Apr 17 2009
Rosmini’s Sketch Of His Own Philosophy: Articles 4-6
This is the eighth installment of a series of posts from a booklet ROSMINI: A BRIEF CRITIQUE OF SOME PHILOSOPHERS AND A SKETCH OF HIS OWN SYSTEM
4. The Ideas Exist In God From All Eternity
It was the consideration of these sublime characteristics of the ideas that led Plato and after him St Augustine and St Thomas to conclude that the ideas reside in God as their source and principle.
From this opinion Malebranche deduced his system that man, as well as every other finite intelligence, sees all that he does see in God. This system that man, as well as every other finite intelligence, sees all that he does see in God. This system was afterwards defended from the imputations against its theological orthodoxy by Cardinal Gerdil.
We do not entirely accept this system, for reasons too long to enter upon here, but we recognise in it a foundation of truth, and we say in general that the differences between our system and that of Malebranche lies not in fundamentals but in details.
5. Important Distinction Of Ideas In God And In Man.
We are very particular in distinguishing the ideas as they are in God and as seen by our intelligence. The ideas are in God in a different mode from that in which they are displayed to our mind. The ideas in God have a mode of existence which differs in nothing from that of God Himself, and this is the mode of the Divine Word; Who is with God without any real distinction in Himself, and is God Himself. This is not the case with the ideas as exhibited to our mind.
In our mind the ideas are many and do not constitute by themselves the word of man, because the word is the expression of a judgment or affirmation or pronouncement, which has its term always in a reality, whereas the ideas only cause us to know the possibility of a reality. Hence the ideas are limited by the human mind which receives them in such a way that they can not receive the appellation of God or the Divine Word, because God is the Real absolute Being Who subsists necessarily; whereas the ideas are only possibles, that is possible real beings of which we have the intuition. And yet the ideas retain certain divine characteristics, such as we have stated above, so that we may with propriety term them appurtenances of God.
Hence, speaking generally, we may say that the origin of the ideas come from God, Who causes them to shine before the human mind; nor can they come to man from the external things, because finite beings possess none of those sublime characteristics, and nothing can impart what it does not possess.
6. Classification of the Ideas. The One Indeterminate Idea and the Determinate Ideas-concrete and Abstract Ideas.
We may now advance a step further towards discovering the origin of human ideas, explaining their multiplicity, and showing how they concur in the production of that class of cognitions which are termed cognitions by persuasion.
We will begin by classifying the ideas according to the order of subordination in which they stand to one another. We find, therefore, that there is one idea, which is the only indeterminate and wholly universal idea, and this is the idea of being or existence. All the other ideas are more or less determinate, and give us the knowledge of possible beings within a more restricted area.
Now, between the indeterminate idea of being or existence and all the other ideas, there exists this relation, that all the other ideas contain the indeterminate idea of being, to which different determinations are super-added. Take, for instance, the ideas of stone, tree, animal, man.
How do I get the idea of stone? It is a being, but not any kind of being, but one which has the determination of stone.
How do I get the idea of tree? it is a being with the determination of tree.
How do I get the idea of animal? Again, it is a being which has the determination of animal.
How do I get the idea of man? Still we have a being with the determination proper to man.
We find, therefore, that being enters into all our ideas, and every determinate idea is nothing but this same idea of being, invested with and limited by certain determinations. All the ideas, therefore, have the same basis, one common element, which is ideal or possible being.
These determinations of the idea of being may be more or less complete, that is to say, they may determine being entirely, or determine it only on one side, leaving the other sides undetermined.
Thus, for example, I may form the idea of a book of a certain size and shape, printed in a certain type, and in fact furnished with all the other accidental determinations of a given book. This is the determinate idea of a book, and nevertheless this idea is still general, because it is a pure idea, not a real book; it is a type or exemplar which I have before my mind, and according to this type I might form an indefinite number of real books all precisely alike. On the other hand, I may have the idea of a book to a certain extent indeterminate, as when I think of a book with all that constitutes its essence, prescinding from the accidents of size, shape, type, ect. Now when the ideas are all fully or perfectly determined we call them concrete ideas; when they remain to a certain extent indeterminate we call abstract. But if from the idea of book I take away all its determinations, as well accidental as essential, the idea of book vanishes from my mind, and nothing remains bu the idea of indeterminate being.
Thus the ideas take as it were the form of a pyramid. The first course in the structure is formed of the concrete and wholly determinate ideas, and these are necessarily the most numerous. The other courses consist of of the less determinate ideas, which diminish in proportion as we divest them of their determinations. The apex of the pyramid consists of the idea of being which alone is without determinations.
If then we wish to give a satisfactory explanation of the origin of ideas we must account for two things,-first, the indeterminate idea; and second, its determinations.
