So, if our ordinary language does
include the utterance and use of propositions and if in employing them one is following certain rules (the PNC, £or
example), one might exempt oneself from this rule only by
refusing to make truth claims (perhaps by silence or by trying
to engage only in nonpropositional discourse). But one
cannot say he is disobeying the rule and, while still uttering
propositions and claiming them as propositions, expect those
who say they obey the rules and utter propositions (i£ they
consider what he is saying as meant seriously) to engage him
further in what they believe to be truth-value discourse. He
will perhaps be regarded by them as Cassandra was by those
who believed that a future contingent proposition could not
be known either as true or as false.
A rule can be regarded by those who are engaged in an
activity as something which provides a framework £or the
existence and viability of that activity. The question we are
confronting is the acquisition of the knowledge of the rules of
an activity of which one can become conscious by his past and
present and likely future participation, namely, the activity
of truth-value discourse. Having recognized the distinctiveness
of this activity, one can come to an awareness that some
statement concerning it is a rule, because in engaging in the
activity of truth-value discourse he always abides by it, and
would say that he was not engaging in that activity if he
violated it. Here we see how knowledge of a rule is attained
inductively from a reflection on past and present participation
in an activity, and how it has ·an element of necessity in that
future violation of it would be recognized as a cessation of

266

CHARLES J, KELLY

participation in the activity. Under the presupposition that
there is an awareness of having engaged and / or being engaged
in a distinctive game or activity, one can explicate the rules
of that game, and say that if these rules are not obeyed one
would no longer be playing the game. One could, of course,
discover that the proposed formulations of the rules hinder the
performance of the game (consider the possibility of purist
grammatical rules hindering the development of style and the
expression of ideas). Although someone's statements as to
what the rules are might not he correct, nevertheless, if a game
is being played, it is played under basic rules which serve to
make it the game that it is. The basic rules are implicit in
the activity, and when we think that what we regard as the
basic rules of a game we are playing have been violated, we
would either consider the game to be over, or come to the
realization that perhaps the present game is not the one we
thought we were playing. The basic rules of a game or an
activity cannot be disestablished by any new developments
or evidence.
Some clarification with regard to the way the PSR and the
PNC function as rules might be achieved by examining
Aristotle's remarks in the Posterior Analytics regarding what
might be called the game or activity of scientific knowing:
We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge
of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which
the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which
the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and,
further, that the fact could not be other than it is. Now
that scientific knowing is something of this sort is evident-witness those who falsely claim it and those who actually
possess it, since the former merely imagine themselves to be, while
the latter are also actually, in the condition described. Consequently the proper object of unqualified scientific knowledge is
something which cannot be other than it is.14

Aristotle's way of speaking reveals that he is giving a stateu Aristotle, Po11terior AnalytiC11, I, 2; 7lb8-15,

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!fl67

ment of what common opinion believes perfect science to be,
what people mean by " unqualified scientific knowledge "
whether it exists or not, what people think they possess when
they say that they know in a scientifically perfect way. His
definition is based partly on an inductive survey of the claims
of those advertising themselves as scientists of the strictest
sort. The advertisement is so clear that one claiming this
knowledge could be justifiably convicted of sophistry or false
advertising, if he cannot show that what he claims to be his
possession meets the criteria of common opinion. People
believe they would possess unqualified scientific knowledge
if they could present the total set of necessary conditions
of a fact whose denial would be self-contradictory or impossible. Insofar as one believes he is engaged in the activity
of acquiring perfect knowledge, he believes he is being governed by, must satisfy and cannot violate the PNC (insofar
as it relates to self-contradiction) and the PSR. The PNC
and the PSR belong necessarily to" perfect scientific knowing"
in that an inductive survey of its ordinary use sees them as
part of the meaning of " what is generally meant by those
who employ " 15 this phrase. In this way we see how the PSR
and the PNC are analytically necessary to a certain use of
"science" in ordinary language. The PSR and the PNC thus
are not truths, but rather criteria and/or rules which are
applied to propositions to determine if a particular notion of
science has been or is being realized. "Our mistake is to look
for an explanation where we ought to look at what happens as
That is, where we ought to have
a ' proto-phenomenon.'
said: this language-game is played. The question is not one
of explaining a language-game by means of our experiences,
but of noting a language-game." Hi
b) As we investigate the other alternative Ross suggests in
his first argument, that as a necessary truth the denial of the
Thomas Aquinas, In I Post. Anal., lect. 4.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968), I, nos. 654-655.
15
16

CHARLES J. KELLY

PSR should lead to a self-contradiction, we should stress that
our discussion had led us to conclude that the PSR, insofar as
it talks about the sufficient or the total set of necessary conditions, and the PNC, insofar as it includes the notion of the
propositions to be explained having self-contradictory denials,
are both necessary to the definiens of the common notion
of unqualified scientific knowing. We have found it inappropriate both to speak of the PSR as a " truth " and also to
consider it as a necessary truth in Ross's sense of "necessary."
The only aspect of its necessity so far isolated is its status as
pa.rt of the meaning of the common notion of unqualified
scientific knowing. To attribute this kind of semantical
necessity to the PSR does not entail that a denial of it leads
to a self-contradiction. What it does entail is that a denial
of the PSR as part of the meaning of unqualified scientific
knowing will lead to semantical inconsistencies on the part of
the denier; that is, he who says, " The PSR is not part of the
meaning of unqualified scientific knowing " will be led into a
position where it becomes clear that he is not giving a phrase
the meaning everyone else does.
Let us, however, envision someone acknowledging the PSR
as a necessary ingredient of perfect scientific knowing, yet
also denying it by saying, " There is something for whose
being there is no explanation whatever." Ross challenges the
defender of the PSR to show this negation of the PSR to be
self-contradictory: "No one has succeeded in doing this, and
there is no reason to think you will." 17 Since our defender
has refused to acknowledge the PSR as a universal necessary
proposition, he, of course, need not be compelled to see this
denial as leading to a self-contradiction. But what can he say
or do about this straightforward denial of what both defender
and opponent have recognized as a basic rule or criterion? A
clue seems to be given us by the following reasoning of Jacques
Maritain:
17

Ross, op. cit., p. 97.

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269

The expression in virtue of which, when we say that in virtue of
which an object is, must have a meaning or be meaningless. If it
is meaningless philosophy is futile, for philosophers look for the
sufficient ground of things. If, on the other hand, it has a meaning,
it is evident that in virtue of the principle of non-contradiction it
is identical with the meaning of the phrase that without which
an object is not. If, therefore anything exists which has no sufficient reason for its existence, that is to say has neither in itself
nor in something else that in virtue of which it is, this object
exists and does not exist at the same time. It does not exist
because it lacks that without which it does not exist. This reductio
ad absurdum proves that to deny the principle of sufficient reason
is to deny the principle of identity. 18

Recognizing that Maritain's formulation of the PSR is
different from Ross's, we nevertheless see an attempt to show,
first of all, that since the PSR is part of the meaning of
philosophical science, he who says that it is meaningless must
also regard the " Aristotelian " common notion of what philosophic science is seeking as meaningless. This we take as a
variation on the theme we were developing earlier with regard
to the common notion of perfect scientific knowing. Maritain
then moves on to the denial of the PSR itself. Granting the
difficulties in both his formulation of the PSR and his rather
quick (and we follow him in this) equation of the meaning of
sufficient reason with the totality of necessary conditions, it
is interesting to note that his conclusion amounts to saying that
a denial of the PSR results in a denial of the PNC. We might
thus say that instead of defending the PSR by showing that
its opposite is self-contradictory (which procedure operates by
considering the PSR as a proposition) , a proponent of it
might show instead that a denial of it leads to the denial of
the PNC. We admittedly have difficulty in discerning how
Maritain's argument leads to this conclusion, since he seems
to consider the PSR 1as a univer:S1al necessary proposition 19
Jacques Maritain, A Pre;face to Metaphysics (New York: Mentor Omega Books,
pp. 99-100. For Maritain the PNC is "but the logical form of the principle
of identity " [p. 91].
19 See ibid., p.
18

270

CHARLES J, KELLY

whose denial leads to a self-contradiction, rather than what he
says, namely a denial of the PNC itself. But we might
offer a suggestion based on Maritain's intuition. We recall
that sufficient reasons are sought for facts which cannot
be other than they are, that is, for those facts expressed
by propositions whose denial would be self-contradictory. If
these facts do not have grounds without which they could
not be the facts they are and not otherwise, then these
facts could be other than they presently are. It is thus
possible for that which cannot be other than it is to be other
than it is, to say which is sufficient to deny the PNC.
This last consideration stresses the nature of the denial of
the PNC which results froµi the denial of the PSR. In terms
of experimental attempts it thus becomes imperative that the
particular proposition with which one is concerned express a
necessary fact, for the PSR is not ruling on sufficient explanations of facts which can be other than they are. Thus,
when "The moon exists " is the subject of conceptual experimentation, if " exists " is regarded as a synthetic but not as
a necessary predicate, the results would be quite different from
an analysis (such as Maritain's, we believe) based on regarding
" exists " as functioning as both a synthetic and necessary
predicate. We stress that even though the PSR itself is not
a necessary truth, it so frames those which are synthetically
necessary that a denial of its efforts to sufficiently ground them
leads to a denial of the PNC.
2. We can now move with some continuity into the second of
Ross's "Humean" criticisms, one which considers the analogy
between a denial of the PSR and a denial of the PNC, and
which disputes the claim of their defenders that their denials
necessarily lead to absurdity.
As a first step, it must be ascertained exactly what a denier
of the PNC is contending. If he says, "The PNC has one
exception," he might not be directly denying the PNC, but
rather denying that it is a universal principle or rule. The
difference between these two types of denial must be recognized

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271

and maintained, in order for a defender of the PNC to reply
to a charge such as Ortega y Gasset's against Aristotle's
treatment of it. Ortega contends that Aristotle offers a direct
proof of the PNC in Metaphysics, IV, 3, despite the Stagirite's
own claims that this most basic principle cannot be proved:
What those lines convey to us is something more interesting and
important than if they enunciated a proof which Aristotle had
deliberately thought out. They show us that, very much against
his will . . . Aristotle had no choice bat to prove the principle.
The greater part of the demonstration is the definition of principle:
absolute principle is a proposition of truth, unprovable according
to normal apodictical, non-hypothetical but necessary proof. The
lesser part says: there is a proposition-that of noncontradictionthe truth of which is necessary to the existence of any other truths
whatever. The conclusion announces, then, that this proposition
is an absolute principle. It is a syllogism. That it may not be
the typical apodictical syllogism in the Aristotelian sense, does
not deprive it in the least of its syllogistic quality. 20

It is obvious that Ortega conflates a proof of the PNC with a
proof that the PNC is a most certain or absolute principle. Is
it not plausible that part of the explanation for this conflation is due to Ortega's describing the PNC .as a true JYfoposition? An examination of Aristotle's own text reveals that
he does not characterize the PNC as a true proposition in the
argument considered, though admittedly in the previous paragraph he does talk about the truth and falsity of the common
axioms as not being the subject of mathematical inquiry .21 At
any rate, we would stress the difference between those axioms
which can serve as starting points in a particular discipline
(and which 1are properly called propositions), and those
principles (axioms of axioms) which are the common rules for
all disciplines, and should not be called propositions. What,
however, can be the response to one who clearly denies that
20 Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Idea of Principle in Leibnitz and The Evolution of
Deductive Theory, trans. Mildred Adams (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), p.

180.
21

See Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 8; 1005al8-1005b84.

CHARLES J. KELLY

the PNC is a universal or most basic principle? It can be
pointed out that the PNC, unlike the PSR, governs all propositions, and their corresponding facts, not just necessary
propositions and the facts which cannot be other than they are.
It can be noted that any type of what is called scientific
knowing demands consistency, though only unqualified scientific
knowing necessitates sufficient explanations. Furthermore, in
its function as a rule the PNC allows that any· proposition can
be directly negiated, and demands that the truth-value and
sense of the negation be directly opposite to the negated. If
any sentence refuses to submit to this rule, it cannot be a
propo.sition, and that which it purports to express cannot be
a fact.
It seems, however, that Ross's objection is concerned with the
direct denial of the PNC: someone could say without absurdity, " Some proposition is both true and false," for this
proposition has but one truth value. The implication is that
the denier can maintain a position similar to one of omegainconsistency, 22 that is, he could claim that some proposition is
both true and false, even though he might acknowledge that
all the propositions he would be able to list are not both true
and false. This position seems to be a more laconic statement
of George Mavrodes's critique of Aristotle's negative demonstrations in defense of the PNC. Stating the PNC as the
universal proposition," No proposition is both true and false,"
Mavrodes argues:
The contradictory, then, of the Law of Non-contradiction is merely
' there is some proposition which is both true and false.' But this
is perfectly compatible with 'there are many propositions, of
which p, q, r, etc. are examples, which are not both true and
false.' Thus a person could reject the Law of Non-contradiction
and accept its contradictory, while consistently maintaining of each
2 • See Ross, op. cit., pp. 308-09, for his explanation
of this notion, and for an
argument that Ross's own principle of heteroexplicability does not result in this sort
of inconsistency.

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and every statement which he himself made or used that it was
not both true and false. 23

Mavrodes diagnoses Aristotle's mistake in this matter as an
overlooking of the basic Aristotelian distinction between a
contradictory denial and a contrary one. So, according to
Aristotle's procedure here, if one does not accept the PNC,
" then he must be holding its ' opposite,' i. e., its contrary. That
would be, of course, that all propositions are both true and
false. So the possibility of a person's holding merely the
contradictory of the general law, i.e., a statement to the effect
that there is some exception to, that law, is. overlooked." 24
However, both Ross .and Mavrodes seem to claim that the
denier of the PNC would assert the PNC to be false and its
contradictory opposite true. For them the denier would
assert, " ' No proposition is both true ,and false ' is false " and
" ' Some proposition is both true and false ' is true." The
denier could thus avoid absurdity, because he is not necessitated
to the absurdity, "'All propositions are both true and false'
is true,'' but could maintain the contradiction of the contrary
of the PNC, "'Some propositions are not both true and
false ' is true,'' which would also result in the falsity of the
contrary of the PNC. Prescinding from the semantical
paradoxes involved with this self-referential use of "true"
and "false" in the formulation of the PNC as 'a universal
proposition, it must nevertheless be recognized that the denier
is accepting the basic framework of the square of opposition,
which has been our way of understanding the PNC, while
he thinks he has been denying the PNC. The denial derives its
plausibility fmm a oonfl:aitionof a proposition within the framework of the square with that framework statement (the PNC
itself!) which permits that proposition to have a contradictory
denial directly opposite to it in truth value and sense. That
••George I. Mavrodes, "Aristotle and Non-Contradiction," Southern Journal of
Philosophy, 8 (1965), p. IU.
••Loe. cit.

CHARLES J, KELLY

no absurdity results is due to the fact that the denier has been
assuming the PNC while thinking he has been denying it. We
should now be quite conscious, moreover, of the dangers in
formulating the PNC as a universal proposition. As an author
has recently emphasized, it would be just as inappropriate to
attribute truth-value to the PNC as it would be to say that
the meter standard in Paris is a meter long. 25
3. The context of Rowe's consideration of the PSR is, of
course, his analysis of Samuel Clarke's cosmological argument,
and it is clear that for him the PSR as a re.statement of the argument's premise. "Every being is either a dependent being or an
independent being," involves the acceptance of a limitation of
the referential range of " being " : " In speaking of beings ... we
shall restrict ourselves to beings that could be eaused to
exist by some other being or could be eauses of the existence of
other beings. God (if He exists), a man, a star, a stone are
beings of this sort. Presumably, numbers, sets and the like are
not." 26 So, if the PSR is to be considered a viable principle, its
range of applicability must be recognized as somewhat limited.
But, we ask, what is the correct rationale for such a limitation?
Consider numbers or fictive beings. Why should the PSR not
be regarded as applicable to them? Is it because they are not
recognized as beings which could either cause existence or be
caused to exist? Or is it because they are not regarded as real
independent existents, that is, beings capable of existence
without the aid of human mental activity? The answers to
these questions become particularly crucial when one focuses on
the question of the existence of God. If God exists, he would
certainly be the independently existing cause of the existence
of other independent beings, but at the beginning of such an
inquiry as the cosmological argument our knowledge of the
independent existence of God is the very point at issue. If we
wonder about God's existence at that stage of inquiry when we
25 See Patrick J. Bearsley, S. M., "Another Look at the First Principles of Knowledge," The Thomist, 86
p. 588.
••Rowe, " The Cosmological Argument," p. 50.

