The Epistemology of Bernard Lonergan

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    The Epistemology of Bernard Lonergan

    Gregory Bahnsen

    If one has become accustomed to the more or less prevailing opinion that

    nothing of substantial or serious philosophic challenge can be expected to emerge

    from contemporary Roman Catholicism, the writings of Bernard J. F. Lonergan could

    well be the disquieting anomaly which alters that outlook. Professor Lonergan has

    developed throughout his career an epistemological viewpoint which presents the

    persistent significance of medieval thought in the light of modern science, psychology,

    and philosophy; Lonergans epistemology is definitively expressed in his astute,

    though ponderous, volume Insight, A Study of Human Understanding (Third Edition,New York: Philosophical Library, 1970; originally 1958). Insight is the first mature

    philosophic product of the reconstruction called for by Pope Leo XIII, a project

    wherein old scholasticism would be re-stored and completed by current day thought.

    The epistemological position set forth in Insight is of interest and significance also

    because of the ramifications Lonergan sees it as having in other fields, especially

    metaphysics and theological method.

    The aim of the book is to present a critique of various methods of thought (bothin science and in common sense) and to lead the reader through the maze of dense

    argumentation to understand the nature of insight as a cognitional event within his

    own rational self-consciousness; from this point Lonergan would examine the

    implications of a proper view of method for metaphysics and would point out the

    universe which is disclosed by the characteristics of insight. In all this Lonergans

    hope is to demonstrate the resilience of the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition by purging

    it of its antiquated science and presenting a new philosophy of science in its place, a

    philosophy from which he can extrapolate to the world structure that is presupposed

    in the effective operation of the many fields of human inquiry.

    The overall development of thought through the book, then, is from

    psychologism to metaphysics (and God): from the question, What is happening when

    we are knowing?, to the question, What is known when we are knowing? In good

    Thomist style, Lonergan aims to proceed from an indepen-dent analysis of

    rational-scientific human knowing to a demonstration of the existence of God

    Himself. An exposition of Lonergans epistemology and its entailed metaphysical

    implications should properly precede an appraisal of the same.

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    Exposition

    In Part I (Insight as Activity) of Insight Lonergan sets out the theory of

    cognitional structure which shall undergird Part II, the practice of making correct

    judgments (Insight as Knowledge). Four levels of development are discernable

    throughout parts I and II, the first level representing Part I itself while Part II is

    subdivided into three further levels.

    The first step of his argument is the endeavor to grasp the key occurrences in

    learning math, advancing science, developing common sense, and formingjudgments in order that we might see cognitional activity as an activity (chapters

    1-10).

    Secondly, Lonergan would discuss cognitional activity as cognitional, pointing

    out that self-affirmation is objective knowledge (chapters 11-13).

    From here Lonergan advances to the third level of development and presents

    his general case for proportionate being; in this case self-affirmation is the key act.The case for proportionate being is used by Lonergan to establish a general

    dialectical theorem, which in turn will make possible a metaphysics of proportionate

    being and consequent ethics (chapters 14-18).

    Thus far the first three steps of Lonergans argument have sought to present

    autonomous thought as the lower story for the climactic fourth step of development

    wherein human knowledge of transcendent being (that is, the possibility of

    intelligibly grasping and reasonably affirming a being which lies outside of mans

    experience) is proved by the fact that such intelligent grasp and reasonable

    affirmation occur. This logic of natural theology is plainly expressed Lonergan

    himself:

    It was to give concrete expression to the sincerity of Catholic thought in

    affirming the essential independence of other fields that our first eighteen chapters

    were written solely in the light of human intelligence and reasonableness and

    without any presuppo-sition of Gods existence, without any appeal to the authority

    of the Church, and without any explicit deference to the genius of St. Thomas

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    Aquinas. At the same time, our first eighteen chapters were followed by a

    nineteenth and twentieth that revealed the inevitability with which the affirmation

    of God and the search of intellect for faith arise out of a sincere acceptance of

    scientific presuppositions and precepts (p. 744).

    Keeping this broad outline of the argument in mind as well as the goal toward

    which Lonergan is moving, we can engage in a more detailed analysis of the various

    levels in the development of Lonergans case. It should be clear from the overview

    of Insight presented just now that step one (i.e., Part I or chapters 1-10) is of seminal

    importance for the entire treatise.

    The first task that Lonergan sets before himself in that section is to clarify the

    nature of insight; this he does in chapters 1-5. In chapter 1 Lonergan discusses theinsights which are sought by the knower. This chapter is crucial in Lonergans

    program to demonstrate the possibility of having a philosophy which is

    methodological, critical and comprehensive (cf. p. xii); the chapter lays the

    groundwork for a study of human understanding, its philosophic implications, and

    the cure for flights from understanding. If Lonergan succeeds in showing the power

    of his method (p. 488), he will accomplished his goal of finding a common ground

    on which men of intelligence might meet (p. xiii).

    The crucial issue in his argument is an experimental issue from which everything

    else follows; that issue will be the decisive achievement of rational

    self-consciousness taking possession of itself as such (p. xviii) and thereby gaining the

    ability to discriminate between existential concerns and purely intellectual activity (p.

    xix). Thus the question, as Lonergan sees it, pertains to the precise nature of

    knowledge and the relations between its two diverse forms, rational and empirical (p.

    xvii). His purpose in answering this question is to provide a discriminate of

    cognitive acts, effecting a personal appropriation of the concrete, dynamic structure

    immanent and recurrently operative in cognitional activities (p. xvii); this

    self-appropriation cannot take place in a single leap but must be painstakingly

    developed (p. xxiii).

    To conclude, our aim regards:

    (1) not the fact of knowledge, but a discrimination between two facts of

    knowledge,

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    (2) not the details of the known but the structure of knowing,

    (3) not the knowing as an object characterized by catalogues of abstract

    properties but the appropriation of ones own intellectual and rational

    self-consciousness,

    (4) not a sudden leap to appropriation but a slow and painstaking

    development, and

    (5) not a development indicated by appealing either to the logic of the as yet

    unknown goal or to a presupposed and as yet unexplained ontologically structured

    metaphysics, but a development that can begin in any sufficiently cultured

    consciousness, that expands in virtue of dynamic tendencies of that consciousnessitself, and that heads through an understanding of all understanding to a basic

    understanding of all that can be understood (p. xxviii).

