APPENDIX 6: Objectivity and our Crisis Narratives

We refer to B. Lonergan’s work for a critical development of the notion of objectivity (Insight: A Study of Human Understanding [1958 & 2000] and Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan: Collection. "Metaphysics as Horizon" [1988, 187-204]).

Also, methodologically for our experiment, we are relying heavily on your own latent assumptions about knowing, objectivity, and the real—that once you understand and have gone through the experiment, you will have enough repeatable evidence to pronounce that, indeed, you have found the method of mind in your own experience of it and that, indeed, the theory is verified factually in the process of experimentation. In such pronouncements, your assumptions will be that you know, and that what you know is true-real. The operative word here is: IS.

However, a philosophical problem may arise when we realize that what we are finding in the experiment is (1) only available to our senses remotely, i.e., through hearing language or seeing marks on a page, and (2) falls within the arena of the subjective and, as such on both counts, comes with some residual philosophical "baggage" with regard to its potential for being knowable truth-reality--objective as distinct from subjective.

We are called to approach and remedy such issues (where our latent philosophical assumptions crawl out from under their pre-conscious rock and become problematic philosophical assumptions) in what we are referring to here as the longer philosophical journey.

As an aspect of that journey (including the fuller philosophical project of self-appropriation-affirmation), we also want to understand the data of our experiment in terms of what it means to know objective reality. And we want to include, explicitly, knowing of our own conscious activities as real, including knowing itself as a part of those activities, in that reflective light--or we want to come to know knowing in a critical fashion.

In our more comprehensive text on Foundational Review, then, and in other appendixes here, we give some treatment to the distinction between the subjective and the objective and briefly related both to our notions of reality. Since these appendixes are written as an interim between the shorter and longer journeys, I will give a very brief treatment at the end of this appendix, drawing together some of the meaning that relates to the subject/object distinction in our narratives from appendix 1 (Language and Self-Presence) and appendix 7 (Deriving Ought from Is). (Note: Finding the Mind: Foundational Review text is unpublished at this time.)

However, for the experiment, we merely want to analyze our crises, understand and test the theory by locating our four shadow-questions in the expressions you use in your own crisis narrative, and then hopefully locate the desire-quests in your own mind’s activities, again, depending on your latent assumptions to carry the day for you philosophically, namely, that what you come to know is true-real.

Thus, in the experiment, we want to locate the general order of the questions in your own expressions and conscious activities:

1. As laboratory data for critical verification of a cognitional theory, namely, general empirical method (Lonergan, 1958/2000 & 1972);

2. As objects-X we can know objectively, beyond a mere psychological or mental novelty, and beyond merely a fuzzy combination of belief-knowledge imagination, etc.; and

3. At some point in your further study, should you set out on the longer journey, as the more comprehensive meaning of self-appropriation-affirmation. (See also our introduction to the main text.)

If so, then here at least, we must take into account:

1. Your experience--of the vast difference between (a) your merely seeing or otherwise sensing, and (b) the fullness of your desire-questing-insighting-understanding-knowing of anything you experience, whether it be brains or minds or questions that are the objects of our study;

2. Your personal and cultural history of schematic development and content accrual—a complex of under-meaning from which all your specific questions arise, and from which your questions can be suppressed or their content deformed;

3. your present judgments about the above—as (a) the growth and informing of wisdom or as (b) merely the bias that infects your notion of objectivity (as the true-real or not); for instance, that knowing equates to looking and the concomitant notion of starting with a blank slate every time we think about or do anything at all;

4. The unified relationship of our So-type questions to both What-type and Good-worth-value-type questions. Thus, our judgments Yes-No spontaneously anticipate a grasp of the same true-knowledge-real of both What Is Really So and What Is So as Really Good-Bad. Questions of good-bad (quali-meaning questions) do not diminish our spontaneous hold on true-reality. Our activities of understanding and knowing, and not merely our seeing or failing to see, underpin both.

NOTE: The term IS commonly signals a literary or logical and conceptual meaning. However, IS also signals our spontaneous regard for real being; and our common use of IS-language signals our equally-spontaneous and latent commitment to knowing true-real being, or IS and IS GOOD-BAD as true-objective-real.

5. The resonant-informing nature of intelligence: Your What-type intelligent and qualitative questions and their issued insights as informing your common anticipations in your concrete human living.

6. The differences between (and similarities of) our yes-no judgments about concrete facts and our yes-no judgments about what is or is not worthwhile to say or do;

7. The catalytic relationship of both kinds of judgments towards our creating ourselves in our history of speech and act;

8. The complexity and streamlined condensation of our own and others’ language. In that language and through our analysis, the structure of our questions can emerge in our various specified expressions, and to one degree of differentiation or another. (See our chapter on the difference between fundaments and foundations in Finding the Mind: Foundational Review.)

In other words, our present narrative can only hint at the full philosophical import of our experiment on our notions of subjectivity-objectivity and reality. However, we still want to raise the question here about the knowable-objective true-reality of what you will discover and can come to know in your experiment herein. However, while laboring under merely latent assumptions, you cannot hold up to a critical light those assumptions, as you would hold a prism up to catch the light in full critical philosophical understanding. In order to do that, you will need to do a considerable amount of open-minded and critically-guided self-reflection.

Also, in the light of our interim reflections about the Pervasiveness of the Good (appendix 5) and about our question about the suggested objective reality of discovered mental structures, ala the experiment, let us move on to our desire-quest-3: Is it Really Worthwhile?, and to our identifying this desire-quest as it emerges in our crises.


Exploring The Notion of Objectivity

Drawing from two other appendixes (1 and 7), we briefly can develop our notions of subjectivity and objectivity, and their relationship, from having understood (a) our tri-part structure and the way we language within it (Piscitelli 1977), and (b) our notion of the paradigmatic difference between fostering an insider's, over an outsider's, view of history.

That is, we find the objective pole as mid-way between the subject-as-subject self-present person, and where our experience of this structure is our ability to think-about-any-object-X, and where we experience that thinking as a "talking-to-myself" in the privacy of my own mental sphere.

Subject.......Object X........Subject
Listener......Object X........Speaker

As self-reflective:

Subject.......Subject/Self-as-Object-X.......Subject

The object, then, is related to the subject as that intelligibilty-meaning that we are questioning or conversing, or that is being conversed.

Whereas, when we speak-with/listen-to another person-subject, the self-presence that I am becomes also present to the other person who is also self-present(and vice versa). Here, the what-object-X that the other person is saying, I am also "saying-to-myself" as I listen to that meaning in my own interior life. And, as self-reflective, that what-object-X also can be either me, or her, or both of us.

Further, from an empirically-established metaphysics based in B. Lonergan's theoretical work and its call for personal application, the above is not a suggestion of some sort of "pure subjectivity." Rather, it calls forth an insider's view of history (as philosophical paradigm). That view places the subject not outside, but inside of being--as an intelligent, but also intelligible being whose awareness anticipates (through the desire-questioning process) further knowledge of being including, in self-reflective feats, knowledge of the subject-self in that one-being who has some say in how and what I might be (1958/2000).

For an exploration of three aspects of objectivity (absolute, normative, and experiential) and for a full development of a suitable (and verifiable) epistemological theory, see Lonergan’s Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, specifically, "The Notion of Objectivity," "The Notion of Judgment," and "Reflective Understanding" (1958 & 2000).

A note on the imagination and feelings: In other narratives, I also include reference to the imagination and feelings as intimate, even inseparable aspects of the thinking process. These aspects of thinking are not our focus here; however, let us not discount these, or forget how substantial and integral these are to the structure of the mind and its development--especially its early development.
~

APPENDIX 19: The Arrogant Philosopher

Let us compare philosophical knowledge to the knowledge of, say, a physician. That is, when you visit a physician, you expect the doctor to know, in this case, something valuable about good health, disease and injury in general and, after an inspection, your body's situation in particular. Further, you expect that such knowledge is probably (and hopefully) more and better than your own--if you are not also a doctor or, in the case of specialist knowledge, even if you are.

Further, how would you feel (a) if your doctor spoke to you only in theory-speak or (b) if your doctor did not know any theory-speak or was not familiar with the technical language of his/her own profession and, thus, could not communicate about the technical aspects of your health?

In fact, medical doctors are known for communicating in their own doctor-speak, which is good and necessary for them and for their professions, of course, and as long as that doctor-speak stays critical and within the walls of those professions. So in effect, a professional in any field that has a critical-theoretical background needs to foster a kind of working split consciousness—one side for theory-language- speak, and the other side for common-language-speak.

