Lonergan Reader: Chapter 6: Things and Bodies

"The notion of a thing is a new type of insight" (154). The notion of a thing sees the pattern in the data: "Now the notion of a thing is grounded in an insight that grasps, not relations between data, but a unity, identity, whole in data; and this unity is grasped, not by considering data from any abstractive viewpoint, but be taking them in their concrete individuality and in the totality of their aspects" (154).

Things are "conceived as extended in space, permanent in time, and yet subject to change" (155). Things possess "properties and are subject to laws and probabilities" (155). There are relations between the insights and the data. We need things to understand change. Lonergan thinks for us to have change, "there has to be a concrete unity of concrete data extending over some interval of time, there has to be some difference between the data at the beginning and at the end of the interval, and this difference can only be partial" (155).

Change is also needed for the continuity and change of scientific thought.

Thing is "the basic construct of scientific thought and development" (156). Things are thought to exist.

After discussing the notion of a thing, Lonergan discusses bodies. Bodies are not things because men "are not pure intelligences. They are animals; they live largely under the influence of their intersubjectivity; they are guided by common sense that does not bother to ask nice questions on the meaning of familiar names" (157).

Lonergan characterizes body as something already existing "out there now real" (158). Terms body, already, out there, real "stand for concepts uttered by an intelligence that is grasping not intelligent procedure, but a merely biological and unintelligent response to stimulus" (158). Lonergan says this is nonconceptual knowing. Lonergan states that there is a knowing in an elementary sense and a complex sense. Lonergan thinks knowing requires experience, understanding, and judgment. The elementary type of knowing is based simply on experience. He thinks both types of knowing are valid.