UNITY OF THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL REASON(1)

Human reason, by realizing itself through knowledge, refers back to the objective world of being upon which it is dependent, by which it is interiorly formed and with which it is identical. To this basic statement of realist epistemology Christian occidental philosophy adds as "intellectualistic" ethics the statement: the free moral action of man refers back to the reason upon which it is dependent and by which it is interiorly formed.

To clarify the relation between these two theses we must first make some distinctions.

First of all, we must not overlook the fact that in these statements the word "reason" has two meanings. In the first statement it means the theoretical, speculative reason, in the second the practical reason. Reason is "theoretical" when it is turned receptively toward the real objects presented to it. Reason is practical when it turns toward acting (agere) and making (facere).

Thus, the chain by which the good is bound to reality is composed of the following links: objective reality, theoretical reason, practical reason, moral action. After showing that, and how, the first two links are connected, and before speaking of the connection of the last two, we must grasp the relation of the theoretical and the practical reason.

Theoretical reason itself becomes "in extending", per extensioneum, the practical reason.(2) "The practical reason, like the speculative, knows the truth, but it orders the known truth toward action";(3)

through the extension of knowledge toward willing and acting, the theoretical raison becomes practical.

This means first of all that he theoretical and the practical reason are not two distinct powers of the soul.(4) Nor are they two separate and independent operations of one and the same "basic faculty". This is how Kant seems to understand the relation of the theoretical and the practical reason. He speaks of a "common principle" of both and of the "speculative use of reason" and of the "practical use of reason". In spite of their being rooted in a single theoretical-practical "basic faculty", Kant makes the practical reason entirely independent of the theoretical and of all that can be the object of theoretical activity, that means, independent of all knowledge of reality.

Moreover, this is not a harmless unessential speculation for philosophers. In making the practical reason - that is, the power of the soul that determines action - independent of the theoretical reason - that is, the power of the soul that perceives objective being - Kant sees, according to Richard Kroner, nothing less than "the conquest of the metaphysics of being, the transfer of the center of gravity from the object to the subject. Therefore, our examination of reality and the good might be quite correct in considering the unity of the theoretical and the practical reason, and the priority of the theoretical reason upon which this unity is based, to be precisely the ontological foundation of ethics and the starting point for a transfer to the center of gravity from the subject back to the object, to objective reality.

The concept of the practical reason necessarily includes and asserts the theoretical reason as well. The "basic faculty" is the theoretical reason, which "extends" to become the practical. The theoretical includes the practical, somewhat as the genus includes the distinct species. Only insofar as it is theoretical is the reason also practical. Prior to all action is the "theoretic" perception of reality. Intellectus Speculativus fit practicus, the theoretical reason becomes practical. All that is practical is rooted in the theoretical and presupposes it.

If we consider the relationship of the object of the theoretical reason to that of the practical reason, the result is the same. The proper object of the theoretical reason is the truth in things. The proper object of the practical reason is "the true as the measure of action", the true which extends into the good". The object of the theoretical reason includes and comprises the object of the practical reason. The object of the 'theoretical reason, the true, "becomes" the object of the practical reason by establishing a relation with the object of the will.

The practical reason then, is nothing but the theoretical reason itself regarded under the aspect of a special function. But we must note this: it is not quite correct to say that classical Christian philosophy maintains an actual "primacy" of the theoretical reason over the practical reason and of theory over practice in general. Primacy in the strict sense can exist only in the relationship of realities which are independent of each other. There can be primacy in the relation of Saint Peter to the other apostles, and Kant can also speak of a real primacy in the relation of the practical reason to the theoretical. But it is not possible to speak of a primacy of the foundation over the building, for the building includes the foundation. And this same relation exists between the theoretical and the practical.

the "extension" by which the theoretical reason becomes practical is directed, as we said, toward willing and action. " This "particular function" of direction toward the will consists in the deciding, commanding, guiding causation of free action. We shall speak of this in detail.

But we can already see the outline of the situation. Reason, as practical reason, would not be turned toward willing and action if it had not previously, as theoretical reason, also been turned toward things. It could not be decisive and commanding if it were not first made accessible to being through knowledge. It would not be the measure of action if it did not first receive its measure from objective reality.

The decision to do a definite thing, which is an interior "command" (imperium) given to ourselves by ourselves, and which precedes a free action, does not come blindly and at random. Knowledge of being is "lengthened" and transformed into decision and command. The imperative is founded upon an indicative; the latter makes the former possible. Essentially prior to the decision and command is the purely perceptive statement. The "image" of the real precedes and underlies the "plan" of all realization.

Decision and command, in which the practical reason is realized, signify, then, a knowledge which turns toward the will. But knowledge is an essential identity of the mind with the objective reality. The relation of these two facts reveals the measure and the manner in which the practical reason proper, which on its part determines the free act, is essentially bound up with the objective reality which is perceived in our knowledge of being. This also gives us a clear view of the purpose of our task: to show in detail how, in the fact that action is determined by knowledge, action is really determined by the objective reality itself.

(1)LIVING THE TRUTH, Josef Pieper, Chapter five

(2)ST I, 79, 11, sed contra

(3)ST I, 79, 11 ad 2.

(4)Ibid.