Two discourses:

Theory-speak (or technical-speak)
Common-speak

Such theory-speak and technical-speak are essential in the professions because of the movement of discovery within the fields and because of the concomitant call for refinement, definition, and concision of terms to match the nuances of that discovery and the systematics and applications that flow from it.

First, our professions need to maintain an ongoing connection with the history of their profession which is peppered with quite-distinct terms and concepts; and second, the nuanced distinctions and relationships need to be maintained within and throughout the given language: for a modicum of standardization and consistency of meaning, and for the use of all who are a part of it and who converse—especially when the end-run is to have the particular patient in mind--you and me.

Important here is that such field-defined terminology often does not fit well in common discourse or in the lay-person’s communications. Here, what is good language in medical or other theoretical-technical circles becomes indecipherable jargon in common-language circles.

Also, applications into detail may be on the horizon in any theoretical movement of mind. However, with theoretical thought, the refinement of general knowledge--developing theory--is the central focus. Whereas in common discourse, knowledge commonly regards details (not generalities) and is at the service of existential-ethical applications or implementation--not what I know as general theory, but what can I to do in the details of my life (Lonergan [on commonsense and theory] 1958 and 2000).


From Medicine to Philosophy

Philosophical meaning and its language is like the medical doctor’s meaning and its language in the sense that the philosopher may know more about (a) philosophical foundations in general, having spent years in the profession, its history, and movements of thought and, if engaged in a discussion with you, about (b) your philosophical foundations in particular.

Further, just like you can carry around and use your bones without ever asking a single question about them, so we all can carry around our philosophical foundations without every asking a single questions about them.

Furthermore, the medical doctor and the philosopher are alike in the sense that philosophical language can be, often is, and often should be theoretical-technical—and thus, jargon-sounding to those who have not studied philosophy.

Again, like technical-medical language, technical-philosophical language (a) is essential to those immersed in the historical and theoretical professions and (b) often sounds like jargon when brought into a common-discourse arena. Further, if we are engaged in any of those professions, we need to remain aware of the distinction between the two discourses--one general, technical-theoretical, and the other common and invovled with the details of our lives.


Differences and Their Manifestations

Unfortunately, however, where the two fields differ is where teachers and philosophers can locate potential problems in trying to foster philosophical communications—problems that cannot be sorted out so easily, that relate to our present project (finding and hopefully consciously appropriating the mind) and, thus, that need to be brought forward for your consideration here before going forward in the main text of Finding the Mind.

As I have suggested at other places in the text, I have tried to translate many technical terms into more common language that will be more easily understood by “lay” persons. However, as with many medical terms, some philosophical language already has become a part of the lexicon of common speech in many circles of communication. For instance, ego, the unconscious, and the terms theory and philosophy themselves all have their technical and common meanings which are, in some cases, quite opposed and, so, their meanings need to stay "pinned to the wall" of whatever field of discourse we are in at the moment.

The problem with that multi-circle usage in any field is that, in the migration from technical to common usage, the meaning of specific terms has probably changed; and more probably it has lost its technical nuance. So that, in order to avoid much confusion, readers need to be aware of potential new meaning of old-and-used-already terms, and of what may be wrongly-developed meaning that will not suffice for technical-theoretical use.

Second, unlike the experience of the medical doctor, people who either have or espouse (or both) philosophical knowledge often find themselves faced with the charge of arrogance. Indeed, arrogance may be present in anyone, e.g., in a medical doctor, and especially in someone who has recognized the power of philosophical knowledge.

However, philosophical knowledge is personal in a way that goes way beyond what the medical doctor can know about us. That is, philosophical knowledge has to do with how we think, about not only our specific knowledge as such, but what we think knowledge is in the first place (and the good, and truth, being and the spirit, and what it means to be a genuine and authentic person, etc.).

Further, instead of manifesting in the body, philosophical issues and problems manifest in our language expressions—in our thought, speech, and writing. You or others who are not well-acquainted with philosophical history, its technical discourse, or its personal meaning will not be able to “see” philosophical meaning, or hear it, or read it, as it emerges. Whereas, for a well-versed philosopher, philosophical meaning bleeds out from underneath and into a person’s expressions, and shows up, …well, …like blood would be noticable on the page as the narrative goes forward.

And so, instead of getting naked in front of the medical doctor every six months or so, and where you are in control of taking off your clothes, for the philosopher, we all get philosophically naked, often without knowing it, every time we (and you) open our mouths or write something down.

Such nakedness can be unsettling to the naked person should they become even slightly aware of it. However, all communication is fraught with philosophical implications that the well-versed philosopher cannot help but become aware of, in one way or another. Once learned well, to become unaware of philosophical meaning bleeding through would be like your becoming unaware of what these words mean at the moment you look at them.

For instance, once you have a general notion of what letters and the word "moment" mean, their meaning jumps off the page at the moment you look at that word. Once we learn to read, we cannot NOT read words when we see them. Recognizing philosophical meaning is like that.

It is basic philosophical assumptions that those in the profession have spent a good amount of thought-time on, and spilled a good amount of ink writing about. Again, the knowledge philosophers speak of and understand is what is already assumed and becomes manifest (to the philosopher) in the writer-speaker’s expressions.
~
And so, in this way, unlike medical knowledge, but like getting-naked in a room full of clothed people, philosophical knowledge of others in the philosopher can be experienced by that other-person as a loss of power—over myself and over the distinction between (a) my interior and very private life (at least I thought it was private), and (b) the one I choose to convey to others. Open you mouth, and there they are--your philosophical assumptions in all of their nakedness.


The Onset of Real and Imagined Arrogance

Further, and very unlike with the professors of medical knowledge, such fear and loss of power (founded or not) can produce fear and a correlate accusation of arrogance on the part of the philosopher.

Again, medical doctors or philosophers may be arrogant or paragons of humility and genuineness. Either may be wise or ignorant, morally sound or degenerate, or changing and somewhere in-between. However, philosophers do not become so-arrogant only because they have studied and come to know, and have a good working grasp of, profound personal and theoretical knowledge. As in any field or profession, and regardless of what kind of knoiwledge we have, including in philosophy, the person is still under venue of the question:

What kind of person are you, and what are your ethical, political, social, and spiritual horizons?

Thus, philosophers or teachers, etc., are “elitist” only in the sense that the medical doctor is elitist--for having knowledge that we do not. A person engaged in a lifelong field of learning should have a “higher” and deeper knowledge of his-her field. Philosophers, then, should know something of our field that is commonly not known in common-discourse circles.

On the other hand, we are “elitist” if we use our knowledge as a source of self-petting or as a hierarchical wedge or leg-up on the intellectual, moral-ethical, social, political and-or spiritual life of other human beings.

Let us keep such distinctions in mind throughout our experiment and, indeed, at the background of any philosophical study we may decide to undertake.

END: Appendix 19

APPENDIX 7: Deriving Ought from IS

From Finding the Mind: Pedagogy for Verifying Cognitional Theory/Primer for Self-Appropriation--The Experiment


Our Desire-Quest-Complex 3 and the Is-Ought Relationship as Historical and-or Logical

Table of Contents

Introduction
As Creative
Two Meanings of "Act"
Our Questioning as (1) Conscious Choice, or as (2) Given
Historical Transformation: Ought Becomes IS
Our Well of Fungible Meaning
Speculative Knowing
History and Logic: Insider's or Outsider's View
The Tensional In-Between
Conclusion

Introduction

From the point of view of logical analysis, we cannot derive an ought from an is. That is, if something is, it does not automatically follow that it should be or ought have been.

Also, the same criteria for understanding and knowing the truth holds for understanding and knowing what ought to be. That is, what ought to be, or the good-bad we decide to say and do as speculative (before we say-do it), rather than what already is, is a product of critical movement of mind towards our making a judgment yes-or-no--about what I should/should-not say-do. Or it's in the development and build-up of relevant meaning-intelligibility towards the fullness of that saying and doing, and our selecting and marshalling all relevant evidence for making those judgments-for-knowledge/truth.1

First, we are speaking from the point of view of history and empirical analysis.

Second, our shadow-question-3 is generally stated as: Is it worthwhile? (...for me to say and-or do?).

Third, the Is it worthwhile? shadow-question also holds together a complex of prior moments of (a) resonating under-meaning combined with (b) the meaningful situation-at-hand, about which the question arises.

