Reflections Based on the Work of Bernard Lonergan :: Bernard Lonegran Essays

Reflections Based on the Work of Bernard L geniusrganABSTRACT The theory of agency, it has been claimed, seems to involve two strange notions on the one hand, that of a self who is not that an event, but a substance and that of causation, according to which an agent, who is a substance, can nevertheless be the cause of an event. The understanding of the conscious posit as constituted by the operations of experience, understanding, judgment and decision, directd by the Canadian philosopher and theologian, Bernard Lonergan, might resolve the puzzle, and provide the basis for an understanding of human freedom that is the affirmation of neither determinism nor arbitrariness. Perhaps one of the strongest arguments in the proposals favor is that any attempt to refute it in theory would entail its adoption in practice.I.IntroductionThe theme of freedom is an early and bear one in the works of the Canadian philosopher and theologian, Bernard J. F. Lonergan (1904-1984). It was the subject of his 1940 doctoral dissertation at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (subsequently published as bedight and Freedom in 1971). Lonergan devoted further explicit attention to the topic in his study of human understanding, Insight, and again, in 1972, in Method in Theology. Since the revolve around of the doctoral thesis is centred on supernatural grace, I shall turn to the two later works, and other articles, for the elaboration of Lonergans understanding of human freedom.II.Consciousness and SubjectivityWhat Lonergan wants to propose concerning human freedom cannot be understood apart from his view of the human subject who is free. In many ways, in fact, Lonergans understanding of freedom, like his cognitional theory and his theological methodology, is simply an application of a more basic theory of subjectivity.In Lonergans view, while there is a great emphasis on the human subject in contemporary philosophy, the understanding attained is either incomplete or mistaken . The study of the subject is nothing other than the study of oneself inasmuch as one is conscious, and should go by as followsIt attends to operations and to their centre and source which is the self. It discerns the unalike levels of consciousness, the consciousness of the dream, of the waking subject, of the intelligently inquiring subject, of the rationally reflecting subject, of the responsibly deliberating subject. It examines the different operations on the different levels and their relations to one another.Ones view of human subjectivity will be inaccurate or mistaken to the degree that one either does not hint to all the different operations of consciousness, or to their inter-relationship.