L’intentio animi nella sintesi agostiniana di Cornelis Jansen

Abstract

Aim of this article is to elucidate Jansenius’ notion of intentionality as rooted in his Augustinian-minded account of the dynamics of knowledge, action, and love. First of all, an essential overview of the semantics of intentionality in Augustine shows that the term intentio might cover either a cognitive or a moral sphere: in both senses, however, it represents an activity of the soul, so that even the perception is conceived as a form of “attention” toward the modifications of the sense data. Secondly, the topic of intentio animi is analysed in Jansenius’ both philosophical and exegetical works, whereby he seems to exclusively understand intentionality in a rather practical sense, i.e. as the inner tendency of the will. Intention is the core of affective and moral life, whose dynamic arises from the heart. In his lectures on Tetrateuchus and Pentateuchus Jansenius focuses on the love-command that has been laid down by divine authority: “You shall love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”, meaning that you are to concentrate all your thoughts, your whole life and your whole intelligence upon God. An object, thus, worthy of love is to be borne into the same channel in which the whole current of our affections flows. Later in Augustinus Jansenius argues that God is the ultimate goal of human beings, whose affections are to be entirely fixed upon Him. However, a further distinction of goals - which is lacking in Augustine - hereby rather splits the unique direction of God as the highest and ultimate object of human affection. Moreover, Jansenius seems to conduct a campaign against both self-love and love of neighbour, if not referred to God in a rightly ordered affection: love, thus, is to be detached from any creatures - who might only be used - and turned into the Creator, in order to give room to the real and proper object of love for its own sake, i.e. enjoyment.