Finally, (c) our What is worthwhile to do?-question initiates a flow of thought that can (but need not) take us to the further questions: (c-1) Is it worthwhile? (c-2) Should-ought I do it? And (c-3) Will I do it? We can also refer to this flow of questioning as deliberation. That flow is commonly followed by meaningful speech and-or bodily action, otherwise known as implementation.

Further, in (c) above, c-1 calls for resonant under-meaning connections and developments; while c-2 and c-3 call for a confirming closure: Yes or no. This closure is not about what is, in fact, true. Rather, these are moments in the movement towards implementation of what is intended to become the IS of concrete data that, in turn, can be data for our questions for meaning and truth.

Thus, shadow-questions that call for a yes-no response assume prior meaning treated in its prior What-type-question--in this case: (a) What is worthwhile for me to say-do? The content in all questions is referred to throughout and generally as IT.

Or if a yes-no judgment cannot be made at present through my deliberation, the movement of mind calls for further contemplation of meaning—or dissembling, as the case may be (c-1).

Stated differently, after we develop meaning and identify what is worthwhile for me to say-do, and after we confirm that, indeed, it is so-worthwhile (yes/no), our further deliberative questions become: Should I and will I Bring IT into concrete being through my speech-act?

Of course, the flow from one desire-quest/shadow question to another can be interrupted or aborted at any juncture, and for many reasons.


As Creative

In this way, the flow of our questioning moves us from considerations of meaning, to concrete speaking and acting, to reflective considerations of that said-acted meaning again, and then to knowledge of the truth of that meaning.

As empirically established and historical, the flow is intimate with reality-being (ourselves thinking, speaking, and acting in-with-on the world); the flow is fundamentally creative (we are a part of and, as a whole, we bring about history); and the flow is derived from the albeit-limited freedom that comes with being human (Lonergan 2000, 646).

As creative, then, our complex and spontaneous flow of desire-questing conditions our participating in, but also our bringing about, a continually transformed intelligible reality—a reality that—good and-or bad or in-between--emerges transformed from the half-burned body and ashes of the old.

Before we choose to do anything, and as condition for that choosing, we are intimately involved in creating that new reality--one that we contribute to forming through the meaning-intelligibility that flows through our fundamental set of desire-quests towards expression in the world in our speaking-doing.

Thus, logically-speaking we cannot derive ought from is. However, from an historical and empirically established point of view,

Ought-should, in fact, becomes IS through act (and speech as act).

We could say that what is thought, in speculation, as meaning-intelligible-good (ought-should know-say-do-be) is constantly transformed into actual-IS through our speech and actions.


Two Meanings of "Act"

In his technical philosophical work Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Bernard Lonergan refers to act in a technical way identifying act with judgment for knowledge-truth. Thus, the act of judgment follows upon experience, understanding, and reflective understanding (1958 & 2000). And so we have two meanings of “act,” or we can speak of: one as technical meaning referring to our judgment for knowledge-truth, and the other more common meaning referring to meaningful speech and bodily movements:

Act-1 Knowing-judgment of the real, and

Act 2 Creation of the real through concrete movement and speech, or through our implementation of the meaning we have explored and engaged in the concrete material world we live in.

Our Questioning as (1) Conscious Choice, or as (2) Given

Further, though we can certainly act before thinking, we are born-in-act (both acts 1 and 2 above) as intelligent beings. From birth and before, our intelligence is on the move—understanding the meaning-intelligiblity of what-is, judging that meaning to be so or not; understanding what we can and will say-do (or not), deliberating about that meaning towards actually saying-doing (or not).

In a highly variable and more or less differentiated fashion, we move quickly or slowly through our given set of desire-quests-to-questions anticipating insights-to-understanding, and then our rationale and decisions for speaking-acting in the world. We do so depending on our developmental state, on our patterns of thought and emerging specific interests, and in terms of what happens to us in our living. In fact, our history of both awareness and our speaking-acting (meaning: act-2) concretely in the world is a constant manifestation of this whole-set of desire-quests, their insights and judgments, and their accumulation of meaning.

Or in common terms, our desire-quests are given—we begin with them and do not choose to have them as a basic structure. Rather, the desire-quests are the conditioning factor for that choosing.

Our desire-quests manifest as a basic structure and underpin and condition all of the content and direction of of our, all reflection and self-reflection, all planning and follow-through to speaking and acting in the world. Our specific meaning-clothed questions, which can be governed by our awareness, executive functions, and conscious choice, themselves emerge from the basic structure (expressed theoretically as our shadow-questions). That structure has a dynamism about its functioning.

Again, we do not choose to have or to employ it. As a dynamic and developmental whole, our desire-quests form the internal activity and structure of what it means to be an intelligent, aware, and developing human beings who seek to understand, value, know, speak and move around in the world in the way we do (act-2).

Again, rather than always consciously choosing to question, or to ignore questions, our choices of raising specific questions--including our choice to further develop our reflective capacities--are conditioned by our prior universal and basic structure and its set of given and developing desire-quests (explored in our main text: Finding the Mind).

We may try to run away from specific questions; however, we cannot run away from desire-questing itself—because, first, merely being awake and aware is our desire-questing activity already on-the-move as it spontaneously resonates and considers new meaning and because, second, if you want an object, say, a new home or pet, you would not do so until you have some understanding of what that object is.

Any understanding that we have gained we have done so through our desire-questing activities. You learned what that object is from your first having desire-quested about its meaning, generally stated as: What is it? (shadow-question-1).


Historical Transformation: Ought Becomes IS

Part of human development consists of our reversing the movement of mind from our:

acting first and thinking second (if we think at all) to
thinking first and then speaking-acting after having been informed by that prior thinking.2

With that developmental range in mind, we can say this: at the cresting of intelligent being-in-act, between knowing (act-1 )and saying-acting-being (act-2), all human IS’s were once human should-oughts.

That is, all should-oughts emerge from the generalized Is it Worthwhile? complex of desire-quests. Furthermore, the specific meaning of should-ought depends for its depth and quality on the specifics of our meaning-developmental horizons; on the ensconced principles that we have built-up to govern our thought; and on the developmental state of our executive functions.

Such meaning always emerges within a specified cultural context. Or, in our moments of concrete speech-act-in-intelligence (act-2), all potential and speculative (non-factual) should-oughts are transformed into concrete IS’s. As implementation occurs, that transformed-meaning IS no longer speculative. As transformed, only then does that IS become data that can then come under the further question for intelligible, logical, qualified, and reflectively-established fact (our desire-quests/shadow-questions-1 and 2: What is it? and Is it so?).

At that catalytic point between thinking and speaking-acting (now), our active flow of pondering--all of our desire-quests in our worthwhile complex--ends, and our act-2 occurs.

Ought-should becomes IS.

Further, this momentary end-in-act-2 renders moot all of our prior questions about this specified content X, de facto. For we do not ask: should we or if we will say-do something AFTER we have said-done it or after we have missed-the-moment of the event of our potential speech and-or action.

Concretely, once the plane leaves, we may regret that we didn’t get on it, or be glad that we did. However, in either case, we do not continue to contemplate whether or not we should actually get on board after we have boarded, or after we know it has left the terminal. Or, “no one chooses to have sacked Troy, for deliberation does not refer to the past but only to the future and to what is possible, …” (Aristotle, trans,1962, 149). What is possible is not yet factual, but still within the range of my saying-doing. Or in our own language, we can know IT-ought before it occurs, but that knowing remains speculative.

In this way, human acts-2 are developmental and formative of the human being involved in the act, and of the history of our being in the world. Our speaking and acting in the world is in some way final in its specific intelligible context. Or as Aristotle refers to Agathon saying:

“One thing alone is denied even to god; to make undone the deeds which have been done.” (trans. 1962, 149)

Further, the term worth is a derivative of the more primitive notion of the good. In the case of worthwhile-ness of our being, we are considering, discerning, and then deliberating and deciding about (what-should-will I?) the good-bad-worthwhile-ness of what we actually can think, say, and do (the range of intelligible possibilities).

Concomitantly, if the content of the worthwhile-to-understand-know-say-do were already concrete fact, the flow of meaning through our desire-quests would not even move into our desire-quest-3 complex (Is it worthwhile) or come to inform our executive functions. In such a case, there would be nothing to execute.


Our Well of Fungible Meaning

Furthermore, regardless of our developmental moment, our should-ought quest and its language are derivative of our given desire-quest to understand and know the meaningful-good-worthwhile. Also, The meaning-well, from whence all of our desire-quests draw, is fungible. That is, the worthwhile complex of desire-quests towards saying-doing (desire-quests-3-4) shares its meaning-well with the qualitative-evaluative-intelligible aspect of our desire-quests-1-2, expressed here as shadow-questions: What is it? and Is it so?

