The Lonergan Reader, Part 3, Chapter 3: Realms of Meaning

Different circumstances or contexts bring about "different modes of consciousness and intentional operation, and different modes of such operation give rise to different realms of meaning" (467).

Two realms of meaning are common sense and theory. Lonergan distinguishes between the two: both of them "regard the same objects. But the objects are viewed from such different standpoints," (467) that you have to switch from one realm to the other when dealing with the objects. The realm of common sense deals with objects in relation to us. The realm of theory deals with objects in their relations to each other. A third realm of meaning is the "appropriation of one's own interiority, one's subjectivity, one's operations, their structure, their norms, their potentialities" (468). This appropriation resembles theory. "But in itself it is a heightening of intentional consciousness, an attending not merely to objects but also to the intending subject and his acts" (468). This self-appropriation provides the evidence "for one's account of evidence" (468).

The appropriation of interiority is related to both common sense and theory. The subject returns to the "realms of common sense and theory with the ability to meet the methodical exigence. For self-appropriation of itself is a grasp of transcendental method, and the grasp provides one with the tools not only for an analysis of commonsense procedures but also for the differentiation of the sciences and the construction of their methods" (469).

Finally, according to Lonergan, there is the "transcendent exigence. There is to human inquiry an unrestricted demand for intelligibility. There is to human judgment a demand for the unconditioned. There is to human deliberation a criterion that criticizes every finite good. So it is ... that man can reach basic fulfillment, peace, joy, only by moving beyond the realms of common sense, theory, and interiority and into the ream in which God is known and loved" (469). This is the realm of the transcendent. So we have four realms of meaning: common sense, theory, interiority, and transcendence.