Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: Formalobjekt, Materialobjekt; Prinzip der Selektion

Kurzinhalt: 2. History ... Hence we may simply say that history is the aggregate of human actions in their causes.

Textausschnitt: 2.1 [History and historiography]

9a Distinguish [a] history that is written, history books; call it historiography; [b] history that is written about.1 (Fs)

2.2 [Material and formal objects of history]

9b The material object of history is the aggregate of human thoughts, words and deeds. (Fs)

The formal object of history is this aggregate placed in a perspective by the historian's principle of selection. Now this principle of selection is that 'an event is historic in the measure it influences human action.' Hence we may simply say that history is the aggregate of human actions in their causes. As such it is a science. (Fs) (notabene)

But it is to be noted that the historian considers the aggregate only by considering the parts, that he finds his causes principally not without but within the aggregate, and finally that effect is only a different aspect of cause so that asking what are the effects of given actions is tantamount to asking the cause of subsequent ones. (Fs)

2.3 [The formal object of the analytic concept of history]

9c The formal object of the analytic concept of history is to be obtained by removing from the formal object of history all that is not subject to a priori determination, so far as our knowledge goes.1 (Fs)

The formal object of history is the aggregate of human actions in their causes (or effects). From this we remove the following elements. (Fs)

9d First, because there is no science of the particular, we shall not be concerned with, Who did it? with persons or peoples, but solely with, What is done? (Fs)

10a Second, because the action of the First Cause though more excellent in itself is less known to us, we shall confine ourselves to secondary causes. N.B. This will not exclude a hypothetical consideration of the supernatural virtues and the conditions of their emergence in history. (Fs)

Third, among secondary causes we must distinguish essential and accidental, to omit the latter. (Fs)

10b Among accidental causes are acts of a human person that do not involve the human element2 and 'acts of God' such as plagues, famines, earthquakes, floods. We do not pretend to deny that such events may have the greatest historical importance (for example, the Black Death); our position is that history is not essentially a succession of such events. (Fs)

10c By direct influence we mean the influence exerted by one man upon others, whether it is convincing of what is true, persuading to what is right, indoctrinating with falsehood, conspiring to evil, or adding to all these the necessary use of force. (Fs)

By indirect influence we mean the influence of the manmade environment, for instance, that of being born and brought up in Mayfair or in the jungle; also, the influence of the historical situation which past action created and present action has to face. (Fs)

10d Fourth, in the essential causes of history we distinguish between those of formal and those of material import, that is, between vectors which give the magnitude and direction of forces and mere friction. The former is will exerted upon the manner of life; the latter is the will to live and to propagate. (Fs)

Briefly, the formal object of the analytic concept of history is the MAKING AND UNMAKING OF MAN BY MAN. (Fs)

10e To the objection that the human will is free, that it is not subject to a priori determination, that therefore it cannot enter into our own view of the formal object of the analytic concept (see §2.3 above), we answer that we have a method of outflanking this difficulty which will appear in due course. (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte - Dialektik: Träger, Geschwindigkeit (normal, träge, hektisch)

Kurzinhalt: 3. The Dialectic ... an inverted experiment, in which objective reality molds the mind of man into conformity with itself by imposing upon him the penalty of ignorance, error, sin and at the same time ...

Textausschnitt: 3.1 The nature of the dialectic

11a By the dialectic we do not mean Plato's orderly conversation, nor Hegel's expansion of concepts, nor Marx's fiction of an alternative to mechanical materialism. (Fs)

11b We do mean something like a series of experiments, a process of trial and error; yet not the formal experiment of the laboratory, for man is not so master of his fate; rather an inverted experiment, in which objective reality molds the mind of man into conformity with itself by imposing upon him the penalty of ignorance, error, sin and at the same time offering the rewards of knowledge, truth, righteousness. (Fs)

Suffice to note that objective reality does not mean merely material reality: it means all reality and especially Reality itself. (Fs)

The illustration of the process is to be had from the microcosm: as the individual learns and develops so does mankind. (Fs)

3.2 The existence of the dialectic

11c The material object of history is an aggregate: if it is simply a many without any intelligible unity, there is no possibility of there being a dialectic. If there is some unity, then at least the dialectic is possible. (Fs)

