The Lonergan Reader: Lonergan's Introduction to Insight

Lonergan states that Insight is a "program rather than an argument" (34). It assumes readers, not premises. It does not advance through "deducing conclusions from the truths of a religious faith or from the principles of philosophy;" instead, it calls on readers to "apprehend, to appropriate, to envisage in all its consequences, the inner focus of their own intelligence and reasonableness" (34). The focus of the work is "insight into insight" (34). "To appropriate the focus is both to know and to know what it is to know one's own intelligence, one's own reasonableness, one's own essential and restrictedly freedom. To envisage the focus in the full range of its implications is to discover for oneself what is meant by being, by objectivity, by metaphysics, by ethics, by God, and by evil" (34).

There is an overload of information in many fields. The basic question is, what is man? Answers to this question has been given by theologians, philosophers, scientists, psychologists, and others. The answers differ. Lonergan states, "But not only do the many answers not agree, not only is there lacking some generally accepted principle that would select one and reject the others, but even within specialized fields there seems to be no method that can confront basic issues without succumbing to individual temperament and personal evaluations" (35).

Lonergan believes the lack if self-knowledge is a "social crisis." There is an urgency for the "personal appropriation of rational self-consciousness." It is not an easy task, but it must be done. The difficulty should not hinder people from beginning.

Insight is like a detective story when the detective puts all the evidence together and notices a pattern and gets an insight. The goal is to get an insight into insight. Lonergan wants to "reach the act of organizing intelligence that brings within a single perspective the insights of mathematicians, scientists, and men of common sense ..."(37).

Insight is more than a mental activity. It also is a "constituent factor in human knowledge" (38). Insight into insight is in "some sense a knowledge of knowledge" (38). It is a knowledge of knowledge that is helpful to solving some of the problems of philosophy.

Lonergan states how his book is useful: "Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding" (44).