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are concerned with the formulation and application of basic
principles, we would say that it is possible that there be a God
and that God could be the cause of the existence of other
beings, but we would ·also say we are not sure that God is a
real, presently existing, independent being. As we have previously argued, the PSR directs us to the sufficient explanation
of facts which cannot be other than they are, and it is not
certain that God's existence at the beginning of our inquiry is
a fact, much less a fact whose denial is self-contradictory. The
situation is similar to the one generated for the law of excluded
middle when either empty terms are permitted to appear in the
subject position of the disjuncts or when the disjuncts are
singular future contingent propositions. With regard to the
former case neither of the disjuncts can be called propositions
because there is no assumption that they are describing actual states of affairs, while with regard to the latter alternative, neither one of the disjuncts can be called a proposition for though each one may be called " true or false,"
neither can knowingly be called "true " or be called " false."
So though at the beginning of inquiry " God exists " is either
" true or false," we cannot say if it is true or if it is false, for
we do not know if the subject refers, to a present reality. This
emphasizes the necessity for not including the merely possible
being of God, and the proposition " God exists," within the
range of application of the PSR. Only if the schematism of a
principle is initially restricted to propositions whose truth-value
is known does the principle retain its character as a rule for
unqualified knowing.
A certain hesitancy must also arise with regard to Rowe's
formulation of the strong form of the PSR (PSR1). Rowe's
formulation could easily be interpreted as "whatever exists1
must have an explanation why it exists2 either within its nature
or in the causal efficacy of some other being," where exists1
and exists2 have the same meaning. To accept PSR1 we would
distinguish exists1 from exists2, seeing the purpose of " exists1 "
as being restrictive in that it would be making instantiation

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CHARLES J. KELLY

necessary for the subject terms 0£ the propositions which express
the truth 0£ the facts to be explained, while regarding " exists2 "
as expressing that the explanation must be 0£ the necessary
relation 0£ a real property to the unempty subject. Thus a
question such as, " Why are knights 0£ the round table bald? "
would definitely not be within the framework 0£ PSR1. The
chief inadequacy in the statement 0£ PSR1, however, is that it
does not specifically characterize the nature 0£ those propositions, which must serve as the explanations 0£ the propositions expressive 0£ the necessary facts, as per se or
analytically necessary ones. Let us now call this revised
"Aristotelian" formulation 0£ PSR1, PSRi'.
The weak form 0£ the PSR (PSR2) is quite complex in that
it claims that the
of that which comes into existence
must have an explanation. As so stated, 0£ course, it again
seems concerned with the making 0£ a quite specific claim
in that it focuses on "exists " as it would be predicated 0£
beings which at one time did not exist, and then later come
into existence. Indeed, PSR2 does not seem universal enough
to cover both eternal existents and existents which come to be.
It has thus been regarded as not operative in cosmological
arguments. But arguing for its truth as so expressed does
create some problems for PSRi'. For what it does is stress
the accidental character of existence so that all existential
statements about non-divine objects seem to become synthetic
and not-necessary. We would prefer to see a discussion of
principles prescind from which predicates are necessary (i£
any) and which not. This is why we think that PSR2 must
be revised to merely contending that there must be an explanation for every contingent fact, that is, for facts expressed by non-necessary propositions. This "Aristotelian"
revision, we shall call PSRz'. As differentiated from PSRi',
PSR2' does not talk of the per se necessity of the explanation.
Whereas PSRi' expresses what belongs to the common notion
of unqualified science, PSR2' expresses the common notion of
reasonable opinion.

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a) What is the meaning of the claim that PSR1 is not logically
true? If it means that PSR1 or PSRi' does not have a tautological counterpart in the elementary propositional calculus
as does the PNC [ (p) ,__, (p. '-' p)] and the Law of Excluded
Middle [ (p) (p v ,__, p) ], this is certainly true. Perhaps this is
due to the propositional calculus largely being an explication
of the negation operator, which can define both disjunction and
conjunction, 27 while PSRi' (though perhaps not PSR1) develops
the logic of an independent operator, which acknowledges by
its operating on necessarily true synthetic propositions the
existence of a place in logical space occupied by necessarily
true propositions with new senses (which are not opposite
senses).
Let us begin by working briefly with Rowe's PSR1 and
PSR2 (and in the process see how PSR1' and PSR/ are transformations of them) in order to come to grips with his contention
that while being caused is analytically contained in the notion
of effect, neither existence nor event include being explainable
or being caused in their respective definitions. First of all, it can
be noted that neither the notion of the negation of a proposition
nor the notion that such a negation must be opposite in sense
and truth value to the negated is contained in the definition of
any proposition. Secondly, with regard to the mere notion of
existence, if it makes sense to ask, " Why does x exist?," it
would certainly be strange to give as a reply to this question
" x exists because x is caused," " x exists because x is explainable." A distinction must be made between what is
offered as a cause or an explanation of a particular property of
a subject and the contention that every particular property
must have a cause or explanation. Although traditionally the
definition of x was usually given and had to be given as the
explanation of a necessary fact about x, this did not mean
that " being definable " was the explanation of any necessary
27 See Anthony
Kenny, Wittgenstein (Cambridge, Mass.:
Press, 1973), pp. 86 ff.

Harvard University

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CHARLES J. KELLY

property belonging to x. Thus our contention in PSRi' arises:
that the operator " why " over a necessary fact generates a
definitional proposition, or at least :some kind of per se proposition, as 'a necess1ary type of answer to the question posed.
Thirdly, although a particular contingent event such as a leaf
falling does not contain the notion of something causing that
event, nevertheless, given the operation of " why " on the true
contingent proposition expressing that event, PSR/ insists
there must be another true proposition, which need not be a
definitional proposition or any per se one, which accounts for
that event. Although the event itself does not contain the
notion of being caused, the operation of ' why ' on the proposition expressive of the event generates the necessity of a
causal explanation of it.
These considerations lead to an awareness of the similarities
and differences in the operation of negation in the PNC, and
the operation of the interrogative ' why ' in PSRi' and PSR/.
We have seen that neither the PNC nor PSR' is part of the
meaning of a proposition, though each applies only to propositions: the PNC to ,all propositions whose truth value is
known, PSRi' to known necessarily true propositions, PSR2'
to known contingently true propositions. While the PNC
determines quite definitively both the truth-value and sense of
a contradictory opposite, PSR1' only specifies that the proposition (s) explanatory of a necessarily true one be true as
well as analytically necessary, so that the operator 'why'
cannot be appropriately applied to it (them). PSRi' also
specifies that the necessary proposition (s) offered as explanation (s) be such that no more adequate explanation (s)
can be offered. To generalize: unlike the application of the
PNC, rthe application of PSR' only provides a matrix for
another proposition to arise; the other proposition itself is
not automatically generated.
b) As we move on to discuss another argument countering
the necessity of the PSR, we must stress that we have now
isolated at least four aspects of its necessity. First of all, we

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9l79

have seen that it is necessary insofar as a denial of what we
later called PSRt' leads to a denial of PNC; secondly, that
PSRi' is applied to synthetically necessary propositions; thirdly,
it is necessary according to both PSRt' ;and PSR/ that there
be other propositions serving as explanations to satisfy the
' why ' operating on the events expressed by a synthetic
proposition; and fourthly, with regard to the application of
PSRi' only a per se (analytic) necessary proposition can serve
as an explanation of the fact which cannot be other than it is.
It seems to be the third type of necessity which is disputed by
the Humean claim of our capacity to imagine things existing
or of coming into existence without having to conceive of the
things as having a cause or explanation. But, though it is
possible that for any beginning or modification of existence,
E, and any particular cause, C, E can be conceived to happen
without C, this does not imply the possibility of imagining a
coming into existence without any cause. 28 As Anscombe
suggests, what Hume often seemD"'to do during the course of
his conceptual exercises is to mistakenly conflate two questions
which he does in fact explicitly distinguish, namely, "Why a
beginning of existence must necessarily always have a cause?"
and "Why such particular causes must always have such
effects? " From the supposed truth of his great principle,
"That there is nothing in any object, considered in itself,
which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond
it," and from its implication that causes need not even give
rise to effects, not to say definite effects, he infers that there is
no necessary connection between causes and effects. But does
this affect the viability of the principle which states the
necessity of the things which exist or have come into existence
having causes or explanations? Neither PSR1 nor PSR2 (nor
PSRt' nor PSR21 ) states that a cause must always produce a
definite effect or have an effect at all or even that the relation••See G. E. M. Anscombe, "'Whatever Has a Beginning of Existence Must Have
a Cause': Hume's Argument Exposed," Analysis, 34 (1974), p. 149.

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CHARLES J. KELLY

ship between a cause and an effect is a necessary one, but
rather contends that given the fact there must be a cause. Of
course, it is the particular inquiry itself which must specify the
cause, as it also determines the fact being investigated.
When the criticism moves on to the assertion of an incompatibility between the PSR and the possibility of uncaused and
unoriginated events, the necessity of once again clarifying the
range of application of the principle arises. Much hinges on
the meaning of "event." If " event " means " effect," then
there would be an incompatibility; but it would be rather
contrived, for it would depend on events being all that is the
case. Certainly the PSR would not be insisting that facts
to be explained are all that is. If it were, its general formulation would be tantamount to the unacceptable, "Every
being has a cause." 29 With regard to Rowe's formulation of
PSR2, we see an application only to beings which come into
existence, and thus no assertion that these beings constitute
all reality. A similar point. can be made with PSR/ in its
claim that .all contingent events must have a cause or explanation. When the focus is shifted to the strong form of the
PSR, care must be taken about its claims. If it is understood
to claim that everything that is or can be must have a cause of
its existence either in itself or in something else such that God
as causa sui iS' considered part of the domain of applicability,
then there is no possibility for the recognition of uncaused
existence. If, however, PSR1 is understood to claim that
every necessarily true synthetic proposition is explained by at
least one other necessarily true proposition (that is, PSR1')
these self-explanatory propositions need not be understood to
explain themselves in the sense of expressing self-causation,
but rather can be understood to revieal an identity of subject
and predicate which explains the necessary inherence of the
predicate of the necessary synthetic proposition in its subject.
These self-explanatory propositions open up the possibility
•• See Clarke, art. cit., pp. 189 ff.

SUFFICIENT REASON AND COSMOLOGICAL PROOFS

281

of the expression of what might be called uncaused or unoriginated events. Detailed investigation of this would involve,
however, examination of those theological criticisms which see
the PSR in conflict with the notion of a free Creator, a task
pursued in section IV.
4. As we turn to the claim that the PSR is a metaphysical
assumption necessary in order for one to make sense of the
world, let us examine the seemingly innocent assertion that this
is a more modesrt view than the claim that the PSR is a
necessary truth. Another author pictures this position as a
weaker one, one that is or might be retreated to by defenders
of the PSR after their other arguments in behalf of its
necessary truth have failed. 30 The modesty here apparently is
that as an assumption the PSR is recognized as an hypothesis
we make in order to come to the grips with a world which, after
all, might be unintelligible. But, if it is an hypothesis, it
seems that it would still be susceptible of being regarded as true
or false! Our efforts in section I have shown that this conception of the PSR is a mistaken one. Far from being the
assumption of the basic compatibility of thought and reality,
the PSR articulates rules for the relationship of truths to one
another. It assumes truth, and works on it and on the
relationship of truths expressing facts to one another, rather
than it itself being the presupposition for truth. As we have
shown, the PSR cannot be true or false, and thus is not an
hypothesis. Moreover, if the denial of the PSR does lead to
a denial of the PNC, it emerges ·as a basic rule precisely
because it is not capable of direct demonstration, so that calling
it a presupposition of our thought about reality is the least
modest of all phrases. It is interesting to note that those who
claim the modesty of the position that the PSR is a presupposition of scientific investigation seem to do so either
with a forlornness that a direct demonstration has not been
given of it or in the context of the possibility of finding a
••Bruce R. Reichenbach, The Cosmological, Argument: A Reassessment (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1972), pp. 67-70.

CHARLES J, KELLY

fallacy in what is proferred as a direct demonstration of it.
We thus find it plausible to suggest that what are called
attempts to directly demonstrate the PSR be recognized either
as conflations of demonstrations of the principle with direct
proofs that ithe principle is basic or necessary (direct proofs
which would, of course, preclude the possibility of a direct
demonstration of the principle) or else as attempts at demonstrating something quite different. As an example of the
former we might take the claim that " the principle of sufficient
reason is a necessary principle " can be considered both as the
conclusion of an argument which shows it as a basic presupposition of thought and reality, and as the conclusion of a
direct deductive argument purporting to prove the PSR
itself. 31 The latter might be illustrated by the suggestion 82
that Thomas Aquinas offered a direct proof of the principle of
causality in the following passage of On Being and Essence:
Now, whatever belongs to a being is either caused by the principles
of its nature, as the capability of laughter in man, or it comes
to it from some extrinsic principle, as light in the air from the
sun's influence. But it is impossible that the act of existing be
caused by a thing's form or its quiddity, (I say caused as by an
efficient cause); for then something would be the cause of itself
and would bring itself into existence-which is impossible. Everything, then, which is such that its act of existing is other than
its nature must needs have its act of existing from something else.33
But what is Aquinas arguing here? We take it that he has already established by his man and phoenix argument that essence and existence are distinct, that is, that existence is other
than essence, though essence is the formal cause (sometimes
the material-formal cause) of the existence of any being for
Ibid., p. 70.
••Originally offered by Joseph Owens, " The Causal Proposition-Principle or
Conclusion," The Modern Schoolman, 32 (1954-1955), pp. 255-270, 323-339, and
adapted by Reichenbach, op. cit., pp. 60-64.
81 Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence, trans. Armand Maurer (Toronto: The
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1949), ch. iv, p. 47.
81

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fl83

which an explanation is being sought. In this sense, essence
is a necessary condition for existence. But is it sufficient? This
is the problem Aquinas is trying to solve in the present argument. PSRi' tells him that the answer to a why question concerning a necessary fact is likely stated in another proposition
with the same subject as the proposition describing the fact to
be explained. If this is not sufficient, it is necessary to discover
another necessary proposition with a different subject. So
PSR/: every necessary fact must have its total explanation
in a necessary proposition with either the same subject or with
a different subject. If it is possible that the necessary fact of
the existence of any being is accounted for by the essence of
the being as risibility is accounted for by rational animality,
then the total explanation is found within the thing (by a
proposition with the same subject), and it can be said that
this particular scientific inquiry has come to a close (the game
has been won), as the principle has been satisfied. But, Aquinas
argues, form or essence cannot account for the existence of a
thing in the manner of an efficient cause as does the formal
cause of risibility. 34 Thus, the efficient cause of existence must
be in something extrinsic. If our interpretation is correct, then
Aquinas is not arguing for the principle of causality but rather
is using PSR/ to determine what has been thus far established
in his inquiry, and to point up the need to continue the inquiry
by his concluding " causal proposition" that existence is caused
by something other. Principles are used to test whether we
know that we know (to determine if the game has been won),
and the use of PSRi' at this particular moment is such that the
limited nature of the results so far achieved is revealed (the
game must go on!) . And Aquinas does go on, as he argues,
through that aspect of PSRi' which states in effect that per
accidens necessity must be explained by per se necessity, to
that specific extrinsic cause which results in the complete satisfaction of PSRi'.
"Cf. John C. Cahalan, "On the Proving of Causal Propositions," The Modem
Schoolman, 44 (1966-67), pp. 140-41.

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CHARLES J. KELLY

We might now be in a position to discuss the issues surrounding the assumptions a scientist makes in his work. In
this context our transformations of Rowe's formulation of
PSR1 and PSR2 become significant. Rowe argues that perhaps
we as scientists do operate under the device that whatever
happens has a cause (PSR2) , though it is doubtful that we as
scientists assume that whatever exists has a sufficient explanation. What we have done, however, is stress the emphasized
phrases as operating over facts (or their propositional expression) rather than over things (or their referring names). Whatever happens serves to indicate any contingent fact (one expressed by a true contingent proposition whose contradictory
and contrary opposites are possible states of affairs) . Indeed,
most of our ordinary inquiry is an investigation of happenings
aind events of this sort, and in this sense PSR2 as PSR/ can
be recognized as the framework of much of our questioning. We
do operate under the belief that contingent facts so described
must have an explanation, and that we can come up with reasonable opinions as explanations of them. Our approach to
PSR1 has been to transform it so that whatever exists designates whatever facts must be what they are, that is, facts the
propositional expressions of whose opposites would be regarded
as impossible. If we assume (and admittedly there are difficulties in this assumption) that for an unempty x, "some x exists"
expresses a necessary fact, an inquiry into such a fact would
be conducted under PSRi', which is what we consider common
opinion considers the operating principle for the stnctest scientific inquiry. We thus begin to see the irrelevancy of the objection concerning the eternal existence of stars to PSRi'. PSRi'
is not concerned with the duration of the objects referred to by
the subjects of the propositions it operates upon, but rather with
the sufficient grounds for the relation between the referring subjects. and that predicated necessarily of such subjects. Insofar as
one believes that " why " is operating on a meaningfully true
necessary synthetic proposition, he must recognize, under pain
of violating.
PNC, that there is a sufficient answer to that
question.