That the dialectic is possible follows from the solidarity of man. (Fs)
What is this solidarity? Apart from the obvious biological fact, it may be summed up in the phrase: We make ourselves not out of ourselves but out of our environment (where environment has the universality of the Ignatian 'other things'1). (Fs)

We make ourselves, for the will is free. (Fs)

11d We do not make ourselves out of ourselves: "Anything that is moved is moved by something else."2 The motion of action comes from outside us; the specification of action comes from outside us, though we may choose this specification in preference to that, or refuse any. (Fs)

12a We make ourselves out of our environment: the physical environment that makes the geographical differentiations of men and manners and cultures; the social environment of the family and education, the race and tradition, the state and law. (Fs)

Solidarity makes the dialectic possible. Is it actual?

12b The question is already answered. Man's freedom is limited. The will follows the intellect in truth, or obscures it to error, or deserts it to leave man an animal. The last is either sporadic and accidental and so of no concern to essential history, or it is based upon the second, the obscuration of the intellect. Now whether men think rightly or wrongly, they think in a herd. The apparent exception is [the] genius, who however is not the fine flower of individuality but the product of the age and the instrument of the race in its progress. The illusory exception is acceptance by the herd of the liberal dogma of, Think for yourself, along with all its implications. (Fs)

3.3 The subject of the dialectic

12c Strictly the subject of the dialectic is any group united in time and place that think alike. (Fs)
Practically, we may consider as the subject of the dialectic the social unit of tribe or state. The tribe or state creates a channel of mutual influence and within it men both tend to agree and, when not so inclined, are forced to agree, at least to the extent of acting as though they did. Thus, in all public affairs and variously in private matters, the members of a social unit are ruled by a common way of thought. This is the dominant and the socially effective thought; it governs action; and all other, whatever be its future, is for the moment little more than mere thought. (Fs)

12d But ideas have no frontiers. Thus above the dialectics of single social units we may discern a 'multiple dialectic' whose subject is humanity. It is constituted by the many dialectics of the different social units, in their interactions and their transferences from one unit to another. (Fs)

3.4 The form of the dialectic
13a We have already defined the dialectic as an inverted experiment in which objective reality molds the mind of man into conformity with itself. (Fs)

The following observation will make this more precise. (Fs)
Because the unity of the dialectic is the unity of thought that goes into action, it follows that this thought produces the social situation with its problems. If the thought is good, the problems will be small and few; thus the situation will require but slight modifications of previous thought and leave man opportunity to advance and develop. If, on the other hand, the thought is poor, then its concrete results will be manifestly evil and call for a new attitude of mind. (Fs)

13b Taking the matter more largely, we may say that the dominant thought at any time arose from preceding situations; that its tendency is to transform the actual situation either by correction or by development; that the transformed situation will give rise to new thought and this not merely to suggest it but to impose it by the threat of suffering or the promise of well-being. (Fs)

3.5 Rates of the dialectic

13c Roughly we may distinguish three rates of the dialectic: normal, sluggish, and feverish. Normal defines itself. Sluggish would be the lack of response to the evils in the objective situation, whether this be from lack of intelligence or from fatalistic resignation or from the imprisonment of the individual in a straightjacket social scheme. Feverish would be excessive activity and this from the intolerable pressure of objective evil or from unbalanced optimism or from the breakup of society. (Fs)

13d From this difference of rate, it will be seen that when the dialectic is sluggish essential history is at a standstill; when it is feverish, then essential history moves at a dizzy pace. Thus the dormant East will not exemplify our theory as does the history of the last four hundred years in Europe. (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte - drei Kategorien: Natur, Sünde, Gnade

Kurzinhalt: 4.1 Human actions fall into three categories ... Man acts according to nature, contrary to nature, above nature. The three categories are nature, sin, grace

Textausschnitt: 4.1 Human actions fall into three categories

14a Man acts according to nature, contrary to nature, above nature. The three categories are nature, sin, grace. (Fs)

4.2 [This division is metaphysically ultimate]

Action according to human nature is intelligible to man. (Fs)
Action contrary to nature is unintelligible. (Fs)

Action above nature is too intelligible for man. (Fs)
But the intelligible, unintelligible and too intelligible are metaphysically ultimate categories: they stand on the confines of our intelligence itself. (Fs)