Seen as a whole flow of meaning from desire-questing or thinking, to knowing, to acting-2, our worthwhile-ness reflections on that meaning are more or less circumscribed by our efforts of discernment in consideration of our being-participation-creation. In other words, we can, but do not always or often, differentiate clearly between what we are thinking-about and what we are considering to say-do (what I should-ought say-do).

Differentiated or not, those efforts spontaneously draw from our relatively fungible field of developing under-meaning, and all of its facets (including both objective-knowledge and self-identified developmental meaning. That meaning-field includes the good-bad or qualitative meaning-intelligence, and informs us, whether or not it’s hidden from the stage of our conscious awareness in our un-awareness.


Speculative Knowing

Nevertheless, when considering future actions, that movement of intelligibility and its evaluative aspects remain speculative—IT IS-not-yet in the concrete, existential, or historical sense—we can still dissemble or abort, IT can still be avoided, and IT still may not be done or said. Rather, we may have completely settled all of the meaning of our speculated-projected IS-doing or saying where our speculative intelligibility, deliberations, and decisions are completely settled early on, but where we have yet to act-2. In such cases, as far as we can see, we plan to act-2 if nothing substantial intervenes, and if all things remain the same.

For example, if it does not rain on Sunday, and if nothing else interferes, we’ll have a picnic at the park. Such settling, however, is always contingent (if) until the event comes around and until we act in that event, or until the act occurs, or the set date-time event passes.

On the other hand, historically, any ought that is intelligently projected into a future time and place becomes a factual IS at that catalytic moment when my Will-I question goes moot as I speak-act or fail to speak-act in-that-context-moment (now). Sunday arrives, and we actually have that picnic, or we do not, and the questions about that IT go moot.

In this way, all of our speculative future judgments will rest in a nest of past relatively fungible under-meaning and judgments--of which some are true; some are partially true or just undeveloped; some are based on belief (reasonable or not); some may have been made incorrectly, some are received but uninspected for their meaning and implications, some are rightly or wrongly related and applied. Still, forthcoming yes-no judgments about the worthwhile-ness of a future would-could-should-be act, again, are conditional (they depend on unfulfilled ifs).

By definition, speculations cannot be true (unconditioned fact) precisely because conditioned conjecture, no matter how well-meaning or secure-in-mind, is not yet fulfilled-conditioned ir factual. Or in Lonergan’s technical terms, the future is conditioned (it’s surrounded by ifs). As decided-on before it occurs, we may refer to it as the virtually conditioned (1958 and 2000).

As already virtually UNconditioned, the meaning is approached with understanding and true-knowledge of fact in mind. Again, we do not deliberate about what already has taken place or about what IS. In this way, the virtually unconditioned (knowledge of what is true-real) is potentially informative of what we contemplate, deliberate about, and decide to say-do. We approach the future only with conditions surmised as to-be-fulfilled, but as not yet really so.

In a sense, we can say that speculative knowledge is virtually conditioned, rather than virtually unconditioned. (See references to the virtually unconditioned in Lonergan [1958 & 2000], and in our Finding the Mind: Foundational Review [unpublished manuscript at this writing].)


History and Logic: Insider's or Outsider's View

Let us refer again to logic and to the relationship between, first, what is so, or factual and, second, our worthwhile-should-ought complex of desire-quests-to-questions-to-deliberations, etc. Of course we can apply logical principles to any speculative narrative.

However, here we distinguish between, first, a logical and, second, an existential-historical relationship between What Is factual, on the one hand, and What Is Not but Should-Ought Be, on the other. We do so to secure the different but related methodologies of logic and the method of mind in history with regard to our worthwhile-is-ought complex of desire-quests and their complex relationships.

That is, we can claim that, logically-speaking, an ethical-ought cannot be derived from a given is. Logically, no necessary relationship holds between Is and the intelligence or lack of intelligence of Ought or Should. Logic, then, can reveal the order of, but cannot explain or direct, human speech and act (1 and-or 2). Thus logic is central to many aspects of understanding and rationality, is related to reasonability, but is not formative or directive of human responsibility. In that broader notion of responsibility, logic is not directive of the methods of either development or dialectic in human concerns. Nor can it direct us in our moving from one horizon to another. Nor does it account for either the instance of the raising of a question nor of the occurrence of insight.

However, historically we are existentially responsible—involved with participating in and creating the transformed IS that was only potential before we came to be involved, directed, and self-directed in it. We do that spontaneously via our structured desire-quests and the meaning that flows through them, i.e., our is-it-worthwhile complex of desire-quests that include what-should, should-ought I, and will I say-do IT?

In this way, logic reveals the order of, but has little or no bearing on human responsibility. The impasse of relating IS to OUGHT, or logic to the good-should-ought complex in logical circles, is broken when we speak (a) from the point of view of the historical nature of our being where should-ought transforms into IS; (b) to our limited freedom within that history of being (1958 and 2000); and (c) to our creativly-involved nature as we participate intimately, in the continuous and eventual now, in that history.

As such, the structure and activities of our being reveal that we are intimate with the universe of history which, for us, is fundamentally moral-ethical-spiritual—and cannot be otherwise. This is so since, regardless of our moment in our development (1) the worthwhile-should-ought-I complex of desire-quests informs all speech and act. Thus, (2) it is essentially about our participation-in and creative bringing-about-of the good-bad (or failing to act) in the history of human being, and (3) precisely because, concomitantly, all human history is an expression of our speech-act responses to that complex of desire-quests.

The history and discoveries of logic rightly reveal that mere logic cannot direct or lock us into good or bad speech or action-2. However, we also can ask if such lock-stepping is really an attractive idea in the first place—or historically, and with the advent of secularity and its loosening of religiously-derived restraints, is fostering such an odd ideal really a covert excuse to let-go of our desire-quest for being responsible human beings—or for what it means to live a good life, including in the context of our relationships with others. For in fact, regardless of a logicians’ inability to connect IS with ought logically, we all still go home, and we live in this complex of desire-quests where we are constantly transforming our many thoughtful oughts into IS’s.

We can call up the post-modern philosophical and logical quandary where ethicists are left to wring our hands and watch with dismay (and even horror) while the ground of ethics crumbles and disappears before our very eyes, and where we fear for the future of humanity.

However, seen from an existential historical view, the distinction between is and ought presents us with the creative space only known to humans and where quali-meaning is worked out and implemented, or with the basic structure of human creativity, discovery, freedom, and participation in being-in-history (Lonergan, 1958 & 2000).

Thus, from a bird's-eye or outsider's view of history, logic does not and cannot bridge the relationship between knowing what is and oughting-the good. Logic is of what Lonergan (drawing from Coreth) refers to a "restricted sphere":

A point not made in Insight I have since learnt from Fr. Coreth. It regards spheres of being. Real being is known when the fulfilling conditions are data of sense or of consciousness. Restricted spheres of being are known when the fulfilling conditions are not data but some lesser requirement: the merely logical is what satisfied criteria of clarity, choherence, and rigor ....(1988, p. 297)

IS cannot be a necessary cause of our moral-ethical lives, though it can be. When it is, it becomes so through our given intelligent operations we are studying here, e.g., either through mere trust and acceptance (as when we do what our parents tell us, before we can understand what or why we are doing it and, thus, we create a moral habit); or through the series of desire-questioning WHAT and IS for our understanding and knowledge, then through deliberation, decision, towards our own speech-act in the world. In either case, there is nothing lock-step about the relationship. (See note below about the relationship of this dynamism to Lonergan's functional specialties.)

From an insider's view of history, then, we are called to address that now-age-old question: What does it mean to know an IS and-or a speculative IS and, within that question, What does it mean to know at all, and how do we understand or argue the imperative to connect the ought-good with our historically reality?

Our point is this: We can think ourselves outside of history via our questioning structure, but we cannot say-do-BE outside of that history.

We can and do objectify ourselves, and our moral-ethical ought-should, just as we objectify-qualify anything. But we can only connect that ought-should to IS from our awareness of ourselves as historical insiders. In other words, if we are worried about the is-ought philosophical connection, then we have to know ourselves as not only knowers, but also as now-implementers in history. Further, that implemented history is structurally within the venue of the good-bad question. Though always also under the auspices of dialectic and a vast range of development, it cannot be otherwise approached--that is, without the question of the good-bad as venue.

We are all, at least in part, in the process of making our own being.