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III.
Having considered "Humean " objections to the PSR, let
us examine aspects of what might be called a theological objection. Roughly expressed this type of objection contends
either that there is an incompatibility between the PSR and
the notion of God as a free creator or that the PSR reveals a
. certain incompleteness in its employment when it attempts to
cope with the possibility of a free divine creation. The basic
intuition here appears to be the traditional voluntarist one that
the complete intelligibility demanded by the PSR implies a
determinism. Since the arguments advanced by both Ross and
Rowe are quite complex in structure, we shall not present them,
but rather isolate three of what we consider their basic claims.
1. The PSR can be stated as, " For whatever is so, and for
whatever is not so, there must be a sufficient reason or explanation," 35 or as "Every actual state of affairs has a reason either
within itself or in some other state of affairs," with the implication that for any positive contingent state of affairs there must
be a reason why there are such states of affairs rather than
not. 36 (Let us call these quite strong formulations, PSR3.) 31
It is impossible that there be a sufficient reason for every
contingent state of affairs, since however well the being of the
universe is explained, " there must always remain in principle,
and in need of explanation, at least one thing: God's having
chosen to create the world." 88 To give a sufficient reason as to
why God created this world rather than another " leads to the
·consequence that He could not have created any other-that
this is the only possible world," 89 a position tantamount to a
Spinozistic determinism.
85 James F. Ross, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 89, 51. Hereafter: Ross, IPR.
••Rowe, " The Cosmological Argument," pp. 57-58.
n See above, n. 10. It should be noted, however, that Rowe might not recognize
a distinction between PSR, and PSRs. See William L. Rowe, " Two Criticisms of
the Cosmological Argument,'' The Monist, 54 (1970), pp.
••Ross, IPR, p. 70.
•• Ibid., pp. 65-66.

CHARLES J, KELLY

8. When Aquinas says that God communicates His Goodness (even freely) to other things as far as possible, it is possible to say that this does not imply that what is created is
the only world that could have been created (the one which
contains the best possible expression of the divine goodness),
but merely means that x, something God created, " inasmuch
as1 it has being, is a likeness of God, and that God could not
have made it more like Him, given that x is the sort of thing
it is." 40 But, replies Ross, this seems to make the statement
" God communicates His likeness as far as possible " a trivial
thing to assert and exposes the fact that Aquinas's theory can
offer no reason for God's creating the world He did create.
Even though Aquinas's contention that God creates because
·He is Good (where His Goodness is not asserted to be His
reason, but our reason for what He did) absolves Aquinas from
the charge of having assigned an insufficient reason for God's
doing what he did, it results in the conclusion that Aquinas
·did not assign any reason whatever for the divine creation.
(This might be called the incompleteness of Aquinas's theory.)

IV.
1. The difference between PSR1' and PSRa must be recognized and maintained. PSRa is much stronger in that it contains " ... and is not so " or " ... rather than not " as part of
its formulation, and in that it seems to embrace all states of
affairs, not just necessary ones as does PSRi' or contingent
ones as does PSRz'. Whereas PSR1' would tend to recognize
the structural legitimacy of such inquiries as " Why does any
thing exist? " or " Why are things in motion moved by others?,''
PSRs would see these better framed as " Why is there anything
at all rather than nothing?" or "Why are things in motion
moved by others rather than otherwise? "
One approach to the rejection of PSRa, compatible with the
accepting of PSRi' and PSR/ ias basic principles, is suggested
•• Ross, Philosophical Theology, p.

n. 16.

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PROOFS

by a remark of Richard Taylor: " If one were to look upon
a barren plain and ask why there is not and never has been
any large translucent ball there, the natural response would
be to ask why there should be; but if one finds such a ball,
and wonders why it is there, it is not quite so natural to ask
why it should not be, as though existence should simply be
taken for granted." 41 Basic wonder seems to be about states
of affairs expressed by affirmative propositions regarded by the
inquirer as true. But Ross's use of PSRa sees it as applicable
when the mere possibility of the truth of a proposition is
granted. Thus, arguments he considers employ the disjunction
" Either God exists or God does not exist," 42 and proceed on
the hypothetical assignment of a truth value to one of the disjuncts. PSRa also seems to be oriented in its formulation to a
sufficient explanation of why one set of compossible " truths "
has become a set of propositions rather than another set of
compossible " truths." It seems odd to us to suggest that common opinion would regard this type of sufficiency as that sought
for in perfect knowing.
Perhaps, however, we can suggest why one might think that
the very strong PSRa, with its deterministic implications, must
be operative in cosmological arguments. We have regarded
PSRi' ,as expressing Aristotle's notion of what is regarded as
unqualified scientific knowledge, and it might be thought that
this entails that PSRi' is only fully realized when a deduction
is made of the necessary fact from the sufficient explanation.
Has the philosophical tradition not regarded this propter quid
demonstration as the ultimate realization of Aristotle's definition of scientific knowing? In it the necessary connection between cause and effect is so perfectly expressed that given the
cause the effect must arise, with the deterministic consequence
that the rationale for this effect rather than its opposite is revealed. Thus an identity seems to arise between PSR1' and
u Richard Taylor, Metaphysics, second edition (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: PrenticeHall, 1974), p. 104.
0 See Ross, op. cit., pp. 303-304, and Ross, IPR, pp. 39-40.

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CHARLES J. KELLY

PSRa insofar as both are expressions of propter quid certainty,
with the resultant incompatibility between either PSRi' or
PSRs and the notion of a free divine creation. But, if it is recalled how PSR1' operates, its difference from PSRa can
be recognized once again. Aristotelian .scientific inquiry begins with a search for the explanation of necessary facts. It is
true that in a Euclidean geometric system one explains the
recognized necessary truths by axiomatic definitions which
reveal themselves as sufficient by the deduction of the considered necessary fact as a theorem. However, the course of
inquiry is such that one can still claim unqualified knowledge
without the deduction by showing that what must be regarded
as the complete conjunction of the necessary conditions for
the necessary fact cannot result in the deduction of the necessary fact. This is, for example, what we take Aquinas as attempting in the argument quoted above with regard to essence
(it cannot generate existence though it is a necessary per se
condition for existence) , and subsequently in On Being and
Essence with regard to the being called God who has emerged
as the necessary per se extrinsic cause of existence (God is not in
a genus and is thus incapable of definition) . 43 In this ca.se the
employment and satisfaction of PSRt' precludes the applicability of PSRa, with the important consequence that the relationship of cause (s) to effect cannot be a necessary one. Moreover,
since what is now achieved is as much exactitude as the logic of
the inquiry about a specific necessary fact permits, what has
been attained can appropriately be called unqualifiedly scientific.
Even through PSRa is stronger than PSRt', the latter alone expresses the essentials of the traditional notion of perfect scientific knowing.
2. Agreeing that PSRa is incompatible with a free creation,
and having argued that Aquinas's cosmological argument in
On Being and Essence, which works through PSRt', precludes
the functioning of PSRa in this context and thus necessitates
••Aquinas, On Being and Essence, ch. v, p. 50; ch. vi, p. 59.

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289

a non-necessitarian relationship between God and his effects (as
well as between the essence and existence of non-divine existents), we see that for Aquinas the rule of PSRi' dictates
an end to the particular game of inquiry in which he has been
engaged, for the game has been won. One of the fruits of
victory is that a new logos cannot be pursued under rule PSRa.
One cannot ask for a sufficient reason as to why God created
rather than did not create, or why he created this world rather
than another. PSRi' forbids it! The divine freedom in creation
necessarily emerges as something not to be explained. It cannot
be approached under the rules and methods of science. To
wonder now at the existence of the world in the form of a
scientifically posed question is nonsense. 44 PSR1' would likely
result in Aquinas's agreement that the same could be .said about
the effort to explain creation that " Vigilius Haufniensis " said
about an attempt to explain the entrance of sin into the world:
" a stupidity which could only occur to people who are comically anxious to get an explanation." 45 If PSRi' is successfully
applied to the question of the existence of things, the ultimate
realization is that the satiation of its gnostic proclivities in this
domain results in the problems of life not only remaining completely untouched, but also in being untouchable by philosophical-scientific inquiry. "Science cannot explain such things." 46
With the game of scientific philosophy being over and done
with, the question is not one as to why God created rather than
not, but rather the problem of the nature of the existing relationship between free existents, between God and man, between man and his own existence. The possibility of an existential communication spoken freely by God to a being con" See Ludwig Wittgenstein, " Lecture on Ethics," Philosophical Review, 74
(1965), pp. 8-10, 12-13. Reprinted in Philosophy Today No. 1, ed. Jerry H. Gill
(New York: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 3-19.
••Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread, second edition, trans. Walter
Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 45. Aquinas would
not likely agree with the tone of the remark.
••Loe. cit. See also Karl Rahner, Hearers of the Word, trans. Michael Richards
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), p. 24.

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CHARLES J. KELLY

scious of a free relationship to his own existence thus arises.
" But what is the self? The self is a relation which consciously
relates itself to its own self . . . and in freely relating itself to
its own self relates itself freely to another which transparently
grounds it." 47
3. It so emerges that Aquinas offers no reason and cannot
offer any reason for God's creating or not creating, for creating
this world rather than any other. This is dictated by PSR1'
itself! Far from being a revelation of the incompleteness of
Aquinas's position vis vis the PSR, his "theory" of creation
seems to be framed with a recognition of the fullest possible
realization of the principle which as its last act acknowledges
its own limitations. For one who has progressed this far in the
inquiry all that can be done now is to evoke reminders of what
has been discovered and achieved (God is Goodness, perhaps),
so that one who is pondering the nature of the relationship between God and His" creation" (and himself, perhaps) will not
be tempted to treat it scientifically or philosophically, that is,
turn a recognized freedom into an objectivity capable of demonstrative certitude. At this stage of inquiry, it seems, the
task of an Aristotelian philosopher becomes Socratic in the
sense of trying to offer reminders of what one already knows
and of pointing out the pretension involved in claiming any
sort of ultimate wisdom for what one so knows. Indeed, a
propensity has been educed for listening to men and women
who understand the subject of things divine, to those who tell
the truth, but know nothing of what they say, for ultimate wisdom and virtue is surely not a matter of scientific knowledge. 48
An unscientific postscript is thus perhaps the concluding activity of philosophy.
The impossibility of a philosophical answer to the " question " of creation, which emerges with the awareness of the

a

••Adapted from "Anti-Climacus " in Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto
Death, in Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Walter Lowrie
(Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1954), pp. 146-47,
••Plato, ltleno, Sla-b, 99b-d.

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PROOFS

9l91

limits of scientific discourse, points up a recognition of what
might be called " the mystery of existence." It might be helpful
to differentiate what we consider to be implicit in the manner
of Aquinas's recognition of this from the attitudes of Wittgenstein and Munitz. When Wittgenstein speaks of the nonsense
involved in wondering at the existence of the world, he does
so in terms of an experience which he likens to what people
refer to when they talk about God having created the world,
and says that this " astonishment cannot be expressed in the
form of a question and there is no answer to it. Anything we
can say must, a priori, be only nonsense." 49 The world cannot
be imagined as not existing, a condition which would be necessary to render the question of creation a meaningful one for
Wittgenstein. Milton K. Munitz's insistence that the mystery
of existence lies in the unanswerability (because of the lack
of an available appropriate methodology) of the question," Is
there a reason-for-the-existence-of-the-world?" 50 seems to espouse an agnosticism equivalent to that of Aquinas. Aquinas's
position, however, would seem to differ from that of the early
Wittgenstein not only in its lack of an experiential basis for
astonishment of this sort (this might come later), but also in
its recognition that the logic of previous inquiry leaves open
the possibility for other types of intelligible discourse. There
need not be silence. Thomas' s position would seem to differ from
Munitz's in that in having accepted PSRi' (which Munitz would
reject), and having applied it to the necessary fact of the existence of things (in On Being and Essence, we assume), Aquinas
oould claim that a question tantamount to " Is there a-reasonfor-the-existence-of-the-world?" is already answered by a successfully completed philosophical inquiry. Insofar as the question at issue would be posed anew in the context of a full satisfaction of PSR/ (with its concomitant exclusion of PSRa),
then, and only then is talk of a relative scientific agnosticism
'"Wittgenstein, "Lecture on Ethics," pp. 10, 12-13.
Milton K. Munitz, The Mystery of Existence (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1965), pp. 259 ff.
•0

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CHARLES J. KELLY

permissible. Aquinas, however, seems to have been much more
sanguine than Munitz as to the possible and actual discovery
of a new logos and methodology necessary to respond to the
problem with the requisite exactitude.

v.
Different versions of the PSR have been delineated, as well
as has the radical difference between the cosmological arguments to which the versions are applied. If the "Aristotelian"
PSRi' is not subject to the criticisms of Ross and Rowe, it
nevertheless is evident that its application depends upon the
existence of true synthetically necessary propositions. Indeed,
our classification of Aquinas's cosmological argument in On
Being and Essence as a demonstration working through PSR1'
hinges on regarding it as implicitly using " exists " not only
as a real synthetic predicate but also as a necessary one. Needless to say, much contemporary thought would find such a position untenable. Thus, since PSRi' depends on the notion of
necessary facts, its applicability can be denied by denying the
reality of such types of facts. Only if necessary facts are recognized can the propositions which express them be regarded as
necessarily explained by per se necessary propositions. It may
emerge that a reputed necessary synthetic proposition is actually analytic or contingent, but one which is as it is reputed
cannot be what it is without being so grounded. (This does not
imply that it can be deduced from its explanations.) With regard to PSR/, its claim amounts to a rejection of the notion
of an independently existing contingent state of affairs which
bears no relation to another. Though" [there] is no compulsion
making one thing happen because another has happened," 51
if something has happened, it must at least be due to one other
state of affairs. Thus, PSR2' disputes the Wittgensteinian claim
that the only necessity that exists is logical necessity.
• 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Phuosophicus, trans. D. F. Pears and
B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 6.37.

SUFFICIENT REASON AND COSMOLOGICAL

PROOFS

Insofar as PSRi' has emerged as a principle both of discovery
and assessment, the demonstrations it encourages are not attempts to argue for a particular conclusion (e.g., "God exists ") , but rather are attempts to satiate a quest for explanatory certitude with regard to a necessary state of affairs.
If there is a cosmological argument which demonstrates the
existence of God in the framework of PSRi', it was not necessarily devised for this purpose. It thus emerges how misleading
it can be to say that all cosmological arguments are arguments
for the existence of God.
CHARLES

LeMoyne College
Syracuse, New York

J. KELLY

A NOTE:

AQUINAS'S USE OF PHANT ASIA

I

N HIS WELL received A Short History of Medieval Philosophry, Professor Julius Weinberg wrote as follows concerning the faculties of sensation in the philosophy of
Thomas Aquinas:
The sensitive (powers) include the functions of the five exterior
senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) as well as the functions of the interior senses of the common sense, the phantasy, the
imagination, the estimative (or cogitative) capacity, and memory. 1

In defending this account about the number of sense faculties
found in Aquinas's epistemology, Weinberg refers the reader
to Book Four, Chapter 58, of the Summa Contra Gentiles. 2
Given this passage, Weinberg leads his readers to believe
that, in Aquinas's epistemology, there are five faculties of the
1 Julius Weinberg, A Short History of Medieval, Philosophy (Princeton:
Princeton
University Press, 1964), p. 201.
•I suspect that Weinberg's reference here is either a misprint or a mistake. In
the Summa Contra Gentiles, Chapter 58 of Book IV is a discussion entitled " On
the Number of the Sacraments of the New Law," which contains no reference at
all to the faculties of the internal senses let alone affirming that the phantasia is a
distinct faculty of internal sense. It is Book II of the Summa Contra Gentiles
which contains much discussion of epistemological issues together with explicit
reference to the faculties of the internal senses. Yet Chapter 58 of Book II cannot
justify Weinberg's analysis either. It is a discussion entitled "That in Human
Beings there are not Three Souls: Nutritive, Sensitive, and Intellective." Although
there is some discussion of epistemological questions in this chapter, nevertheless
there is no explicit reference to any faculties of internal sense. Furthermore, in my
reading of the Summa Contra Gentiles, I have never found a reference to the
phantasia as a distinct faculty of the internal senses distinct from the imagination.
Furthermore, when referring to the imagination in the Summa Contra Gentiles,
Aquinas usually makes use of the Latin terms, " vis imaginativa " or "imaginatio "
rather than " phantasia."

Research for this article was undertaken through a Summer Seminar Grant from
the National Endowment for the Humanities and a grant from the Denison
University Faculty Development Fund.

