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2. Insight and the Self-Correcting Process of Learning
- The Catholic University of America Press
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2 | Insight and the Self-Correcting Process of Learning The previous chapter considered Lonergan’s understanding of the cosmos as a self-transcending, hierarchical order governed by emergent probability. Human beings are part of this cosmos. We have emerged from the creative world process of emergent probability . As a relatively late, higher-level emergence, humanity is a complex entity subject to both classical and statistical laws on multiple levels of being: physical, chemical, biological, and more uniquely human levels. With the advent of humanity two significant new things arrive in creation: (1) a creature’s ability to discover and work with classical and statistical laws, and thus to guide and accelerate emergent probability, and (2) the possibility of a creature’s rejection of the created order through sin. Without humanity and its ability to understand and direct world processes, there would be some type of progress in the world, but this progress would be more limited than the kind that can be achieved by human ingenuity. On the other hand, without humanity, there would be no decline, at least not the devastation brought about by sin.1 1. Things would atrophy and die; for Lonergan, “decline” is a technical term indicating the negative consequences of human sin. Without human sin, there would be neither decline nor any redemption from sin and decline, at least not in Lonergan’s use of these terms. Later chapters will focus on these topics. 25 The remainder of this part of the book will discuss humanity’s unique role in creation and progress, a role it plays through insight, a broader transcendental method, and a still broader cooperating human community. Sin and decline will be studied in part 2. Insight Itself To a world organized hierarchically on physical, chemical, and biological levels, humanity adds levels of intelligence, reflectivity, responsibility , civilization, culture, and religion.2 In Lonergan’s view human intelligence is fundamental to all human endeavors. It gives humans the capacity to gain some understanding of or insight into anything they encounter. Built upon such insight is the human ability to guide and to accelerate world processes of emergent probability . Thus, when used correctly human intelligence is a primary engine of human progress.3 Some of the most obvious examples of insight-driven progress come from scientific and technological advances in fields like medicine, communication, and aviation, but there are many others. While human intelligence provides the impetus for developments within human history, human intelligence is itself a developing entity. We are intelligent more in our ideal, abstract potential than our actualized, concrete reality. Because of this, human beings are in the difficult position of needing to rely on our intelligence to guide our activity before our intelligence is fully formed.4 We sometimes have to leap before we can get a thorough “look.” And this can be dangerous, as illustrated by the tremendous social and environmental damage caused by unforeseen side effects of modern practices in areas like industry, agriculture, and military. Nevertheless, great freedom and responsibility result from the use of the human intellect, both for the individual and for society. 2. Lonergan did not write much, if anything, about animal intelligence and the boundaries between it and human intelligence. 3. In Insight, Lonergan points to intelligence as the main source of progress, but Method, published almost fifteen years after Insight, gives a broader picture of human progress that includes other causes, such as the human response to value through feelings, the exercise of freedom in choice, and the effects of love, as will be shown in chapter 3 of this volume. 4. Insight, 711; Lonergan, “Finality, Love, Marriage,” in Collection, 24–26. 26 Progress [44.211.91.23] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 14:58 GMT) insight and Learning 27 Recurrent schemes of insight, communication, persuasion, agreement , and decision free human beings to a great degree from the binding significance of underlying planetary, chemical, and biological schemes.5 Over multiple generations human beings have made discoveries and utilized them to improve their living standards . We have, for example, learned how to farm the land for wheat, to domesticate sheep for wool, to quarry granite for our homes, and to heat those homes with a variety of energy sources. With new intellectual discoveries come new social developments. These developments have made us less dependent on things like the weather or animal migration patterns and more likely to settle down, to store resources, and to spend our time in pursuits other than finding food...