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To be fair, while Insight rambles and caroms-from the scientific method to Aquinas to Freudian psychology-there are a few main themes.
First, what matters is not what we know, but what is happening when we are knowing.
Where does the desire to know come from, and what is going on in our minds when we believe or wonder? How can we pay better attention to that?
Second, then, is Lonergan's belief that the most important empirical data comes from the self. Yes, we are to observe phenomena in the world around us, but the ladder of questing that eventually leads to direct experience of the divine beings by paying attention to one's own mental processes: "The aim is not to set forth a list of the abstract properties of human knowledge but to assist the reader in effecting a personal appropriation of the concrete, dynamic structure immanent and recurrently operative in his own cognitional activities".
IN OTHER WORDS TO THINK EFFECTIVELY,ONE MUST BECOME AWARE OF THE NATURAL AND HISTORICAL FORCES THAT SHAPE HOW WE THINK; IN BECOMING AWARE OF THEM, WE MAKE THEM OUR OWN. WE BEGIN TO KNOW OUR PREJUDICES AND PRECONCEPTIONS, TO LEARN WHAT LEVERS ARE OPERATIVE IN THE THINKING MACHINE THAT IS OUR BRAIN. WE CAN THEN BETTER CONTROL THOSE LEVERS, RATHER THAN BEING CONTROLLED BY THEM.
Third, then , this is not a hopeless task but one in which we can make progress; if we are careful and patient, we can become more successful at this "self-appropriation", to use the Lonerganians' favorite word.
And fourth, such progress will come in part by paying attention to history. So, in insight, Lonergan discusses thinkers like Isaac Newton with an eye to the mental processes that led them to their discoveries.
[end of quote]
"Beautiful Mind" by Mark Oppenheimer.
Boston College Magazine, Spring 2003. Page35.
First, what matters is not what we know, but what is happening when we are knowing.
Where does the desire to know come from, and what is going on in our minds when we believe or wonder? How can we pay better attention to that?
Second, then, is Lonergan's belief that the most important empirical data comes from the self. Yes, we are to observe phenomena in the world around us, but the ladder of questing that eventually leads to direct experience of the divine beings by paying attention to one's own mental processes: "The aim is not to set forth a list of the abstract properties of human knowledge but to assist the reader in effecting a personal appropriation of the concrete, dynamic structure immanent and recurrently operative in his own cognitional activities".
IN OTHER WORDS TO THINK EFFECTIVELY,ONE MUST BECOME AWARE OF THE NATURAL AND HISTORICAL FORCES THAT SHAPE HOW WE THINK; IN BECOMING AWARE OF THEM, WE MAKE THEM OUR OWN. WE BEGIN TO KNOW OUR PREJUDICES AND PRECONCEPTIONS, TO LEARN WHAT LEVERS ARE OPERATIVE IN THE THINKING MACHINE THAT IS OUR BRAIN. WE CAN THEN BETTER CONTROL THOSE LEVERS, RATHER THAN BEING CONTROLLED BY THEM.
Third, then , this is not a hopeless task but one in which we can make progress; if we are careful and patient, we can become more successful at this "self-appropriation", to use the Lonerganians' favorite word.
And fourth, such progress will come in part by paying attention to history. So, in insight, Lonergan discusses thinkers like Isaac Newton with an eye to the mental processes that led them to their discoveries.
[end of quote]
"Beautiful Mind" by Mark Oppenheimer.
Boston College Magazine, Spring 2003. Page35.
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