Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Titel: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Stichwort: Philosophie von []; Philosophie und Geschichte, die geschrieben wird (History That Is Written); Philosophie als Grundsatz von Tätigkeiten

Kurzinhalt: 'philosophy of' as the basic group of operations; what would be true about those operations and their products; will all be true of the operations conducted by the historian

Textausschnitt: 3.1 Philosophy and History That Is Written

70a Insofar as one is concerned with the relations between philosophy and the history that is written, our first topic was largely engaged in exploring this relationship. I was using my own philosophic categories to clarify notions of history as a science, its problems, and its possibilities. The indication of the distinctions among occasional, technical, and explanatory history came right out of notions of what the nature of human understanding is as developed in Insight. There is a further point: just as metaphysics is conceived in Insight as the integrating subject, just as the notion of being is conceived as the notion that underpins, penetrates, and goes beyond all other notions, so metaphysics is, as it were, the science of fundamental inquiry. This inquiry is broken up into the inquiries of the several sciences. It is an inquiry that also criticizes the inquiry of the several sciences. It is an inquiry that also criticizes the results of those inquiries and integrates them and goes beyond them. So too, there is, from that view of metaphysics, a connection with history. Insofar as the historian is operating in the light of a philosophy, he can deal with concepts, and raise questions, that people are interested in, even though those concepts and questions do not pertain to a specialized notion of history (such notions as the good, what is right, what is wrong, and so on). Again, insofar as you conceive your 'philosophy of' as the basic group of operations - experiencing, understanding, and judging - what would be true about those operations and their products will all be true of the operations conducted by the historian: his experiencing the traces now existing from the past, his understanding them, and his passing judgments. (Fs)

70b That conception of 'philosophy of,' on the one hand, involves no intrusion into the specific procedures, the autonomy, of the historian qua historian; and at die same time it facilitates either his or his critics' discussion of the fundamental notions involved, and the valuation of his mode of conceiving them, and the relation of his work to other works. Again, that philosophic background makes it possible to relieve the historian of problems that really are not his concern qua historian. (Historians have been greatly troubled by the problem of relativism, and this has been rather pronounced since large numbers of them were expelled from Nazi Germany, and they could not say, 'Well, one opinion is just as good as another, they are all just so many opinions.' Experience was a little too deep for that. Particularly notable is Karl Mannheim, who did his work especially on the sociology of knowledge.)1 (Fs)