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internal senses. The above passage asserts that the" phantasy,"
what Aquinas and other medieval philosophers refer to as the
" phantasia," is an independent and separate faculty of the
internal senses. According to this interpretation, in addition
to the common sense,3 or sensus oommunis, there are four additional faculties of internal sense: the phantasy, the imagination, the estimative (or cogitative) faculty and the memory.
In Weinberg's account, the phantasia is not the same faculty
of inner sense as the imagination.
In this article, I intend to show that Aquinas never held that
the phantasia was a faculty of the internal senses distinct and
separate from the other faculties mentioned in Weinberg's account. I suggest that Aquinas referred to the phantasia, either
as another term for the imagination, or as a generic concept
referring to those faculties of inner sense which were capable
of utilizing phantasms. The former position is explicitly mentioned in the Summa Theologiae while the latter interpretation
can be found in Aquinas's Commentary on Aristotle's on the
Soul (In Aristotelis Librum De Anima Commentarium) . When
used in the generic sense, the phantasia refers to the imagination, the estimative faculty (or the cogitative faculty in humans) and the sense memory. These three faculties of the
internal senses are those to which Aquinas ascribes the use of
phantasms. It follows from this that the common sense as a
faculty of awareness does not utilize phantasms.
In the classical account from the Summa Theologiae in which
he discusses his epistemological position on sense perception,
8 In discussing medieval epistemologies, it is important
to realize that the
" common sense " or sensus communis is indeed a faculty of sensation. It has no
connection with what later philosophers like Thomas Reid in the Eighteenth Century and G. E. Moore in the early Twentieth Century have referred to as "Common
Sense Philosophy." Furthermore, the common sense as a sense faculty has nothing
to do with the " common sense intuitions " which some philosophers have predicated
of all human beings. In Aquinas's epistemology, the common sense is that internal
sense faculty which conjoins together the disparate sensations received from the
faculties of the five external senses.

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ANTHONY J. LISSKA

Aquinas identifies the phantasia with the imagination. Note
the following passage:
But for the retention and preservation of these forms (i.e.,
those acquired through the external senses and conjoined by means
of the sensus communis), the phantasy or imagination, which are
the same, is appointed ....
I., Q. 78, a. 4 (Italics mine) .

The Latin text of the above passage explicitly refers to the
pha.ntasia as the internal sense identical with the imagination:
... ad harum autem formarum retentionem aut conservationem ordinatur phantasia, sive imaginatio, quae idem sunt . ...
Ibid. (Italics mine) .

tu this text from the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas clearly affirms that the phantasia is identical with the imagination. It
is not a distinct and separate faculty of inner sense. In the remaining parts of this article in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas
discusses the other faculties of inner sense which require
phantasms, namely the estimative faculty (or the cogitative
faculty in humans), and the sense memory.
Furthermore, for the apprehension of intentions which are not
received through the senses, the estimative power is appointed;
and for their preservation, the memorative power, which is a storehouse of such intentions. A sign of this is the fact that the principle
of memory in animals is found in some such intention, for instance,
that something is harmful or otherwise. And the very character
of something as past, which memory observes, is to be reckoned
among these intentions.
Now, we must observe that as to sensible forms there is no
difference between humans and other animals. For they are similarly immuted by external sensibles. But there is a difference as
to the above intentions. For other animals perceive these intentions
only by some sort of natural instinct, while humans perceive them
also by means of .a certain comparison. Therefore, the power which
in other animals is called the natural estimative, in humans is
called the cogitative, which by some sort of comparison discovers
these intentions ....
Avicenna, however, assigns between the estimative and the imagi-

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native a fifth power, which combines and divides imaginary forms;
for instance, when from the imaginary form of gold and the imaginary form of a mountain, we compose the one form of a golden
mountain, which we have never seen. But this operation is not to
be found in animals other than humans, in whom the imaginative'
power suffices for this purpose. Averroes also attributes this action
to the imagination, in his book, De Sensu et Sensibilibus. So there
is no need to assign more than four interior powers to the sensitive
part, namely, the common sense, the imagination, the estimative
(or cogitative) power and the memory.
Ibid. (Italics mine) .

In these passages, three points relevant to Weinberg's interpretation of Aquinas should be noted.
I) There is categorically no assertion that the phantasi.a is
a faculty distinct from the imagination.
2) The phantasia is explicitly identified with the imagination.
3) There is a clear statement that there are only four internal sense faculties.
As Aquinas notes in the above passages from the Summa
Theologiae, Avicenna did assert the existence of the phantasia
as a distinct and separate faculty. Furthermore, Aquinas
rejects the need for a fifth faculty of internal sense. In addition,
Aquinas's mentor, Albertus Magnus, at times asserted the existence of five faculties of internal sense, one of which was the
phantasia. According to the account ascribed to him in the
Libri Tres De Anima,.4 Albertus lists five faculties of the internal senses: the common sense, the imagination, the estimative faculty, the memory, and the phantasi,a. In his Summa De
Homine,5 however, Albertus places the common sense with the
• Libri Tres De Anima, in Omnia Opera, ed. Borgnet, lib. 2, tract. 4, c. 7, Vol. V.,
pp. 802-804, as found in The Discursive Power by George Klubertanz, S. J. (St.
Louis: The Modern Schoolman, 1952), pp. 185-188. Klubertanz's work is an
exceptionally lucid analysis of the internal senses as discussed by Jewish, Arabian
and Christian philosophers prior to Aquinas.
·•Summa De Homine, (Part 2), title of question 18, Vol. XXXV, p. 164; p. 828,
as found in Klubertanz, op. cit., pp. 189-142.

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ANTHONY J, LISSKA

external senses. He then lists four faculties of internal sense:
imagination, estimative, memory and phantasi,a. Accordingly,
there is textual evidence that Aquinas's teacher did indeed
affirm the existence of the phantasl,a as an independent and
distinct faculty of the internal senses separate from the
imagination. 6 It is interesting to note that Albertus assigns to
the phantasl,a the ability to " combine and divide " images and
intentions. 7 The above passage from the Summa Theowgiae indicated that Aquinas attributed to Avicenna the postulation of
an additional internal sense faculty to " combine and divide "
images. This is what Wolf.son has referred to as the " compositive imagination." 8 As the passage from the Summa Theologiae indicated, however, Aquinas explicitly rejected this
position. Aquinas ascribed to the imagination both the " retentive " and the " compositive " functions which Avicenna and
Albertus had attributed to distinct faculties.9 Aquinas explicitly
• For a discussion of at least four different ways Albertus classified the internal
sense faculties, cf. Harry Austryn Wolfson, "The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic
and Hebrew Philosophic Texts," Harvard Theological Review, XXVIII, #':t
(April, 1935), pp. 116118. Wolfson's article is a classical historical analysis of the
development of the various positions medieval philosophers affirmed in discussing
the function of the internal senses.
• Libri Tres De Anima, op. cit., p. 303, as found in Klubertanz, pp. 136137; also cf. Wolfson, p. 117.
8 Wolfson, pp. 116-117.
0 Although both Avicenna and Albertus postulated the phantasia as a faculty
of inner sense distinct from the imagination, both assigned different functions to
it. In many texts, Albertus assigned to the phantasia the power to "combine and
divide" images-what Wolfson refers to as the "compositive imagination "-while
Avicenna assigned this compositive function to the imagination. What Wolfson
refers to as the "retentive imagination," Avicenna calls the phantasia while
Albertus refers this " retentive" function to the imagination. As we have seen,
Aquinas combined both functions with one faculty, which in the Summa Theologiae
he called both the imaginatio and the phantasia: ". • . phantasia sive imaginatio,
qttae idem sttri,t." Wolfson also notes that in one work, the lsagoge In Libras De
Anima, Albertus identified the phantasia with the senrus commttnis. In his De
Anima, Avicenna asserted the same identification. Thus, there are texts in which
both Avicenna and Albertus identify the phantasia with the sensttS commttnis.
The relationship between the senms commttnis and the phantasia in Aquinas'.s
epistemology will be discussed later in this article.

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argued that there is no need for a separate faculty distinct
from the imagination to provide this function of " combination
and division." To use Wolfson's categories, Aquinas combined
the " compositive " and the " retentive " imaginations into one
faculty of internal sense. Therefore, even though some of
Aquinas's predecessors indeed had affirmed that the phantasia
is a separate and distinct faculty of the internal senses, an interpretation which Weinberg attributed to Aquinas, nevertheless in the Summa Theologiae there is textual evidence that
Aquinas explicitly denied this position.
In his Commentary on Aristotle's on the Soul, however,
Aquinas sometimes appears to use the phantasia as a generic
concept referring to those internal sense faculties which utilize
phantasms. Insofar as a phantasm is not needed by the sensus
communis, this faculty is not part of the phantasia. I suspect
that this generic use of the term phantasia is due to the fact
that, while in his De Anima, Aristotle mentioned the imagination, nevertheless he had no general term to refer to those
faculties which came to be known by the medieval philosophers
as the internal senses. The Jewish, Arabian, and Latin philosophers of the middle ages postulated additional faculties in order
to account for the various functions of the internal senses as
distinct from the five external senses. I suggest that in the
Commentary on Aristotle's on the Soul, Aquinas used phantasia
at times as a generic concept to refer to those functions of the
internal senses about which Aristotle had no term of reference.
In his Commentary on Aristotle's on the Soul, Aquinas remarked that ". . . it is by the phantasia that we become conscious of phantasms." 10 He argues elsewhere that ". . . the
powers in which the phantasms reside ... (are) ... the imagination, the memory and the cogitative faculty." 11 It is true that
in the Commentary at times Aquinas uses the phantasia as
another term for the imagination. Yet I have found no use of
the term phantasia ref erring to a faculty of inner sense distinct
10
11

In Aristotelis Librum De Anima Commentarium, # 638.
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II, Chapter 73, # 14.

800

ANTHONY J. LISSKA

from the imagination. In other words, phantasia is used either
as a concept coextensive with the imagination or as a generic
term referring to those faculties of inner sense which utilize
phantasms. The phantasia is not used by Aquinas as a term
referring to a distinct faculty of inner .sense separate from the
·others.
Insofar as the phantasia is a generic term referring to the
faculties of inner sense which utilize phantasms, it is appropriate to make a distinction between a) the external senses and
the internal senses, and b) the external sensorium and the internal sensorium. The basis for the external / internal sense
distinction is the physiological locus of the sense faculty. The
faculties of the external senses are found with bodily organs
while the internal senses are located within the brain and function without bodily organs external to the brain. According to
Wolfson, among the Arabian commentators on Aristotle, the
is.sue of the localization of the internal senses within parts of
the brain caused disputes between the physicians and the philosophers.12 On the other hand, the external/ internal sensorium distinction is based upon whether or not the sense faculty in question needs a phantasm. As we have seen, according
to Aquinas only the internal senses of imagination, estimative
or cogitative faculty, and sense memory require phantasms.
The sensus communis, although an internal sense faculty, is
part of the external sensorium. It functions without a phantasm. Accordingly, the two categories of" sense" and" sensorium" are neither equivalent nor coextensive. In the Commentary on Aristotle's on the Soul, the phantasia when used as
a generic concept describes only the internal senses which need
phantasms. Therefore, the phantasia as a generic concept is
equivalent to the internal sensorium or inner sense.
Aquinas affirms that the sensus communis is not part of the
phantasia insofar as the phantasia is used as a generic concept.
However, the precise relationship and distinction between the
phantasia and the sensus communis are not consistently eluci12 Wolfson,

p. 97.

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301

dated by either medieval or early modern philosophers. For
example, in his Liber Canonis, Avicenna lists the phantasia as
a faculty distinct from the sensus communis. It refers to that
faculty of inner sense which retains the sensible forms after
they have been conjoined by the sensus communis. This account is structurally the same as the one provided by Aquinas
in the Summa Theologiae when he identified the phantasia with
the imagination. On the other hand, in his De Anima, Avicenna
identified the phantasia with the sensus communis:
Of the hidden vital apprehensive powers, the first is the phantasy,
which is the common sense. It is a power placed in the first concavity of the brain, receiving by itself all the forms which are
imprinted on the five senses and given to it. 13

In the Seventeenth Century, when writing his famous "wax
example " in the Second Meditation, Descartes also identified
the "imaginative faculty" with the sensus communis:
... I shall proceed with the matter in hand, and inquire whether
I had a clearer and more perfect perception of the piece of wax
when I first saw it, and when I thought I knew it by means of
the external sense itself, or, at all events, by the common sense
(sensus communis), as it is called, that is, by the imaginative
faculty. 14

At any length, there is no textual evidence that Aquinas ever
identified the phantasia or imagination with the sensus communis. Moreover, since the sensus communis is not part of the
internal sensorium, it cannot be included with those faculties
of inner sense to which the phantasia applies as a generic concept. There is a category difference between the sensus communis and either use of phantasia by Aquinas.
Before concluding, it will be interesting to discuss briefly the
account of the internal senses which Wolfson ascribed to
Aquinas's epistemology:
Avicenna, De Anima, as found in Klubertanz, p. 95.
" Meditation Two, Veitch Translation. The Latin text of the above passage
contains the following: " ... vel saltem sensu communi, ut vocant, id est, potentia
imaginatrice . . . ." In Footnote #9 above, it was noted that Albertus Magnus
also identified the phantasia with the sensus communis in some texts.
18

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ANTHONY J. LISSKA

(1) sensus communis,
imagination (phantasia sive imaginatio), both retentive and compositive, the latter only in man,
(3) estimation in animals corresponding to cogitation in man
(aestimativa, cogitativa), (4) memory (memorativa) .15

In addition, Wolfson lists the five faculties of the internal
senses which he claims Aquinas attributed to Avicenna. Interestingly enough, these are the very same five faculties of
internal sense which Weinberg attributed to Aquinas:
Referring specifically to Avicenna's fivefold classification of the
internal senses, Thomas enumerates these as follows: (1) sensus
communis,
retentive imagination (phantasia), (3) compositive
human and animal imagination (imaginativa), (4) estimation or
cogitation (aestimativa seu cogitativa), the former in animals
and the latter in man, (5) memory (memorativa) .16
Given this discussion, it appears that Weinberg attributed to
Aquinas what indeed Aquinas had attributed to Avicenna.
In conclusion, I suggest that textual evidence demonstrates
that Weinberg's account of Aquinas's position on the number
of internal sense faculties is incorrect. Aquinas never argued
that the phantasia was a separate faculty of inner sense distinct
from the imagination. It is true that some of his medieval
predecessors did, even his gifted teacher, Albertus Magnus. In
fact, as Wolfson has shown, nearly every medieval commentator on Aristotle devised his own position regarding the number
and function of the internal senses. As far as I can discover,
however, Aquinas never used the term phantasia to refer to a
distinct faculty separate from the imagination. In Wolfson's
categories, Aquinas combined the " retentive " and the " compositive" functions of inner sense into one faculty. As we have
seen, in the Summa Theologiae this faculty is called the
imaginatio or phantasia. The phantasia is not a distinct faculty
of inner sense.
ANTHONY

Denison University
Granville, Ohio
15

Wolfson, p. 112.

1•

Ibid., pp. 120-121.

J. LISSKA

A NOTE:

AQUINAS ON INTENTIONS

C

OMMENTATORS ON THE works of St. Thomas
Aquinas have traditionally distinguished between
' first intentions' and ' second intentions.' In this
paper I shall argue that, althought the distinction between first
and second intentions is entirely consistent with the thought
of Saint Thomas, it is not the case, given what Thomas actually
says, that all concepts can be classified as either first intentions
or second intentions.
The distinction between first and second intentions is perhaps presented most simply by Mortimer J. Adler: a first intention is " that which is conceived " and a second intention is
"the concept." 1 Joseph Bobik gives a more complete account:
" First intentions are meanings or concepts derived from, or
at least verified in, extramental, or real things," 2 " second intentions are concepts about certain sorts of relations among
anything and everything (words, concepts, things) involved
in the human way of knowing." 8
I have not found that Thomas uses the expressions 'first intention' and ' second intention ' in distinguishing between two
kinds of objects of concepts. But it clearly is Thomas's position
that concepts have for objects not only external things but also
concepts themselves and what we could call cognitive processes
of the mind:
. . . because the intellect reflects upon itself, according to this
same reflection it understands its own understanding and the species
by which it understands. 4
1 M. Adler, Problems for Thomists: The Problem of Species (New York: 1950),
p. 13.
• J. Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essemce (Notre Dame, Indiana: 1965), p. 17.
8 Ibid., p. 56.
• Sum. Theol., I, 85, fl ad Resp. All quotations from St. Thomas appearing in
this paper are my own. I have been helped in making them by available standard
translations.

