Romano Guardini

I spent practically the whole morning wasting time on Guardini: picking up the notes I had taken at the Greg, filling them in from memory, then from the two-page handout, and then from the net. Trying to get the names of “his first two works on art” – hardly listed anywhere – I came across a doctoral thesis by Luigi Castangia, in Italian, which is a study of Guardini’s work on Dostoievsky. The title is Religiöse Gestalten in Dostojewskijs Werk. Romano Guardinis Interpretation des russischen Schriftstellers (2009-2010), and one of the two guides is Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz.

One thing I picked up was that Guardini took interest more in literature than in sculpture or painting – but that needs to be verified.

There are the two books on person that I picked up yesterday from LDC:

·      Persona e personalità (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2006). Tr. of “Über Sozialwissenschaft und Ordnung unter Personen,” in Die Schildgenossen 6 (1926) 125-150; probably later published in Unterscheidung des Christlichen, 1^st ed. (Mainz: Grünewald, 1935), 3^rd ed (Mainz/Paderborn: Grünewald/Schöningh, 1994) 1:44-75.

·      Mondo e persona. Saggio di antropologia cristiana. (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2015). Tr. of Welt und Person. Versuche zur christliche Lehre von Menschen, 1939¹, 1962⁵ = 1988⁶ (Mainz/Paderborn: Grünewald/Schöningh, 1995).

Community as primordial

"The traditional view was the product of trinitarian and christological problems as these were conceived within the systematic differentiation of consciousness as originated by Aristotle and transposed to Christian soil by Thomas Aquinas. The contemporary view comes out of genetic biology and psychology. From the 'we' of the parents comes the symbiosis of mother and child. From the 'we' of the parents and the symbiosis of mother and child comes the 'we' of the family. Within the 'we' of the family emerges the 'I' of the child. In other words the person is not the primordial fact. What is primordial is community. It is within the community, and through the intersubjective relations that are the life of community, that there arises the differentiation of the individual person." (Lonergan, [PGT] CWL 17:210-211) 

Persons and love

"A Gesu' interessano le persone." (Rossi de Gasperis, Sentieri di vita 2.2:114) Persons: in the final analysis, those who are able to love. That love is of course made possible by the intellectual nature, which means their ability to know and to freely decide and act. Love presuppose freedom: without freedom there is no love. And somehow, freedom is linked also to knowledge. Not in a necessarily linear way, but yes, linked. (Nihil amatum nisi cognitum, and the exception, minor and major, to this principle.) 

Hedwig Conrad-Martius

Placed an order for Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Das Sein, shipped by Abe Books all the way from Japan… should be here in 30-60 days. The book is one of  Ratzinger’s sources for his reflections on person and relation. The author is a woman, a phenomenologist and Christian mystic. Though Protestant, she received a dispensation to become the godmother of Edith Stein. Stein’s interest in Catholicism came from a visit to the home of Conrad-Martius.

C-M was one of the first women in German to pursue a university education. She came under the influence of Husserl, but later felt that Husserl's transcendental idealist tendency was not adequate. She herself worked out what is called an "ontological phenomenology."

Interesting that her Das Sein is one of the three sources quoted by Ratzinger when he indicates directions for the further development of his insights about the basically relational nature of all personal being. The other two sources are B. Welte, “Homoousios hemin,” in Das Konzil von Chalkedon III, ed. A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht (Würzburg, 1954), 51-80 and H.U. von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe according to Maximus the Confessor, tr. Brian E. Daley (San Francisco: Ignatius and Communio Books, 2003), 235-55. See http://books.google.co.il/books?id=Y1l5R-eROwYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Perhaps I should work towards a second article on Person and Relation, concentrating this time on Ratzinger's sources. A sort of retrieval of Ratzinger along the lines of what I tried to do for De Smet: what is his understanding of knowing? being? objectivity / truth? Should be extremely interesting. Ratzinger has, of course, a Bonaventure-Franciscan background, fundamentally, in contrast to several of the other leading theologians of the Council who had a Thomist background. 