From this insider's view, entertaining the is-ought-should relationship is merely a matter of engaging fully in the question: Who am I, and who am I to be? or communally, Who are WE, and who are we to be?

From the point of view of insider-history, then, the is-to-ought/should “problem” is not even a problem for logic or, if so, only as a clarifying or editorial moment of one's already-developed narrative. Rather, the is-ought relationship is a problem for ethicists (as outsiders and/or insiders) and for human beings in general who, in fact, are constantly defining and engaging in forming our future existence.3

Also, from the point of view of human beings in history, the IS-OUGHT problem disappears to reveal the question not of logic but of human and cultural development ans corrective (self- or other-directed) or, it reveals the question that Lonergan puts as What is cosmopolis? (1958 and 2000). (Also, see our Appendix 5 on the Pervasiveness of the Good, which is more basic language for our should-ought complex of thought.)

In concrete human concerns, then, it makes no sense to position the relationship between Is and Ought only in a venue of logic--precisely because that relationship is not only conceptual, or static, or merely logical where the form of the argument is the issue. Rather, the relationship between is and ought is discovery-developmental (genetic), dialectical (tensional-dynamic), participative and creative. We haven't been able to carve that connection in logic because, in commonsense terms, ethicists are searching for the right pew in the wrong church. It will never happen.

The relationship speaks fundamentally to the communitarian--it's fundamentally about how we speak and act in the world and our formative meaning as we do so. The analysis from the point of view of insider-history means, in fact, we can reflect on, from a distance, as it were, but we cannot divorce ourselves from (a) our past meaning accural or (b) our responsibility in and to history.

Thus, the actual relationship between Is and Ought cannot be made from a conceptual or logical point of view, on principle. If it could, we would be robotic rather than human. And we would have no part in our own choices of self-development. Rather, the relationship includes and employs, but takes us way beyond, the concerns of logic. Logic tells us how we order our intelligence and its language once we arrive at system and its language. However, logic cannot capture the dynamism of intelligence-worth-good in history or general empirical method in operation as it conditions speech and logic and reveals to us how we arrive at logic’s concerns in the first place.

Using our own term, then, logic’s limited focus for such concerns is excisively warped from the point of view of the dynamism of human beings in history. Or it rests in, depends on, and is derivative of the broader range of history-on-the-move. For all of its legitimate contributions to system, corrective, and critical expression, the history of logical analysis and its philosophical underpinnings is to separate itself from the whole of human being and to claim to capture for itself (falsely) the whole-real. Logic understood as whole-being or as directive of the developmental-dialectical cum ethical aspects of human being is a huge metaphysical mistake. (Mistakes and errors can remain quite logical.)

As creative-historical, then, the relationship between Is and Ought includes both developmental and dialectical venues and concerns. That is, existentially and concretely, we raise the Worthwhile-ness set of desire-quests behind, before, because of, and for the existential speech-and-act--as a question for the human good that I first deem worthwhile saying and doing, that I should or should not do, then that I will or will not do, and then what I actually say-do. As such, human beings, at the crest-point now of speech-action, in fact, are transforming and creating a new and qualified (or not qualified) IS from a thought-about Ought.

Or we transform from an Ought-Not or, relatively thoughtlessly, from reactionary unthinking where our potential for reflection and self-reflection has not developed yet or has become truncated and has failed to do so. We participate-create by continuously carrying out human thought, speech, and act through the venue of our desire-questing, and in an arena of meaning where notoriously no fixed data have accrued as human history (Aristotle, trans, 1962, 35).

The most general aspects of cognitional context are represented by logic and dialectic. Logic is the effort of knowledge to attain the coherence and organization proper to any stage of its development. Dialectic, on the other hand, rests on the breakdown of efforts to attain coherence and organization at any given stage, and consists in bringing to birth a new stage in which logic again will endeavor to attain coherence and organization. (1958, and 2000, p. 301)

Behind all speech and act is the albeit-developmental and potentially dialectical reflective and self-reflective thought that contains our general desire-quests in all their latent and-or creative potency and dynamism. Concretely, then, and from our general ought-should complex of under-meaning and questions, you and I create an ever-new and ethical (or not) IS that is our human life and history in-the-making. Further, and again, because of our basic structure, we can then approach such now-accomplished IS data with our questions of meaning and good-meaning, fact, good-fact, and logical order and, further, with our questions for reflection and self-reflection: Was it really worthwhile?, and Should I have done or said it?

What's done is done, however, and what is not, is not. The historical nature of the analysis can be understood as a call to, but not a determination of, the ought-should of free and responsible human speech and action in history.

Thus, logic alone will not help us reconcile the classic ought-is impasse and the apparent implications of the un-grounding and subsequent presumed relativity of truth in ethics or considerations of the moral universe in character. Nor will a classical frame of mind help us with what needs to be, and what responds better to, an empirical-insider's view of historical exploration.

Rather, existentially speaking, and including the logician in all his-her personhood, we either act arbitrarily and thoughtlessly, or we develop in degrees around the spontaneously arising desire-quests for the good and the worthwhile, in all of their developmental-dialectical nuances, in all of their potential derailments, and in all of their cultural diversity.

From an outsider's view: OUGHT cannot be derived from IS
From an insider's view: IS is derived from OUGHT through thoughtful speech and act-2

The Tensional In-Between

Further, before we speak and-or act, a tension in us fills our desire-questing process towards deliberation--Should I?--and pushes us towards the decision--Yes I should (or should not), and I will (or will not). Again, this existential tension and its further deliberation is released at the now-moment we speak and-or act—the continuous crest-now of human living. We are then taken up into new meaning and sets of tensions,... and life goes on.

What we commonly refer to as our conscience comes into play here as a set of developed principles with their roots deeply grown into our imaginations and feelings--into our very celular makeup.4 Our focus, however, is on the prior set of desire-quests that, when our under-meaning is insight-informed come to constitute our conscience in the first place (our grown-in foundations and their established principles/doctrines).

Our speech and act-2, then, are not only our making an intellectual and responsible commitment, or our taking a stand, about a given issue or truth. Our speech and act-2 also constitute our coming-to-be, our being, and our committing our whole selves to the meaning that comes to fruition and keeps on unfolding in and through that speech and act in our history of speech and act. Amen. Let it be. It is done.

In this way, like the tension behind our What is it? question is released with the occurrence of an insight or set of insights (Aha!), the tension behind the existential complex of desire-quests-3/4--Is it Worthwhile?-Should I do it?-Will I do it?--is released at the moment of human speech and act as they are occurring. We move on to other tensions, but THAT tension is resolved.

In our existential-concrete meaning, then, our two orders of the good, Is it good/Is it worthwhile-complex, stand in the midst of our development and our unique accumulation of under-meaning within that developmental framework. The underlying meaning that informs our is-ought movement of thought interlocks (is fungible) to inform our awareness (and our under-awareness) and the spontaneous, ranging and often unruly movements of our ever-new wonder. What we already have discerned and judged to be good or bad, and our past speech and acts—in our myriad experience of that movement--constitute the meaning-resource for our new questions and judgments about What is worthwhile, and What I ought to do or not do, in the next moment or in the long-off future.


Conclusion

Ought, untransformed through speech-act, is not IS and never will be. So that logic cannot provide a fluid, dynamic bridge between Is and Ought—nor would we be human if it could. The structure of our being in history, then, presents us with a constant call-to-being as our inner discernments and our outer-expressed choices in history can and do continuously transform our oughts into our IS’s.

NOTES: (for this appendix only)

1. Here we are speaking in terms of foundations and their development. That is, when we say or do something we know to be bad, we are still in the question for the good as my expression of my existence. That is, in our speech-and-acts, we answer the question "What is best (should-ought) for me to do?" by that actual saying-doing. "I should not do or say this, but I'm going to do-say it anyway." In fact, our basic structure allows us to both (a)know objectively what is good, and (b) be knowing-identified-with the best-for-me--of saying-doing the bad. The meaning development (or lack of it) that feeds into this dynamic is complex, layered, internally conflicting, and in most cases, person-specific.


2. If you have at least a modest understanding of Lonergan's eight functional specialties (1972), you can easily relate them to the hearing-speaking phenomena.

Briefly, and here in terms of psychological development, the first four functional specialties are about hearing towards internal development, whereas the second four are about that internal development towards speaking and acting in the world or implementation.

Hearing (from below upwards): Research, Interpretation, History, Dialectic
Speaking (from above downwards): Foundations, Doctrines (principles, policies, etc.), systematics, and communications (implementation).

