Lonergan and Historiography: The Epistemological Philosophy of History (review)

Employing the epistemological insights of the Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904–84), McPartland engages the horizon, assumptions, and development of modern historiography. Borrowing Lonergan’s distinction of the history that is written about and the history that is written, the author focuses on the history that is written, and the horizon within which it is written, as the principal data for his investigation. He addresses historians who contend with the problematic issues at stake in the construction and interpretation of historical data as well as the critical evaluation of historical hypotheses. In four short chapters, the author invites historians to reflect on their cognitive praxis, the scope and quality of historical reason, the interrelation of differential streams within the history of thought, and the history of consciousness itself.

Each chapter adopts a methodological approach to the philosophy of history, an approach that is foundational, ontological, epistemological, and speculative. The approach is foundational, not because of the use of self-evident concepts and terms fixed in their meaning but because it is grounded in dynamic cognitive operations; ontological, not as a result of employing metaphysical categories but because it focuses on the emergence of the existential subject, whose being is becoming in history; epistemological, not on account of adopting an impoverished positivist or idealist theory of knowledge but because it is shaped by the artistry of explicit, intentional self-appropriation; and speculative, not owing to a totalizing explanation but because the approach is guided by the construction of ideal types for the formation and testing of hypotheses that organize vast complexes of historical data.

For readers not familiar with Lonergan’s expansive project, which turns broadly on intentionality analysis, the author offers an exceptionally clear and cogent account. In the first two chapters, he addresses new readers of Lonergan, in particular, as he attempts to loosen the constraints placed on the philosophy of history by the postmodern rejection of meta-theory. While acknowledging the significant boundaries created by social, cultural, and political location, he appeals to Lonergan’s heuristic notions of basic horizon and universal viewpoint to relate bounded, particular viewpoints within relative horizons to a larger project that transcends individuals and social groups. In both instances, the author locates and reflects upon the tension inherent within relative horizons to bring Lonergan’s notions to some positive light.

The iconic representation of unrestricted self-transcendence by the heuristic notion of basic horizon identifies by apposition the aspiration and performance realized incompletely within any particular relative horizons. By investigating methodically the history that is written from within diverse relative horizons, conflicts are identified and evaluated as developmental, complementary, or incommensurately dialectical. Methodical history adopts what could be compared to an eschatological perspective and formulates a universal viewpoint, a perspective that transforms particular viewpoints through the anticipation of a comprehensive set of genetically and dialectically related viewpoints. By helping his readers attend to and reflect upon the tensions that arise from within and among relative horizons, McPartland charges them with the responsibility of evaluating and transcending the boundaries of particular viewpoints in the writing of history, even as they remain socially, culturally, and politically situated.