An Introduction to the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan by Hugo A. Meynell (review)

314 BOOK REVIEWS This last part of the book is distinguished from the beginning sections by its heavy scriptural orientation and its at times plodding exegesis. A generally lucid style breaks down in the last chapter in the discussion on the possibilities of God-talk. Appended to the book is a series of study questions divided according to the eleven chapters, and subject and name indices follow the bibliographical notes. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. 0. JACK Rossi, 0. P. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan. By Huoo A. MEYNELL. New York: Library of Philosophy and Religion. Barnes and Noble, 1976. pp. ix-~01. $~5.00. Writing an introduction to the work of an important thinker is no easy business. In addition to a thorough knowledge of the work one must have a thorough knowledge of the audience and be able to put one's finger on the transpositions which will make clear to that audience a mind whose cast and language may well be alien to it. Professor Meynell knows Lonergan's work, and attempts, with a good deal of promise, to make it available to the philosophers and students of the British philosophical tradition . The book is not aimed at specialists in Lonergan studies or even at those who are familiar with contemporary Catholic theology or philosophy , although it may be of aid to those among the latter who have not read or will not read Insight. Nor does it pretend to introduce the reader to the Catholic or general cultural background to Insight. David Tracy's The Achievement of Bernard Lonergan remains the best introduction to the background and foreground of Lonergan's work in philosophical and theological method. Meynell presents the chief moments of Insight. In effect, he takes the reader, one unfamiliar with Lonergan, on a tour of that book. He summarizes , concisely and clearly, what Lonergan means by understanding, by classical, statistical, genetic, and dialectical methods, and by method in metaphysics. He presents the Insight discussion of hermeneutics, of common sense and community, of the biases that inflict both, and the "proof" for the existence of God. Finally, in a concluding essay, "Lonergan and the Problems of Contemporary Philosophy," he brings into dialectical relationship some of the positions taken by Lonergan and those taken or taken for granted in Anglo-American philosophy: on science (Bacon, Popper, Kuhn), on epistemology and metaphysics (Locke, Hume, early BOOK REVIEWS 315 Wittgenstein), on ethics (Hume, G. E. Moore}, and in philosophical theology (Barthians and J. L. Mackie in theodicy). The concluding essay will be valuable for those who are already familiar with Lonergan and want to know something of the problems that other philosophers find in his work. Meynell is carrying forward one of the concerns of Insight itself in his attempt to address students of the British empiricist tradition. Insight was written in good part as an assessment of and reaction to that tradition. Meynell succeeds in opening Insight for those who may have been put off by its complexity, length, and language. Clarity and brevity are the major strengths of this introduction; students will find it helpful on its presentational side. Its chief weakness is that it is not sufficiently and explicitly dialectical in its method. One example among several that might be offered is the difficulty that some philosophers of language find with Lonergan's lack of attention to the achievements and confusions of contemporary language analysis. Meynell might have helped the student more had he in each chapter listed a few of the major objections to Lonergan's positions and how these objections are or might be met. The dialectical character of Insight itself should push the interpreter in this direction. There has been serious work done on Lonergan and Kant, Dilthey, Gadamer, and other major European philosophers and theologians. But detailed dialectical study of Lonergan vis-a-vis the major figures of the Anglo-American philosophical tradition remains to be done. To make Lonergan's critical realism and transcendental method available to students of other traditions in our own context requires contrasts of Lonergan with Hume, Berkeley, Mill, Russell, Austin, G. E. Moore, James, Peirce, Dewey, Royce, et. al. Such...