Lonergan's Critique of Reductionism Part I

David W. Aiken, "Bernard Lonergan's Critique of Reductionism: A Call to Intellectual Conversion. Christian Scholars Review 233-251.

Aiken calls reductionism an ideology that modern scholars are susceptible. He states that Lonergan is a major critic of reductionism. He is surprised that Lonergan is not better known.

In his article he explores Lonergan's critique of reductionism in two major works of Lonergan: Insight and Method in Theology. He states that Lonergan's "full-orbed account of cognitional dynamics prefigures a holistic view of the subject as situated in an unfolding world-order chracterized by 'sublation' rather than 'reduction' (233)." He thinks that Lonergan's goal is not to "simply refute an ideology, but instead to provide an incentive to resist one of the most pervasive intellectual vices of our age" (233-234). Lonergan's proposal calls for an intellectual conversion--a total "reorienting of how we conduct ourselves as thoughtful inquirers" (234). The author begins his essay by explaining what he means by reductionism.

He does not call into question the scientific method or explaining the whole by its parts. He says this works fine in "first-order scientific investigations;" it becomes a problem when applied to "second-order methodological considerations, or to normative questions of being, truth, and value" (234). He thinks "promoting reductive strategies of explanation legitimately employed by the empirical sciences to the status of metaphysical postulates inevitably results in an unwarranted exclusion of relevant data (such as intentionality and finality) when investigating the ontological constitution of persons, historical processes, and the world as 'mediated by meaning' (234)." The idea that "higher-order realities" can always be explained by lower-order causes is part of what he means by reductionism.

Physicalism is an example of reductionist thinking, "according to which reality is normatively conceived to be whatever the physical sciences currently regard as fundamental particles, forces, or processes; everything else-including the physicalist as conscious agent-is at most virtually real" (234). This view should not be confused with first-order scientific thinking; instead, it is a "metaphysical theory" since its assertions go beyond the scientific method.

Scientism is another form of reductionist thinking. It is closely related to physicalism. Scientism "counts as objectively true all and only those beliefs warranted by well-accredited scientific methods; and for this reason more ultimate issues of meaning and value must be decided largely on the basis of taste and temperament, since there is (presumably) no rigorous method for adjudicating them" (234). Because it restricts "the conditions under which beliefs are legitimated," scientism can be seen as "methodical imperialism." Sicentism, however, is caught in a dilemma because its own "epistemic priorities, as value-laden, exceed the scope of scientific confirmation," and so it would depend on taste and sentiment itself.

Another form of reductionism is anthropological reductionism, which attempts "to explain persons exclusively and exhaustively by appeal to non-personal processes, events, and mechanisms" (235). It seeks to explain the complexity of the whole by its parts or by "aspects taken to be more primitive" (235).  Like physicalism and scientism, anthropological reductionism "is often accorded empirical-scientific status, even though its theories tend to be normative, speculative, and indeed metaphysical in nature" (235).