303

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RALPH W. CLARK

In his theory of concepts Thomas uses the term ' intention '
(intentio) with two primary meanings.
1. A concept is intentional in its being. All concepts are
intentional beings in that they are forms, images, or representations of things, existing in minds and not in things. 'Intentional
being ' has the same meaning as ' being of reason.' 5
2. A concept is intentional in the manner in which it gives us
things and is related to these things, as distinguished from what
is formally the same in concept and things. Thomas gives a
number of examples of the intentional in this .sense. Most important, things are individual, but known universally; hence,
the universality of our concepts is intentional:
The universals can be considered in two ways. First, insofar as
the universal nature is considered simultaneously with the intention of universality. Since the intention of universality, that is,
the relation of one and the same to many, comes from the intellect's
abstraction, it is necessary that according to this mode the universal is posterior . . .
In another way it can be considered according to the nature
itself, . . . the intention of universality is consequent upon the
mode of understanding, which is by abstraction. 6
. . . universals insofar as they are universals exist only in the soul.
However, the natures themselves, to which befall the intention of
universality (i.e., which are conceived universally), exist in
things. 7

There are two primary ways that we conceive a thing universally: as a species or as a genus. We conceive a thing as
a species when we conceive it universally as a fully determinate
substance; we conceive a thing as a genus when we conceive it
universally and indeterminately as a substance. 8 In both cases
•See In IV Meta., 4, 574, In 11 De Anima, 22, 553, De Spirit. Creat., I, ad 11,
and Sum. Theol., I, 56, 2, ad 3.
•Ibid., I, 85, 3, ad 1. See also In VII Meta., VII, 13, 1571, and Sum. Cont. Gent.,
II, 92, 6. For a discussion of the universality of concepts, see my paper, " St.
Thomas Aquinas's Theory of Universals," The Monist, LVIII (1974), pp. 163-172..
7 In II De Anima, 5, 380.
8 See De Ente et essentia, III.

A NOTEi:

AQUINAS ON INTENTIONS

305

. the mind adds something to the nature which it apprehends. 9
Since concepts are universals, concepts are not of other concepts as individuals, but rather are of their common characteristics, e. g., are of them as being concepts of genera or species.
Thus are formed the concepts what it is to be a species and
what it is to be a genus. As understood in this way, Thomas
calls the genus and the species " intelligible objects." 10
The problem with the distinction between first and second
intentions, made in terms of the objects of concepts, is that
some concepts-which we must, apparently, call first intentions
because their objects are external things-incorporate an explicit reference to certain ways in which the mind conceives
things and these ways of conceiving are the objects of second
intentions. According to Bobik, " that which is a genus " is a
first intention (an example is animal), while "what it is to be
a genus " is a second intention. " To be a genus is to have a
relation of a certain sort (genericity) to other meanings.
Animal has such a relation to man and dog." 11 This is true and
adequate as far as it goes. When we conceive Fido to be an
animal, the object of our concept is Fido; and when we conceive
a genus to be a relation among meanings, as Bobik would have
it, or a way of conceiving things indeterminately, the object of
our concept is the relation of the intellect to things. However,
we do not always conceive simply that Fido is an animal-as
distinct from a vegetable or a mineral, etc.-; we may conceive
that Fido, as an animal, is generically the same as Socratesas opposed to his being specifically different. Now the object
of our concept is not just the nature of Fido, understood in
a certain way, but the nature of Fido as understood in a certain
way. 12 To know that Fido and Socrates are generically the
•See Sum. Theol., I, 89, 4, ad 8 and De Ente et essentia, IV.
In Boeth. de Trin., VI, 8, ad Resp.
11 Bobik, p. 18.
12 Cf. Thomas, In VII Meta., 18, 1570: " ... 'universal'
can be understood in
two ways. In one way, to mean the nature itself, to which the intellect attributes
the intention of universality: and thus universals, such as genera and species, signify
the substance of things, in being predicated quidditatively. 'Animal,' indeed,
10

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RALPH W. CLARK

same, we must have knowledge not just of Fido and Socrates
but also of what it is to be a genus.
Let us see what is being talked about in the following propositions: (I) "Socrates is an animal." We are talking about
alSocrates as understood in a certain-indeterminate-way,
though we are not focusing our attention on the way we are
"The generic nature of Socrates is
conceiving Socrates. 18
animal." We are still, in a sense, talking about Socrates, but
now we are focusing our attention more on the way in which
Socrates is known, that is, generically. (8) "Animal is a genus."
We are no longer talking about Socrates as a given individual,
but about the nature of Socrates and other animals as this nature is understood in a certain way. We are focusing our attention on the way the nature is understood-as a genus-rather
than on the nature itself. 14 (4) "The nature of a genus is ... "
Here we are talking about the way that our minds conceive
things, and we are not focusing our attention on the things at
all. Parallel observations can be made about the following set
of propositions: (I) "Socrates is a man."
"The specific
nature of Socrates is rational animality." (8) "Rational animality is a species." (4) "A species is ... "
The operation which yields the concepts animal as genus or
man as species can be called the incorporating of cognitive
process into cognitive content. In the case of the concept man
as species, the mind first abstracts the nature of man in that it
understands the nature man apart from the individuating conditions of particular men, then the mind reflects upon its mode
of understanding man-universally and determinately-and,
finally, the mind includes in its concept man the universal and
signifies the substance of that of which it is predicated, as does 'man.' In the
other way, a universal can be understood insofar as it is universal, and insofar as a
predicated nature falls under the intention of universality: i.e., insofar as animal
or man is considered as a one in many."
18 Cf. Sum. Theol., I, 30, 4, ad Resp.: "Indeed, the names of genera or species,
as ' man ' or ' animal,' are imposed to signify the common natures themselves, not,
however, the intentions of the common natures which are signified by the terms
' genus ' or ' species.' "
"Cf. De Ente et essentia, IV.

A NOTE;

AQUlNAS ON INTENTIONS

307

determinate manner in which man is known. Cognitive process
is to be distinguished from what could be called psychological
process-in this case the informing of the mind by an immaterial species-since the immateriality of the species is never
incorporated into the concept man. (We know by means of
the intelligible species in our minds, and all of the other psychological processes and their effects necessary for knowledge;
but we know things as species, genus, universal, etc., in accordance with all of the cognitive processes involved m
knowing.)
The cases in which no cognitive process becomes part of
cognitive content are cases such as that of the concept man
as man (homo inquantum est homo or homo in eo quad est
homo) , which Thomas also calls human nature absolutely considered (natura humana secundum suam absolutam considerationem) . According to Thomas, the notion of the species does
not belong to human nature absolutely considered, but is
" among the accidents which follow upon it according to the
existence it has in the intellect." 15 None of the other accidents
which follow upon the existence of the concept in the mindor upon the relationship of the concept in the mind to things 16are part of human nature absolutely considered, or man as
man, for the reason that, " whatever belongs to man as man
is predicated of Socrates," 17 and other individual men.
However, it cannot be said that the concept of a universal belongs

to the nature so received, because oneness and commonness belong
to the concept of the universal. However, neither of these belong
Ibid.
Strictly speaking, the notion of the species follows upon the relationship of the
concept in the mind to things, and not simply upon the existence of the concept in
the mind. Thomas himself sometimes, although not always, makes this distinction:
" the universality of the form (the intellectually comprehended form) is not
according to the being which it has in the intellect, but insofar as it is referred to
things as a likeness of things." (De Ente et essentia.) The oneness which a nature
has when considered apart from things follows solely upon the existence which the
concept has in the intellect. (See Tractatus de substantiis separatis VIII,
and
In Perihermeneias, I, 10, 9.)
11 De Ente et essentia, IV.
15

18

308

RALPH W. CLARK

to human nature according to absolute consideration. If commonness were of the meaning of man, then in whatever humanity is
found, commonness would be found. And this is false, because in
Socrates no commonness is found, but whatever is in him is
individuated. 18

This is not to say, of course, that man as man is not known
universally-only that the mode of knowing is not part of the
cognitive content. Our attention is focused entirely on what
is known, not on how it is known.
Human nature absolutely considered includes none of the
accidents which follow upon its existence in men 19 ; in fact,
human nature absolutely considered includes none of its existences. 20 However, since human nature exists only individually-in individual minds or in individual men-, arid as such
is necessarily accompanied by the accidents of its particular
act of existence, it is apparent that the content of the concept
man as man is determined not simply by what men are, but
also by our way of knowing men-that is, apart from their accidents and their individual existences. At the same time, our
way of knowing man as man is not part of the content of the
concept. One could say that our simple and absolute consideration of human nature affects the content of the concept man
as man only negatively: things are excluded from it, but
nothing is added. 21
The case is very different with the concept humanity, whose
content is positively influenced by the cognitive processes which
Ibid., IV.
Ibid., lV, p. 80-81; cf. In Boeth. de Trin., V, 8, ad Resp.
20 De Ente et essentia, IV.
21 It should be noted that, while man as man is predicable of Socrates, we do not
say, 'Socrates is man as man,' but rather, 'Socrates is a man.' !.fan as man excludes
no individual existences in order that it be predicable of any man. But once it is
predicated of a given man, human nature is then taken with the individual existence
of the man; and man as man cannot include any given individual existence
and still be predicable of other men. Man as man is derived from man by the
focusing power of the mind. When we conceive Socrates as a man and when we
conceive man as man we conceive the same nature, but in the latter case we
conceive the nature just as a nature and not as predicated of anything that has it.
1•

19

A NOTE:

.AQUINAS ON INTENTIONS

309

give us the concept. Unlike man as man-or simply man, from
which man as man is derived-, humanity cannot be predicated
of individual men because " it excludes all designation by matter," and does not contain it " implicitly and indistinctly " as
man does. In Thomas's words, humanity signifies human nature as a part (ut partem) .22
How is the concept humanity possible? Since man's nature,
his essence, contains common matter, and common matter is
individual matter referred to in an indeterminate way, how can
humanity signify man's nature in any sense? l£ we remove the
reference of man's form to matter, it would seem that we have
lost man's form, which necessarily is a material form. The answer is that humanity does not lose its reference to matter.
Humanity is derived from man, which contains a reference to
matter in that the concept man is derived from, and under.stood
in, phantasms which represent individual matter. Hence, man
can be predicated of individuals. Humanity is the same concept-that is, derived the same way-, but with a restriction
placed upon it: that it cannot be predicated of individual
men. 28
It can be said that the cognitive operation performed upon
man to produce humanity is the contrary of the cognitive operation performed upon man to produce man as S']Jecies. The latter is produced when the content of man has incorporated into
it the reference of the concept to many things. 24 As we have
seen, the notion of the species does not belong to man as man;
•• See De Ente et essentia, III.
•• That man as man and humanity share a common content is apparent from the
following: " ... humanity, indeed, signifies that whereby man is man." (Ibid.)
•• Francis Cunningham has drawn the distinction between the concepts man and
humanity in Thomas as follows: man is "a first intention inasmuch as it ,has a
proximate foundation in reality; " humanity is " a second intention because it has
no more than a remote foundation in reality." ("A Theory on Abstraction in St.
Thomas," Modern Schoolman, 1957 (85), pp. 252-8.) This way of distinguishing
first and second intentions and man from humanity, is certainly not wrong, But
neither is it very helpful. My purpose is to explain what it is about concepts which
makes their foundation in reality more or less remote: the manner in which, and the
extent to which, cognitive process is included in cognitive content.

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RALPH W. CLARK

but it can be added. However, the notion of the species cannot
be added once the restriction has been placed on man which
produces the concept humanity:
Because, however, that to which belongs the concept of the genus or
of the species or of the difference is predicated of this designated
singular, it is impossible that the concept of the universal, namely
of the genus or of the species, belong to an essence insofar as it is
signified as a part, as by the word ' humanity ' or ' animality.' 25

Why do we form the concept humanity? What purpose is
served in understanding man's nature as a part? Thomas's
answer is that the concept humanity reveals to us that a part
of man's nature is fully intelligible. Humanity is not predicable
of individual men because individual men contain individual
matter, which is not intelligible, and which can be known only
insofar as it is related to that which is intelligible in man, his
species, or essence. At the same time, man's essence cannot be
known entirely independently of man's matter, which is not
intelligible. By means of the concept humanity, we achieve a
special kind of knowledge-knowledge as intelligible of that
whose intelligibility is necessarily rooted in what is not intelligible.
It should be noted that the inclusion of cognitive process in
cognitive content functions somewhat differently in the case
of humanity than it does in the case of concepts like man as
species. Regarding the latter, the inclusion of cognitive process
in the concept tells us primarily about how the nature is known,
that is, universally and determinately; regarding the former,
the inclusion of cognitive process in the concept tells us primarily something about the nature, that it has an intelligible
part.
RALPH

West Virginia University
Morgantown, West Virginia

06

De Ente et eaaentia, IV.

w. CLARK

HANS-GEORG GADAMER'S TRUTH AND METHOD:

A REVIEW ARTICLE*

I

N THE PHILOSOPHICAL tradition the term ' hermeneutics '
has referred principally to the set of problems centering around
the interpretation of texts, especially religious and legal texts. With
the rise of methodical historical scholarship in the nineteenth century the problems of ' reconstructing ' past ages, epochs, periods,
of obtaining 'objective' historical knowledge, also became part of
the general hermeneutical problematic. However, on the level of
self-reflection, the so-called human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften)
were unsure just what kinds of things they were, for, unlike the
empirical natural sciences that had been subjected to rigorous
analysis by Kant, they apparently did not, and could not, utilize
the procedures and categorial apparatus of the empirical natural
sciences themselves. Kant was aware of this, but his treatment of
the problems was never really accepted as constituting a satisfactory framework for their self-understanding. Ranke and Droysen
devoted themselves to methodological reflections as well as to
empirical historical research as they tried to delineate the essential
contours of historical knowledge. Dilthey followed in their wake
and characterized his own project by an explicit parallel between
his projected critique of historical reason and the Kantian critique
of pure (scientific) reason. His was the first attempt to raise the
human sciences to a universal methodological consciousness of
themselves and to situate them, precisely and in depth, over against
those modes of knowing proper to the investigation of inanimate
nature.
It is Gadamer's intention in the present volume to take this
problem complex back to its ultimate foundations and to transform
it from a specifically ' epistemological ' and ' methodological ' issue
into one dealing with the very conditions of the possibility of understanding itself. Indeed, under the rubric of a philosophical
hermeneutics, Gadamer wants to construct, by means of a phenomenological analysis, a proper model for grasping the act of human understanding and to delineate the ultimate matrices in which
the act takes place. In such a procedure he joins a phenomenology
of understanding to an ontology. It is his belief that "Heidegger's
*Truth and Method. By Hans-Georg Gadamer. New York: Seabury Press,
1975. Pp. xvi

+ 588. $22-60.

311

312

ROBERT E. INNIS

temporal analytics of human existence (Dasein) has, I think, shown
convincingly that understanding is not just one of the various
possible behaviours of the subject, but the mode of being of Therebeing itself" (p. xviii). The present book is meant to be Gadamer's
major contribution to the clarification of this mode of being, and
consequently it must be understood in the root anthropological
sense as an inquiry into ourselves and into the foundations of our
intercourse with the world.
The book itself is so massive-a veritable Alexandrian librarythat in a review of this sort I can basically only touch upon certain
topics that run throughout it. I will return elsewhere to a more
specific treatment of the present volume and problems arising from
it. I will here try to schematize the operative core of the book and
the fundamental model of understanding that Gadamer has constructed-or discerned-by his phenomenological analysis. I will
divide what follows into four sections. Section one will deal with
Gadamer's reformulation of the hermeneutical problem. Section two
will concentrate on the model itself-principally that of Spiel-around which Gadamer builds his analysis of understanding. Section three will be devoted to the linguistic matrix of understanding
and the world. Section four will offer some critical comments upon
Gadamer's project as a whole.

Gadamer's Conception of Hermeneutics
Gadamer explicitly differentiates his conception of hermeneutics
from a Methodenlehre, whose goal would be the formulation of rules
of procedure to guide us to' objective' knowledge in the interpretation of texts or in historical research. In fact, the very title of
the book has an ironical twist to it, for Gadamer's project is to investigate that region that lies beyond the methodical impulse itself and, in a sense, makes it possible. As he writes in the introduction, " From its historical origin, the problem of hermeneutics goes
beyond the limits that the concept of method sets to modern
science. The understanding and the interpretation of texts is not
merely a concern of science, but is obviously part of the total human experience of the world. The hermeneutic phenomenon is
basically not a problem of method at all " (p. xi) . As he puts it,
a little further on, " The following investigation ... is concerned
to seek that experience of truth that transcends the sphere of the
control of scientific method wherever it is to be found, and to inquire into its legitimacy. Hence the human sciences are joined with
modes of experience which lie outside science: with the experiences
of philosophy, of art, and of history itself. These are all modes of
I.