    The recurrent structure Lonergan here speaks of is identified with the process of

    knowing itself, in contrast to the extensive area of the known (p. xviii); this structure

    is always the same (p. xxvi), and thus it is the essence of knowledge and that which

    unifies empiricism, rationalism, and common sense. Knowing (this one and the

    same recurrent structure) is understanding (p. xxix). To say that Lonergan is seekingto get to the heart of these essential epistemological questions is identical with

    saying that his aim is to reveal the nature of insight and to indicate its basic role in

    human understanding (p. 269).

    Therefore, it is quite evident why chapter 1 of Lonergans book, wherein he

    discusses insight as sought by the knower, is the central nail on which his whole

    position hangs. Lonergan expresses himself most simply when he declares that An

    insight is no more than an act of understanding (p. 45). It is different from

    sensation (p. 5), being a function of the inner conditions of ones mind and enters its

    habitual texture (pp. 3, 4). Insight is not methodological but creative in character (p.

    4), depending upon ones natural endowments, alertness, and habitual orientation,

    as well as an accurate presentation of definite problems (p. 5). Lonergan sees it as

    the key to practicality (p. xiv), the sudden release of inquiry-tension which pivots

    between the concrete and abstract (p. 6).

    It is helpful in grasping Lonergans notion of insight to understand the genesis of

    insight. Prior to insight altogether, and presupposing experiences and images, there

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    is found in man an unrestricted, driving desire to understand which constitutes the

    primordial why? (p. 9). Man awakens to intelligence, having this driving desire to

    understand; with the coming of a clue the imagination process is triggered and leads

    to the insightful achievement of an answer to the question posed (an answer in the

    form of a patterned set of conceptsp. 10). An insight provides the pivot between

    images and concepts in ones thinking; it is the act of catching on to a connection, an

    act which is facilitated by images and which results in concepts (pp. 8-10). As such

    insight is a preconceptual event (p. 59) which occurs as a leap of constructive

    intelligence (pp. 64f.), a lightening flash of illumination (p. 201). An insight unifies,

    organizes and draws into intelligible relations the various particulars which are

    known. Hence Lonergan views it as the supervening act of understanding, the act

    of organizing intelligence, a constituent of human knowledge which apprehends

    relations and meaning by a process of unification and organization (pp. ix-xi); thispsychological aspect of human intelligence, this insight, is the a priori synthetic after

    which philosophers have sought, and it is that which Lonergan believes can take him

    to a verifiable metaphysic.

    He points out that the reader of a detective story can be given all the clues and

    still fail to spot the criminal; the solution is only reached when the apprehended

    clues are intelligently organized as a distinct activity. This activity is what he labels

    insight. Having explained his central notion, Lonergan turns to geometricaldefinitions as examples of the product of insight; from these he goes on to explain

    the emergence of higher viewpoints and redefinitions which result from a complex

    shift in the whole structure of insights (p. 13) and vast extension of the initial

    deductive expansion (p. 15). The emergence of such a higher viewpoint consists in

    an insight which arises upon the operations performed according to old rules and yet

    expressed in the formulation of new rules.

    At this point Lonergans discussion twists to the unusual type of insight which

    grasps that the only understanding to be had of certain data is that there is nothing

    to be understood, there is no point or solution; Lonergan calls this an inverse insight

    which, in the context of a positive empirical object, denies the expected intelligibility

    (p. 19). In the process of abstraction which acts of insight call for there is an

    unavoidable empirical residue which possesses no immanent intelligibility of its

    own (pp. 30, 31). The higher intelligibility of a fully developed science leaves

    certain positive (empirical) data which is particular and incidental (thus irrelevant)

    unexplained; however, by going beyond the sensible field, the enrichment of

    abstraction allows one to grasp that which is essential, significant, and important

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    (rather than individual). Lonergan generalizes and says that in all data there is this

    empirical residue, the notion of oversight; this is a flight from understanding which

    results from an incomplete development of intelligence and reasonableness (p. xi).

    It can unconsciously produce a scotoma or blind spot on the understanding; the

    production of an aberration of understanding is designated scotosis (p. 191), the

    cure for which is found in insight (p. 201).

    In recapitulation, Lonergan views an insight as the prevailing and defining form

    of the human cognitional process. An insight is the mental act of apprehending

    intelligibilities logically distinct from, though psychologically conveyed by, sense data

    and images; because these intelligibilities bear witness to entities which are

    unimaginable, knowing cannot be identified with the process of mere looking.

    Instead, knowing goes beyond the empirical presentations to grasp intelligiblemeanings and to reflectively judge their truth-status; as we shall soon see, the

    rational self-consciousness affirms a proposition in view of its sufficient reason,

    thereby rendering the condi-tioned virtually unconditioned by linking it up with its

    called for conditionsa linkage which is effected by structures immanent and

    operative within the cognitional process. In the background of that cognitional

    process characterized by insights is a pure, detached, disinterested desire to

    understand or know, a desire which gives rise to inquiry and wonder (cf. p. 74). This

    desire is seen by Lonergan as central to human nature (pp. 331, 474). InLonergans estimation, this driving desire to understand will climax in metaphysical

    theology, indeed the singular goal of Thomistic philosophy and theology. However,

    he recognizes that the polymorphism of consciousness and the dialectic of various

    philosophies reveal that this driving desire can be channeled into different

    (aberrational) streams from that of Roman Catholicism.

