Intentionalität and Intentionale: Two Distinct Notions

Abstract

Still, is there not one severe shortcoming in our characterization thus far of Dascin as Intentional Life of Man? Even though the texts we have cited thus far go beyond subject-object polarity and by that very fact require a non- subject-ist (and a-fortiori non-subjective) analysis, still, insofar as they make reference to the world of awareness, they do so by reference to concepts, elements of explicit awareness (albeit as pure media quo). Therefore, though they doubtless indicate a generally unthematized dimension in Thomism, they do so at the level of (what Heidegger would call) our “ontic comportment” with beings. To simply identify Dasein with the intentional life in these terms, at the level of explicit thought, is to destroy the very possibility of an authentic retrieve of Heidegger I: “Any attempt to re-think Being and Time is thwarted as long as one is satisfied with the observation that, in this study, the term Dasein is used in place of‘consciousness’;”¹ because “consciousness does not itself create the openness of Beings, nor is it consciousness that makes it possible for man to stand open for beings,”² whereas Dasein does. It is not a question of consciousness, but of the Being of consciousness.³

“Huiusmodi autem viventia…habent duplex esse. Unum quidem materiale, in quo convcniunt cum aliis rebus materialibus. Aliud autem immateriale, in quo communicant cum substantiis supcrioribus aliqualiter. Est autem differentia inter utrumque esse: quia secundum esse materiale, quod est per materiam contractum, una quaeque res est hoc solum quod est, sicut hic lapis non est aliud quam hic lapis; secundum vero esse immateriale, quod est amplum, et quodammodo infinitum, inquantum non est per materiam terminatum, res non solum est id quod est, sed etiam est quodammodo alia…Huiusmodi autem immateriale esse habet duos gradus in istis inferioribus. Nam quoddam est penitus immateriale, sicut esse intelligibile… Esse autem sensibile est medium inter utrumque. Nam in sensu res habet esse sine materia, non tamen absque conditionibus materialibus individuantibus, neque absque organo corporali. Et quantum ad hoc duplex esse, dicit Philosophus in tertio huius (nn. 787–8, 790), quod anima est quodammodo omnia.”

Saint Thomas Aquinas. In II de anima, lect. 5. nn. 282–284.