"There is a sense in which it may be said that each of us lives in a world of his own. That world usually is a bounded world, and its boundary is fixed by the range of our interests and our knowledge. . . . So the extent of our knowledge and the reach of our interests fix a horizon" (421).
The first part Lonergan provides reasons for the neglect of the subject. One of the reasons is the overemphasis on the objectivity of truth to the neglect of the subject. It does not take into considertation the historical situation of the subject.
Next, Lonergan discusses the "truncated" subject. The truncated subject is not self-aware. Is not aware of his ignorance. He thinks what he does not know does not exist.
Lonergan thinks that it is only "by close attention to the data of consciousness that one can discover insights, acts of understanding with the triple role of responding to inquiry, grasping the intelligible form in sensible representations, and grounding the formation of concepts" (425). In contrast, conceptualism has three faults: anti-historical mobilism, excessive abstraction, and its difficulty with the notion of being since the notion of being is "concrete".
Next, is the immanentist subject. Te problem with the immanentist subject is that he has an "inadequate notion of objectivity" (426). Human knowing is a "compound of many operations of different kinds" (426). There is a problem with picture thinking. The myth that knowledge is looking.
Next, is the existential subject. "So far, our reflections on the subject have been concerned with him as a knower, as one that experiences, understands and judges. We now have to think of him as a doer, as one that deliberates, evaluates, chooses, acts." (429)
Just doing changes the world around him. But even more it changes the subject who is doing the actions. Human doing is "free and responsible" (429). Under human doing is the "reality of morals, of building up or destroying character, of achieving personality or failing in that task." The human subject makes himself into what he is going to be by his actions. This is the existential subject.
Lonergan states that there are different levels of consciousness. The lowest level is when one is sleeping without dreaming. The next level is sleeping, but dreaming. Lonergan says at this level we are "merely potentially subjects" (430). We become experiential subjects when we wake up. Fourthly, the intelligent subject "sublates the experiential, it retains, preserves, goes beyond, completes it when we inquire about our experience, investigate, grow in understanding, express our inventions and discoveries" (430). At the fifth level, the rational subject sublates the experiential and intelligent subject, "when we question our own understanding, check our formulations and expressions, ask whether we got things right, marshal the evidence pro and con, judge this to be so and that not to be so" (430). At the next level, rational self-consciousness sublates the experiential, intelligent, and rational subject. "Then there emerges human consciousness at its fullest" (430). It is at this level that the existential subject exists " and his character, his personal essence, is at stake" (430).
The subject moves from experiential to intellectual consciousness by its "desire to understand the intention of intelligibility. What makes him to move from intellectual to rational consciousness "is a fuller understanding of the same intention: for the desire to understand once understanding is reached, becomes the desire to understand correctly; ... the intention of intelligibility, once an intelligible is reached, becomes the intention of the right intelligible, of the true and, through truth, of reality. Finally, the intention of the intelligible, the true, the real, becomes also the intention of the good, the question of value, of what is worthwhile, when the already acting subject confronts his world and adverts to his own acting in it" (431).
The transcendental good is different than the "particular good that satisfies individual appetite, such as the appetite for food and drink, the appetite for union and communion, the appetite for knowledge, or virtue, or pleasure" (431). It is also different than the good of order. Beyond the "particular good and the good of order, there is the good of value. It is by appealing to value or values that we satisfy some appetites and do not satisfy others, that we approve some systems for achieving the good of order and disapprove of others, that we praise or blame human persons as good or evil and their actions as right or wrong" (431).
The existential subject is mainly concerned with what type of person he is becoming, either good or evil.
The last subject is an alienated subject. Existential reflection not only reflects what does it mean for a man to be good, it also reflects on whether the world is good. Lonergan believes that the question "can be answered affirmatively, if and only if one acknowledges God's existence, his omnipotence, and his goodness" (434). Lonergan states that "unless there is a moral agent responsible for the world's being and becoming, the world cannot be good in that moral sense" (435). If the world is not good or moral, and the man wanted to be good, he would be alienated from the world. On the other hand, "he renounces authentic living and drifts into the now harsh rhythms of his psyche and nature, then man is alienated from himself" (435).
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