THE CREATIVE ROLE OF INTUITION IS UNDIMINISHED BY THE JUDGMENT OF VALUES

Thought and the Efficacy of the Subject

So far in our analysis of knowledge as a condition of the person's transcendence in action we have concentrated on the content of cognition. But human cognition is a highly diversified and very complex function of the person and needs to be analyzed also from the side of the person in order to elucidate its share in the action and in the person's transcendence in connection with acting. The whole of human cognition is also contained within the limits of the experience, which in this study we are trying to interpret through the dynamism of man. As we have already pointed out, the characteristic mark of this dynamism is the distinction between acting and submitting to an impact. This distinction is also applicable, though in a specific manner, to

cognition as a function of the person. Cognition is given us in experience essentially in the form of acting. Its proper moment consists in the fact that to cognize and also to think proceeds in sequences of acts; that is, it amounts to "act." Thinking,

however, is a different function from cognizing. But alongside the active experience of cognition we also have the experience of thinking, which though of a more active nature has a cognitive significance. But if we consider the thinking process, at its already accomplished and thus passive stage, as the kind of experience in which thoughts just pass or flow "through" the field of actual consciousness - in such an experience it is the cognitive import accomplished already that belongs to the content of the flux; and the attitude of the human ego to it is that of the passive subject and not of the active agent. An experience of this kind is in a way analogous to the experience of "I want," when the psychical form of volition is by no means inherent in the personally efficacious "I will." This is the reason why we have asserted more than once that the intentionality of volition is in itself insufficient to constitute the dynamism of the will.

The difference between thinking and willing in general lies, broadly speaking, in their different directions: willing implies a certain outgoing toward an object and entering upon it as remaining external to the willing subject (the essence of willing being "to strive"), while thinking consists in first tending toward an object and then

constituting it by introducing it within the immanence of the subject. Thus, for instance, the introduction of an object to the subject may be achieved by

presentation in intuition of its noematic fragments in the object's "bodily selfhood" - or by means of imagination. But it may also be achieved by comprehension and interpretation. In each case the object is in a different way cognitively introduced to the cognizing subject; in the case of noematic self-presentation and imagination it is by means of direct intuition and in comprehension by means of the intellect.

In Judgment Man Has the Experience of Himself as the Agent of Thought The direction simultaneously toward the object and backward to cognition (especially to the so-called "external perception") is also implied in experiences of the type when "thoughts" just pass through the mind. Nevertheless, even the experience of

"immanent perception" of our cognitive acts, e.g., in the perception "I am thinking,"

exhibits the cross currents of passiveness and the proper activeness of the personal ego. For on the one hand, we may consider that in certain of its processes thinking

"happens" in man, but, on the other hand, in its other modalities it is - as Husserl has emphasized - active par excellence. It seems, however, that even "happening"

itself is already a manifestation of the cognitive dynamism of man; thus there is also presupposed in it man's cognitive potentiality with all its complex implications. The passive mode of thinking seems to be radically differentiated from the active, however, on account of the role of judgment. Only with emergence within the schema of man's cognitive function of the instance of judgment has man the experience of being the agent of cognition and of thought. The action of judging seems to constitute the crucial and decisive factor of human cognitive activity. There is presupposed in it a still more elementary function of the mind, namely, that of ideation - an aspect strongly emphasized by contemporary thinkers. But

experientially this function is inherent in the function of judging, and it is by

judgment that in consciousness it manifests itself as the action, in which the ego is not merely the subject but also the agent.

The function of judgment has an "outer" structure on account of the objects that are its raw material. This structure becomes apparent in sentences expressed in speech or writing. For instance, in the sentence "The wall is white" the function of judging consists in attributing to a thing (the wall) a property that it actually has

(whiteness); this is expressed in the "outer" structure that appertains not only to speech but also to thought; for we speak in sentences because we think in judgments. But there is more in judgment than the outer structure; a judgment grasps a truth about the object that is its raw material. Thus in "the wall is white," in addition to the outer structure assumed by the function of judging on account of its object, there is also present the inherent, "inner" structure of this function

expressing the grasping as such. That is, the function of judging establishes also the correctness of the way in which the "raw material" (or subject of the judging) is conceived by the predicate which is attributed to it in the judgment. It means that the judgment grasps this correctness of attribution as the "truth" of the object. To grasp the truth is the same as to introduce an object to the person-subject through one of his inherent properties. This property, which not only belongs to the subject as his self-transcendent, but also his experienced relation to truth, reveals at once the spiritual nature of the personal subject. Indeed, as we shall see in our

subsequent analysis, truth is not only essential for the possibility of human

knowledge, but it is simultaneously the basis for the person's transcendence in the action. For the moment of truth in this respect, or the truth about the moral good, makes of the action what it actually is; it is this moment that gives to the action the authentic form of the "act of the person."