Person and relation

Jose Kuttianimattathil has asked me to contribute to a Festschrift for Dominic Veliath. The topic suggested is Person and Relation - perhaps because of the Brahman and Person book. I have been collecting matter, mostly from the encyclopedias, on Person, before tacking De Smet and Lonergan.

Something very surprising and unexpected has turned up: Ratzinger criticizing both Augustine and Aquinas for sort of excluding the idea of relation from the definition of the human person - or not allowing the idea of relation, which pervades the concept of divine persons in God, its full and proper generality. Person as intrinsically relational, or, as Zizoulas, an Orthodox theologian, says: Being as Communion.

This makes things interesting and even exciting. What might Lonergan and De Smet, both of whom are soundly Thomist and, as far as I know, do not depart from Thomas, what might they have to say to the provocations of Ratzinger?

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find anything more substantial in Ratzinger than his “Zum Personverständnis in der Dogmatik” (1966), published as  “Zum Personbegriff in der Theologie" in  Dogma und Verkündigung (1973, 4th ed. 2005) and in English translation as "On the Understanding of ‘Person’ in Theology" in Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life (2011). 

De Smet on person

Michael Comans criticizes De Smet's suggestion that the para Brahman is equivalent to the personal God of Christianity. See The Early Method of Advaita Vedanta (Delhi: MLBD 2000) 225-231. Note that his maximum court of appeal w.r.t. an interpretation of Aquinas seems to be Copleston. Should be interesting to study this better. De Smet comes to Sankara trained by people like Scheuer (who De Smet himself calls "a prince among metaphysicians and a mystic", see "Surrounded by Excellence"), Marechal (in his mind the greatest of contemporary Thomists, again De Smet, see Understanding Sankara 132 tentative), and having taught a course in Metaphysics as well as Natural Theology for many years.
The bibliography lists: the dissertation, the article on Suresvara (1961), the Religious Hinduism article (1968, 1997), "Sankara and Aquinas on Creation" (1970), and the 1974 article "Towards an Indian View of the Person."

In general, see also:

• Paul Hacker, [Essay on the Person in Indian Thought] Kleine Schriften, herausgegeben von Lambert Schmithausen. Glasenapp-Stiftung: Band 15 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978) 270-292. [De Smet is aware of this: see his review of Hacker.]
• Paul Hacker, "The Idea of the Person in the Thinking of the Vedanta Philosophers." Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Ed. Wilhelm Halbfass. Albany: SUNY, 1995. 153-176. [Very likely a translation of the previous item.]

Important observations by De Smet in his review of Doctrine de la non-dualite,  see Understanding Sankara 443 (tentative). The author has not assimilated Krempel's masterly study of relation especially in Aquinas. Like many contemporary Christian writers, he includes 'relation' within the very definition of person without wondering why Aquinas did not do that. He explains: specific definitions of the term, when applied e.g. to the Trinity, have to include it for special reasons. but relation is not a definiens of person in general, which only connotes 'capacity for interpersonal relationships.' (ibid.)   

The self and the good

In the opening chapter of Sources of the Self, Charles Taylor notes that it is not possible to get clear about the 'modern identity' - about the human agent, person, or self - "without some further understanding of how our pictures of the good have evolved. Selfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes." (Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996] 3)

But there is another obstacle to this task:

Much contemporary moral philosophy, particularly but not only in the English-speaking world, has given such a narrow focus to morality that some of the crucial connections I want to draw here are incomprehensible in its terms. This moral philosophy has tended to focus on what it is right to do rather than on what it is good to be, on defining the content of obligation rather than the nature of the good life; and it has no conceptual place left for a notion of the good as the object of our love and allegiance.... (3)

As I begin to teach Moral Theology to the FMA novices here in Nashik, relying on notes that I had made 20 years ago, I realize how very true this is: the whole approach of my notes - derived from theology classes at Kristu Jyoti College? - is a focus on the moral act rather than on the nature of the good life.... And that was the focus also of Azzopardi's Ethics in JDV...

