Nature and essential characteristics of classical rationality

Although another representative of high scholasticism, Duns Scotus did not always agree with his senior colleague, there is unity between them on this issue. So in a treatise with the symbolic title “On the knowledge of a human wanderer and the illumination of it with an uncreated light” he writes: “So now everyone agrees that it is true that we learn in the light of the acting mind, not formally though, but effectively; it means that it is also true about us about what we cognize in uncreated light, which contributes to the acting mind, because, as it contributes to our act of knowledge, it has a meaning of light, as does the acting mind; and it is more correct to say about us that we cognize in an uncreated light rather than [to say that we know] in the light of the acting mind, since the first and higher cause has a stronger effect than the immediate cause. And thus, we see the genuine truth in the uncreated truth, which is Light” [2, p. 369], and a few pages earlier, while leading the dialogue, he insists: “The last thing I ask, considering this problem of knowability, is whether the mind of a wandering person can naturally come to know any authentic and genuine truth without the help of special enlightenment from uncreated light. I prove that he can't” [2, p. 337].

Therefore, it can be seen that the search for the foundations of the classical mind leads to otherworldly dimensions, but its very nature and effectiveness are unthinkable without transcendence, which gives energy to it (in the Aristotelian sense) and beingness.

This definition concerns issues that go far beyond epistemology: an aspiration towards the highest goal can be traced in any process from movement to goal-setting. From ancient times this phenomenon is known as entelechy. The most classic description of this process is considered to be a fragment from the seventh chapter of the book XII of Aristotle's “Metaphysics”. In this part, Stagirus justifies the nature of motion, pointing to the need to allow the existence of a prime mover (the divine mind), so as not to fall into the regression of evil infinity, which itself is eternally motionless, but is the cause of motion. Further Aristotle wonders about how everything is set in motion. The answer given by the Greek thinker became the cornerstone for the whole Western civilization: “And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved” (1072a) [11, p. 362]. The motionless prime mover is so beautiful that the whole creation (using Christian vocabulary) clings to it with its whole nature and wants to merge with it in a burst of unified ecstasy, creating movement in the world and acquiring, thus, the ultimate goal of desire. It should be said that although Aristotle gave the most universal definition of entelechy, the intuition and phenomenology of this process is already present in the texts of Plato. In the “Republic”, the founder of the Academy writes: “So, this is what I see: in what is knowable, the idea of good is the limit, and it is difficult to distinguish, but as soon as you discern it the conclusion suggests itself that it is the reason to all right and beautiful. In the realm of the visible, it begets the light and its ruler, and in the realm of the intelligible, it itself is the ruler, on which truth and understanding depend, and anyone who wants to act consciously in both private and public life should look at it” [20, with. 253]. See also [20, p. 233].The soul is capable of any act only because it has the highest guideline (ideal) of its action, which is a necessary condition for any will (goal-setting). The bases of any action are of transcendental nature.

The idea of entelechy, as an organizing principle of being, has perfectly rooted on Christian soil, both in the East and in the West of the Empire. St. Augustine begins with these words his “Confession”: “...You have made us to Yourself, and our Hearts are Restless Until They Rest in You”Sim. to the philosophy of Plotinus, for whom entelechy is perhaps the main system-forming prin-ciple, and the “Enneads” themselves can be viewed as continuous melancholy and prayer to the One -- the only thing that interests the Alexandrian philosopher ultimately is a transition from himself to Him, as an image to a primordial character, thus completing the path (En VI. 9. 11). In the Fifth Ennead, Plotinus writes: “[Not a man only, but] all things are movedand move to Him [to the Good] by virtue of natural necessity, foreseeing [an inner sense] that they cannot be without Him” [14, p. 158]. See also En VI. 2. 11. [31, p. 5]. And almost one and a half millennia later, Silouan of Athos proclaimed the same maxim: “... For the soul you need the Lord and the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which the soul is dead. As the sun warms and gives life to wild flowers and they are drawn to him, so the soul who loves God, draws to Him and bliss in Him...” [33]. Thus, on the one hand, entelechy acts as a principle that gives energy to anything, on the other hand, due to the existential dependence of being on the root cause of being, it is the organizing principle of the whole hierarchy of being.

Basing on the analysis of this principle, it is necessary to note its relevance throughout the history of the development of the West. After the transcendental dimension was finally docked (German classical philosophy), the principle of entelechy was not forced out of history. Modern mind was unable (did not want?) to overcome this rudiment. The only thing is that the field of its implementation has finally moved to the immanent space of social practice. This process can be easily found in the principles of the functioning of the limit (for the modern mind) dimension -- the hierarchy of collective subjects (states).

Thus, it can be stated that the necessary condition for the functioning of the classical mind is the transcendent as such, which is generally the primary cause of everything immanent. At the same time, the doctrine of entelechy, despite its ancient origins, is in demand throughout the history of the West and today is representing the system-forming principle of the organization of social space.

Summarizing the results of this study, one should focus on the following. First, the most emblematic characteristics of the classical mind, which constitute its nature and form, are ontological, transcendent, and hierarchical. Each of these attributes fundamentally distinguishes the classical mind from the modern one. Secondly, within the framework of the classical mind, certain principles were formulated (dichotomous division of knowledge into rational and rational, entelechy, ratiocentricity, etc.), which became archetypical for Western rationality as such, some of which, after the secularization of medieval culture, became the principle of organization for secular social reality. Thirdly, in times of high scholasticism, intellectual basis was prepared for the destruction of the hierarchy of entities, which led to the emergence of a new subject of research -- an empirical reality that required a new type of rationality. In the end, this led to the emergence of a new social reality as such, later called the Modernity.

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