14b N.B. By stating that action contrary to nature is unintelligible, we do not mean that it is unknowable. Sin is a possible object of the judgment; it is not a possible object of the understanding. For the understanding is the power by which we know why a thing is what it is: but sin of its very nature has no 'why it is what it is.' Sin admits no explanation: it is a desertion of reason and so has no reason that is more than a pretense. Why did the angels sin? Why did Adam sin? There is no 'why.' We do not say there is a why which we cannot know: we say there is no why to be known. We do not say that God had not excellent reasons for permitting sin: so we do not evacuate the 'mystery of lawlessness'; indeed, we add another mystery which however is not a mystery from excess of intelligibility but from lack of it. Hence, "Let no one try to learn from me what I know I do not know; unless perhaps he learns not to know what should be known as something that cannot be known" (Augustine, The City of God 12, 7).1 (Fs)

4.3 Higher synthesis is impossible.

15a To posit a higher synthesis there must be the possibility of setting an antithesis against the thesis. But our thesis includes the intelligible to man, the simply1 unintelligible, and the too intelligible for man. Outside these categories there is nothing, and so an antithesis is impossible. (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: ideale "Linie";

Kurzinhalt: 5. THE IDEAL LINE [OF HISTORY] ... The ideal line of history is the history that would arise did all men under all conditions in all thoughts, words, and deeds obey the natural law ...

Textausschnitt: 5.1 What is meant by an ideal line

15b In mechanics the ideal line is drawn by Newton's first law: That a body continues to move in a straight line with uniform speed as long as no extrinsic force intervenes. It is the first approximation in the determination of every mechanical motion. And its value is undiminished by the fact that in this world of ours, the first law is absolutely impossible of actual verification. (Fs)

15c Hence by an ideal line of history we mean the determination of the course of events that supplies the first approximation to any possible course of human history. (Fs)

5.2 What is the ideal line of history

15d The ideal line of history is the history that would arise did all men under all conditions in all thoughts, words, and deeds obey the natural law, and this without the aid of grace. (Fs)

16a It envisages, then, a state of pure nature, in which men as a matter of fact do not sin, though they are not destined to a supernatural end and do not need the 'healing grace'1 that counteracts the wounds of original sin. (Fs)

5.3 What is the earthly task of man

16b The proximate end of man is the making of man: giving him his body, the conditions of his life, the premotions to which he will respond in the fashioning of his soul. (Fs)

Essentially history is the making and unmaking and remaking of man: in the ideal line we consider only the making of man by man. (Fs)

5.4 That there is progress

16c The earthly task of man is not a routine but a progress. (Fs)
"In the genus of intelligible things the human being is as potency."1 "Understanding progresses through incomplete acts to the perfected act."2 (Fs)

16d But this gradual actuation of man's intellectual potency is the achievement not of the individual, nor of a few generations, but of mankind in all places and through all time. What the angel, a species to himself, attains instantaneously in an eon3 - an indefinitely distended point, that man achieves in time, the whole time of his earthly existence. (Fs)

16d But this gradual actuation of man's intellectual potency is the achievement not of the individual, nor of a few generations, but of mankind in all places and through all time. What the angel, a species to himself, attains instantaneously in an eon1 - an indefinitely distended point, that man achieves in time, the whole time of his earthly existence. (Fs)

5.5 That the course of human progress may be determined from the nature of the human mind2

16e The instrument of human progress is the mind of man. If then the mind of man is such that some things must be known first and others later, an analysis of mind will reveal the outlines of progress. (Fs)

5.6 The nature of the mind of man3

16f The human intellect is a conscious potency conditioned by sense. (Fs)

Insofar as it is a conscious potency, there are two types of intellectual operation: spontaneous and reflex. (Fs)

17a Since the reflex use of intellect presupposes the discovery of the canons of thought and the methods of investigation, it follows that there is first a spontaneous period of thought and second a period of reflex thought. (Fs)

17b Next, inasmuch as the human intellect is conditioned by experience we may roughly distinguish two fields of knowledge. (Fs)
First there is the philosophic field in which thought depends upon the mere fact of experience (general metaphysic) or upon its broad and manifest characters (cosmology, rational psychology, ethics). (Fs)
Second there is the scientific field in which thought depends not upon experience in general nor upon its generalities but upon details of experience observed with the greatest care and accuracy. (Fs)
Finally, roughly corresponding to these two fields of knowledge are two manners or methods of thought: deductive from the general to the particular; inductive from the particular to the general. (Fs)