    In chapter 2 of Insight Lonergan introduces the heuristic structures which inform

    the knowers search for insight, showing that the methodological origin and

    production of insight lies in a heuristic structure (p. 44). For instance, symbolism is

    a heuristic technique (cf. p. 18). However, the insights discussed in chapter 2 are

    taken by Lonergan from the field of empirical science; having contrasted the scientific

    developments of understanding with those of mathematics (such as discussed in the

    preceding chapter), he probes into the origin of those clues that facilitate the initial

    insight. He maintains that in the act of inquiring human intelligence already

    anticipates the act of understanding after which it is striving. The content which is

    anticipated has properties which serve as the heuristic clues that lead into insight

    situations. Lonergan isolates two separate groups of heuristic structures: the

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    classical (the abstract and systematic which is the convergence point for concrete

    particulars) and the statistical (the boundary norm of systematic abstraction from

    which the concrete cannot consistently and pervasively diverge).

    In chapters 3-5 Lonergan uses a deepened study of math and science to

    consolidate his position with respect to insight, classical and statistical heuristic

    structures. Statistical laws, according to Lonergan, deal with particular events and

    frequencies thereof (p. 53), while classical laws (formed by the abstraction from

    similarities in data) state either the relation of things (i.e., the concrete

    unity-identity-whole grasped in data as individual, cf. p. 339) to our senses (thus a

    descriptive conjugate, the thing being a thing-for-us) or to one another (thus

    explanatory conjugates, the thing being a thing-itself) (p. 79). However, all heuristic

    structures are of themselves empty and anticipate a filling. The anticipation of thisfilling process itself is used by Lonergan to demonstrate the canons of empirical

    method (e.g., selection, operations, relevance, parsimony, and complete explanation).

    Due to the presence of inverse insights Lonergan sees the inevitability of statistical

    residues in our scientific explanations.

    In chapter four Lonergan attempts to deal with the complementarity of classical

    and statistical investigations, having recognized the duality involved in the

    intelligibility he takes to be immanent in positive data and the domination of theconcrete by the abstract and systematic. He sees a complementarity between them

    as types of knowing: in their heuristic anticipations (i.e., either of the systematic or

    the non-systematic), procedures, formulations, methods of abstraction, verification,

    and data explained. Beyond the fact that classical and statistical methods

    complement each other as cognitional activities, Lonergan believes that the results

    of both can be combined into a single world view (which incidentally contrasts with

    those of teleology, determinism, evolution, and indeterminism all alike), a world view

    which is determined precisely by this simultaneous affirmation of both classical and

    statistical investigations. Lonergan asserts: . . . heuristic structures and canons of

    method constitute an a priori. They settle in advance the general determinations,

    not merely of the activities of knowing, but also of the content to be known (pp.

    104f.).

    In chapter 5 Lonergan shows us the result of his bringing classical and statistical

    methods together; it is his notion of emergent probability: the successive

    realization in accord with successive schedules of probability of a conditioned series

    of schemes of recurrence (pp. 125f.). It is the immanent intelligibility which is

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    aimed at by empirical method and which exhibits the inner design of the world

    process (p. 128). Emergent probability is the successive realization of the

    possibilities of concrete situations in accords with their probabilities (p. 171), the

    world of scientific expectation. According to Lonergans philosophy of science,

    space is the ordered totality of concrete extensions, and time (just as simply) is the

    ordered totality of concrete durations (p. 143). The concrete intelligibility of both is

    found in their function of grounding situations and successive realizations in accord

    with probabilities (respec-tivelyp. 172). Thus Lonergans view of emergent

    probability is founded upon his view of concrete space and concrete time. One can

    best understand it by thinking of concrete extensions and durations (i.e., space and

    time) as the matter of which emergent probability is the intelligible formbeing

    immanent in the matter (cf. p. 172). Cosmology has come within the range of

    empirical science alone!

    In chapters 6 and 7 Lonergan turns to the activities of intelligent common sense,

    and then in chapter 8 he brings common sense together with his previous discussion

    of science. Chapter 6 sets out the pure theory of common sense, and chapter 7

    discusses its dialectical involvements. As an intellectual development, common

    sense is seen by Lonergan as a spontaneous inquiry, accumu-lation of related insights

    (i.e., the process of leaning) and collaboration advanced by commu-nication (p. 175).

    It is characteristic of common sense to remain incomplete as a specialization ofintelligence, waiting for one key insight into a situation at hand (pp. 175, 177). The

    concerns of common sense are concrete and particular, have no use for technical

    language, and are concerned with things for us (pp. 176-178); therefore, Lonergan

    sharply distinguishes common sense from theoretical science (pp. 178f.). He

    maintains that the development of practical common sense entails a change in its

    subject, and as well a change in its object: the making and doing which common

    sense aims at involve a transformation of man and his environment (p. 207).

    In chapter 6 Lonergan had discussed the various patterns of experience known

    in common sense (e.g., the biological, the aesthetic, the intellectual, the dramatic),

    and this led him into a survey of the individuals problems as connected with

    dramatic bias (the oversights caused by psychological undercurrents and which is

    fostered by repression and inhibition, characterized by a failure of smooth

    performancepp. 191-196); the counterpart to this discussion in chapter 7 is

    Lonergans analysis of intersubjectivity and the tension plus dialectic of social order

    (pp. 211-218), flowing from which is his detailing of individual bias (stopping of mans

    intellectual development at the egoistic level, cf. pp. 219f.), group bias (the

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    self-serving reluctance of society to move toward the changes dictated by

    intelligence, cf. p. 223), and general bias (the universal lag of intelligence occasioned

    by a generalized empirical method (parallel to the empirical method as it relates to

    sense data) which, as applied to the data of consciousness, consists in determining

    patterns of intelligible relations that unite the data explanatorily.

    Such generalized method deals with a multiple of conscious subjects and their

    milieu as well, and this brings in the instrumentality of the dialectic (a pure form with

    general implications which enables a general form of a critical attitude, applicable to

    any concrete unfurling of linkerd but opposed principles that are modified

    cumulatively by the unfolding: cf. p. 244). Lonergan has now reached the point

    where he can, in chapter 8, draw the necessary distinction between things and

    bodiesonly the former are intelligible unities to be grasped within the intellectualpattern of experience, the latter being as significant for animals as they are for

    common sense. A body is the already out there now real (p. 251), but a thing is

    an intelligible unity which need not be bodily at all (p. 268); the failure to reach this

    critical position accounts for the endless chain of philosophic positions according to

    Lonergan, and he thinks that only a dialectical analysis which is based on this critical

    position will allow one to go on to a philosophy of philosophies.

