[Lonergan_l] education fragments, Levinas, Marion etc
Jaray...@aol.com
Joe,
nice to know that both you and Doug are fathers of twins. I guess these
four young ones are at the "problematic", questioning stage of life. I'm
now teaching a confirmation class, so I thought I'd join this mix of
scholarly and practical discussion.
In MiT, 13 (5th line), BL speaks of a "single thrust, the eros of the
human spirit". But then he qualifies this, reminding us for example that
"insights are a dime a dozen".
It is nice but problematic to reach into history to interpret giants
such as Darwin and Freud. Freud discovered the psychogenic but obscured this
with his questionable philosophical prejudices which Ricoeur and Marcuse,
for example, have uncovered from their perspectives. In MiT, BL outlines his
debt to Ricoeur on this matter
Let me instance this googled blurb on Marcuse's reading of Freud:
"Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization" lays the foundations for a major
critique of the fundamental tenets of Freud's theory of the mind. The German
philosopher demonstrates how Freud transformed what was essentially a psychology
of society into a sociology of the mind. ('Freud's "biologism" is social
theory in a depth dimension"'). For Marcuse, Freud's mistake was to see the
repression of instincts not as a historically situated pheomenon due to
particular (and therefore mutable) social conditions, but as an absolute given
indispensable to the growth of civilization. Perhaps for reasons of
expediency (Freud's ideas might have been still too influential in 1956 for an
overt attack), Marcuse elaborates his counterargument that a non-repressive
society IS possible within a Freudian framework. But the damage is done:
once you read this book. Freud's idea that repression is salutary and
necessary for psychic development will look a lot more like what it was(late
Victorian moralism) and much less like what it wasn't (science). For more along
these lines try Rieff, Freud: the Mind and the Moralist." END blurb
We can get into a vast territory--a huge background for Doug's
orgininal problematic.
I, too, am learning, in trying to address the vast problematics here
opened up. (Maybe it's best to stick with Catherine's K-12 observations). But
I'll instance two more googled blurbs that give a Christian background to
counter the radical claims of a Freud or a Marcuse:
1) Phenomenology and the "Theological Turn" brings together in a single
volume the debate over Dominique Janicaud's critique of the "theological
turn" of French phenomenology as represented by the works of Emmanuel Levinas,
Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Lue Marion, Jean-Francois Courtine, Jean-Louis Chretien,
and Michel Henry. According to Janicaud, these theologically oriented
philosophers have subverted the classical orientation of phenomenology toward
the "things themselves" in favor of a giving beyond all measure, and
certainly beyond the measure of the phenomenological method. Marion and his
colleagues seek to give phenomenological credentials to an absolute experience,
an experience of the absolute, that is strictly religious and hence,
Janicaud contends, outside the bounds of phenomenology's methodological
strictures. In the second part, Courtine, Marion, Chretien, Henry, and Ricoeur
address the possibility of a phenomenology of religion as a philosophical, not a
theological, project. Their approach is premised on the idea that philoso
phical discourse can describe religious phenomena through a phenomenology of
donation (givenness) that is able to describe religious phenomena without
sacrificing their claim to absoluteness and irreducibility.
2) Christian phenomenologists such as Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry,
and Jean-Louis Chrétien have all pressed an incisive and provocative question
to modern secular philosophy: do our lived human experiences of self,
other and world finally make sense only when we see them as founded on God’s
creative act? By answering this question affirmatively, these thinkers have
asserted that a rigorous philosophical account of human experience must also
involve a philosophy of God. Human experience, precisely in order to be
true to itself, must include practices of religious gratitude and praise. As a
corollary, philosophy must include theological analysis.
As I talk with my confirmation class, I see their eyes open big when
new non-threatening horizons open up. I think they realize that there ARE
many threats out there and that the liturgy opens up "strange", attractive
horizons which people like BL, Ricoeur and Jean-Luc Marion clarify for us in
our secular age,
John
Mike Albertson
Tad Dunne, on his web page http://www.wowway.com/~tdunne5273/
offers a developmental understanding of personal bias. The excerpt
titled "Being a Teen" opens the door for
exploration of one's personal "default way of interpreting data" as
well as illuminating the difficult journey that teens live every day.
Dunne offers another essay: Method in Ethics, an extension of
Lonergan's GEM. And his Exercises in Norms of Consciousness
is also illuminating per the recent posts on that topic.