17c Now on the one hand deductive thought proceeds in a straight line of development, while on the other inductive thought proceeds in a series of revolutions from theses through antitheses to higher syntheses.4 (Fs)

17d Deductive thought proceeds in a straight line, for its progress is simply a matter of greater refinement and accuracy. There is an exception to this rule, for deductive thought does suffer revolutionary progress until it finds its fundamental terms and principles of maximum generality: there were philosophers before Aristotle, and, more interesting, modern mathematics has been undergoing revolutions not because mathematics is not a deductive science but because the mathematicians have been generalizing their concepts of number and space. (Fs)

17e Inductive thought proceeds by thesis, antithesis and higher synthesis. This follows from the nature of the understanding, the intellectual light that reveals the one in the many. For 'intellect is per se infallible';5 but de facto understanding is of things not as they are in themselves but as they are apprehended by us. The initial understanding of the thesis is true of the facts as they are known, but not all are known; further knowledge will give the antithesis and further understanding the higher synthesis. (Fs)

18a Thus, there are two ways of being certain of one's understanding: the first is philosophic and excludes the possibility of higher synthesis; the second is full knowledge of the facts, Newman's real apprehension.6 Granted a real apprehension and an understanding of what is apprehended, we may be certain: for 'intellect is per se infallible,' while the real apprehension excludes the possibility of antithetical fact arising. (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: 3 Abschnitte: spontan - spontan, spontan - reflexiv, reflexiv - reflexiv; je induktiv und deduktiv

Kurzinhalt: 5.7 The three periods of history and their characteristics

Textausschnitt: 5.7 The three periods of history and their characteristics

18b First, from the distinction of spontaneous and reflex thought, we have three periods of history:

(a) spontaneous history and spontaneous thought;
(b) spontaneous history and reflex thought;
(c) reflex history and reflex thought. (Fs)

The first period is from the beginning to the discoveries of philosophy and science.1 (Fs)

The second period is from these discoveries to the social application of philosophy and science to human life in its essential task: the making of man. (Fs)

The third is society dominated by the consciousness of its historic mission: the making or unmaking of man. (Fs)

18c We would note that the second period does not end with the writing of Plato's Republic, nor even with the medieval application of philosophy to society, but rather with the social passion for an ideal republic that marked the French Revolution, the nineteenth-century liberals, the modern communists, and the promised Kingship of Christ through Catholic Action and missiology.1 The 'class consciousness' advocated by the communists is perhaps the clearest expression of the transition from reflex thought to reflex history. (Fs)

18d Second, from the distinction of philosophic and scientific, deductive and inductive thought, we may distinguish two levels of thought in each of the three periods. Thus:2

(a) Spontaneous thought and history

Deductive field:
popular religion and morality
Inductive field:
agriculture, mechanical arts, economic and political structures, fine arts, humanism, discovery of philosophy and science

b) Reflex thought but spontaneous history

Deductive field:
religion and morality on philosophic basis
Inductive field:
applied science, international law, (universal law)1, enlightenment, theories of history

(c) Reflex thought and history

Deductive field:
the 'general line' of history philosophically determined (compare Stalin's general line)2
Inductive field:
edification of world state

Third, to this table we may add certain general norms. (Fs)

19a Third, to this table we may add certain general norms. (Fs)
(a) Progress is from the spontaneous social unit of tribe or race to the reflex social unit of the state. (Fs)
(b) The development of humanistic culture presupposes large-scale agriculture, its universalization presupposes applied science: priority of the economic as a condition. (Fs)
(c) The tendency of progress is to remove man from his dependence upon nature to dependence upon the social structure, to substitute state for kinship. (Fs)
(d) The greater the progress, the greater [also is] the differentiation of occupation, the more complex the social structure, and the wider its extent: for man progresses by intellect's domination over matter; but this domination is that of the universal over the many: its exploitation, hierarchy.1 (Progress as intellectual)2 (Fs)

(e) Man must not permit himself to be led by the nose by this progress: the result would be wonderfully intelligible but not human. (Fs)

20a Man has an intellect, but he is not an intellect. Virtue is in the man, even the virtue of progress. (As human)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: Niedergang (decline): allgemein; decline als soziale Dimension der Sünde

Kurzinhalt: Decline is the deviation from the ideal line that is consequent to nonobservance ... Decline is the social rule of sin, its gradual domination of the dialectic ...