HANS-GEORG GADAMER'S

" TRU'rH AND METHOD "

813

experience in which a truth is communicated that cannot be verified
by the methodological means proper to science " (p. xii) .
Gadamer's characterization of science and scientific method functions-not altogether fruitfully, since it is based on a misconception-as the contrastive element to his own conception of understanding. In .essence, science, for Gadamer, seeks the ' domination '
of being, the 'subjection' of it to public, objective, verifiable procedures. Furthermore, following his mentor Heidegger in this regard (cf. V ortrage und A uf siitze, " Die Frage nach der Technik ") ,
he sees the whole pursuit of metaphysics as a science in ·western
thought as leading, by definite traceable steps, to the primacy
of a methodical and manipulative, and, hence, objectifying relationship of man to the world and, ultimately, to his historical life
as a whole. The paradigm of such a relationship is that of contemplative theory which stands over against the world as a whole
and directs its gaze at it as something external to itself, existing in
the mode of Vorhandenheit. Moreover, the methodic impulse is
also under the tutelage of the drive to totality and the ultimate
identification of being and thought. In this respect, Hegel's project
functions as the paradigm example of such a stance vis-a-vis the
world and the totality of history, though Gadamer's attitude toward Hegel is far from negative.
Gadamer's intention is to undercut the move to totality by
showing that finitude conditions and makes impossible any such
thing and that, at least in those regions dealing with the experience
of art, of history, and of language as a whole, we are in no wise
presented with a ' subject ' confronting an 'object' with which it
has nothing in common. Rather, " understanding belongs to the
being of that which is understood" (p. xix). The whole book is
an attempt to show how this is so in the three areas outlined in
the three principal parts of the book: Part One, The question of
truth as it emerges in the experience of art; Part Two, The extension of the question of truth to understanding in the human
sciences; Part Three, The ontological shift of hermeneutics guided
by language. In all these three cases, Gadamer argues, we find
ourselves caught up in an event, or happening, that overspills the
subjective consciousness of the understander. Rather than being
able to control the event, to make it happen, it is, Gadamer thinks,
more correct to say that we ourselves become part of the event,
of the happening, which, in all cases, is an event of meaning (Sinn).
Hermeneutics, then, as Gadamer conceives it within the parameters of the book, has as its goal to determine in as universal a
fashion as possible just what kind of thing this happening, the event

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ROBERT E, INNIS

of understanding itself, is. What is the procedure? The procedure
is to combine as closely as possible " an inquiry into the history
of concepts with a factual exposition of its theme" (p. xv). This
makes for an incredibly complex investigation and it is such a
procedure that makes the book so difficult, and rewarding, to read.
The book resembles a tapestry, woven out of a multiplicity of
stmnds that interlock, separate, and then come together again, so
that the ultimate result cannot really be said in capsule form, but
rather must itself be experienced. Nevertheless, I will try to state
what I think is Gadamer's major achievement in his hermeneutical
project and which, he claims, gives solid support to his thesis on
the universal aspect of hermeneutics. That major achievement is
the construction of a model of understanding that lights up the
specificity of the human experiences of art, history, and language.
In fact, it lights up the very structure of experience itself. What
is this model and how does Gadamer go about constructing it?
2.

The Model of Understanding

The first step in Gadamer's construction of the model of understanding is an analysis, both historical and systematic, of those
fundamental structures governing the experience of a work of art.
His major target is the subjectivisation of aesthetics in the Kantian
critique and its extension into the notion of an art of experience
and the consequent emphasis upon the role of genius in both artistic
creation and interpretation. In the Kantian aesthetic doctrine the
aesthetic object and the aesthetic experience are removed from the
common stream of our experience and are constituted as a completely autonomous realm wherein our faculties, freed from all concerns with either the theoretical or the practical, achieve a harmonious condition of mutual adaptation and disinterested pleasure.
In Gadamer's view such an approach to a work of art is' abstract,'
effecting an aesthetic differentiation of the work from the general
structures of the experience of meaning, and, consequently, from
the general structures of experience as a whole.
Gadamer counters this idea of the aesthetic experience with one
based on the concept of play (Spiel) . Play becomes the clue not
only to the understanding of experience but also to the uncovering
of the ontological structure of the work of art itself. The guiding
idea of the analysis is the fact that in a play, or a game, the participants do not stand over against the game as an object distinct
from themselves and which they confront in the mode of Vorhandenheit. Rather the participants become part of the event
which overspills their private individual consciousnesses and which

HANS-GEORG GADAMER'S " TRUTH AND METHOD"

315

has laws and structures governing its own being which are not reducible to the operations of objectifying subjectivities. The players
do not dispose over the game or play, but through them the play
itself comes to presentation, appears in and to the world. The first
task of a universally oriented hermeneutics, therefore, is to understand the ontological structure of the experience of a work of art,
which become paradigmatic for the total phenomenon of a hermeneutical experience.
The whole second part of the book is devoted to the extension
of the analysis to the human sciences. As in the rest of the book
the procedure is to combine historical and factual-that is, phenomenological-analyses.
There are three steps in the historical
treatment as Gadamer (I) outlines the background and deficiencies
of a psychologically oriented hermeneutics in the Schleiermacherian
form and the connection between it and the historical school of
Ranke and Droysen, (2) details the complexities and antinomiesrooted in a residual Cartesianism-of Dilthey's attempt to 'lay the
foundations' of the human sciences, and (3) tries to show the
breakthrough to the properly hermeneutical dimension in Heidegger's project of a hermeneutical phenomenology. Heidegger functions as the pivot to the more systematic analyses in section two
of the second part of the book where the goal is to establish the
foundations of a theory of hermeneutical experience.
The contours of such a theory begin to come to light in the discussion of Heidegger's disclosure of the fore-structure and circular
character of understanding and the rehabilitation of the role of
prejudices (Vorurteile) as conditions of understanding. The historicality of understanding comes clearly into view here and leads
immediately, in the book, to a discussion of the determinative role
of application--drawing upon the model of legal hermeneutics and
the role of application in the Aristotelian form of ethics. The task
facing the interpreter of any text is to find the relevance of the
meaning that is handed down in the texts themselves, where 'finding
the relevance' refers to the attempt to grasp the thing that is being
said in the text and its relation to the circle of meanings in which
one dwells. We can only grasp the thing, how.ever, by a fusion of
horizons-not by a transposition of ourselves back into the original
horizon-wherein our horizon and the horizon of the text become
one in the event of meaning, an event which is the paradigm of an
historical event. In the event of understanding a text we play our
foreunderstanding off against the understanding present in the text
and in the process something comes into existence which transcends
both our horizon and that of the text itself. Understanding may

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ROBERT E. INNIS

be understood as a spiral process that corresponds to the dialectical
movement of question and answer such as we find it, for example,
in a Platonic dialogue or even in a conversation that we have concerning some topic of mutual interest. In an authentic dialogue or
conversation the partners let themselves be led by the subjectmatter, and the route they take, if they genuinely give themselves
up to the movement of discourse, is not under their control.
Neither their relation to one another nor their relation to the
subject matter is 'objective,' but they are both taken up into an
event in which meaning is grasped and truth is disclosed.
Therefore, in the hermeneutical experience priority is given to
the question to which the text itself is an answer. Indeed, our
reading of texts must be understood, so Gadamer argues, according
to the model of a dialectic of question and answer. The notion of
dialectic that runs throughout the book is not construed merely in
Platonic fashion, but the monumental figure of Hegel casts a shadow
continuously over the whole book. Although Gadamer eschews the
Hegelian rationalization of history as the manifestation of an overarching principle of order and direction, nevertheless historical
reality presents to man a complex of possible and authentic
meanings in which he can truly find himself, and the chief task of
hermeneutical experience is to uncover those meanings and truths
that come to us through the paradigmatic texts and experiences
of the tradition. In the activity of appropriation we are in every
case caught up in a process that is no longer under our control and
subject to our domination and manipulation, but rather our consciousnesses become part of the very things they encounter, which
is nothing less than history itself.
Part Two of the book, then, centers around the problem of
describing as precisely as possible the critical factors in the act
of understanding as it applies to texts and to the documents and
remnants that constitute the traces of the historical process. Taking
off from the non-psychologistic analyses of Spiel in Part One,
Gadamer proceeds to construct his model around the notions of
effective-historical consciousness (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein), application, fusion of horizons, prejudices, the dialectic of
question and answer, and, finally, the all-encompassing notion of
a hermeneutical experience. In the differentiated unities of our experience the world of meanings and objects forms around us in a
process that is rather given to us, that comes to us, than controlled
and guided by us. In fact, we are guided by experience and taken
up into its play, according to Gadamer, and in the process, once
again, an event occurs of which we are participants, not directors.

HANS-GEORG GADAMER'S " TRUTH AND METHOD .,

817

The richness of Gadamer's analyses at this point is magnificent and
shows the dialectical character of our experience as well as its
ineluctable finitude.

The Linguistic Matrix
The final step in the construction of the model takes place in
Part Three of the book and resumes, within the context of an extraordinary discussion of the relation between language and understanding, practically all of the points developed in the previous
parts of the b0ok. The goal of the section, if one can say that
it has only one, is to establish language as the ultimate horizon
and matrix for all understanding and world-experience. Once again,
factual exposition and historical presentation are intertwined to
such an extent that the closeness of the book to the Hegelian enterprise is never more clearly perceived. Here the phenomenology of
language joins hands with a precise reflection upon the stages of the
Western experience of language.
Phenomenologically considered, language is the medium of the
hermeneutical experience itself since it is presupposed in all
processes of interpretation. As such, according to Gadamer, it determines both the hermeneutic object and the hermeneutic act.
The hermeneutic object lies at the heart of Gadamer's operation:
the object is a meaning, a sense, which, in the case of writing,
having attained a state of ideality, allows us to meet it without
attempting to transpose ourselves back into the subjectivities either
of the original authors or of the original addressees. Meeting the
object, or uncovering it, is the work of the interpreter whose job
is to relate the unity of sense found in the text to " the whole complex of possible meanings in which we linguistically move." (p. 357)
In fact, " to interpret means precisely to use one's own preconceptions so that the meaning of the text can really be made to speak
for us." (p. 358) The text makes a present claim upon our selfunderstanding and in it a unique object or meaning comes to speech.
While historical reconstruction has its place in determining the object, Gadamer argues, that place is not primary and is not the
hermeneutical experience itself, which has its own task and procedures.
The hermeneutic act is the act of understanding itself, and, like
speech, " understanding is always a genuine event." (p. 361)
Gadamer strives mightily to establish the identity of understanding
and interpreting, processes in which the meaning of the text is
realized in the effective-historical consciousness. The discussion here
is rather diffuse, and I find myself somewhat at a loss to charac-

3.

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ROBERT E. INNIS

terize in a few words just how the analysis proceeds. The central
point is that in the act of understanding word and object are joined
in an indissoluble unity. This does not entail, however, that we
are imprisoned in language, but rather there is a " superior universality with which reason rises above the limitations of any given
language. The hermeneutical experience is the corrective by means
of which the thinking reason escapes the prison of language and it
is itself constituted linguistically." (p. 363) By means of the
hermeneutical experience one is lifted out of one's own horizon and
placed in a new horizon of meaning that is effected through a fusion
of one's prior horizon and that of the text that one meets. In
such a way tradition is assimilated and man's being in the world
is determined.
In the historical section Gadamer traces in a most nuanced and
exact analysis the emergence of the concept of language in the
history of Western thought, starting with the correlation of language and logos in Greek thought, proceeding to the relation between language and verbum in the Neoplatonic and Medieval
developments, and culminating in a discussion of the intimate relation between language and concept formation in more recent work.
The superb reflection upon the Cratylus at the beginning of the
analysis leads into a detailed investigation of the role of mental
word in Aquinas, and then into a discussion of such thinkers as
Nicholas of Cusa, von Humboldt, and Cassirer. Gadamer's goal,
however, is not merely historical, for it soon becomes clear that the
historical meditation is really an aspect of his phenomenology and
an instance of the hermeneutical experience itself. In fact, all of the
historical studies within the book manifest the effective-historical
structures of the hermeneutical consciousness itself, and it would
not be incorrect to say that Gadamer's own method in the book
JJhows the actual thesis that he is concerned to argue discursively.
The book ends with a section devoted to language as horizon of
a hermeneutic ontology. The thrust is that language opens and
constitutes for man the world itself, functioning as a mirror or
prism in whose reflections we are caught up and in which the world
is revealed. Dwelling within language as our home the world comes
to us and we come to it in the play of language itself. Rather than
language belonging to man as something over which he can dispose,
man belongs instead to language and, through language, to the
world, in whose eternal play he participates as the locus where the
event of meaning happens. The connection between the play of
language and the play of light, which has been a constant theme
throughout the book, comes to fruition here, but I can only mention

HANS-GEORG GADAMER's

" TRUTH AND METHOD "

319

it, leaving an actual study of it to another time. In short, we might
sum up the import of all of Part Three by citing two of Gadamer's
most startling sentences. The first runs as follows: " Sein, das
verstanden werden kann, ist Sprache: Being that can be understood is language." (p. xxii) And the second, even more fitting
perhaps, runs: 'Wer Sprache hat, hat die Welt: He who has language has the world." (p. 411)

Conclusion: Some Critical Comments
A book of the present sort demands time to be appropriated. As
a contribution to our understanding of understanding it ranks with
the work of Peirce, Husserl, Cassirer, Wittgenstein, Polanyi, and
Lonergan as a highpoint of twentieth century reflection upon the
constitutive conditions of knowing. It is, however, not a complete
work, and demands expansion, supplementation, and modification,
some of it substantial. Part of the task has been done by Gadamer
himself in his Kleine Schriften (3 vols.) but even there the result
is not fully satisfying.
The strongest points of Gadamer's analyses far outweigh any
weaknesses that are resident in his own operative presuppositions.
His major thesis is that he has adequately described the act of
understanding, at least as it occurs in those domains beyond the
reach of the methodical impulse. In his debates with his critics he
has insisted that what he has given are descriptions of what occurs
universally and invariably whenever the event of understanding
occurs. Purely phenomenologically I am inclined to agree, in spite
of the fact that the descriptions are not complete. But Gadamer's
purpose is not to be complete but to outline the precise matrices
within which the act of understanding takes place and the conditions to which it is subject.
At the same time Gadamer is not always his own best advocate.
The ana,lyses of Part Two of the book, devoted to the human
sciences, become incredibly complex since he is trying to handle
questions of history and questions of interpretation of texts at one
and the same time. In so doing, and in developing his notions of
effective-historical consciousness and the fusion of horizons, the
precise roles of historical reconstruction and historical understanding are not clearly delineated. In order better to understand
the relation between historical understanding and hermeneutical
understanding one must turn, I think, to Lonergan's attempt to
disentangle the issues in Insight and Method in Theology, which
themselves must be seen in the light of the kinds of analyses
Gadamer undertakes in Truth and Method.
4.

