Bernard Lonergan on Self-Transcendence Part 3

Lonergan, Bernard J. F. Philosophical and Theological Papers, 1965-1980.

3 Intellectual Self-transcendence

Lonergan thinks language is connected with intellectual self-transcendence. It is concerned with the movement from non-speaking to speaking. Basically, before children acquire language their "meaning is confined to a world of immediacy, to a world no bigger than the nursery" (319). In the first two years, the baby learns a lot but their attention is "directed to present objects" (319). But with acquiring language, the world of the child expands. Lonergan writes, "For words denote not only what is present but also what is absent, not only what is near but also what is far, not only the past but also the future, not only the factual but also the possible, the ideal, the ought-to-be for which we keep on striving though we never attain. So we come to live, not as the infant in a world of immediate experience, but in a far vaster world that is brought to us through the memories of other men, through the common sense of the community, through the pages of literature, through the labors of scholars, through the investigations of scientists, through the experience of saints, through the meditations of philosophers and theologians" (320).

"This larger world mediated through meaning" is beyond one's immediate experience. It is not even the sum of all the immediate experiences of the world. For meaning goes beyond immediate experience. Lonergan asserts, "What is meant is not only experienced but also somehow understood and, commonly, also affirmed. It is this addition of understanding and judgment that makes possible the larger world mediated by meaning, that gives it its structure and unity . . . It is this larger world mediated by meaning that we refer to when we speak of the real world, and in it we live out our lives" (320). Lonergan goes on to say that this world mediated by meaning is "insecure, because meaning is insecure, since besides truth there is error, besides fact there is fiction, besides honesty there is deceit, besides science, there is myth" (320).

We have been contrasting the immediate world with the world mediated by meaning. It is the same person that lives in both worlds. He lived in one as an infant, and he lives in another one now that he is an adult. When one becomes an adult, one still lives in the immediate world, but he also lives in the world mediated by meaning. Lonergan states that the child when he becomes an adult gets a second identity. Lonergan writes, "there is a difference between the world as apprehended by the infant and the world apprehended by the adult. For the latter apprehension includes the endless multitude of things which the infant did not know" (321). 

In addition, the apprehension of the adult is different from the child. The child's world is limited to the senses. But the world of the adult includes the senses but "adds" to the senses "both what is grasped by intelligence and what is affirmed or denied by judgment" (321). 

Finally, just as the "relevant cognitional operations differ, so too the criteria of objectivity differ" (321). For the world of immediacy, what is given in experience is enough. The criteria is the sense experience. But the world "mediated by meaning" the criteria is only part of the criteria and not sufficient. Both the criteria of intelligence and the criteria of judgment are also needed.

Lonergan thinks many people are not aware of the cognitional processes. Lonergan writes, "Only too easily people can drift from infancy through childhood and a long educational process only to practice adult cognitional procedures with no clear notion of what they are doing" (321). They are aware of their sense experience, but nothing further. The cognitional process is like a "black box" to them. They do not know what goes on between input and output.

Lonergan states that self-transcendence "is taking possession of one's own mind. It is a matter of attending to each of its many operations, of identifying them, of comparing them, of distinguishing them, naming them, relating them to one another, grasping the dynamic structure of their emergence and development, and so coming to clarify the workings of the mind in mathematics, in science, in common sense, in history, in philosophy" (321-322).

Lonergan thinks it is similar to Carl Rogers Client-Centered therapy. Lonergan states, "People have feelings that are distorting their lives, feelings they experience, feelings however they have yet to identify, compare, distinguish, name, relate to their occasions, to their causes, to their consequences" (322).

Loergan states that what "is true of the neurotic and his feelings can be true of the normal man or woman and their insights" (322). He thinks insights are a common occurrence. They occur regularly to the intelligent and less frequent to those not so intelligent. Lonergan thinks that most of the intelligent do not know what an insight is or how frequent they occur. 

To have insight requires effort. That was the purpose of his book, Insight. It provides exercises for the reader to understand what occurs in their own cognitional process.