Textausschnitt: 6. DECLINE
6.1 The nature of decline
6.2 The goal of decline
6.3 The three forms of decline
6.4 Minor decline
6.5 Major decline
6.6 Compound decline
6.1 [The nature of decline]

20b We defined the ideal line as the constant and complete observance of the natural law. Decline is the deviation from the ideal line that is consequent to nonobservance. (Fs)

It is to be noted that we deal not with a new line but with a deviation from the line already established. Though in this outline we merely indicate the abstract form of decline, it is not to be inferred that we have left over a problem of relating decline with the ideal line but only of making the theory of decline more full and detailed. (Fs)
6.2 [The goal of decline]

20c The goal of decline is contained in its principle, sin. Sin is the repudiation of reason in a particular act. Decline is the social rule of sin, its gradual domination of the dialectic and the minds of men dependent upon this dialectic because of their solidarity. Thus the goal of decline is the unchaining of the animal with intellect, so far from being master, that it is the slave of instinct and passion. (Fs) (notabene)

20d Plainly this triumph of the beast differs in the three periods: the degenerate savage, Nero, and the New Paganism of Germany differ vastly; but they would seem to be triumphs of the beast on different levels of history. (Fs)

6.3 [The three forms of decline] (notabene)

21a The three forms of decline, minor and major and compound, are distinguished as follows. (Fs)

Minor is the effect of sin in the inductive field of thought. (Fs)
Major is the effect of sin in the deductive field of thought. (Fs)
Compound is the combination and interaction of both together. (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: Niedergang des praktischen Denkens (minor decline); Habsucht: Privilegierte - Unterdrückte

Kurzinhalt: This bias of practical thought transforms the distinction of those who govern and those who are governed into a distinction between the privileged and the depressed.

Textausschnitt: 21b Practical progress or social improvement proceeds by the laws of inductive thought: its theses indeed are not simply false, else they could hardly begin to function; but they are incomplete, as classical education is incomplete1 and so finds an antithesis in the modern side. (Fs)

21c Now the new syntheses of progressive understanding have three disadvantages: (a) it is not clear that they offer the better, for concrete issues are complex; (b) it is certain they threaten the liquidation of what is tried and established, and so they meet with the inevitable bias and opposition of the vested interests; (c) in most cases they contain an element of risk and demand the spirit that contemns the sheltered life - insured from tip to toe - and so meet with the condemnation of all whose wisdom is more lack of courage than penetration of intellect. (Fs)

21d Thus the mere fact of progress produces social tension, and every little boy or girl is born liberal or conservative. But minor decline begins with sin. (Fs)

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."2

Self-interest is never enlightened because it is never objective: it sees the universe with the 'ego' at the center, but the 'ego' of the individual or the class or the nation is not the center. (Fs)

21e This bias of practical thought transforms the distinction of those who govern and those who are governed into a distinction between the privileged and the depressed. The latter distinction in time becomes an abyss: its mechanism would seem [to be] as follows. Insensibly the privileged find the solution to the antitheses of their own well-being and progress. Too easily they pronounce nonexistent or insoluble the antitheses that militate against the well-being of the depressed. (Fs)

22a Thus it is that with the course of time, the privileged enjoy a rapid but narrowly extended expansion of progress, and meanwhile the depressed are not merely left behind but more or less degraded by the set of palliatives invented and applied to prevent their envy bursting into the flame of anger and revolution. The total result is an objective disorder: both the progress of the few and the backwardness of the many are distorted; the former by its unnatural exclusiveness, the latter by the senseless palliatives. And this distortion is not merely some abstract grievance waiting on mere good will and polite words to be set right: it is the concrete and almost irradicable form of achievements, institutions, habits, customs, mentalities, characters. (Fs)
So much for minor decline. (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: Niedergang des deduktiven und reflexiven Denkens (major decline); Sünde -> Legitimation; drei Elemente: Legitimation, zweite Realität (eg), Selbstaufgabe d. Vernunft

Kurzinhalt: ... the major decline is the gradual procession, from sins to sins on principle, and from sins on principle to the dethronement of reason and the emancipation of the beast ... In the reflex period we have: Christendom, Protestantism, rationalism ...