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ROBERT E. INNIS

Moreover, one might fruitfully study how Gadamer's thesis on
the linguistic nature of understanding stands to the similar thesis
propounded by Peirce but in the context of a reflection not upon
the hermeneutical problem but upon the fact of science and scientific method. For the weakest and most unsatisfactory aspect of
the book is the characterization of ' science' which runs throughout the book like a refrain. Coming out of a totally different tradition, Michael Polanyi has, I think, demolished the image of science that functions as Gadamer's contrastive term and shown that
such a thing, while it may have corresponded to certain parts of
the scientific tradition's self-interpretation, could never really have
existed in fact and that, rather, a careful phenomenology of science
would reveal a structure of understanding incredibly similar to that
Gadamer has discerned in the hermeneutical realm.
Furthermore, although he probably would try to deny it, I think
there is a bias in the first part of the book toward properly linguistic works of art, despite the attempt to generalize the notions
of Spiel and Bild to cover all forms of aesthetic self-presentation.
More differentiation and hence more precision is needed in such
forms, perhaps something along the lines, appropriately modified,
that Suzanne Langer has been pursuing. Indeed, Mikel Dufrenne's
Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience and the work of Roman
Ingarden have to be more systematically confronted.
Finally, there is, as I see it, an ambiguity running throughout
the book in the very notion of experience itself. Although it is a
very fruitful ambiguity, for it allows Gadamer great flexibility in
his analyses, the idea itself demands more methodological differentiation. For certainly we ' experience' physical objects just as much
as we ' experience ' meaning of texts or the texts themselves, and
in the last case experiencing is really an understanding of a quite
precise sort. The notion of a hermeneutical experience is the most
powerful in the book, and in Gadamer's thought as a whole, illuminating the basic structures of human being in the world, and it
stands in intimate union with the further notion of a hermeneutical
understanding. Erfahrung and Verstehen constitute a dialectical
unity, and I hope to show elsewhere just how hermeneutical experience is precisely understanding, and vice versa. Only in this
way can Gadamer's project be buttressed against the charges of
willfulness and subjectivism which have been levelled against it.
In conclusion, then, it is impossible to praise this work too highly.
The sensitivity and seriousness of the author, the breadth and
depth of his learning, manifested in the copious and rich notes, the
allusive power of his presentation, and the centrality of his

HANS-GEORG GADAMER'S " TRUTH AND METHOD "

821

problem make the reading of the book an example of what it is
about. Although the English translation does not live up to the
precision and felicity of the German original, the subject matter
itself shines forth. All those laboring in the humaniora-including
the theologians-will neglect this volume at their own risk. For in
its innermost dynamism it is the attempt to develop a " theory
of the real experience that thinking is" (p. xxiv) by engaging
us in the very thing itself.
ROBERT

University of Lowell
Lowell, Massachusetts

E. INNIS

BOOK REVIEWS
San Tommaso. Fonti e riflessi del suo pensiero, Saggi. Edited by Antonio
Piolanti. Pontificia Accademia Romana di S. Tommaso d' Aquino
(Studi Tomistici 1). Rome: Citta Nuova Editrice, 1974. Pp. 488.
L. 6.000.
The Roman Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas has inaugurated
a new series of Thomistic Studies under the directorship of the indefatigable
The first four
Msgr. Antonio Piolanti, Vice President of the
volumes of Studi Tomistici commemorate the seven hundredth anniversary
of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas through a wide variety of studies, historical and contemporary, by internationally known scholars. These volumes are entitled: (1) St. Thomas, Sources and Reflections on his Thought;
(2) St. Thomas and Contemporary Theological Problems; (8) St. Thomas
and Modern Thought; (4) St. Thomas and the Philosophy of Law Today.
They are beautifully produced, though some, notably Piolanti's lengthy
contribution in the first volume, abound with typographical errors.
The first volume, devoted to sources and reflections on the thought of
St. Thomas, consists of eighteen articles, eleven of which are in Italian,
six (and a preface by Etienne Gilson) in French, and one in German.
Though not all contributors shed new light on the problems considered, the
eminence of such authors makes this volume particularly noteworthy as
a monument of contemporary Thomistic scholarship and deserves particular
consideration.
The first volume is roughly divided into two parts: (pp. 13-222) studies
on the sources of St. Thomas, and (pp. 226-486) historical reflections on
his thought throughout the centuries prior to the Aeterni patris of Leo
XIII (1879). Each of these two parts is divided unequally into three
chronological groups of studies. The first part considers non-Christian
philosophers, Fathers of the Church, and medieval authors; the second
focuses on certain aspects of the Renaissance, the 16th century, and the
19th.
In a judicious summary study Carlo Giacon, S. J., of the University of
Padua, discusses " The Thomistic Interpretation of the Unmoved Mover,"
locating Thomas's novelty in conceiving the Unmoved Mover as Creator
of the universe who creates freely with full knowledge of Himself and
things other than Himself. The interesting study of Prof. Ermenegildo
Bertola, of the Catholic University of S. Cuore in Milan, " The Theory
of Light in Avicenna," is basically a paraphrase of the relevant chapter
in Avicenna's De anima.

BOOK REVIEWS

Among studies devoted to the Fathers of the Church, the most stimulating and suggestive contribution is made by Clemente Vansteenkiste,
0. P., of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, in his brief
Notes (Appunti) on" St. Thomas and Hilary of Poitiers"; without listing
all the references or drawing out all the ramifications, he shows that, among
the more than 700 explicit references identified, St. Thomas had a special
affinity for the apostolic spirit of this auctoritas, who is an antiquus Doctor
in the period prior to St. Augustine. In " St. Thomas and St. Augustine "
the eminent Charles Boyer, S. J., Secretary General of the Pontifical
Academy, repeats much of what he has previously said, notably his conviction that Augustinian " Illumination " is none other than " the creation,
the conservation and the motion of intelligence." (p. 80) The lengthy study
of Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, of the Lateran University, presents nothing
new under the title of " The Augustinian Tradition in the Thomistic
Synthesis." Msgr. Giorgio Giannini, of the Lateran, in "The Fourth
Thomistic Way in Augustinian Perspective," argues that the fourth Way
of St. Thomas is "purely explicative and not demonstrative" (p. Ill)
and that there is no " substantial " difference between the approach of
St. Thomas and St. Augustine to the existence of God. In his "Note on
the Procession of the Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian Theology of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas," Agostino Trape, 0. S. A., of the " Augustinianum "
in Rome, shows that " St. Thomas moves along the line traced by St. Augustine," but that he does " resolve some important questions which St.
Augustine had left unsolved." (p. 119)
In an important study, "Patristic and Monastic Traditions in the
Teaching of the Summa theologiae on the Contemplative Life," Dom Jean
Leclercq, 0. S. B., of the Abbey of Clervaux in Luxembourg, analyzes the
technical vocabulary of St. Thomas and the monastic tradition, e. g.,
" quies," " otium," " vacare," and " libertas," the primacy of contemplation,
grades of contemplative life, and the originality of St. Thomas in reconciling traditional views with the vastly different mentality of Aristotle.
Dom Leclercq's observations deserve careful reconsideration by Thomists,
particularly his account of the "mixed life" (pp. 144-46), the legitimacy
of his calling contemplation a " means " or " instrument " of action, and
the role of Aristotle in Thomas's theology of contemplation. (pp. 150-58)
A fascinating discussion is presented by Cardinal Pietro Palazzini in "An
Erroneous Citation of St. Thomas: The Privilegium Romanae Ecclesiae
and the Milanese Mission of St. Peter Damiani," in which the text attributed to Nicholas II (from Decret. Grat., D. 22, c. I) should be correctly attributed to Peter Damiani, Op. 5 (PL 145, 91). A careful analysis
of St. Thomas's Commentary on the Sentences is given by Abbe Francis
Ruello, of the Catholic University of Angers, in his " St. Thomas and Peter
Lombard: Trinitarian Relations and the Structure of the Commentary

824

BOOK REVIEWS

on the Sentences of St. Thomas Aquinas." L.-B. Gillon, 0. P., of the
Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, presents an illuminating note
concerning the view that God created man propter reparationem angelicae
ruinae (II Sent., dist. 1, n. 6) in his article "The Spirit, 'Part' of the
Universe: Concerning a Text of Richard Fishacre."
Although there are only seven studies making up the second half of the
volume, they constitute a significant contribution to the history of
Thomism, a vast field still needing considerable research. The first contribution is a comprehensive survey of " Thomism at the End of the Middle
Ages " by Professor Stefan Swiefawski of the Catholic University of Lublin.
Unfortunately the author, who elsewhere has contributed seriously to the
study of Thomism in Poland in the 15th century, here depends exclusively
upon secondary sources, notably on the recent work of P. 0. Kristeller. In
"Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and the Thomistic Thesis of lpsum esse"
Msgr. Giovanni Di Napoli, now of the Lateran University, maintains that
while Pico was not a Thomist and did not want to be classified as a Thomist
"per appartenenza all'Ordine domenicano o ad una scuola" (p. 280), his
formidable insistence that the essence of God is lpsum esse makes him substantially faithful to "l'ontoteologia di Tommaso d'Aquino." (Of course,
Giovanni Pico was received into the Dominican Order by Savonarola when
he was on his death bed at the age of 31.) In an unfortunately brief article
Count Gian Ludovico Masetti Zannini relates certain little known facts
"About the Roman Edition of the Works of St. Thomas (1569-1571)."
Father Guglielmo Di Agresti, 0. P., editor of Memorie Domenicane, Pistoia,
publishes three letters of St. Catherine de Ricci with copious Thomistic
notes, shortly to be included in volume 8 of the Fanti, in his article "The
Doctrinal Affinity Between St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Catherine de
Ricci." In a short, but illuminating and convincing article Msgr. Heribert
Schauf, Professor in the diocesan seminary of Aachen, shows " Thomas as
Theological Crown-Witness in the Provincial Council of Cologne (1860) ."
A most valuable contribution is made by Msgr. Robert Jacquin, Honorary
Professor at the Catholic Institute of Paris, in his article " The Philosophy
of St. Thomas Aquinas in France During the 19th Century Before the
Encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879)" by showing the chronological rehabilitation of Thomistic philosophy from the initial lectures of Victor Cousin in
1828 through the numerous editions and translations of St. Thomas's
Summa and finally elementary Thomistic summaries presented as the true
"philosophie chretienne."
The longest contribution to the entire volume is the 98 page article by the
editor, Msgr. Antonio Piolanti, entitled "Pius IX and the Revival of
Thomism." While the work of Pius IX preparatory to the clarion call of
Leo XIII may not be sufficiently recognized, documents relative to this
work are available with little difficulty and there have been numerous

BOOK REVIEWS

325

studies published recently concerning the Thomism of lesser known leaders
in Italy during the pontificate of Pius IX, especially in the Lateran periodical Aquinas. There is little need to publish all such documents in extenso.
However, many students will be grateful for making them so readily available together with a rather complete bibliography of recent work. The
trouble with the "Thomism" of so many of these pioneers is that the authenticity of their Thomism has not been sufficiently analyzed. Even the
early appeals of Pius IX to the authority of " Scholastic Doctors " was
not specifically, much less exclusively, to the authority of St. Thomas. The
prodding of many less studied individuals led to the clarification of the
precise role of St. Thomas in Catholic theology and, even more, in philosophy.
While few, if any, would wish to see a return to the legislated Thomism
of the Modernist "period" (whenever that is supposed to have ended),
many would wish to see a more accurate understanding of the authentic
teaching of St. Thomas in its historical context together with a faithful
analytic appreciation of its lasting significance.
What is needed today, even after seven hundred years, is further research,
both historical and analytical, into the thought of the Common Doctor of
the Church. Nothing less than the truth will make us free: veritas in seipsa
fortis est et nulla impugnatione convellitur (Contra Gentiles, IV, c. 10).
Nothing less than the highest scholarship, the profoundest meditation,
and the noblest apostolic zeal can best serve the needs of the Church in
the modern day. This volume and many other contributions to the septicentennial celebration in 1974 not only testify to the vitality of contemporary Thomistic studies, but also open new avenues for renewed research in all areas of concern to the Church.
JAMES A. WEISHEIPL, 0. P.
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Toronto, Canada

A New Pentecost? By LEON JosEPH CARDINAL SuENENS. Translated by
Francis Martin. A Crossroad Book. New York: The Seabury Press,
1974. Pp. 252. $7.95.
Many of us grew up in an era when utterances of the ecclesiastical
hierarchy could be expected to deal with issues merely in the perspective
of their propositional orthodoxy. Such readers will find Cardinal Suenens's
A New Pentecost? a leap, in one easy lesson (if, indeed, they have had no
others) into a new day. Presenting an orderly reflection on the role of
the Holy Spirit in Christian life, the book reviews the multiform phenomena
of charismatic happenings in the Church. The years following Vatican II,

826

BOOK REVIEWS

Suenens confesses, have been, in large part, a dark night tempting to despair. Now, he declares, "I can see signs telling me that the winter of the
post-Council era is evolving into spring." (p. 216)
The witness of the Cardinal is singularly affecting. The institutional mind
(not, of course, a monopoly of some hierarchs) has ordinarily thought of
the charisms which he describes as in some tension with the Institution.
The gossip about local prayer groups, new forms of community, and startling
occurrences has been cynical and often censorious. We know the " types.''
We know of the excesses of history. We have doctrinal problems in connection with what is reported. We hear of demands for investigation by
the hierarchy. Besides, as phenomena that do not pertain to ecclesiastical
structure, even the good things are perhaps less meaningful to the larger
community. Suenens admits to having held similar suspicions regarding
what others were calling a charismatic movement.
From the point of view of his earlier misgivings, the author sets out to
forestall objections to the new style of Christian living about which he reports. His apologetic is a basic, loosely organized Pneumatology. The Holy
Spirit is the bond of unity or the life-breath of the Church. This oneness
is experienced not so much by merely " sociological " Christians as by those
who are fully engaged in Christian living. The Acts of the Apostles is
like a fifth Gospel, in which the Holy Spirit is seen as the life principle
of the early Church. Not all charisms are extraordinary; St. Paul speaks of
the charism of teaching (Rom. 12.7; 1 Cor. 12.28; 14.26), of exhortation
and consolation (Rom. 12.8), and of the gift of administration (1 Cor.
12.28). Charisms have been given and recognized throughout the centuries.
In Vatican II, when Cardinal Ruffini suggested prudently relegating them
to the past, he was successfully opposed by Suenens. Though we conceive
it poorly, the relation of the Holy Spirit to Jesus is at the heart of the
Liturgy. To experience the Spirit is to be removed from neither suffering
nor the world of men.
In his fifth chapter, Suenens retells the story of the charismatic movement in the United States. He is convinced this is not so much a " movement " as the manifestation of a renewal in the universal Church, linked
to communal renewal movements such as the Opera di Maria (Focolarini)
and the Family Encounter.
In a further interpretation, the author gives the constant characteristics
of charismatic renewal. It is Christocentric; it shows a deepening of the
life of prayer, which favorably affects social action; it possesses a sense
of the Church. An extended and helpful discussion of praying in tongues
informs the reader that such prayer is neither miraculous nor pathological
nor useless to those who hear it. In fact, concerning charism generally, it
is the" normal" and authentic Christian who is charismatic. Various new
forms of community are described as drives toward the essentially com-

BOOK REVIEWS

827

munal nature of Christianity. These basic communities must find some
way of integrating themselves into the life of the local parish and of exercising a prophetic role there-even though the parish structure, as the
author acknowledges, suffers some obsolescence. A chapter entitled " The
Holy Spirit and Mary " goes beyond the vague notion of exaggeration in
explaining why Protestants have objected to Marian devotions: Catholic
piety has ascribed to Mary what is proper only to the Holy Spirit-e. g.,
the assertion that Mary forms Christ in us. Yet Mary must be seen as the
model of the charismatic Christian; her reception of the Spirit left no trace
of illuminism.
This is a theological book on a subject which stands in need of theological
reflection. The need is probably greatest among those who remain aggressively uninterested in charismatic renewal. Nevertheless, a polite applause
for its theological effort would be improperly condescending. In several
places a reader could wish for more. There seems to be a confusion between
desiring to experience God and wishing to demonstrate His existence; otherwise religious experience would not be suggested as God's verifiability. (pp.
58-54) Some useful observations can be made in terms of " the biblical
conception of truth" (p. 58), "Hebrew thought" and contrasts between
"the Old Testament" and "the New Testament" (p. 59); but perhaps
some major discriminations of biblical scholarship could be usefully incorporated without forfeiting the argument. There are two undistinguished
capsulations of historical exaggerations-{)ne which finds that the
Modernists situated the essence of Christianity in a subjective experience
of life, and another which has Schleiermacher extolling a religion of romantic sentiment. (p. 57) Many enthusiasts of liberation theology may fail
to find their objectives mirrored in the author's treatment of that movement. (pp. 167-76) But, above all, a central issue of Pneumatology is left
unstudied-i. e., the relation of the Holy Spirit to Christ. The author returns to the subject repeatedly but seems not to advance the development.
(e.g., pp. mo, 165-66)
Nevertheless, the Cardinal has done well to give us this book rather than
to succumb to the intimidation of unanswered questions. A reader does not
hesitate to accept his allusion to I Cor. 2.8-4, where St. Paul asks his readers
to note that he has not relied upon " the persuasive arguments that belong
to philosophy " but rather upon " a demonstration of the power of the
Spirit." (pp. 28, 87)
The demonstration in our case is of one bishop's conception of his role
in the Church. I have not been a faithful Suenens watcher; but, even if
I could set this book into the context of news releases on the Cardinal,
I would judge that inappropriate. What we have here is a powerfully encouraging representation of a bishop as literary persona, a dramatic image
which is a theological datum of great value. The bishop-author of A New

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Pentecost? allows us to see a bishop, within the frame of his composition,
offering a personal testimony before the Church. He presents the experience
and insight of a fellow-Christian, not suppressing awareness of that finitude
by which each of us belongs to a given " generation." (p. 2) He is a
courageous listener. He hears appreciatively what "rank and file Christians" (p. 107) say and what theologians think. (pp. 48-49, 63-64, 104,
etc.) He is, in fact, uniquely encouraging to theologians, by continually
and publicly longing for the understanding which they seek. His ecumenism
begins in the specifics of what he has learned from the East, from the Ortho"
dox, from Episcopalians, and from Protestants. For him even " prayer is
becoming more and more a listening." (p. 218) He has a sense of the
limitations of institutional elements in the Church, but a conviction of their
necessity as well. He summons his fellow-bishops to catch up with the
charismatic renewal (p. 91); they, and theologians too, must study the
phenomenon by being part of it. (p. 104) He does not wait for directives,
but he indicates how his leadership falls within the programmatic lines of
papal utterances. He is not slow to admit to handicaps and to previous
error. This bishop-author is a stimulating sign.
When such a writer says he sees signs that the winter of the post-Council
era is changing to spring, he is easy to believe. As we become acquainted
with him, the question-mark of his title vanishes.
EMERO STIEGMAN
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, N. S., Canada

