The Lonergan Reader: Introduction

The Lonergan Reader edited by Mark D. Morelli and Elizabeth A. Morelli. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. 624 pages. ISBN: 978-0-8020--7648-9

The Lonergan Reader introduces the reader to the significant ideas of Bernard Lonergan's thoughts. It inculdes major portions of two of his most important works: Insight and Method in Theology. In addition, other key works of Lonergan is included. It covers his writing and the development of his thought chronologically. The editors introduces each selection for the reader which is helpful. The editors summarize the reader: "The reader of this volume will be introduced to some of Lonergan's most central ideas: his scientific view of emergent probability; ... his solution to the problem of objectivity in knowing and his grounding of objectivity in authentic subjectivity; his analysis of bias and sociocultural decline; his account of human consciousness as polymorphic; his analyses of history in terms of the stages in the development of human meaning; and his proposal of a new method for theology, consisting of eighth functional specialties, grounded in the self-transcending subject. In short, the reader will be introduced to Lonergan's critical realism, to a standpoint which Lonergan described as 'at once methodical, critical, and comprehensive' (3)."

Lonergan believed that it was essential that we answer the crucial question of our time, What is man? To answer this question in our own time required a strategy "by which the pursuit of self-knowledge might be revived; and, second, to carry out that renewed quest with expectations framed ... by an ideal of foundations that are intrinsically open to change and capable of surviving intact the most radical shifts of meaning and value. The foundations must be dynamic and flexible in themselves, resistant to all ideologies ..."(17). In addition, the needed foundation "must carry within itself the criteria of knowledge, objectivity, truth, reality, and values which are transcultural ..." (17).

The strategy chosen by Lonergan he labeled as self-appropriation. Self-appropriation is a shift from objects to attend to ourselves "as establishing relations to objects" (18). It is also a shift from the subject as object to the subject as subject. "Self-appropriation is first and foremost a process of taking possession of oneself as a knower and doer" (18).

Lonergan's strategy was to seek in the cognitional process "the criteria of objectivity, truth, reality, and value ..." (19). Self-appropriation is a way to "give account" of the dynamic process of "conscious intentionality" (19). Self-appropriation is not the same thing as the Cartesian strategy. It is not "disengagement from the world of objects but development of an understanding of oneself in the widest possible range of cognitive and moral engagements" (19). Lonergan provides opportunities for the reader to become aware of their own cognitive structure: "to experience themselves questioning, imagining, having insights, reflecting on the correctness of their insights and making judgments" (19-20). Lonergan's Insight is dependent on the work of the reader: "Lonergan's subsequent accounts of deliberation, evaluation, and decision presuppose his readers' concomitant advertence to their concrete experience of performing these moral operations" (20).

This process of the self-involvement of the reader "unfolds as a methodical study" (21). Lonergan defines method: "A method is a normative pattern of recurrent and related operations yielding cumulative and progressive results" (21). An example of method would be the practice of scientists' use of the scientific method. Lonergan adds to his definition: "There is a method, then, where there are distinct operations, where each operation is related to the others, where the set of relations form a pattern, where the pattern is described as the right way of doing the job, where operations in accord with the pattern may be repeated indefinitely, and where the fruits of such repetition are, not repetitious, but cumulative and progressive" (21).

Method for Lonergan is not the same thing as technique or following rules. To follow a technique does not require intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility. "But to employ a method is to engage in a deliberate and responsible exercise of intelligence and reasonableness" (21). To use a technique is to know already the results. To use a method is to seek knowledge before one has it. It is a seeking of the unknown.

The result of Lonergan seeking a foundation of a dynamic structure of pursuing truth, the real, and value through the use of methods is called a transcendental method. "The invariant dynamic structure of conscious intentionality is a four-level structure of successively sublating sets of operations" (22). Each of the levels is called by its most prominent operation: the level of experience, the level of understanding, the level of judgment, and the level of decision. The move from one level to the next is through the operator. We move from experiencing to understanding by asking questions of intelligence; we move from understanding to judging by asking questions of reflection; we move from judgment to decision by asking questions of deliberation. Lonergan "formulated the operative criteria in four transcendental precepts: Be attentive; Be intelligent; Be reasonable; Be responsible" (22).

To follow the transcendental precepts in our living is to transcend ourselves, achieve authenticity, and foster progress. To disobey the precepts is to achieve inauthenticity and to refuse self-transcendence and to foster decline.

Part one of the book is dedicated to mostly selections from Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1953). Part two includes selections from the years after the publication of Insight and before the publication of Method in Theology in 1972. Part three includes selections from Method in Theology, mainly from Part 1 of that work. The remaining selections are from part two which discusses the functional specialties. Part four includes selections from works produced after the publication of Method in Theology.