Textausschnitt: 6.5 Major decline
22b The essence of major decline is sin on principle. When men sin against their consciences, their sins are exceptions to a rule that is recognized and real. When they deform their consciences, sin from being the exception to the law becomes the law itself. This erection of sin into a law of action is the essence of major decline. (Fs)

There are three elements in the deformation of the conscience. (Fs)

22c First, there is the tendency to self-justification. The consciousness of man seeks the harmony of unity and consistency:1 by his actions man is sinful; therefore he will either reform his actions by doing penance or he will reform his conscience by denying sin to be sin. See Isaiah 5:20ff.2 (Fs)

22d Second, there is the objective foundation that gives this lie in the soul its color of truth. Men sin, and the effects of their sins are concrete and real and objective. They set a dilemma to the just man: for if he acknowledges the fait accompli he cooperates with injustice; and if he refuses to acknowledge it, then he lives in an imaginary world and cannot cope with the real one. But to the unjust such situations are but proof that justice is injustice, that good is evil and evil good, that right is wrong and wrong right. (Fs)

23a Third, as a combination and generalization of the preceding two: there is the discrediting of deductive knowledge. Socrates can demonstrate to his heart's content: it is obvious he is wrong and that's all about it (see Gorgias).1 Or in the period of reflex thought, philosophy turns from the contemplation of truth to the problem, Why are all the philosophers wrong?

23b Thus the major decline is the gradual procession, from sins to sins on principle, and from sins on principle to the dethronement of reason and the emancipation of the beast (see Nebuchadnezzar, Apocalypse).1 (Fs) (notabene)

23c But major decline may be viewed from another standpoint: that of the understanding. The yielding of deductive thought is marked by an invasion of understanding into the deductive field. The inertia of a culture makes for the preservation of all the good that can be saved at each stage of the wrecking process. Thus we have a series of lower syntheses.2 In the spontaneous period this is expressed by the gradual corruption of the gods. In the reflex period we have: Christendom, Protestantism, rationalism, liberalism, naturalism, communism, nationalism.3 (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: Zusammengesetzter Niedergang (compound decline)

Kurzinhalt: The major accelerates the minor ... On the other hand the minor accelerates the major ...

Textausschnitt: 6.6 Compound decline

23d Both the major accelerates the minor and vice versa. (Fs)

The major accelerates the minor. It deprives science - notably, economics1 - and practical thought of the guidance of the first principles of religion and morality. Of itself the minor tends to disorder; coupled with the major its goal is an unintelligible chaos. For sin is unintelligible: action guided by sin results in the unintelligible - no mere antithesis to be easily swallowed by some higher synthesis, but an indigestible morsel refractory to all intellect, that can be solved only by liquidation. (Fs)

23e On the other hand the minor accelerates the major, inasmuch as it supplies the real mechanism for the imposition of the successive lower syntheses. The tension between liberal and conservative, the opposition between privileged and depressed take on a philosophic significance when the disputes engendered by the major decline are made the sponsors of slogans for rival cupidities and hatreds. The goddess, Reason, is enthroned amidst blasphemy and bloodshed. Liberalism gains the fascination of a snake by its polite contempt for religion. The proletariat attains consciousness by militant atheism. (Fs)

24a Nor are we to overlook, in the combination of major and minor decline, a third element that is prior to both: progress. The French Revolution rid the world of feudal survivals. The liberal revolution was founded upon an amazing industrial advance. Communism not only excites rabid nationalism but does so because it would transcend the tribes.2 (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: Wiedergeburt, Erlösung (Lonergan hier: renaissance); allgemein, Kennzeichen; Folgen

Kurzinhalt: What transcends man is to man as man is to the beast, the beast to the plant, the plant to the nonadaptive element.