Both "sides" of the specialties are always operative, though they are commonly undifferentiated, and to one degree or another. That is, whenever we are listening, we are also speaking-to-ourselves, at least. And whenever we are speaking, we are also listening to ourselves, again, at least. Such is the complex and layered dynamism of the human condition. (See appendix 1: Self-Presence and Language). However, in that dynamism, we experience a movement of emphasis.

For instance, a child speaks, but his internal development is commonly going forward and building up (internal doctrines, principles govern speech-act, etc.) from having been other-directed. That is, a child hears and heeds, but at first, mostly not from their own basis in understanding.

On the hearing side of the specialties, however, and if left to develop on a relatively normal plane, the meaning-base for the child's own questions is also being develped so that, as he becomes developmental able to reflect and self-reflect, he also becomes able to raise questions for meaning about those earlier-merely-accepted doctrines and principles.

When we are acting first and thinking second (as an extreme), our interior activities emerge as expression from our second set of four specialties (from above downwards); whereas when we "turn around" and begin to think first and act second, our expressions of our internal activities emerge from the first four specialties as focus (from below upwards). One can see this complex and dynamic movement of thought in the broad movements over time of eastern and western history.

The other metaphor that Lonergan uses is the upper and lower blades of scissors. When we understand the tri-part structure and how language works within, it, we can see that objectification in language is where the two blades meet and "cut" in the meaning-moment of history.

None of this means much, however, unless the reader can appropriate the movements in your own thought processes and relate the above to your own thinking, speaking, and acting in the world.


3. We've already been in this process since history started. For instance, the forces for the known and pragmatic good righted several fascist movements in our not-so-distant past. Unless we want to claim (or admit) that, philosophically speaking, the Nazi's activities were fundamentally arbitrary, we have to question our truncated outsider's view of ourselves in history.

In terms of the basic tri-part structure, we need to come out of our over-focus on the thrown-object and ourselves as "seeing" that object from some kind of unexplained birdseye view, to engaging ourselves as a part of the movement of history. Such a movement of mind (a corrective of the ruling paradigm) applies to natural and physical scientist as well.


4. Such growing-in is why it's so difficult for human beings change, and why Aristotle spoke of the importance of having good parents and a good education when we are young (trans, 1962, 37).

END Appendix 7

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Appendix 18: For Those Familiar with Lonergan's Work

11-07-10 This essay has a newer version in my computer files. CK

Appendix 18

For Finding the Mind: Pedagogy for Verification of Cognitional Theory/Primer for Self-Appropriation-Affirmation

To doubt questioning is to involve oneself in a counterposition, and so questioning is beyond the doubter's capacity to doubt coherently.... questioning itself is the beginning. (Lonergan, "Metaphysics as Horizon," Collection, 1988, 190)

From Introduction

More specifically, by basic I mean those who understand Lonergan’s and others’ work in terms of Lonergan’s contributions to philosophy but, more importantly, to philosophical self-knowledge--especially in terms of the biases, of epistemology, and of the application of both (at least) to your personal development and critical correctives of your own foundations (writ small). Also, I mean by basic those who understand how the work imports on the foundations of groups, e.g., institutions, corporations, etc. (writ large). I also refer to our attitudes as theoretically developed by E. Piscitelli in his work on foundations (1985).

Further, this work is not a theoretical treatise on education but rather is pedagogyy-about finding the basic structure within one's own expressions and then clearing the way, hopefully, within the self. Of course, I hope I have adequately treated the theoretical aspects of the work; however, I have written more to mediate a specific formulation of that theory into the lives of those who are unfamiliar with theory, or with philosophical study--especially as a critical-personal venture--and to foster critical self-reflection, than to present a theoretical treatise on the philosophy of education to scholars and theoreticians.

Furthermore, the experiment in the main text is interspersed with references to relatively brief appendixes (this one and others online: King 2010). Those appendixes address (a) pedagogical notes for teachers and (b) various issues and questions written to further challenge reader foundations--questions that should arise as readers go through the experiment herein. The appendixes, and the pedagogical and foundational references in the text (including in the preface and introduction), are meant to promote further self-reflection beyond the experimental and verification phase where the theory will be verified and the basic structure discovered in the reader’s own narrative as objectified in writing.

Though I do not fully treat or address reader foundations here or in the appendixes, both experiment and appendixes are written to draw attention to, and to raise questions about, the reader-experimenter’s interior life and about their (a) personal philosophical development and (b) potential self-corrective. The appendixes also point to the fact that we all are potential for such development, though we may be completely unaware of it, and though we may, and probably will, begin our study in this state of relative unawareness--of our own foundations. People familiar with Lonergan’s work will recognize the terms: latent and problematic metaphysics, and polymorphism of mind (1958 and 2000).

The appendixes offer some further explorations, then, into the vast foundational context that holds together and already informs--sometimes well, sometimes badly--our concerns and activities in our daily life-events, and that underpins any relatively streamlined experiment such as the one offered in the main text, should the reader want to take that longer journey.

Thus, where I refer to this text as the shorter philosophical journey, the appendix narratives are meant to further introduce readers to, and perhaps even engage readers in, the beginnings of what I refer to as the longer philosophical journey. Though I have developed what I think is some new thought and theoretical distinctions here, and though I have not scoured every corner of ancient, medieval, or post-modern philosophical work, this distinction--between shorter and longer journeys--and the critical pedagogy-experiment itself, are what make this work unique to the field of philosophical study.

The experiment in the shorter-journey text, then, leads the reader to make the concrete and critical connection between the theory and the reader’s basic structure as it constantly emerges in our expressions and, in so doing, to verify the theory in personally-developed data. However, the writing of the shorter-journey guide is premised on the fact that a relatively brief text and experiment cannot do the foundational-pedagogical work (philosophical development and self-corrective--conversions, major insights, etc.) that is hoped for, for example, in the use of a moving viewpoint Lonergan’s Insight: A Study of Understanding (1958 and 2000).

Hence, I distinguish the shorter from the longer philosophical journeys in order to clarify the kinds of insight-experiences that a reader-experimenter new to theory and to philosophical study, and to a Lonergan-type call for self-understanding-knowledge (also unique in its critical philosophcal intent), can expect and not expect in either journey. And I spend a good amount of narrative making sure that the attentive reader understands something about both journeys and how they relate to one another--and that taking on the shorter does not necessarily secure the benefits of the longer.

Thereby, this relatively shorter text raises the issues of foundational development and corrective for the reader to at least know-about their foundational milieu--as a beginning moment in what may be and hopefully will be a personal--and intimately so--engagement with that longer journey.

That being said, I do not ignore a reader’s polymorphic-epistemic situation. Rather I explore briefly, but I hope with some clarity, the reader’s latent philosophical (metaphysical) situation (the reader’s critical-and-good judgments about their own verification of data in common situations) and potential philosophical polymorphism; and I overtly rely on the reader's common experience of developing, of self-correction, and of making good judgments about the good-true-real for this shorter-journey experiment. (See chapter 2: section on Philosophical Methodology, Relying on Your Latent Assumptions.)

While you may not yet understand my distinction between the shorter and longer journeys, I trust this distinction will resonate with your own problematic attempts to mediate general empirical method and other aspects of Lonergan’s (or indeed, any philosophical) work to a variety of audiences--some theoretically astute, and some not. And I trust that, generally speaking, you are quite familiar with the philosophical exploration, development, and self-correctives--the whole sweep of the philosophical project--that constitutes the longer journey, as a journey, and as the central thematic in Bernard Lonergan’s corpus of writing. I include, of course, the difference between (a) general-empirical and (b) transcendental methods where the later bridges the empirical movements of the virtually unconditioned and proportionate being with our religious beliefs, with the experience of religious conversion and, more generally, with spiritual and religious concerns (1958 and 2000) and with knowledge born of the conversion experience.

Briefly, the shorter journey provides the objectifying and verifying experiment; but it does not and cannot include a prolonged treatment of the underpinnings of foundational self-understanding and self-corrective. Whereas: the longer-journey is about just that. The shorter-longer distinction draws a clear, artificial but, I hope, helpful line between (a) gaining objective knowledge and (b) gaining interior self-development. Here, a clear beginning pedagogy can be undertaken for educational institutions where a three-credit format is common—one that does not avoid or obscure the import of foundational (a) development and (b) self-corrective.