Correspondence of Judgment and Decision

There is a distinct correspondence or correlation between judgment and deliberation, choice or decision making in the process of the will. It is the correspondence of the already known to what becomes the object of willing. To apprehend properly this correspondence or correlation it is necessary, however, to approach and envisage the person in his transcendence. Through judgments the person attains his proper cognitive transcendence with respect to objects. But beyond the recognition of the correctness with which the attributes express the nature of objects, there is also a type of judgment in which the value is attributed to the subject, and the correctness of this attribution, grasped in the judgment itself (its apodictic aspect), constitutes

"axiological" or "moral truth." The cognitive transcendence toward the object as known is the condition of the transcendence of the will in the action with respect to the object of the will. The judgment of values is presupposed in deliberation, in choice and decision, because it is not only preconstituted in and by itself through the truth about objects (the so-called "apodicticity" which we see as essential to

judgment) but it also makes possible and lays a foundation for that proper relation of the will to objects. Whenever the person chooses or decides, he has had first to make a judgment of values.

It may be worth noting that every decision - and every choice seems to entail

essentially a decision - comes as the nearest analogue of judgment, so much so that a judgment is often identified with decision. But the essence of judging is cognitive and thus belongs to the sphere of knowing while the essence of decision is strictly connected with willing. "To will" means not only to strive toward an end but also to strive while deciding. It is for this reason that the will is so deeply inherent in the structure of the person, and every authentic, wholehearted "I will" actualizes the proper self-governance and self-possession of the person.

The Creative Role of Intuition in the Discursive Perception of Values The prominence given here to the significance of judgment in the interplay of the object of cognition and that of will is not intended to belittle in any way the creative role of cognitive intuition, especially in what concerns the experience of values. We have pointed already to the cross currents of a certain passiveness and the proper activeness of the personal ego, which are apparent within the sphere of human thought. When judging, when formulating judgments, the ego has the experience of himself as the agent - the one who acts - of the act itself of cognizing. But we may also cognitively experience directly the value of the object of cognition. The subject - the ego -then remains as if absorbing this value, "contemplating" it and passive rather than active. It remains then in the passive role of the subject more than in that of the agent. These occasions are of extreme importance: they are creative and rich in consequences for cognition of human reality.

Although intuition seems at first sight only to happen in man we are not to belittle the active moment in its operation. First, it seems that the intuitive experience of objects is always accompanied by judgment; inasmuch as values are the object of intuition, it is a judgment of values, a judgment positing a given value. The character of this kind of judgment is not then discursive; the value is not reached in the course of a process of reasoning; instead, we find it in our knowledge as if it were ready-made rather than formed by reason. It is to this extent that we can speak of a kind of "cognitive experience." This experience is very often the outcome of earlier cognitive ventures, of those often countless intentional endeavors at grasping a value which, however, at the time failed in attaining its perception. When here and now we grasp a value intuitively, we have reason to suppose that this is an indirect result also of earlier repetitive efforts making up instances of a sequence.

Intuition and discourse are both involved, though in different ways, in the processes of cognition as a whole; sometimes it is intuition that lies at the origin of discursive thinking and sometimes it marks the end and is the indirect outcome of mental processes. From the point of view of the transcendence of the person the question, whether the cognitive process proceeds more intuitively or more discursively, has no major significance. The important thing is the moment of truth, for it is the relation to truth that explains all choice and decision. The intuition lying at the origin of a discursive process seems to indicate that the intuitive truth needs to be further exfoliated. Intuition that comes as the fruition of discursive processes, on the other hand, is like a retrieval of truth and somehow like abiding in truth. The person's transcendence in the action seems much more connected with the praxis - that is, the truth of the objective reality, in which man continuously strives to make right choices and decisions - than with the intellectual function of judging.