    Things are concrete, intelligible unities. As such, all are alike. Still they are ofdifferent kinds, not merely when described in terms of their relations to us, but still

    more so when explained in terms of their relations to one another. For there is a

    succession of higher viewpoints; each is expressed in its own system of correlations

    and implicitly defined conjugates; and each successive system makes systematic what

    otherwise would be merely coincidental on the preceding view-point . . . Moreover,

    emergent probability is extended to realize cumulatively, in accord with successive

    schedules of probabilities, a conditioned series not only of schemes of recurrence

    but also of things (p. 268).

    We can now summarize Lonergans view of science and common sense.

    According to him they are separate and incomplete cognitional proces-ses. While

    common sense investigates things in relation to us, science investigates things in

    relation to each other. The objective of science is complete explanation which can

    be verified in descriptions of direct experience having formalized scientific method,

    Lonergan explicates its structure and points out the kind of world which it

    presupposesthereby showing the application of an a priori within knowledge and

    experience, and proposing that ones method legislates the types of answers which

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    he will deem admissible.

    There are three basic methods in science, each having its own peculiar heuristic

    structure. The classical method assumes that similars are to be similarly

    understood, and these similarities are amenable to mathematical expression; its

    objective is to ascertain the unspecified correlation which must be specified. The

    statistical method is used to detect probabilities since the coincidental aggregates or

    particular individuals do not neatly conform to the expectations of classical method.

    The genetic method discovers intelligible patterns, allowing for the subsumption of

    the histories or significantly dissimilar individuals under common genetic principles.

    Lonergan sees the advantage or investigating methods (instead of synthesizing facts

    and laws) as being the elimination of any need or constant revision contingent upon

    new scientific discoveries; the methods will persist in that they determinebeforehand which data and principles may count as scientific advances.

    Turning then to common sense, Lonergan sees this understanding of things as

    related to us as dominated by practical concerns which can in the long run obstruct

    the pure, detached, unrestricted desire to know. Certain biases can lead to scotosis

    (the unconscious closing off of an insight) which become evident in psychological

    breakdowns, soci-etal disruptions, and world crises. Nevertheless, it must be

    remembered that common sense does validly yield insight into concrete situations; itis just that the shortcomings of common sense must deprive it of any central position

    in the solution to philosophical problems.

    Now as to the relation holding between science and common sense, Lonergan

    sees them as complementary. This thesis is tested against the issue of thinghood,

    for therein science and commons sense would appear to conflict: science seeing

    things as wavicles which are verified by sense data yet ontologically distinct for them,

    while common sense simply takes things to be concrete, publically accessible. The

    reconciliation between these positions is found (through a critical use of dialectic) in

    the higher viewpoint of metaphysics which draws proper and necessary distinctions.

    Lonergan says that the scientist is in error by supposing that intelligible objects, since

    things must be related to each other, must be imaginable objects existing out there;

    on the other hand, common sense mistakes everyday appear-ances for the intrinsic

    natures of things them-selves. Lonergan overcomes the standoff here by

    integrating the insights of both science and common sense in the intellectual pattern

    of experience which takes the knowable to be the real. Thus science and

    common sense are equally forms of knowledge which can come up against and

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    understand reality.

    In chapters 9-10 Lonergan comes to the point; chapters 1-8 are given as a

    communication of the necessary prior insights which lead into the last two chapters

    of Part I, the area of critical judgment. In terms of the cognitional structure which

    Lonergan discusses in chapter 9 as the final outcome of his previous analyses,

    chapters 6-7 set forth the level of presentations: that is, the empirical raw

    materials for intelligence which are ineffable by themselves; chapters 1-5 set forth

    the level of intelligence (which follows the level of presentations in the cognitional

    process): that is, the acts of inquiry, understanding, and formula-tion. In chapters

    9-10 Lonergan comes to the point of asking whether the preceding discussion is so, is

    representative of the actual state of affairs; this question is handled through his

    analysis of the cognitional process as such and of reflective judgment.

    Chapter 9 deals with the notion of judgment and the overall cognitional

    structure. The content of a judgment is a proposition (p. 271) and involves a

    personal commitment (p. 272); being the answer to a question for reflection (p. 272),

    a judgment (in terms of Lonergans scheme, to be discussed presently) is the final

    and total increment in the cognitional process (p. 276). This process moves on

    three successive levels. First there is the level of presentations, the level of

    empiricism and common sense wherein the raw materials for intelligence aresupplied; this level cannot yield understanding of itself. This level is presupposed by,

    and complements, the second level in the cognitional process, which is the level of

    intelli-gence; here the acts of inquiry, understanding and formulation take place (e.g.,

    what? why? how often?). Then because we conceive in order to judge, every

    question on the level of intelligence leads invariably on to questions for reflection.

    This is the third level of the cognitional process; this level calls for a further kind of

    insight and judgment which relate to the notions of truth or falsity, certitude or

    probability (though not here in the sense of frequency). Thus each level of the

    cognitional process is distinguished by the addition of a new dimension in mans

    thinking; the attitude of an inquiring mind which effects the transition from one level

    to the next does so by means of questions.