My point to the Lonergan-savvy reader is this: We can all acknowledge substantial disagreements, conceptual differences, corrections to Lonergan’s and others’ works, and newly discovered nuances in our understanding of the critical work that can inform this longer journey for any of us. However, to all, at least let us recognize the pedagogical value of offering a clearly stated and step-by-step shorter journey--one with well-defined goals that can be accomplished in a relatively brief classroom setting, and that can exist and move others forward within the greater dialogic context. That context is of (a) those many differences evident in our current philosophical discourse (or lack of it); (b) the various available (and known to us) conversion experiences hoped for in the midst of prolonged philosophical study for our students, however conceptualized and-or however embodied those experiences come to be; and (c) other aspects of that aforesaid longer journey in all of its warps and weaves.

By comparison and as a conscious aspect of the text Finding the Mind as a guide to the shorter journey, this work is modest, then, and I argue it must be. The work is more of a clarifying distinction between nuanced aspects of a much broader and comprehensive project, than it is a further development-of that project (though some new ideas and language are offered here). That is, I mean to lead the reader to find and verify the basic structure in his-her own concrete and objectified expressions and to verify the theory, but only that--as an initial entrance into their own interior domain and what I am referring to as the longer journey, and with a starting point at whatever foundational milieu readers may have and, at present, already bring to the study.

Polymorphism of mind is a given starting point for any teacher; unravelling that polymorphism is a necessarily-long journey; and in that journey we can find well-defined moments and plateaus, as it were, that can contribute to, rather than further obscure, the needed moments of that longer journey. Taking on the shorter journey can bring the reader to one of those plateaus in a clear and critical way.

On the other hand, in providing for this relatively brief entrance, I have remained conscious-of and faithful-to the need for readers to understand the difference between (a) commonsense and (b) theoretical consciousness, and between their own (a) topical-extroverted thought and (b) undercurrents of their foundational reality, and to begin carving out for themselves what Lonergan refers to as a theoretically differentiated consciousness and further differentiations of mind (1972).

In the narrative in the main text, then, I refer to, but do not engage the reader fully in, what is generally known in Lonergan circles as the various foundational explorations and conversion experiences or massive changes of horizon that, we know, can be inspired by guided and critical self-reflective practice.

In my view, for many who may be interested, we need to provide a distinct venue for initial verification that does not obscure or omit but openly regards such study and experiences before full engagement is actually approached--or even if the reader decides naught. Thus, this work is fully focused on readers first making their solid connection-verification of the theory, and on using their own recurring experience as data with its implication and suggestion of an interior reality. I refer to aspects of the longer journey throughout; however, we can only hope that the reader will follow through in that further foundational self-development and corrective.

. ~
Those who are familiar with Lonergan’s work will recognize, then, that the experiment in the shorter journey of Finding the Mind emerges as a flower overtly attached to a deep-set root system--a system that constantly draws and develops in us all--whether we are aware of it or not (our philosophical and other foundations). And if reader-engaged, the appendixes, quotes, and references (mainly, to Lonergan’s work but also to several others’) offer treatment of the whole-self, as it were, and refer in more intimate fashion to that root. The root, as you well-know, is our own potential development, corrective, and coming-to-consciousness of self and world; or--a horrible term to introduce to novices--at the very least: explicit metaphysics.

The distinction between the two journeys, then, is made with caution. The appendixes are provided online, as this on is--should readers wish to approach the self-reflective project in a more comprehensive and prolonged fashion or, again, to continue on in what I refer to as the longer journey (King 2010).

Thus, if you have a basic understanding of Lonergan’s contributions to cognitional theory, epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, etc., you can read the experiment for critical self-discovery herein as a treatise on pedagogy for self-appropriation-affirmation and understand something new, even if you do not read the introduction or appendixes (though again some of the treatments and technical terms are new and may interest you anyway).

Also, if you already understand the cognitional theory and its unique personal applications (self-appropriation-affirmation) and including its vast philosophical implications in the formal fields of study, you might want to skip over the theoretical development in part II. Though note that in our treatment, the good-bad complex is intimately related to all four desire-quests and their shadow-questions.

Questions Rather than Levels

Further, we take the desire-quests, or the development of differentiated inquiry as a spontaneous experience, as our theoretical focus and expression. That is, I conceptualize the basic structure here in terms of four desire-quests (internal-actual, remote, but regularly expressed) and then as shadow questions (theoretical expression), and not in terms of levels of consciousness. The relationship between desire-quests and their shadow questions portrayed in the main text and the other appendixes is pedagogical; while the difference between (a) the desire-quests/shadow-questions and (b) levels of consciousness should be clear to those who have already studied Lonergan’s work in a comprehensive way and who understand the difference between a metaphysical approach and an approach from an understanding of interiority and of intentionality analysis. (See note 1 in this appendix 18.)

Also, in Collection (1988), and speaking of E. Coreth's work on metaphysics, Lonergan explains the primacy of the question:

No doubt the proper place to begin is at the beginning, but some say one issue and others say another is the proper begining. So there is a question about the beginning and, indeed, no matter where one starts, one starts from some question. For Fr Coreth, then, questioning itself is the beginning....the condition of the possiblity of any and all questions is an awareness that goes beyond the already known to an unknown to be known (p. 190).

Though the term levels is appropriate for some explanations, the term question (and for us our term desire-quests) goes to the heart of general empirical--interior--point of view.

Furthermore, and as a pedagogical point, I develop the division of concepts, between (a) shadow-questions and (b) desire-quests, to support the division between (a) theoretical conceptualization and (b) reader self-discovery (their own experience of the desire-quests as they occur in the reader). The experiment begins with the reader’s own experience. Conceptually, these terms refer to the same basic structure. As pedagogical, however, the two-fold division of concepts encourages reader self-reflection by making formal (as a part of the superstructure) the distinction between (a) theoretical conceptualization and (b) their own interior life as they begin to objectify aspects of it via their guided self-reflection.

On the other hand, again, it is common to my experience that even those who have a basic understanding of Lonergan’s contributions can have vastly different views about and expressions of that understanding. And some pretend to know but really do not, or just can use more refinement of understanding and ability to express knowledge.

Furthermore (in Lonergan’s technical language) counter-positions are recalcitrant--set in place, commonly for a long time, as learned-received, now-assumed, and as a part of our polymorphic foundations for our thinking that inform our life-event matters (1958 and 2000). We can also refer to the difference between (a) our more object-oriented understanding of the counter-positions (and-or philosophical attitudes) and (b) the project of self-identity and internal development—of long-term developments and self-correctives integrated as new and transformed meaning into our personal complex of foundational memory, its implications, and its now-spontaneous formation of our speech and actions (Piscitelli 1985).

In other words, and depending on the narrative circumstances, old problematic foundational lenses (e.g., some names are mechanist determinism, naïve realism, idealism, relativism, dogmatism, etc.) can hide within the warp and weave of our latent-to-problematic philosophical viewpoint and influence our thought and how we frame meaning, in any context, and for a very long time (Lonergan 1958 and 2000; and Piscitelli 1985).

A critic of any Lonergan-inspired text--a text written from the point of view of interiority and explicit metaphysics--first should consider the above, and be open for potential internal change--even internal transformation--before taking a final view of such a critique.

The philosophical lenses we bring to our experiment herein provide no exception. Thus, depending on the person, and without a fuller longer-journey foundational review, development, and corrective, reading and understanding the experiment and-or the appendixes will rest-in and be influenced-by any one of a number of personal, well or badly developed, foundational contexts. This is so even in those who people Lonergan studies—and, I argue, like no other. And relationship between our latent and problematic philosophical foundations is living and complexly so. As such, conceptual or even substantial differences evident in many scholars’ writings about Lonergan’s work may never be settled in our lifetimes--and maybe in some sense they should not be, the mysteries of developmental and dialectical functions being what they are.

Over and above such manifest differences, however, is a person’s self-understanding. The experiment herein reaches for that reader self-understanding, again, without regard yet for a full treatment of their foundational milieu. In this text, again, we separate-out and talk about, but do not ignore, readers’ foundational concerns. The experiment contains only what can be empirically and critically established, and repeated in scientific-objectivist fashion, using collected data from reader's own experience.

The experiment can be undertaken alone or in any classroom setting, in a reasonable amount of time, and from almost any foundational situation--even from an initial denial of the existence of foundations.

The main text (with its online appendix-extensions) (King 2010) is layered, then, so that, with frequent references to the appendixes and other resources, (1) we can approach and complete the experiment in critical fashion while (2) we maintain awareness of the integrative relationship between (a) that objectivist-experimental, critical (but extroverted) verification procedure and (b) a more prolonged and “painstaking” treatment of the reader’s philosophical foundations (1958, xxiii and 2000, 17).

