Lonergan’s Epistemology

LONERGAN'S EPISTEMOLOGY FAILURE TO GRASP correctly the complex epistemological theory of Bernard Lonergan has often proved to be a principal stumbling-block to readers attempting to grapple with this author's major treatise, Insight. This article will consequently attempt to elucidate the main lines of his epistemological theory in a step-by-step fashion. To begin with, Lonergan's theory moves through three major phases in lnsight.1 He begins with what he calls the cognitional question (What am I doing when I am knowing?) , moves on to the epistemological (Why is doing that knowing?), and finally reaches the metaphysical (What do I know when I do it?) . For Lonergan, the sequence in which these three questions are posed is not an arbitrary one. Rather it is dictated by his basic methodological premise: A metaphysics rests on a previously validated epistemology, and this latter in turn, rests on a previously validated cognitional theory. He begins therefore with cognitional analysis and moves on to epistemological and metaphysical questions only after that. In this article I will deal only with the first two questions. Among post-Kantian philosophers Lonergan is somewhat unique in distinguishing methodologically the cognitional and epistemological questions. Further, it is a distinction of utmost importance if one is not to misinterpret Lonergan's analysis as a "transcendental deduction " in the Kantian style. Lonergan explicitly distinguishes his own position from that of Kant on the basis of the epistemological and cognitional questions. From Lonergan's perspective Kant's basic concern is epistemological not cognitional. Kant's question is what are the conditions necessary in knowing an object. Lonergan's question is what 1 Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S. J., Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1957) . 75 76 JOSEPH F. FLANAGAN are the conditions necessary for knowing prescinding from the object known, and more important, prescinding from the objectivity of the knowing itself. Both of these "distinctions" are methodically established and developed by Lonergan in the first eleven chapters of Insight. The method which Lonergan uses to develop his thought is called self-appropriation. But before examining this method in detail it will be helpful to sketch briefly the historical background. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Lonergan first dealt with the problem of self-knowledge or self-appropriation in his research into medieval theology. In the medieval context the problem of self-knowledge had been approached in terms of the soul's knowledge of itself. It was usually argued that God and angels can know themselves directly but, since man's soul was incarnate, he could only know himself indirectly. This indirect knowledge could be achieved by reflecting on such mental objects as universal concepts and syllogistic structures and by noting that the qualities of these mental objects transcended the particular, transient, and corruptible character of this world. From such reflections one could deduce that the human soul which " accounted for " these mental products must be both immaterial and immortal. The contemporary thinker finds the nature of this argument quite impersonal and too objective: from the time of Descartes the tendency has been to derive self-knowledge through more personal experiences. Twentieth-century man does not worry about the immortality of his " soul" but about his own personal immortality, about his " self," and he tends to find discussion about " souls " rather abstract and unconvmcmg. The reason for this impersonal and abstract analysis of the soul among medieval thinkers, including Aquinas, was the method that they had used in developing and arguing out their positions. In Aquinas's case the method had been taken over from Aristotle and it proceeded by the following argument: LONERGAN'S EPISTEMOLOGY 77 a soul was specified by its potencies; potencies were specified by their acts; and acts were determined by their objects. The first difficulty with this method is that it is too general for contemporary philosophical problems. Aristotle employed this procedure to analyze not only the soul of man but also the souls of animals and plants. And while the method allowed Aristotle to distinguish quite clearly between the souls of animals and men, it did not allow him to specify the precise nature of these differences. A second and...