No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Lonergan and Wittgenstein on the Dialectic of Methods
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Lindbeck's difficulties with Lonergan's account of religion stem from his radical methodological option in which he draws on Wittgenstein. I revisit ‘the dialectic of methods,’ by examining children's mistakes. I use Lonergan's distinction between ordinary and originary meaningfulness to argue that in Wittgenstein's account of rule‐following such mistakes highlight the publicity of norms in ordinary meaningfulness, but I show how alternatives can be cited in which originary meaningfulness is not obscured. I explain the core of Lonergan's foundational methodology and show how for Lonergan the desire to understand is an exigence which, as retorsion indicates, is difficult to deny. I conclude that in his account of religion Lonergan has an answer to a question posed by Wittgenstein on the purpose of thinking.
- Type
- Original Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2016 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Lindbeck, George A., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Post Liberal Age 25th Anniversary Edition (Louiseville: Westminster, [1984], 2009), p. 17Google Scholar.
2 The Nature of Doctrine, p.17.
3 The Nature of Doctrine, p. 24.
4 Lonergan, Bernard, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972), p. 254–5Google Scholar.
5 Method In Theology, p. 254.
6 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell: Oxford, 1998) § 138, 139, 191, 197, 318, 319Google Scholar. References are to paragraphs of in part 1.
7 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (MIT: Cambridge Massachusetts, 1972) III‐32Google Scholar. References will be to the section and paragraphs.
8 Remarks, III‐46.
9 The discussion begins at §143, breaks off after considering reading as a phenomenon, and resumes. This example is in §185. References are to paragraphs of Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell: Oxford, 1998) in part 1Google Scholar.
10 Philosophical Investigations §185.
11 Lonergan, Bernard, Insight: A study of Human Understanding, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), p. 38Google Scholar.
12 Philosophical Investigation §18.
13 Philosophical Investigation §214.
14 Insight, p. 43–9.
15 Philosophical Investigations §18.
16 Philosophical Investigations §151, 154, 155, 179, 181, 183, 305, 323, 325.
17 Lonergan, Bernard, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas (Toronto: UTP, 1997), p.193CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Insight, p. 381.
19 Lonergan, Bernard, A Third Collection (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1985, p. 172Google Scholar.
20 Method In Theology, p. 50.
21 Method In Theology, p. 282
22 Method In Theology, p. 34. At this point Lonergan refers the reader to his account of judgement in Insight in which he explains the idea of the virtually unconditioned. It involves three elements, ‘namely, (1) a conditioned, (2) a link between the conditioned and its conditions, and (3) the fulfilment of the conditions. Hence a prospective judgment will be virtually unconditioned if (1) it is the conditioned, (2) its conditions are known, and (3) the conditions are fulfilled. By the mere fact that a question for reflection has been put, the prospective judgment is a conditioned: it stands in need of evidence sufficient for reasonable pronouncement. The function of reflective understanding is to meet the question for reflection by transforming the prospective judgment from the status of a conditioned to the status of a virtually unconditioned; and reflective understanding effects this transformation by grasping the conditions of the conditioned and their fulfilment.’ Insight 307.
23 ‘Normative objectivity is constituted by the immanent exigence of the pure desire in the pursuit of its unrestricted objective.’ Insight, p. 404. Lonergan also speaks of a ‘normative structure,’ Insight, p. 420.
24 Philosophical Investigations §255.
25 Remarks I‐42.
26 Remarks I‐43.
27 The Nature of Doctrine, p. 3.