    Overall the cognitional process is a cumulative affair (cf. p. 275) wherein the

    human mind goes about its proper business of, not contemplation, but adding

    increments to its habitual knowledge. Lonergans idea of a cognitional structure is

    actually quite a bit simpler than it might sound. What he is essentially setting forth

    is this pattern: the knower is confronted with certain empirical situations (i.e.,

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    presentations) which raise ques-tions of intelligence in his mind; having formulated

    an initial answer by means of an insight, he then asks whether his formulation is true

    or whether he can have certitude about it; upon reflection of these questions on the

    rational level he finally makes a judgment (answers yes or no). Lonergan

    schematizes his analysis of the cognitional process in the following way (each Roman

    numeral represents an advanced level, and on each level the progression moves from

    left to right and moves onto the next level by means of questions):

    I. Data. Perceptual Images. Free Images. Utterances.

    II. Questions for Intelligence. Insights. Formulations.

    III. Questions for Reflection. Reflection. Judgment.

    Thus, the knower moves from empirical conscious-ness onto intelligent

    consciousness, and finally onto rational consciousness; in all this he is impelled

    forward by the driving desire to under-stand. The last thing which we need to add

    to this exposition is the tenet that this triple-level cognit-ional process operates in

    two different modes. The direct mode begins with the data of sense (i.e., empirical

    science) and proceeds through the three steps; the results of anyone level in the

    cognitional process in the direct mode can supply data of consciousness (theexperienced work of inquiry, insight, and formulation, etc.) which become the

    starting point for the introspective mode of the cognitional process (which completes

    the transi-tion from level to level). Hereby Lonergan ac-counts for all kinds of

    thinking and presents know-ing as a dynamic structure (facilitated by insight).

    The only thing that remains now is for Lonergan to explain in chapter 10 his

    notion of reflective understanding. He takes it to be an insight which meets

    questions for reflection and which leads on to judgments (thus is formally parallel to

    the acts of direct or introspective understanding discussed just previously). In

    grasping unity, or system, or ideal frequency, a reflective understanding also grasps

    the sufficiency of the evidence for a prospective judgment (p. 279). When certain

    evidence is taken to be sufficient, the prospective judgment is seen as virtually

    unconditioned. Thus the reflective understanding transforms a prospective

    judgment from a conditioned status to that of being virtually unconditioned; this it

    does by seeing what the conditions of that prospective judgment are and noting

    their fulfillment (p. 280). A reflective insight grasps this pattern and by a rational

    compulsion the judgment follows; hence Lonergan maintains that the judgment is

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    implicit in the cognitional process even before the judgment actually comes about (p.

    281). Lonergan next goes into an extended examination of the various types of

    judgments that knowers make, and he summarizes his discussion in chapter 10

    thusly:

    Prospective judgments are propositions

    (1) that are the content of an act of conceiving, thinking, defining, considering,

    or supposing,

    (2) that are subjected to the question for reflection, to the critical attitude of

    intelligence, and

    (3) that thereby are constituted as the conditioned.

    There is sufficient evidence for a prospective judgment when it may be grasped

    by reflective understanding as virtually unconditioned. Hence sufficient evidence

    involves

    (1) a link of the conditioned to its conditions, and

    (2) the fulfilment of the conditions.

    These two elements are supplied in different manners in different cases.

    In formal inference the link is provided by the hypothetical premise, If the

    antecedent, then the consequent. The fulfilment is the minor premise.

    In judgment on the correctness of insights, the link is that the insight is correct if

    there are no further, pertinent questions, and the fulfilments lies in the

    self-correcting process of learning reaching its limit in familiarity and mastery.

    In judgments of fact the link is the correct insight or set of insights and the

    fulfilment lies in present and/or remembered data.

    In generalizations the link is the cognitional law that similars are similarly

    understood and the fulfilment lies in such similarity that further, pertinent questions

    no more arise in the general case than in the correctly understood particular case.

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    In probable judgments the link is that insights are correct when there are no

    further pertinent questions and the fulfil-ment is some approximation of the

    self-cor-recting process of learning to its limit of familiarity and mastery.

    In analytic propositions the link lies in rules of meaning that generate

    propositions out of partial terms of meaning and the fulfilment is supplied by the

    meanings or definitions of the terms (pp. 315f.).

    This then completes a broad outline of Lonergans basic epistemological position.

    Through chapters 1-10 he has laid out a psychologism which centers in the event of

    insight, relates the various methods of knowing, and expands into a general

    cognitional structure. This is cognitional activity as activity in Insight.

    These first ten chapters represent the first step in Lonergans overall argument

    in Insight; they are followed by three subsequent steps in chapters 11-20. Therein

    Lonergan develops his view of the self-affirmation of the concrete subject (knower)

    as a transcendental condition implicit in cognitional acts, his method and content of

    metaphysics, his view of proportionate being, the implications all this has for ethics,

    and then finally his view of transcendent knowledge (general and special). It is

    quite clear that Lonergan sees his cognitional theory as exercising a fundamentalinfluence in metaphysics, ethics and theology (cf. p. 389). However, in

    consideration of time, space, and the specific scope of this paper (the epistemology

    of Lonergan), only an abbreviated exposition of these secondary developments

    would be appropriate. Moreover, if the epistemology previously expunded turns

    out to be faulty, the foundation underlying the later metaphysics and theology will be

    dissolved and thereby leave any extended consideration of these aspects of

    Lonergans thinking useless.

    Based on his analysis of heuristic structure and the place it has in cognition as

    an activity aiming at truth and oriented toward objects, Lonergan renders the

    unusual definition being as whatever is known and remains to be known (p. 350).

    Being may be known either by experience, intelligent grasp, or reasonable

    affirmation; and because these three ways all disclose distinct aspects of reality,

    being should be viewed as proportionate. Metaphysics, then, becomes the integral

    heuristic structure of proportionate being (p. 431).

    Combining his cognitional structure with a Thomist ontology, Lonergan identifies

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    potency with experience, form with intelligence, and act with affirmation. At the

    level of common sense and science things have simple potency, form, and act; at the

    higher standpoint of metaphysics, though, the thing has a central potency, central

    form, and central act. The views of thinghood in science and common sense

    parallel Aristotles substantial form, while in metaphysics all contradictions are

    resolved by an integrating principle of viewpoint-unification (the intrinsic

    intelligibility of being and the central form of reality being perceived in metaphysical

    thinking).

    Because knowing is more than just taking a look at the world, and due to mans

    unnrestricted desire to understand completely, levels of further questions take him

    on to the realm of the transcendent (pp. 635ff). His limited capacities will mean

    that the range of possible questions will always be larger than the range of possibleanswers for man (p. 639). The content of the unrestricted act of understanding

    would be the idea of being; as such it would have to be absolutely transcendent (pp.

    644ff.)not just things, but the general idea of being which lies behind things.

