Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Second Collection

Titel: A Second Collection

Stichwort: Lonergan über sein Werk Einsicht (Insight)

Kurzinhalt: But it is not theory in exactly the same way physics is. Its basic elements-mass, temperature, electromagnetic field-are not within the field of experience ... But the fundamental terms and relations in cognitional theory are given in consciousness.

Textausschnitt: Insight

213b Questions were put regarding the book Insight, whether it was a way or a theory, and how the exercise of self-appropriation to which it invites one generates horizons. (Fs)

213c "Now with regard to the business of Insight, Insight happened this way: my original intention was method in theology. Insight was an exploration of methods in other fields, prior to trying to do method in theology. I got word in 1952 that I was to go to the Gregorian and teach in 1953, so I cut down my original ambition to do method in theology and put this book together. It's both a way and something like a theory. Fundamentally it's a way. It's asking people to discover in themselves what they are. And as Fr. Heelan put it, 'There's something liberating about that.' The word Lonerganian has come up in recent days. In a sense there's no such thing. Because what I'm asking people is to discover themselves and be themselves. They can arrive at conclusions different from mine on the basis of what they find in themselves. And in that sense it is a way. (Fs)

214a "But that self-appropriation can be objectified. It's a heightening of consciousness-as one moves from attention to intelligence, to reasonableness, to responsibility, to religious experience. Those modalities of consciousness, the a priori that they constitute, that can be objectified. Not in the sense of subject-object-in here now, out there now-but in the sense that objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity. That self-appropriation can be objectified and its objectification is theory. (Fs)

214b "But it is not theory in exactly the same way physics is. Its basic elements-mass, temperature, electromagnetic field-are not within the field of experience. They are, all of them, constructs. Temperature is not what feels hot or cold. You put your hand on something metal, on something wood and one feels warmer than the other. They're both the same temperature-they're in the same room for a sufficient length of time. These fundamental concepts in physics are not data of experience. (Fs)

214c "But the fundamental terms and relations in cognitional theory are given in consciousness. The relations are the dynamisms of consciousness and the terms are the operations that are related through the dynamisms. So it is theory-but in a sense as totally different from theory (in physics) as Eddington's two tables. On one you can put your hands, rest your weight; you find it solid, brown, it weighs so much. The other consists mostly of empty space, and where the space isn't empty you have a wavicle; but what it's doing is very hard to say. (Fs)

214d "The exercise of self-appropriation gives you the structure that generates horizons. And because you have the structure that's generating horizon, because that structure is heuristic, you're anticipating. If the intelligible, being, the good-what you mean by those terms-is what is correlative to the desire to understand, to be reasonable, to be responsible; then, in yourself, you have the subjective pole of an objective field. You have also, in intelligent reasonable responsibility, norms, built-in norms, that are yourself. They are not propositions about yourself; but yourself, in your spiritual reality, to guide you in working out what that objective horizon is, the objective pole of the horizon. It's normative, it's potential. Not absolute, in the sense that you have it all tucked away. But you have the machinery for going at it, and you know what happens when you do."

215a To the objection that the structure is invariant and therefore not open, Lonergan replied:

"Well, it can happen that any particular person does get caught in some sort of cul-de-sac and that's his misfortune. (Fs)

"But how do you get him out of it?
"By asking further questions. (Fs)

215b "And the thing I'm talking about is dynamic and it is precisely the dynamic of asking further questions. And while there are restricted topics, on which you can say, 'Well, I don't think there are any further relevant questions with regard to that' (as in the chapter on judgment I talked about the man who leaves his beautiful, neat, perfect home in the morning to go to work, comes back in the evening and finds the windows broken, water on the floor and smoke in the air-and he doesn't say 'There was a fire.' That could be all faked, but he says 'Something happened.' He might ask 'Where's my wife?' and that would be a further question on a different topic. Still, with regard to the statement 'Something happened' there are no further relevant questions)."