Textausschnitt: 7. RENAISSANCE1

7.1 The essential character of renaissance
7.2 Characteristics of renaissance
7.3 Consequences of renaissance
7.1 The essential character of renaissance

24b Progress is the thesis of nature; decline the antithesis of sin; the higher synthesis of these two necessarily lies beyond the confines of this world and the intellect of man. It is not the mind of man that can make issue with the unintelligibility of sin and the distortion and dethronement of the mind itself. (Fs) (notabene)

Hence the essential character of renaissance is that it presupposes a transcendence of humanity, the emergence of a 'new' order. (Fs)
(Compare truth and error in Trotskyist 'continual revolution.')2 (Fs)

7.2 Characteristics of renaissance

24c What transcends man is to man as man is to the beast, the beast to the plant, the plant to the nonadaptive element. (Fs)
From this follow the four characteristics of renaissance, the basic principles of a 'higher criticism' to replace the Hegelian. (Fs)
24d First, the new order transcends man: therefore it would be to man mystery; it would be to his understanding as his understanding is to the brute; 'things beyond.'1 (Fs)
25a Second, the new order would be knowable: man knows being and outside being there is nothing. But because of the lack of understanding, this knowledge would be as the scientist's of empirical law.2 (Fs)
Third, man could not raise himself into the new order: nothing can transcend itself. (Fs)
Fourth, in the new order, man's nature would not be negated but included in a higher synthesis. This, on analogy: man transcends but does not negate the orders beneath him; as a mass of matter, he is subject to the laws of mechanics; as living, he is subject to the laws of cellular development and decay; as sentient, he has the perceptions and appetites of the brute. (Fs)
Hence, in the new order we would still have life under social conditions to an individualist end; the acceptance of the new order and life in it would be rational, and so be rationally acceptable (miracles) and humanly livable (authority).3 (Fs)

7.3 Consequences of renaissance

25b We have envisaged the new order as the higher synthesis of progress and decline. Hence it will restore progress and offset decline. (Fs)

To offset decline, the new order must attack major decline at its root: against self-justification it will set penance, against the objective unintelligibility and chaos it will set justice-transcending charity, against the discrediting of reason it will set faith.1 Again, against minor decline the new order must introduce what will compensate for the unbalance and bias of egoism: against cupidity, poverty of spirit; against revolution, obedience; against the beast, chastity. (Fs) (notabene)

25c To restore progress the new order must restore ordered freedom: the order which holds the balance between the fields of reason and understanding, philosophy and science; the freedom that is the auto-liberazione of the self-renouncing will; the ordered freedom in which all individuals find their own place of themselves, and all conspire for that infinitely nuanced 'better' that is the goal of progress, but can be known only by the work of all intelligences each in its own field, that can be attained only by individuals bearing the risks that each advance involves. Etc., etc. (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: mannigfache Dialektik (multiple dialectic); Dialektik: mit und ohne Gnade

Kurzinhalt: The multiple dialectic is the synthetic unity of the aggregate of single dialectics ...

Textausschnitt: 8. THE MULTIPLE DIALECTIC
8.1 Single and multiple dialectic
8.2 Single dialectic without grace
8.3 Single dialectic with grace
8.4 Multiple dialectic without grace
8.5 Multiple dialectic with grace
8.6 Meaning of history

8.1 Single and multiple dialectic
26a The single dialectic is, as we have seen, the succession of situation, thought, action, new situation, new thought, etc., within the social unit. (Fs)

The multiple dialectic is the synthetic unity of the aggregate of single dialectics: it is this aggregate in their solidarity and differences, their transferences and reactions. (Fs)

8.2 Single dialectic without grace

26b Progress is of nature. Decline is the cumulative effect of sin. Hence it follows that the course of the history of the social unit, influenced by grace, is an initial progress that gradually is submerged in the mounting flood of sin. Further, this curve - first ascending, then descending - is accentuated by the priority of the economic over the cultural: to labor for economic improvement is easy; to sacrifice for the impalpable benefits of culture is difficult. Thus the course of the history of the social unit in the case we are considering is: first, economic development; second, a certain measure of cultural advance; third, the animalization of man on the higher level of his achievement. (Compare Spengler's theory.)1 (Fs) (notabene)

8.3 Single dialectic with grace

8.3 Single dialectic with grace

26c The 'new order' eliminates the possibility of major decline within its own frontiers. (Fs)

27a In the measure in which the evangelical counsels are embraced by an elite and their spirit observed by all, the 'new order' excludes the possibility of minor decline. (Fs)