    However, Lonergan feels that to understand being is to understand God (p. 658), for

    they have the same properties. In this case the conception of God is the most

    meaningful concept to man since being in the core of meaning (p. 669). To say that

    God is real is to say that He is the object of a reasonable affirmation, which

    amounts to saying God exists. Therefore, Lonergan feels that our restrictedunderstanding extrapolates back to an unrestricted act, i.e., God (p. 670). His basic

    theistic proof then is: If the real is completely intelligible, God exists. But the real

    is completely intelligible. Therefore, God exists (p. 672).

    The higher level of supernatural knowledge (with its conjugate forms of faith,

    hope, and love) was anticipated, then, all along in the lower con-text of cognitional

    theory; from the psychologism of insight Lonergan has mounted to a universal

    viewpoint. As he sees it, the inner dynamism of inquiry has brought the knower

    from an autonomous science to a universally relevant theology; indeed, grace does

    perfect nature after all! On page 748 of Insight we find an assertion also given on p.

    xxviii of the preface; thus as the brackets of Lonergans study, this assertion shows us

    the significance of insight according to his theory: 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.

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    Appraisal

    The fact that Lonergans epistemology is staked on the psychologism he sets

    forth in Insight leaves his position in a weak and vulnerable condition from the outset;

    he would have to possess privileged access to all human psychological-intelligent

    processes in order to argue as he does, but he clearly does not have such an ability

    to know whether I reach all my conclusions via the pattern of data-presentation,

    insight, and reflec-tive judgment or not. He is merely arguing from the similarity of

    outward acts when humans are intelligently engaged in thought to an assumed

    identity of cognitional structure; at best this is an argument from silence (seeing that

    nothing is known about the internal mental acts of others), and at worst it is the

    fallacy of false cause (attributing the wrong cause to the similarity of outwardresponses in a variety of knowers).

    Lonergans viewpoint pivots on his notion of the unrestricted, driving desire to

    understand, for it is this desire which initiates and sustains the cognitional process.

    This drive prompts further and further questions, mounting onward from one level to

    the next; it inevitably leads to God as the unrestricted act of understanding, the

    absolutely unconditioned condition of all being. So then, the driving desire of

    mans mind demands for its fulfilment the complete intelligibility of the universe, apremise necessary for Lonergans theistic proof. However, it is not at all clear why

    an argument which moves from the human desire for intelligibility to the putative

    existence of an objective intelligibility does not amount to simple wishful thinking.

    Moreover, by admitting that there is mystery in the natural world, Lonergan

    precludes the possibili-ty of mans driving desire for understanding being satisfied; in

    this case the complete intelligibility of the world rests ultimately on faith: Therefore,

    Lonergans autonomous proof of Gods existence turns out to be no proof

    whatsoever. Indeed, even if Lonergans odd God did exist, the intelligibility of the

    universe would only be from a supernatural standpoint and thus irrelevant to human

    science and philosophy. Again. we must question whether this supposed driving

    desire to understand actually leads inevitably to the Roman Catholic God when in

    terms of the manifest results of the history of philosophy we find a motley array of

    systems which commonly oppose the scholastic position.

    Furthermore, one does not have to search very long to find someone within his

    own community or neighborhood who does not seem to have a very strong desire to

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    learn or understand at all; indeed, in terms of the revelation of God in Scripture we

    should maintain that no one at all seeks to understand God: Throughout his

    discussion Loner-gan has committed the customary normalist fallacy; consonant

    with his Romanist training, Lonergan does not appear to take the noetic effects of

    the fall of man into sin very seriously at all. So much is this the case that he even

    attributes unethical acts to oversights of intelligence rather than to any depraved

    nature and corrupted mind-set. In terms of what the Bible describes in man, and in

    terms of what we actually find in man, the driving desire to know which men are said

    to have by Lonergan is far from detached and pure; it is resistive to God and lustful

    throughout. That is why behavioral aberrations are not simply caused by flights

    from insight (cf. p. 191) and certainly are not cured by intellectual insights (cf. p. 201)!

    It would appear that Lonergans psychologism actually embodies a false psychology

    of man, an erroneous view of the primacy of mans intellect, and an inadequate viewof sin.

    Lonergans idea of cognitional insight is also beset with difficulties. His idea of

    discerning Platonic-like relations between the particulars of empirical presentations

    falls short of taking account of the phenomenological orientation of mans knowing

    process. In fact, men do not encounter isolated, brute facts of sensation (e.g.,

    spherical red) which they put together into intelligible unities (e.g., apple); all of

    mans experiencing is controlled by interpretations which he already possesses andbrings to the facts. The facts which man encounters, moreover, are themselves

    expressions of the divine interpre-tation of the cosmos and fit into the intelligible

    pattern of the divine plan; thus insight into the relations holding between various

    clues cannot even get off the ground if one is going to insist on an autonomous

    attitude from the start. In the case of autonomous intellectual process there could

    be nothing into which an insight might be had, for no presentation could stand alone

    without at least an initial interpretation assigned to it; since this is the case, an

    insight can never be genuinely indepen-dent of outside considerations.

    Next, we would ask if the simple insight into a patterned coherence of elements,

    traits, or clues says anything at all to us about the truthfulness of that point of view.

    Through any given number of points there are an infinite number of geometric

    designs which could accommodate the point locations; of themselves these points

    do not determine a right or wrong pattern of explanation. So also, an insight might

    draw all the disparate elements of presentation together into an interpre-tation or

    formulated law, but any nominalist will be quick to challenge the normativeness of

    this one insight among many. Lonergan simply assumes that we will recognize the

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    truth when we reach it (p. 3OO)an assumption which begs the question

    throughout the gamut of the history of philosophical dispute! If men recognize the

    truth when they reach it, Lonergan has a lot of explaining to do as to why men never

    reach it or why they so pervasively will refuse to recognize or acknowledge it.

