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)