Lonergan Reader: Chapter 7--Judgment

This chapter is about the notion of judgment. It is the third leg in the knowing process: experience, to understand, to judge. "A first determination of the notion of judgment is reached by relating it to propositions" (163). Two positions can be taken to propositions: they can be considered or one can agree or disagree with them. A proposition "may simply be an object of thought, the content of an act of conceiving, defining, thinking, supposing, considering" (163). Or a proposition can be the "content of an act of judgment" (163). A second determination of the notion of judgment can be "reached by relating it to questions" (163). Two kinds of questions: "There are questions for reflection, and they may be met by answering yes or no. There are questions for intelligence, and they may not be met by answering yes or no" (163). So, the second determination is the notion of judgment is answering yes or no to a question of reflection.

A third determination of the notion of judgment is that it "involves a personal commitment" (164). One must take a position on a proposition.

Lonergan goes on to relate the notion of judgment to the "general structure" of the cognitional process. He states that we "distinguish a direct and an introspective process, and in both of these we distinguish three levels: a level of presentations, a level of intelligence, and a level of reflection" (164).

Lonergan describes the process or the transition from understanding to judgment: "The formulations of understanding yield concepts, definitions, objects of thought, suppositions, considertaions. But man demands more. Every answer to a question for intelligence raises a further question for reflection. There is an ulterior motive to conceiving and defining, thinking and considering, forming suppositions, hypotheses, theories, systems. That motive appears when such activities are followed by the question, Is it so? We conceive in order to judge. As questions for intelligence, What? and Why? and How often? stand to insights and formulations, so questions for reflection stand to a further kind of insight and to judgment. It is on this third level that there emerge the notions of truth and falsity, of certitude and the probability that is not a frequency but a quality of judgment. It is within this third level that there is involved the personal commitment that makes one responsible for one's judgments. It is from this third level that come utterances to express one's affirming or denying, assenting or dissenting, agreeing or disagreeing" (165).

Lonergan now describes how the knower can make a judgment. A judgment must be based on sufficient evidence. Lonergan explains, "To grasp evidence as sufficient for a prospective judgment is to grasp the prospective judgment as virtually unconditioned" which means the conditions needed to make the judgment have been fulfilled. Lonergan continues, "Distinguish, then, between the formally and virtually unconditioned. The formally unconditioned has no conditions whatever. The virtually unconditioned has conditions indeed, but they are fulfilled. The formally unconditioned would be God's knowledge that is not based on anything outside of him. Human judgment, however, is based on evidence and the evidence must be sufficient to make a judgment. Lonergan writes, "By the mere fact that a question for reflection has been put, the prospective judgment is a conditioned: it stands in need of evidence sufficient for reasonable pronouncement" (170).

Judgments are the final part of the cognitional process.