    If Lonergans notion of insight appears to have the rationalist cast about it

    (mans mind is normal and able to attain to ultimate truth in its own ability), it

    contrawise also has an irrationalist cast about it. As noted above, Lonergan thinks

    that insights are preconceptual events likened to a leap and to a lightening flash; this

    all sounds strangely like a mystical experience, an unpredictable, unteachable,

    unstructured process of irrational achievement of rational outlook! Finally, we

    would ask if it is actually true that images are necessary to having insights; must all

    discoveries and scientific or philosophic formulations be arrived at pictorially? Itcertainly seems that the laws of logic are discernable without pictures, and one can

    have an insight into a musical score without conjuring up an image in his mind can he

    not? If Lonergan expands the idea of image to include all symbolic representations

    (e.g., logical signs, musical notes), then his point about insights leading to

    formulations can readily be reduced to a trivial declaration that one must use

    formulation-symbols if he is going to arrive at a formulation of intelligence. This

    same general line of criticism applies to Lonergans idea that insights are

    pre-conceptual; it certainly seems possible (and not altogether uncommon) forpeople to have insights which are occasioned by the proper and suggestive

    correlation of certain concepts themselves.

    With respect to Lonergans views on science and common sense it would seem

    that he has assumed that methods of science themselves are constant through all

    changes in content; however, even the methods of science have developed and

    changed over the years. The arbitrariness of Lonergans views is perhaps evident in

    the fact that he refuses to assimilate classical and statistical method to each other, a

    task which is logically conceivable and which has been attempted before; by keeping

    these two methods separate Lonergan is able to go on to his view of emergent

    probability, etc., but he fails to show why these two should be accepted as diverse

    and irreconcilable methods. Why should random behavior not be treated as a

    conjunction of classical laws instead of as statistical law, for instance?

    Furthermore, Lonergan does not show why the emergent probability from

    classical and statistical methods is not merely a temporary inadequacy in human

    understanding rather than the objective structure of the world (as he propounds).

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    Even if the structure of emergent probability were an accurate representation of the

    world itself, it is most difficult to see how Lonergan gets from this point to his

    cosmology grounded in God and comprised of necessarily dependent beings; this

    movement of thought has all the signs of being dictated by a preconceived goal

    rather than moved along by the natural logic of the subject matter and discussions.

    Earlier we had noted the weak tenability of Lonergans position because of his failure

    to have private access to all cognitional activities; the same weak tenability is evident

    when we realize that the only thing which is necessary for a refutation of Lonergans

    extended case is for the heuristic structures of existing scientific methods to change

    (thereby showing that they are not final)a possibility which is highly likely if we

    listen to the renown philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn.

    Turning to Lonergans views on common sense, it would appear that he isconfronted with the horns of a dilemma: either the driving desire to know may be

    engaged as much by practical problems as by disinterested inquiry, or common sense

    insights are of inferior truth value than scientific ones. Lonergan cannot accept the

    latter view because he affords common sense the status and ability of insight; yet the

    former alternative endangers the very disinterestedness and detachment of the

    driving desire to understand (fragmentation into mere practical questions would

    arrest intellectual development). We must wonder, also, as to the real value of

    common sense when, after seeing its downfalls and dangers, Lonergan says that itmust be refined and corrected within the dialectic of the communitywhich is itself

    admittedly biased as well! Similar to the case of classical and statistical method, we

    need to ask Why Lonergan draws a sharp distinction between common sense and

    theoretical science instead of trying to combine them into a common approach;

    there are prima facie indications that common sense and science enter into all of

    mans reasoning experiences (with different emphases dependent upon the subject

    matter and investigator at hand). The implication of arbitrariness again suggests itself

    in Lonergans argument.

    There are problems to be found also in Lonergans notion of a cognitional

    structure. The idea of a structure of cognitional process is a metaphor built up from

    a misleading view of mental substance (which can take on structural properties and

    distinctives) that can be easily confuted from either modern philosophy or the

    Scriptural view of mans soul (heart, mind). If there is no substance inherent to

    mind, then the idea of a cognitional structure is nothing more than a way of seeing

    things; it certainly cannot be made the basis for a far-reaching metaphysical theory!

    Moreover, in what sense are we to think of a cognitional process as isomorphic to

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    the metaphysical structure? Why should we assume that it is so? Would a variety

    of cognitional structures commit Lonergan to a variety of metaphysical situations?

    Finally, because Lonergan reverts to a dialectical scheme to handle all

    disagreements of philosophical outlook at the metaphysical level, he apparently has

    precluded the possibility of antinomies inherent in mans knowledge as he tries to

    probe to the ultimate metaphysical truths of the world. However, he could only

    make a successful go of his dialectical method, then, if he were to demonstrate the

    complete intelligibility of reality; if he does not present cogent reasons for assuming

    this complete intelligibility, then his theistic p roof also falls by the way as something

    less than an argument along with the credibility of his dialectical method.

    Finally we must call into question the overall possibility and validity ofLonergans argumen-tative logic. He claims to be autonomous in his discussion of

    epistemology, and he claims that his epistemology entails and drives him on to his

    views of metaphysics and theology. However, it is quite apparent that one cannot

    draw this mislead-ing line between epistemology and metaphysics; the

    epistemological and methodological stance assumed by a philosopher is assumed for

    some reason and in order to best arrive at true conclusions about the states of affairs,

    and these reasons as well as the ability to compare the success of competing

    positions for engendering true conclusions depend upon a modicum of metaphysicalunderstanding of the world already. Therefore, ones metaphysics informs his

    epistem-ology as much as his epistemology informs his metaphysics.

    The idea of a completely neutral method or epistemology is a completely

    egoistic fiction of rationalism. An autonomous epistemology is not able to

    theoretically ground the laws of logic which it employs or the canons of uniformity

    upon which it depends; an autonomous epistemology cannot intelligently explain the

    successful interaction of synthetic facts and analytic laws in mans thinking. Thus an

    autonomous epistemology amounts to either sheer arbitrariness (and therefore

    should not command our serious attention) or to the denial of a theoretically

    justified doctrine of knowledge (in which case the position is self-vitiating and should

    be rejected on the most elementary level of consideration). In accepting the logic

    of natural theology, Lonergan implicitly undermined his whole study of epistemology

    and metaphysics; in his attempt to explain the groundings of epistemology on an

    autonomous basis he precluded the success of his endeavor. And because he

    founds his metaphysic and theology in his epistemology, those two outlooks must be

    rejected with the same stringency that demands the rejection of his problem-laden

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    theory of knowledge.