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Volume 57 (3a 66-72). Baptism
and Confirmation. Commentary and translation by JAMES JusTIN
CUNNINGHAM, 0. P., with two Appendices on the Liturgy by GERARD
AusTIN, 0. P. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co. and London: Eyre
& Spottiswoode, 1975. $12.50.
This recent addition to the Blackfriars edition of the Summa Theologiae
is a welcome one. Father Cunningham has rendered a readable translation
of the Leonine text which admits of no major textual variants. The accompanying apparatus is helpful, particularly iJl. that it offers references
to Mansi's monumental work on the Councils. The author is a Professor
of New Testament, and the footnotes, together with the :first three appendices, are especially sensitive in analyzing and often amplifying St.
Thomas's use of Scripture, always with an eye to contemporary biblical
exegesis and theology. Father Cunningham's presentation of the biblical
roots of baptism, the problem of infant baptism, and the relationship of
faith to baptism commend this volume to the reader concerned with an

BOOK REVIEWS

up-to-date and exact survey of these current issues with reference to
Aquinas.
It is unfortunate that Father Cunningham was unable to have at his
disposal the preceding volume of the series, yet unpublished, entitled "The
Sacraments" ('De sacramentis in communi '). Undoubtedly, this accounts
for the failure of this work to note St. Thomas's expansions upon his previous introductory questions on the sacraments in general. Several instances
of what might have been done come to mind. St. Thomas's twofold manner
of seeing the sacraments as " cultic " and " sanctifying " (III, Q. 60, art.
5) might have served as two poles of perspective ordering the appendices
and enabling the author(s) to have brought to better light the internal
connections between baptism and confirmation in the Summa. Also, mention might have been made of the fact that St. Thomas's treatment of
sacramental efficacy has been considerably deepened in his elaboration of
the effects of baptism and confirmation, now seen as intimately linked
with incorporation into Christ and the mission of the Holy Spirit. Another
case, though not entirely neglected, is Aquinas's view of the general relationship between faith and the sacraments. It is only when St. Thomas
treats of baptism that the actual order of redemption is seen to require
neither faith alone nor sacraments alone, but faith and the sacraments for
justification. What has been hinted at in the previous treatise is made
explicit here. This point obviously has significance if for no other reason
than to round out Aquinas's general sacramentology. However, Father
Cunningham cannot be completely faulted for this predicament. The entire
series suffers somewhat from lack of integration. While it may have been
too formidable a task to have neatly integrated the whole enterprise,
it could surely have been done within various tracts, particularly in the appendices.
The approach of the appendices shows their concern with relevant problems in the theology and practice of both baptism and confirmation. Helpful might have been an appendix that seriously tried-without bringing
the niceties of current scholarship into the foreground-to show the reader
how St. Thomas understood these sacraments. For example, Aquinas sees
the effects of baptism as incorporating the recipient into Christ, illuminating
the intellect, and assisting in the production of good deeds (III, Q. 69, art.
5) ; in turn, he views these effects as complementary to the effect of confirmation (III, Q.
art. 7). The interrelationship of these sacraments
and the Eucharist in Aquinas's thought was not a primary concern of this
work. One way of illustrating the differences between baptism and confirmation in St. Thomas, and, then again, their intimate connectedness, is
through a study of the res et sacramentum of both sacraments-a topic
which receives only peripheral attention throughout the book.
Father Austin's appendices are worthwhile sketches of the liturgical back-

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ground of these sacraments, and, understandably, weigh in favor of the
liturgical tradition's interest in seeing, through actual practice, a greater
unity among the sacraments of initiation. The opportunity, however,
of bringing out the " cultic " dimension of St. Thomas's sacramentology with respect to baptism and confirmation is oddly bypassed.
Surely such a consideration would have tempered Father Austin's remark-stemming from Thomas's ascribing to the "power " of baptism
some might
the ability to work for one's personal salvation-that
consider this a " non-social description of baptism." (p. 246) Taken in
the larger context of Aquinas's emphasis on the incorporation into Christ
of the baptized and his sharing in the priesthood of Christ with its socioecclesial implications, this becomes a misleading observation. Another such
instance is Father Austin's correct paragraph on Aquinas's misfortune in
not having available to him accurate liturgical sources when theologizing
about confirmation. If, as it is, Aquinas erred in citing the authority of a
'Pope Melchiades,' it does not follow, as the author seems to imply, that
what was attributed to the ' Pope ' was not in the authentic tradition of
the Church's understanding of the sacrament.
Interestingly enough, in the enumeration of reasons for deferring confirmation to a later time after baptism, Father Austin does not mention
"pastoral reasons" as a possible explanation for its delay. The only possibilities seem to be either the " rarity of episcopal visits " or " indifference "
(p. 247) about the sacrament. On the other hand, Father Cunningham
has had no timidity in theorizing that " pastoral concern " had significant
influence in determining the practice of infant baptism so widespread in
Aquinas's era.
None of these observations is meant to take away from the substantial
value of this work, evident in the excellent translation and in the informative scholarly footnotes. As a guide to St. Thomas's mature thinking on
these sacraments, it serves as a worthy introduction.
ALAN MILMORE,

o. P.

Providence College
Providence, Rhode 18land

Religionin America. By GEORGE C. BEDELL, LEO SANDON, JR., and CHARLES
T. WELLBORN, eds. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1975. Pp.
588.
While your reviewer lately has found himself weary of the overworked
concept of relevance, he must admit that relevant is what this book in
fact is. It addresses itself directly to those areas of historical reality and
personal experience currently evoking widespread interest on the part of

BOOK REVIEWS

881

American university students relatively ignorant of religion but eager to
consider their identities as religious or irreligious Americans.
This introduction to religion in America presents much more than a
mere anthology, although its documentary selections constitute as healthy
a balance of readings as I have seen. The authors present an interpretative
point of view and let their anthological inclusions act as an accumulating
illumination and criticism of their work. The readings serve as true sources
of enlightenment regarding what the authors imply in their developing
essay. The readings are not chosen, it seems to me, merely to serve as
buttresses and bulwarks upholding and defending what the writers have
to say. Indeed, the documents do shed light on the continuing thread of
commentary. The result here is that we move away somewhat from the
dreadfully sterile neutrality, the dogged objectivity, that renders most
introductory works in religion at the college level so inescapably soporific.
The authors dare to begin where most Americans are. They consider,
first of all, the roots and marks of civil religion in American life both today and yesterday. They demonstrate in their commentary and documents
the way civil religion constitutes an amalgamation of elements, such as
what I would call Old Testament Christianity, Enlightenment philosophy,
and American nationalism, into a popular alloy politically and religiously
comforting to the consciences of most pragmatic Americans. I refer to
those Americans who want to retain their traditional loyalties to their
pre-American or extra-American religious heritages while at the same time
participating whole-heartedly and religiously in the experience of being
Americans.
Looking more closely at the range of documents, we draw the following
sample from the greater corpus to indicate the scope of it. Not all of
these selections of course, are included in their entirety, but the range
spans the years from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries and covers
the religious landscape of American culture in all of its more widespread
and noteworthy manifestations. For examples: "Civil Religion in America," Robert Bellah; "Thoughts on the Revival," Jonathan Edwards; "The
Arrogance of Power," William Fulbright; "The Church and the Republic,"
James Cardinal Gibbons;" Pronouncement on the Churches and the Public
Schools," NCCC; "Unitarian Christianity," William Ellery Channing; "A
Plea for the West," Lyman Beecher; "Letter from Birmingham Jail,''
Martin Luther King, Jr.; "Anti-Semitism in the United States,'' Arthur
Gilbert; ".The ' Soft ' Revolution,'' Sam Keen; " How to Save Mankind
from Extinction,'' Shri Hans Ji Maharaj.
Religion in America treats descriptively such themes as civil religion,
revivalism, indigenous American religious movements, and American religion in ferment, as well as the more usual themes such as religious liberty
and the free church, liberalism and conservatism, Black and White in the

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BOOK REVIEWS

American religious pattern, ecumenism and interfaith cooperation, these
themes constituting the majority of the book's major chapter headings.
While the authors claim the use of several scholarly methodologies in
their approach, including history, sociology, theology and anthropology, the
general spirit of the work bespeaks a presuppositional commitment to
America as a developing society moving rather surely in the direction of
a national unity blessed by a providence that inspires the populace to an
increasingly benign understanding of America's broad pattern of religious
communities and traditions. This attitude emanates quite clearly from the
concluding sentence of the book, a sentence appearing very much to be a
peroration, " Given the highly dialectical and pluralistic character of American religion, the student is encouraged to proceed in continuing investigation of this complex and fascinating phenomenon with an open and inquiring mind." One closes the book tempted to feel that really America
is a very nice place in which to be religious, and that there is no pressing
hurry involved in our making up our minds about the doctrinal particulars
of our respective commitments. Could it be that, in the great tradition
of John Dewey, our ultimate purpose as Americans in studying religion is
a religious commitment to study more religion?
JOHN R. WHITNEY
Professor of Christian Education
and Pastoral Theology
Virginia Theological Seminary
Alexandria, Virginia

Philosophy of Beauty. By FRANCIS J. KovAcH. Norman:
Oklahoma Press, 1974. Pp. 350.

University of

In his Preface the author explains that in this book he has not aimed
primarily at novelty and originality but at truth concerning beauty, at
least as he understands it, "on the basis of epistemological (though not
naive) realism." (p. vii) The book is the result of a double "prise de conscience " : on the one hand, of the fact that esthetic objectivism is being
questioned from all sides and is thus on the defensive; on the other hand,
of the fact that the precious heritage and the admirable wisdom of the
esthetic objectivists of the past, especially those of the Middle Ages, are
virtually forgotten. (Ibid.) The book is written in such a way that it
can be used both by students at different levels and by professionals. The
first part, on esthetics in general, examines the definitions (first etymological, then " essential ") and the divisions of esthetics. The second part,
which is much longer, begins by establishing through direct argumentation " the objective, extramental reality of beauty" (p. 65); the author
thereupon criticizes successively the various forms of esthetic subjectivism;

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BOOK REVIEWS

he then examines the reasons why people disagree about esthetics. Next,
after a historical inquiry into the essence of beauty, the author presents his
own "essential definition" of beauty, then demonstrates it "speculatively,
both at the physical (empirical) level and at the metaphysical level "
(p. 184) , employing the esthetic method which he has previously explained.
Proceeding by syllogisms, the author demonstrates that at the physical
level " every beautiful material being is an organized whole," and " all
material beauty consists in order, that is to say, in a unity that is integral
and proportioned." (pp. 184 and 185) At the metaphysical level "every
beautiful being is an integral whole, with or without proportioned parts,"
and "beauty in general is integral unity with or without proportion of
parts." (p. 185) The author thereafter discusses the division of beauty, its
" transcendentality " (always according to a syllogistic method), and its
privation (ugliness). Finally, in his concluding chapter, he studies esthetic
experience.
One readily sees that the entire endeavor of the author is to show the
objectivity of beauty. The criticisms which he addresses to Maritain
(apropos of transcendental beauty and esthetic beauty) indicate clearly
that he wishes at all costs to avoid esthetic subjectivism (see pp. 262-263).
From this standpoint his effort is very interesting. But it seems that he
does not altogether succeed in establishing an adequate realism as a basis
for safeguarding objectivity. In order perfectly to safeguard the reality
and the objectivity of the beautiful (while at the same time recognizing
the subjective component which it implies) , should he not have begun with
esthetic experience? The beautiful does not have the objectivity of the
true, nor that of the good; it has an objectivity of a very particular type
which entails a certain subjectivity. In analyzing what the beautiful is,
ought he not to distinguish the beautiful as founded in reality from the
beautiful as perceived by man as artist (since the beautiful, in the famous
phrase of Saint Thomas, is "that which pleases in being seen")? I may
perhaps be allowed to refer, on this point, to my study, L'activite artistique,
Volume 2, pages 246-295 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1970).
MARIE-DOMINIQUE

PHILIPPE,

0. P.

University of Fribourg
Switzerland

Becoming Human: An Invitation to Ethics. By WILLIAM E.
Dayton: Pflaum Publishing, 1975. Pp. 155. Paper, $4.50.

MAY.

This small book is an introduction to Christian moral theory, presented
through a survey of what has been happening in Christian ethics over
approximately the last ten years. The major points most discussed at the

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BOOK REVIEWS

present time are all touched: the relation of Christian ethics to the human
moral enterprise in general; questions of relativism and truth in ethics; the
meanings of conscience and its rights before authority; what at root makes
an action good or evil; the social dimensions of personal morality; the concrete natural and supernatural factors that make men able or unable to
recognize what is good and to do it.
Only a few of the books listed in the annotated bibliography antedate
1965. But May does cite most of the leading Christian moralists who
have participated in the debates of the last ten years. The author's own
position is clearly a classical one; significantly he expresses his personal
judgment that " [Germain] Grisez and [Paul] Ramsey are the very best
analysts of moral action writing in English." (p. 146) But he shows also
how hospitable a traditional Christian moralist can be to the many rich
suggestions flowing from contemporary moral thought. Still he does sharply
reject an ancient position that is being revived by a number of Catholic
moralists: a consequentialism that finds no kind of action intrinsically
wrong, that insists that any kind of action whatever is justifiable if one
has a " good enough reason " for doing it.
In a brief treatment of the relationship between ecclesial authority and
moral scholarship he reveals a genuine sympathy for the position of those
whose views have tended to weaken the acceptance of the Church's moral
authority. Yet he insists that it is clear that even in her "noninfallible
teaching" (a phrase that needs and does not receive careful analysis) the
Church's authentic teachers are not simply offering opinions to the faithful. (pp. 65-70) Unfortunately, the brevity of his treatment forbids anything like a satisfactory resolution of the difficulty.
This book is presented as an introduction to Christian ethics. But a
good introduction to ethics should not be so tightly bound to contemporary
debates. The important participants in the contemporary debates have
their roots in men like Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, and Mill. Students
need a good grounding in at least some consistent and rounded ethical
theory if they are to study the contemporary debates with much personal
insight. But this book could be useful in an introductory course. While the
students are beginning to probe in some depth the classical problems of
moral thinking, they need also a reliable guide to the contemporary discussions. And this is an excellent survey of recent debates among Christian
moralists. For this reason it would be helpful also for those who have
studied moral theology many years ago, and seek a clearer understanding
of what has been happening in the last decade.
RoNALD LAWLER, O.F.M.Cap.
Pontifical College Josephinum
W OTthington, Ohio

BOOKS RECEIVED
Intervarsity Press: The Universe Next Door: A Basic World-View Catalog,
by James W. Sire. (Pp. 214, $4.25, paper).
The Macmillan Company: Man is the Measure, by Reube! Abel (Pp.
Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy, by Stephen
Toulmin (Pp. 310).
McGraw-Hill Book Company: St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae,
Vol. 55 (3a, 53-59) The Resurrection of the Lord, translated by C.
Thomas Moore, 0. P. (Pp. 135, $10.00). Vol. 59 (3a 79-83) Holy
Communion, translated by Thomas Gilby, 0. P. (Pp. 187, $15.00).
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto: Philip the Cha:ncellor's
Theology of the Hypostatic Union, by Walter H. Principe (Pp. 218,
$IMO).
Pontificia Accademia Teologica Romana: Tomismo e N eotomismo a Ferrara,
by Giuseppe Cenacchi (Pp. 216) .
Scholars' Studies Press: Suicide and Morality: The Theories of Plato, Kant
and Aquinas, by David Novak (Pp. 136, $7.50).
The Seabury Press: Against the World for the World: The Hartford Appeal and the! Future of American Religion, edited by Peter Berger
and Richard John Neuhaus (Pp. 164, $8.95, cloth; $8.95 paper).
Bonhoeffer: Exile and Martyr, by Eberhard Bethge (Pp. 178, $7.95).
The University of California Press: On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle, by Franz Brentano, translated and edited by Rolf George
(Pp. 197, $12.50).
The University of Notre Dame Press: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra
Gentiles, translated with Introduction and Notes by Anton C. Pegis.
Vols. 1-5, Cloth, $55.00; paper, $19.00. Individual volumes available.
Yale University Press: Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies,
by Hans-Georg Gadamer, translated with an Introduction by P.
Christopher Smith (Pp. 116, $10.00).
Westminster Press: Lighten Our Darkness: Towards an Indigenous Theology of the Cross, by Douglas J. Hall (Pp. 256, $10.95). God's
Parable, by Frederick H. Borsch (Pp. 128, $8.50. paper).

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