Lonergan’s Notion of Dialectic

LONERGAN'S NOTION OF DIALECTIC ONE OF THE most frequently neglected and misunderstood concepts in the thought of Bernard Lonergan is his intriguing notion of dialectic. Lonergan himself is partially responsible for this state of affairs since he has never provided a systematic account of his many and varied uses of this term. Hence, it is the aim of this essay to provide an exegesis of Lonergan's use of the term "dialectic" throughout his many writings. However, the significance of this study can only be made apparent in future papers. For it is our contention that Lonergan's use of this crucial notion constitutes the fundamental structure underlying every aspect of the content and method of his thought. Indeed, it is dialectic which will provide the critic with the key to unravelling many of the complexities and ambiguities inherent within Lonergan's work as a whole. We will first need to examine Lonergan's account of the "scissors-like" nature of inquiry. For, according to Lonergan, dialectic is both an upper and lower blade: a heuristic structure and correlative method of implementation. Then we will explore the three different but related types of dialectical heuristic structure scattered throughout Lonergan's writings: dialectic as sublation, dialectic as complementarity, and dialectic as contradiction . Finally we will discover the three different senses in which Lonergan uses the term " dialectical method." The Scissors-Like Nature of Inquiry In Insight, Lonergan refers to dialectic as both a" method" 1 and a "pure form with general implications." 2 By "method," 1 Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., Ltd., 1957), p. 485. •Ibid., p. !l44. 221 RONALD MCKINNEY, S.J. Lonergan in Insight is referring to a " set of directives that serve to guide a process towards a result." 3 The relationship between a " method " and a " pure form " i!'I first established in Lonergan 's dissertation. Gratia Operans:" Here, Lonergan speaks of the " pincer " movement of inquiry: the going from both the general to the particular and from the particular to the general. The first movement, which is what Lonergan means by a " pure form ", is an a priori scheme which guides the " methodical " assembling of the particulars constituting the second movement . In Insight, Lonergan generally substitutes the term" heuristic structure " for " pure form " and replaces the terminology of the two " pincer " movements with the "scissors " terminology of " upper and lower blades." According to Lonergan, every inquiry operates in a scissors-like manner.5 There is an upper blade, i.e., heuristic structure, and a corresponding lower blade of concrete techniques, i.e., a method. The heuristic structure of an inquiry provides an a priori, general outline which anticipates the nature of the phenomenon under scrutiny. It is the framework of background knowledge within which the inquirer is able to formulate the relevant questions that need answering. Hence, there exists a heuristic structure whenever an object of inquiry admits antecedent determinations of a general nature. It is the task of the lower blade of techniques to fill in the specifics of this general outline, to answer the questions raised by a heuristic structure. Lonergan's definition of a method in Method in Theology fits neatly the function of the lower blade.6 For it is " a pattern of related and recurrent operations " intent upon the acquisition of new knowledge through the use of past knowledge as a guide. •Ibid., p. 896. • Bernard Lonegran, Gratia Operans: A Study of the Speculative Development in the Writings of St. Thomas of Aquin, Diss. Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, 1940, pp. 8-Hl. •Insight, pp. 104-5, srn-rn, 478, 577, 696. •Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972)' p. 251. LONERGAN'S NOTION OF DIALECTIC The above account, then, will help us to understand how Lonergan regards dialectic as an a priori, generalized sketch of the concrete world process. Indeed, dialectic possesses a metaphysical status. For, according to Lonergan, dialectic is no mere model like so many other heuristic structures, i.e., useful for inquiry but in no way descriptive of reality. On the contrary , dialectic, for him, constitutes the most basic, dynamic structures of reality itself. Moreover...