    Before closing our consideration of Lonergan we can briefly sketch some specific

    difficulties in his metaphysic and theology. In common with all unscriptural thinking,

    Lonergan is pulled apart by the opposite poles of rationalism and irrationalism: for

    instance, he tries to combine the determinism of classical laws with the

    indeterminism of statistical method, he hold to the rationalistic doctrine that man

    must drive toward the limit of omniscience while simultaneously believing the

    irrationalist tenet that it is impossible to know all things due to the inevitability of

    mystery and distortions. In his metaphysics Lonergan dubiously stretches the

    potency-form-act motif which was helpful in analyzing common sense to apply it to

    the thing itself (a semi-Kantian thing-in-itself which is outside ordinary human

    experience and the reach of normal science); it is questionable whether the fact thatcognitional theory influences metaphysics logically justifies inferences from the

    structure of cognitional processes to the constitution of ontological structures.

    And yet such argumentation dominates the viewpoint of Lonergans Insight.

    Lonergans infer-ence would be valid if and only if he could show that no other

    cosmology or metaphysic can account for the structures of the cognitional pro-cess,

    and such a universal negative argument simply cannot be adduced (especially on

    Loner-gans autonomous platform). Consequently, the argument of his book mustbe seen as faulted. Lonergan could only see methods and cognitional processes as

    the foundation for inference to cosmology and metaphysics (rather than specific

    instances of them) if he were a Kantian (i.e., holding that the knowing subject

    imparts the very structures to knowledge, experience and nature); yet Lonergan is

    the diametric opposite of a Kantian since, instead of limiting his conjectures to

    human experience, he goes after the things in themselves, even applying the

    structure of the cognitional process to God! In the case of Lonergan we find a most

    radical subjectivism, a case wherein epistemology, cosmology, and theology all

    collapse into a psychologism of the knower as subject.

    It is clear that Lonergan has abandoned any truly transcendent starting point

    which would ground philosophic thinking in the word revelation of a transcendent

    God; Lonergans position is com-pletely immanentistic (despite his intentions!). By

    means of his analogy of Being Lonergan forces the knowing subject to become God

    projected, and this in order to prove the existence of this God who is mans image!

    Professor Lonergans investigations and study were never truly independent of

    theological commitment as he had claimed; all along he was working on a scheme

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    which of necessity worships the creature rather than the Creatora most definite,

    and erroneous, theological commitment. There would, advancing to other

    difficulties, seem to be a few contradictions in Lonergans view of being which need

    resolution: he says being is the knowable, yet a state of affairs (cf. pp. 348, 358); he

    says being is univocal, yet analogical (cf. pp. 361f.); he maintains that being is, and is

    not, a genus (p. 367).

    Lonergans thinking becomes completely obscure when he holds that the core of

    meaning is the intention of being (p. 359); what sense is to be made of that?

    Turning finally to Lonergan s own theology we observe that, along with all the past

    scholastics, he thinks that he knows that God is but not what God is (cf. p. 634).

    When Lonergan identifies Being with God he begs the crucial question of his study;

    why, after all, should one just assume a Thomistic notion of God? In a strange formof argumentation Lonergan thinks that the problem of evil (a problem which he had

    not taken very seriously in his first seventeen chapters we would note) pushes us to

    affirm Gods existence (in the egoistic sense that we need a grounding for

    explanation and rationality); how-ever, the problem of evil is usually taken to dictate

    against Gods existence, and it is not clear why Lonergans autonomous theology

    does not suitably collapse under, that problematic. Lastly we would indicate that

    Lonergan, just as his Thomistic predecessors, constructs a proof of God as an

    unrestricted act of understanding and thereby makes Him as isolated and irrelevantto the world as Aristotles unmoved mover and entails that He has the same difficulty

    in contacting the created world as the God of Aquinas did.

    Rehabilitation

    Despite all its encumbering fallacies, arbitrari-ness, and philosophic difficulties,

    the writings of Bernard Lonergan are not devoid of formally helpful insights. If his

    credible points were to be taken and placed upon a presuppositional and Scriptural

    foundation there might be a prospect for Christian epistemology being advanced in

    some areas. Two areas where Lonergan comes close to offering significant aid to

    the Christian apologist are: his position that ones method determines the content of

    his conclusions (cf. pp. 104f.) and his more or less transcendental proof of Gods

    existence (cf. p. 672). In both of these cases the important insights would have to

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    be taken out of the problematic and immanentistic context of Lonergans Thomistic

    thought and replanted in a Biblical world-view.

    Lonergan might also be the formal jumping off point for genuinely Christian

    philosophers to explore the significance of that process of coming to understand

    which is designated insight. This notion should profitably be used for comparison

    and contrast with the noetic operations of the Holy Spirit in inspiration, inward

    testimony and illumination of the believer, and common grace operations whereby

    even the unbeliever is enabled to come to some fundamental understanding of his

    world. If the notion were purged of its mystical connotations and qualified with

    ethical consider-ations, insight might be a valuable didactic cate-gory for Christian

    philosophy. But again, if it were to become so it would have to be reworked within

    the presuppositional viewpoint of Scriptural thinking.

    As noted in the introduction to this paper Bernard Lonergans philosophy is an

    anomaly if one is not expecting anything of serious philosophical import from the

    Roman Church today. The preceding exposition hopefully demonstrated that.

    However, the subsequent appraisal and rehabilita-tion suggestion should have also

    made manifest that in the long run Lonergan has really not presented anything new

    to us; what we have in his case is simply a redressed form of medieval Thomism. As

    the Reformation vigorously opposed such a position, so also reformed thinkers todaymust challenge this persistent heresy so that we do not become like unto it and so

    that its proponents will not be wise in their own conceits (Proverbs 26:4-5).