Lonergan defines method: "A method is a normative pattern of recurrent and related operations yielding cumulative and progressive results. 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" (446).
He gives an example of method in the sciences. In the natural sciences method direct inquiries. It demands "accurate observation and description": both recur as inquiry. It encourages discovery and discoveries recur. It calls for the "formulation of discoveries in hypothesis" and formulation of hypothesis recur. It deduces implications of hypothesis, and the deductions recur. "It keeps urging that experiments be devised and performed to check the implications of hypothesis against observable fact, and such processes of experimentation recur" (446).
Lonergan states that there are four levels of conscious intentionality. Lonergan explains, "In our dream states consciousness and intentionality commonly are fragmentary and incoherent. When we awake, they take on a different hue to expand to four successive, related, but qualitatively different levels. There is the empirical level on which we sense, perceive, imagine, feel, speak, move. There is an intellectual level on which we inquire, come to understand, express what we have understood, work out the presuppositions and implications of our expression. There is the rational level on which we reflect, marshal the evidence, pass judgment on the truth or falsity, certainty or probability, of a statement. There is the responsible level on which we are concerned with ourselves, our own operations, our goals, and so deliberate about possible courses of action, evaluate them, decide, and carry out our decisions" (448).
All four levels we are conscious and intentional. At all four levels we are aware of ourselves "but, as we mount from level to level, it is a fuller self of which we are aware and the awareness itself is different" (448).
At the empirical level we are similar to other animals. However, this level leads to higher levels. Lonergan writes, "The data of sense provoke inquiry, inquiry leads to understanding, understanding expresses itself in language. Without the data there would be nothing for us to inquire about and nothing to be understood. Yet what is sought by inquiry is never just another datum but the idea or form, the intelligible unity or relatedness, that organizes the data into intelligible wholes. Again, without the effort to understand and its conflicting results, we would have no occasion to judge" (448). Judging leads us to making decisions and action on them. At this level emerges the choosing of values, of making judgments on value.
Lonergan states that the transcendentals are "comprehensive in connotation, unrestricted in denotation, invariant in cultural change"(449).
The transcendentals are: Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible. Be attentive to the data at the empirical level. Be intelligent as you seek to understand, get insight at the intellectual level. Be reasonable as you make judgments at the rational level. Be responsible as you make choices on the level of deliberation. "So intelligence takes us beyond experiencing to ask what and why and how and what for. Reasonableness takes us beyond answers of intelligence to ask whether the answers are true and what they mean really is so. Responsibility goes beyond fact and desire and possibility to discern between what truly is good and what only apparently is good" (450).
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