PART THREE
INTELLIGENCE AND REASON
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In Part I of this book we have analyzed what intellective knowing is. Intellective knowing is just the actualization of the real in the sentient intelligence. Reality is a formality of what is impressively apprehended, i.e., is a formality given in the impression of reality. What we intellectively know in it is thus that what is apprehended is real.
The impression of reality is transcendentally open. Reality is open in itself qua reality. And in virtue of this everything real is so respectively.
Reality is impressively open above all to the reality proper to each thing. Each real thing is its own reality. When we apprehend something real just insofar as it is its own reality, this intellective apprehension is the primordial apprehension of the real. In order not to encumber the expression I shall simply call "its own reality" by the term ‘real’; this has all been analyzed in Part I of the book.
The real is, moreover, impressively open to the reality of other real things sensed in the same impression of reality; each real thing is sensed with respect to other real things that are also sensed, or at least are capable of being sensed. Sentient intellection of some real things sensed among
{12} others so sensed is the logos. It is an intellection of what the real, apprehended as real in primordial apprehension, is in reality. It is not the same thing to intellectively know that something is real as to intellectively know what this real thing is in reality. We have analyzed the structure of this intellection in Part II of the book.However, the impression of reality is transcendentally open not only to each real thing, and not only to other real things sensed in the same impression, but to any other reality whatsoever, whether sensed or not. In the impression of reality, in fact, we apprehend not only that this color is real, that this color is its own reality (Part I). And not only what this color is in reality with respect, for example, to other colors or other qualities, to wit, red (Part II). But we also apprehend that this red color is real with respect to pure and simple reality itself, for example that it is a photon or an electromagnetic wave. The impression of reality is thus an impression of pure and simple reality itself. That is to say, we apprehend in impression not only that a thing is real, and not only that this real thing is in reality, but also that this thing is purely and simply real in reality itself. It is not the same thing to intellectively know what something is in reality as to intellectively know what something is in reality itself.[1] So much so, indeed, that as we shall see, what something is in reality itself may not resemble at all what it is in reality in impression. Here we have the third mode of intellection: the intellection of what a thing is in reality itself. That will be the subject of Part III. This intellection goes beyond logos. It is reason.
Reason is grounded in primordial apprehension and in all the affirmative intellections which the logos has intellectively known in sentient fashion. That might cause one to think that
{13} reason is a combination of affirmations, a reasoning process. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Reason is not a reasoning process. The difference between logos and reason is, in fact, an essential one. To be sure, both are movements starting from a real thing. But in the logos, this movement is from one real thing to another, whereas in reason, we are dealing with a movement from a real thing toward pure and simple reality itself. The two movements, then, are essentially distinct. I shall term this movement of reason a progression [marcha]. It is a progression from a real thing to pure and simple reality itself. Every progression is movement, but not every movement is a progression.This progression is not a process, but a structural moment of intellective knowing. It is not a type of "putting into action", nor is it progress toward an intellection of the real as such. No one, so to speak, "starts" to intellectively know reality by means of reason. We are, rather, dealing with a structural moment. To be sure, it is not a structural moment of intellective knowing as such; i.e., it is not a structural moment of intellection considered formally. Neither primordial apprehension nor logos are the progression in question, despite being intellections. But this does not mean that the progression is a type of summation of these previous structures, as if they were "uses" (arbitrary or necessary) of intellection; rather, it is just a modalization of intellection, a modalization of determinate structural character in the intelligence by the impression of reality. This modal determination is based structurally upon the two modalities of pure primordial apprehension and of logos. Only granting that we have impressively known intellectively that something is real (primordial apprehension), and what this real thing is in reality
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(logos), only granting these two intellective moments is that moment of intellective progression into reality determined, that progression which is reason. Intellective knowing, by virtue of its structural nature, must of necessity progress, or rather, is already progressing since it is already reason through the very structure of the impression of reality given in primordial apprehension and in logos.This is just what we must now study. The structural moment poses two groups of problems. In the first place, there are the problems concerning the nature of the progression of reason as such. In the second place, there are the problems concerning the formal structure of this new mode of intellection: that it is knowing. We shall examine these problems in two sections:
Section 1: The progression of intellective knowing.
Section 2: The formal structure of this intellection through reason: the formal structure of knowing.
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SECTION I
THE PROGESSION OF INTELLECTIVE KNOWING
As we have just indicated, the progression of intellective knowing is not a process but a structural progression grounded upon the other structural moments of intellective knowing. But this does not go beyond being a vague indication, and moreover a negative one; it does not say what the progression is, only what it is not. We must delve into this problem of the progression in a positive way. Clearly, it is an intellective progression, i.e., this progression is a moment of intellective knowing itself. In progression one intellectively knows by progressing and one progresses by intellectively knowing. It is not, then, just a "progression of intellective knowing", but a "mode of intellection"; it is what I call ‘intellective progression’.
As intellective, it is a mode of actualizing the real. And this is decisive.
It is thus necessary to examine three problems: What is the intellective progression of intellective knowing qua progress? What is the progression of intellective knowing qua intellective? And, What is the formal object of this intellective progression? That is to say, we have:
Chapter 2. What is Progression?
Chapter 3. Progression as Intellection
Chapter 4. The Formal Object of Intellective Progression
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NOTES
[1] Roughly speaking, Zubiri is drawing a distinction between the truth about something and the whole truth about it. For the former, we say, "In reality, the situation is…"; Zubiri uses en la realidad to express the whole truth about something, in-depth knowledge of it. There is no corresponding English idiomatic expression, so "in reality itself" is used.-trans.]^