So is Taylor making common cause with MacIntyre, at least on this point?

And what might be the position of Giuseppe Abba, a much neglected figure in contemporary virtue ethics, not even finding mention in the current article on the topic in the Wikipedia?

Lonergan on person

"The Origins of Christian Realism," Second Collection 251-3.
'The Contemporary Notion of Person' in "Lecture 3: Philosophy of God and the Functional Specialty 'Systematics'," CWL 17:210-11.

Person and relation

Here is something I have been searching for and found this morning. It is from De Smet, saying why 'relation' is not to be included in the definition of person in general:

Krempel’s masterly study of the concept of relation, especially in St Thomas, seems not to have been sufficiently assimilated by the author. This weakens his understanding of ‘person’ and its possible application in Vedānta. Like many contemporary Christian writers, he includes ‘relation’ within the very definition of ‘person’ without wondering why St Thomas did not do that. Specific definitions of the term, when applied to specified persons, such as those of the Trinity, have to include it for special reasons. But ‘relation’ is not a definiens of ‘person in general’ which only connotes ‘capacity for inter¬personal relationships.’ (De Smet, Review of Doctrine de la Non-Dualite (advaita-vada) et Christianisme, in Indian Theological Studies 23/1 (1986) 65-68.

Hierarchical and equalitarian societies

From De Smet I learned the difference between the organicity of the Christian concept of person, and the atomism of rationalist individualism. The former seems to be the mark of all organically related, hierarchical societies. The latter seems to be, instead, the presupposition or the foundation of modern (and technological) democracies.

This insight is not exclusive to De Smet. He himself draws on Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, for example. (See De Smet, Brahman and Person, 2010 69.)

Strange that I had to come across the very same reference - and insight - in Edward Rutherfurd's historical novel, Sarum.

And then again in Richard Howard's ongoing series of articles in Divyadaan on Gandhi. The difference between Gandhi and Nehru - one of the differences - is that between an organic, hierarchical, pre-modern society and an atomistic, modern society.

But there is food for thought here. For the hierarchical societies are prone to structural injustices, such as the caste system, while the equalitarian societies attempt at least to do away with such. Logically, in fact, Gandhi defended the varna system, while Ambedkar attacked this system and the hierarchical society to which it belonged, opting for modern democracy.

Person and Subject in Lonergan

Yesterday I managed to complete a more or less final version of my paper for Boston. Now the task of going through it once again, doing the 'toilet,' etc.

The title: "Person and Subject in Lonergan: A methodical transposition." I have omitted mention of De Smet and Sankara, because I am not really doing that, merely indicating possible results of using 'subject' as upper blade.

So most of the paper consists in bringing together the data in Lonergan on his transposition from person to subject. The data is found mostly in his Latin notes: De Constitutione Christi... (1956), Divinarum Personarum... (1957) = De Deo Trino, II (1964), and De Verbo Incarnato (1961). There is some good matter also in "Christ as Subject" (1959).

Nothing dramatic or earth-shaking. But it is instructive how Lonergan is able to make the term person systematic by inserting it within a clutch of terms, and similarly for the term subject. The former is inserted into a (largely classical) metaphysical context, while the latter is inserted into that of intentionality analysis. The crucial and critical notion as far as the latter is concerned is consciousness.

I became aware that the dialectic of consciousness is based on the Aristotelian-Thomist theorem of knowing by identity (sensible in act is the sense in act, intelligible in act is the intellect in act), but that this is precisely a theorem, a postulate, an assumption. That is why, perhaps, the 'epistemology' of Insight, the dialectical part (chapter 14), does not make use of it, appealing instead to the basic counterpositions or performative contradictions.

Using this data to read De Smet on Sankara, I discussed briefly the following: cognitional theory, the notion of being, consciousness, the human self.

The conclusion is that there is sufficient data in Sankara to indicate that he recognized both divine and human subjects, and that his notion of consciousness seems to be consciousness-experience. But all these are heuristic anticipations, to be confirmed by further and full study of the data.