27b But adherence to the new order is a matter of free individual choice: hence the insertion of grace into the dialectic tends in the long run to disrupt the social unit. I have come on earth to bring not peace but the sword [Matthew 10:34]. In a word, the 'vessels of wrath' [Romans 9:22] will find in the constraints of the new order not the guarantee of the stability of their initial progress but a hindrance to its expansion; they will find in the disproportion between the profession and the practice of the counsels an occasion for rebellion and so open the door to major decline; and in major decline, the successive lower syntheses will be all the more violently asserted and vigorously brought into execution because of the presence of opposition. (Fs) (notabene)

27c The disruption that follows from grace must be distinguished from the atomization, the Zersplitterung,1 that follows from decline. Grace divides society into two opposing camps in vital conflict: it is the Socratic gadfly.2 Decline reduces man to the animal level, the stagnation of the sluggish dialectic. All the anti-Catholic syntheses and 'mysticisms' of the modern world have their significance and their force in their anti-Catholicism ultimately. (Fs) (notabene)

1.Kommentar (19/06/08): Apology 30e: 30e For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble stead who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly whichGod has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always 31a fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.

(Compare Donoso Cortes: Blood must flow: the only question is whether it flow in love or hatred.)3 (Fs)

8.4 Multiple dialectic without grace

27d The transition from the single dialectics to the multiple may best be made by considering transference and reaction. (Fs)
Transference is the importation by a social unit of the achievements or the miseries of another.1 (Fs)

It is spatial when the units are contemporary; it is temporal when one unit inherits from another now in decay. (Fs)

27e Reaction commonly denotes opposition to progress or decline within the social unit: here we use it to denote opposition to importation. We distinguish healthy and unhealthy reaction: healthy is opposition to the importation of foreign decadence; unhealthy is opposition to the importation of foreign progress. (Fs)

28a The synthetic unity of the multiple dialectic without grace is [stated as follows]. (Fs)

Transference with healthy reaction results in the continuity of human progress despite the fact that each progressive social unity in turn succumbs to decline. (Fs)

Transference without healthy reaction universalizes decline: it makes the backward people 'bruler l'étape' in the downward course of decline. Russia under the Soviets expiates the sins of the West. Native tribes learn the sins without emulating the achievements of the modern world. (Wars, conquest, white man's burden.) (Fs)

8.5 Multiple dialectic with grace

28b First consider the single dialectics with grace. These will be either in the initial stage of progress or the later stage of disruption. In the former case, the different social units will be united in a superstate, [as in] Christendom, and will act as one, more or less, against what is alien to them [as in the] Crusades. Again, as long as major decline is avoided, then no matter what the minor decline in any unit, there will remain the seeds of renaissance, of a second spring: [as in] the vitality of the West, rising out of the ruins of the Roman Empire and despite continual lapses into minor decline steadily advancing to achievement hitherto unattained. (Fs)

If on the other hand, the social units are tending to disruption we would seem threatened with the persecutions and wars of the Apocalypse. (Fs)

Finally, the relations between the dialectics with grace and those without form the subject matter of missiology.1 (Fs)

Autor: Mehrere Autoren: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11,1

Buch: Method, Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 11, Number 1

Titel: Lonergan, Bernard - Analytic Concept of History

Stichwort: Geschichte: Bedeutung; Fortschritt, Sünde, Gnade

Kurzinhalt: The meaning of history is the relation of its three elements, progress, sin, and grace, to the First Cause and Last End.

Textausschnitt: 8.6 Meaning of history

28c The meaning of history is the relation of its three elements, progress, sin, and grace, to the First Cause and Last End. (Fs)

Progress expresses the goodness of God - to whom all glory from all the multitudinous golden hearts in the world. (Fs)

29a Sin is the wickedness of man, and decline "that no flesh should glory in his sight" [1 Corinthians 1:29].1 (Fs)

Grace is the higher synthesis of both in God's transcendence: on earth it is the cross, for Christ lived only till he was big enough to be crucified, and the rest of history is but a dilution of that expression of the value of man; but in heaven it is an exceeding weight of glory [2 Corinthians 4:17],2 when amazed and awed by the Infinite we exclaim in the one instant of eternity the one word, Holy, Holy, Holy! (E08; 20.06.2008)