In this way, we can develop one aspect of self-knowledge in a relatively brief format (the experiment as the shorter journey) with a clearly established finishing moment (as a plateau), while preserving a close, even intimate relationship to the longer journey--to the narrative-about and reference-to more comprehensive foundational study and insights, correctives, horizon development, and self-knowledge.

Speaking of his book Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Lonergan comments:

More than all else, the aim of the book is to issue an invitation to a personal, decisive act. But the very nature of the act demands that it be understood in itself and in its implications. What on earth is meant by rational self-consciousness? What is meant by inviting it to take possession of itself? Why is such self-possession said to be so decisive and momentous? The questions are perfectly legitimate, but the answer cannot be brief…it is not the answer itself that counts so much as the manner in which it is read. (1958, xix and 2000, 15)

As you know, the “manner” refers to readers’ foundational lenses and to potential deeply felt changes in them and in us. Underlying this treatment of the shorter and the longer journeys, then, is my hope that the abbreviated experiment herein can bring a broader audience of reader-experimenters one-step-closer to the fuller set of direct and reflective insights that constitute what Lonergan means by self-appropriation and self-affirmation—including awareness of needed personal-foundational transformations only achieved through long-term philosophical reflections.

Such is the aim of setting up the context and conditions for some development and-or corrective to occur, rather than merely for something personal to be learned-about in a topical way, even if that topical learning is scientifically-experimentally sound.

Further, we are exploring what happens when a human being is in the process of knowing. Since knowing is central to the project of any teaching, our audience includes those involved in teacher education.

We are concerned not with the existence of knowledge but with its nature, not with what is known but with the structure of the knowing, not with the abstract properties of cognitional process but with a personal appropriation of one’s own dynamic and recurrently operative structure of cognitional activity.… For the labor of self-appropriation cannot occur in a single leap. Essentially, it is a development of the subject and in the subject and, like all development, it can be solid and fruitful only by being painstaking and slow. (1958, xxiii and 2000, 17)

Thus, my aim is to provide pedagogy for bringing Lonergan’s central and unique philosophical contribution to the field of education and, through that field, to teachers--while regularly referring to foundational development and self-correction. Thus, again, the work is meant to avoid “telescoping” philosophical study or “vulgarizing” Lonergan’s work (McShane 2009).

Intentionality Analysis and Levels, but not Potencies

In Method in Theology, in section 9 labeled A Technical Note (1972, 120-24), Lonergan clarifies the distinction between a classical-metaphysical view underpinning theoretical developments, and what he refers to as a view from the performance of an intentionality analysis. I take this to mean the difference between analyzing from the point of view of (a) the writer having understood, clarified and dispensed with the older metaphysical view and (b) the writer having objectified, become conscious of, understood, and appropriated-affirmed elements of their own interior functions (as evident in their ongoing experience of their own functioning). And I take it to mean: the writer as having become comfortable, even spontaneous, in incorporating this interior-based intentional-ist view into their thinking, conversations, and writings. The view includes the inherent limitations of human knowledge and an understanding of the difference between what we know and what we belief, opine or merely think, etc.

Lonergan’s narrative in that section will grate on those who thoroughly understand more recent feminist transitions (as they do me) as cultures go forward in their cultivating process. Nevertheless, in this extended part of my introduction aimed at those familiar with Lonergan’s work and contributions, let me at least put forth that I am familiar with this transition and that the present experiment is just that—an experiment where the reader-experimenter begins with the data of consciousness as to-be-collected first in the written narrative of the readers’ own experiences, and only then moves to theoretical developments for later applications. Those developments are couched in intentionalist rather than classicist language and their philosophical assumptions.

Further, in Method in Theology, Lonergan counter-poses the metaphysical view with the view from interiority:

…in terms of intentional and conscious acts on the four levels of experiencing, understanding, judging, and deciding. The lower levels are presupposed and complemented by the higher. The higher sublate the lower. If one wishes to transpose this analysis into metaphysical terms, then the active potencies are the transcendental notions revealed in questions for intelligence, questions for reflection, questions for deliberation. (1972, 120)

Here, I take Lonergan to mean that, in terms of philosophical foundations, reference to the active potencies, with no reference to empirically-established data, personal or otherwise, reveals an under-lying classicist or metaphysical view. Whereas, from an interior-view (explicit metaphysics, as appropriated and known empirically), intentionality analysis goes forward from that view, accounting now for intentional acts as experienced by the writer. Indeed, in the present work, we start with the reader-experience of raising questions and refer to the transcendental notions that, in fact, are revealed in those questions (generally stated as) questions for intelligence, questions for truth, questions for reflection, questions for deliberation, etc. Further, our rendition of the theory (using the four generally-drawn shadow-questions) is meant to make the transition back from theory-to-experience for the reader as easily drawn as possible.

The present work, then, takes the above distinction between philosophical-foundational viewpoints fully into account and is written from the point of view of interiority; and it provides a venue for readers to begin on their own journey of understanding and coming to know their own philosophical foundations.
~

Note (for this appendix only)

1. Lonergan refers to levels of consciousness at several places in both Insight (1958 and 2000) and Method in Theology (1972); e.g., experience, understanding, and judgment, are determined as levels of consciousness that come together to complete our knowledge. Your understanding of what Lonergan means here is essential to the fuller project of self-understanding. Also many writers have taken up the levels metaphor as central to their understanding of conscious order and to what Lonergan means by it, e.g., What is it? and Is it so? However, note that these expressions are in question form and that Lonergan refers to inquiry, the questioning process, and our kinds-of and specific questions again and again in his writing.

In the Finding the Mind text, I do not use the metaphor of levels to depict conscious structure, but rather use the term desire-quests. However, and to avoid confusion, I would like here to determine the difference between (a) the conceptualization of specific questions and (b) a reference to desire-quests and their framework—both as general.

Thus, we note that our anticipations born of desire-inquiry are distinct--one from the other and as operative within the experiencing-understanding–judgment-deliberation-decision-act complex. As generalized, we can see a structure emerge, that some refer to as having levels. Thus, our desire-quests are unified, structured, and integrated--at first in need of differentation, and then interrelationship, and then a re-integration (Piscitelli, 1985). In real life, our desire-quests often go unnamed and are often undifferentiated and overlapping, making them sometimes difficult to isolate for analysis.

Nevertheless, the unnamed but experienced desire-quests as generalized into theoretical expression (now named shadow questions) can be teased out of any discourse--they are all a part of a process we experience as knowing and then moving towards speaking-acting. As such, the distinctions and relationships between the shadow questions also can be understood as demarcations of different levels of consciousness. Therefore, the two terms (levels and inquiry, or desire-quests) are an attempt to capture different nuances and aspects of the same reality that constitutes the general structure of the human mind. A level refers more to a relationship between desire-quests or kinds of questions than to a concrete experience and will emerge only as differntiation occurs.

I have found in teaching that the term inquiry or desire-quest or question is a more concrete metaphor than level as either tends to allow students to better follow an unbroken link from their experience, to their conceptualization of that experience in their crisis narrative, to identification of the desire-quests in their narratives, to self-identity. (Perhaps Lonergan would refer to the term inquiry as a primitive term [1958, 11-12 and 2000, 36-37].)

As such, in my experience, and as a commonly unnamed but now-described function occurring regularly in conscious operations, desire-quests and their framework are easier to locate and identify in my students’ experience than anything resembling a level. Thus desire-quests and shadow questions, as differentiations of the more inclusive general term inquiry, are described structural demarcations in personal consciousness. Such demarcations suit the pedagogical purpose of helping novice philosophers and those interested in the critical details of self-appropriation-affirmation (or a primer such as is our main text) locate and connect the theory and the language more easily with their own concrete experience of thinking.

Further, we are linking desire to quest to avoid a common but incorrect philosophical notion that would separate questioning, questing, or intelligence from the fullness of feeling, image, and whatever else we might mean by desire or fear, for that matter. As desire is human, it enters human consciousness and our intelligence in a way that is difficult to distinguish from what it means to quest, e.g., a question of the type What is it?, is our desire to understand as manifest in-process.

Though different, in fact, feelings and images are inexorably linked in human beings' to our interior life as intelligence on the move. What we might mean by intelligence as distinct from feeling-image is, in fact, intimate with feeling-image. As distinct, these are a working set of mutually transformative aspects of that interior life and, thus, of what it means to be human.

We want to maintain an understanding of that relationship-in-difference throughout our work in our main text and in these appendixes.