'To know' is the function (arete) that Aristotle ascribes to the human being. The function of man is to know things. How? By completing nature---the act of human knowing is the final 'form' of things.
It has rarely been noticed that truth grows between man and the phenomena that actuality (nature)
presents. A phenomenon may come-to-presence but no one is there to receive it. The thing is completed when man knows this crocus and bee in immediate sensing. Truth is what a person does.... (note the irony). Man 'finishes' nature in the act of perception which is completed in knowledge. This process is the coming-to-true of truth. Man is the place where truth comes to stand and be (paraphrasing Heidegger). Finishing ('teleo') http://biblehub.com/greek/5055.htm
God is an 'absent Presence'---absent in nature, absent in human perception, absent in knowing the world. But present to faith seeking truth. Howso?
Knowing and all of its relations are the rational function of the human animal---The answer to the question: Why is it raining? follows.... It is raining so that man might know the enjoyment of rain and know the truth of the rain. But why? Toward what end (telos)? Knowledge is completely satisfied in its discovery of truth. And where there not another spiritual mental activity, one could find then and there the completed, naturalistic and entirely functional philosophy of Aristotle. Naming completes the thing and the adequate judgement of the name and the thing is the glue that binds this ensemble.
I am entirely in agreement with this "epistemology"---however, my intellect is not completely in agreement with this. It seems as though all transcendence is swallowed up in immanence. Such a view adequately expresses a buddhistic view if I am not mistaken.
I discover that in my grasping-knowing arete, there is still a further 'desire' to acknowledge truth in transcendence. The path of reason is blocked here, however, there is as it were an indirect method
(cf. Kierkegaard on 'indirect communication'). This is the role of faith. Here is how apostle Paul defines faith:
1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Knowing cannot make a path into the "unseen" or "hoped for" and yet the intellect possess a 'spiritual' means of accepting what will come-to-pass in advance. It can accept what is beyond the limit of the finite mind to grasp. And no matter how much one tries to fortify human knowing (for example with the accoutrements of scientific inquiry) It is a capacity to know that I know and to know that I will know, and to know that I have known. It is a gauge of truth. Were there no such measure, no such transcendence, neither would there be any means of grasping temporality. All would be presence for man, just as for the oak tree or the red fox. But since man can measure what has been against what is, he can mark time---he can ascertain what is true, or not true. Likewise in the future.
There is no measure of gauge of truth if knowing is entirely embedded within an immanent epistemology. Transcendence "seals" knowing---allows me to say "I know"---hence it is the ground of personhood ("I am"). Otherwise It would simply be a knowing-in-the-world like a sponge or plasma--not a personally felt and grasped experience of squeezing the sponge (this is the essential difference that marks man from the sponge!) Man knows the sponge and names it, the sponge does no such thing.
Here is the key for understanding this essay: if all human knowing were ultimately the universe or nature itself coming to perfect itself through man's knowing, then truth would always consist in the judgement's correct naming of a set of affairs adequate to the thing known. The dog yet chases her tail. Such knowledge is of value, albeit merely functional. But the human being yearns for 'truth' in a moral or ethical sense. What is true 'truth"? What makes truth "true"? To grasp true truth, one must employ faith---because what makes truth "true" is not visible and is not a thing discoverable in the world. Neither of course is this 'guarantor' of truth "out of this world". There is no need for an additional account of knowing (Aristotle's method) is sufficient. This is why Aquinas agreed to accept the psychology of Aristotle. There is no need for an additional transcendent thing (or super-thing) to secure the knowing of truth.
Thinking, knowing, truth are a going concern only for man---not for angels or rocks or dogs! And certainly not for God. The totality of knowing of the soul expresses all of the truth and knowledge of the universe. But it does so in a through and through functional grasp. Only the employment of faith "activates" or brings human knowing to a personal grasp. Stated mystically: God allows man to come to a complete grasp of the universe through their soul. Only by "aiming" at a personal, transcendent 'telos' does the human person fully grasp its being-in-the-world, its grasp of its being so, and the tranquility and joy that follows from knowing the truth. The sine qua non to such fulfillment is an act of faith: Heidegger calls it "Gelassenheit' or openness to being. Faith is what allows truth to be known---it is knowledge-squared. I know that I know that I know. Without faith one has the complete immanence of functional knowing, but no possibility of accounting (logos) how this knowledge comes-to-pass.
2 comments:
The concept of arete immediately brings to my mind Machiavelli's notion of virtu...When readings on Aristotle state that he viewed man's end or telos as being "happiness," is it slighting the broader more encompassing sense of "entelechaia?"
The notion that knowledge is man's unique function" does not necessarily mean that it will lead to happiness or a virtuous life or "Truth." Knowledge of 13K innocent civilians being hung in a secret jail in Syria by Assad recently does not bring happiness, nor does knowledge of my own weaknesses and shortcomings, nor does knowledge in a Kierkegarrdian sense, one tinged with dread and anxiety...it is "true" that there is much evil in the world, but the evil is not "Truth"...Knowledge<>Truth
Your essay will requires a second/multiple readings to fully grasp...thanks for posting.
Thanks for your insightful comment. But I must take you to task on one sentence:
"The notion that knowledge is man's unique function" does not necessarily mean that it will lead to happiness or a virtuous life or "Truth."
You mention the "knowledge" of 13K innocent citizens being hung... Let's examine more carefully what kind of knowledge this is. It is not yours or my own experience. You claim to "know" this as the result of having believed an account. I am not questioning per se the veracity of the event(s)---but the knowing of something by hearsay is one of the weaker forms of knowing.
Direct experience is a much more potent form of knowledge. The knowledge that brings happiness is not the "news of the world"---but the knowledge of being in the truth---even if it is a prison---the happiness earned through contemplation is not a emotional state but a through and through grasp and acceptance of that which is and cannot be otherwise. True knowledge then becomes a form of acquiescence---letting it be---this is the peace which surpasses all understanding.
Socrates gives us the example of a happy man---though he is facing inevitable death as an innocent. Think also Of Bonhoeffer, being hung in the concentration camp. The "knowledge" that he would be killed was not cheerful---but his acceptance of what was God's will, gives him a knowledge of the truth, to know the mind of christ---a joy which no man can take away. Truly contemplative knowledge gives eternal life and is eternal life---this is only grasped in the immediate experience of the individual who loves God enough to trust all of God's ways (including Syrian hell) as our lord did when he offered himself for crucifixion.What kind of happiness is this? What kind of knowledge is this?
St. Paul writes : "To know Jesus Christ is eternal life." But this does not mean that it will be peaches and cream---no! For if they slaughtered the master what more will they do to his servants. Paul also says that it is an absolute honor to die on behalf of his lord and master. It may also help to ponder Abraham and Isaac---what kind of faith and devotion and love does God require? Kierkegaard does not see Abraham as a fool.
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