If you are bored and want to see pictures of the "teens" that Sue and
I have raised check out
http://web.me.com/mikealbertson1/Site/Welcome.html
There you will also find pages on parenting among other topics of
interest to me. Cheers, Mike
> From: Joe F <172...@gmail.com>
> Date: November 5, 2009 12:43:29 AM EST
> To: Doug Mounce <mou...@uw.edu>
> Cc: loner...@skipperweb.org
> Subject: Re: [Lonergan_l] education fragments
>
>
> Dear Phil,
>
> Is there a real distinction between Eros of the Mind and wonder?
>
> Lonergan writes: “For there is...an eros of the mind. Without it there
> would arise...no wonder”. INSIGHT p.74
>
> Therefore wonder proceeds from, arises from, this 'eros of the mind'
> if without an eros of the mind there would not arise wonder. And to
> make sense of that sentence they must be really distinct. And if
> distinct, eros of the mind precedes or is in some sense prior to
> wonder.
>
> But this same eros of the mind then transcends wonder and unfolds
> into directed inquiry:
>
> “It is the wonder which Aristotle claimed to be the beginning of all
> science and philosophy. But no one just wonders. We wonder about
> something.” Lonergan INSIGHT p.9
>
> Lonergan writes:
>
> "As a man cannot divest himself of his animality, so he cannot put off
> the Eros of his mind. To inquire and understand, to reflect and judge,
> to deliberate and choose..."
>
> The eros of the mind seems to precede wonder and then transcend wonder
> to unfold and include inquiry, thus a full expression of human
> motivation appeals to the eros of the mind which precedes wonder.
>
> The eros of the mind must engender wondering but processes to a
> further unfolding. And although as Lonergan puts it, Aristotle claims
> that wonder is the basis of philosophy. The substance of philosophy
> must be the Eros of the mind which seems really distinct from wonder.
> I admit it is must be an inadequate real distinction but nevertheless
> a real distinction.
>
> Joe
>
> On 11/5/09, Joe F <172...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Doug,
>>
>> I don't presume to tell anyone how to raise their kids, I have my own
>> headaches. But I know that others have the knack. I don't.
>>
>> But I thought it would good to start with the facts even if it might
>> be regarded that facts are already out there now and don't have
>> motivational properties of their own. And then when the facts are
>> known, the further determinations that make for concrete objectivity
>> could fall into play and the wonder could be unfolded from a naive
>> 'holy cow' childish form of wonder to 'directed inquiry' which is the
>> more intuitive and mature form of wonder. Lonergan says this about
>> wonder:
>>
>> "It is the wonder which Aristotle claimed to be the beginning of all
>> science and philosophy. But no one just wonders. We wonder about
>> something."
>>
>> It's wondering about something worthwhile which makes for the wonder
>> that is of value. For that reason and on that basis it seemed like a
>> good idea at the time to give children in general something worth
>> wondering about, if only for starters. Good children in general get
>> turned on by the possibility of making a difference I find.
>>
>> Freud for example claims to have been inspired by Darwin's explaining
>> power when still in the 'gymnasium', saying that he found in Darwin
>> hope for understanding the world. According to Lonergan Freud
>> discovered the genuine category of the psychogenic and his
>> motivation,
>> I learned, was his not only his respect for his teacher Charcot and
>> compatriot Joseph Breuer but also a desire to be compassionate to
>> aphasic patients for whom deterministic sciences held out little
>> hope.
>> So he didn't just wonder. He hoped, he healed. He wanted to help
>> someone. So I hold that it is the proper motivation to start with the
>> facts. And maybe i now go practice what I preach because we have
>> teenage twins too. Let me reach out to their humanity and then their
>> wonder. God bless.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> On 11/4/09, Doug Mounce <mou...@uw.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Joe, I think so...
>>>
>>> http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/license-to-wonder/
>>>
>>> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009, Joe F wrote:
>>>
>>>> Doug,
>>>>
>>>> Suppose chemistry were taught from personalities. One could discuss
>>>> the first modern chemist Lavoisier and his fate and show
>>>> illustrations
>>>> of him administering oxygen to patients with respiratory ailments
>>>> in
>>>> those early days. Then ask how he got to know about oxygen. Pasteur
>>>> went about giving shots to people bitten by rabid dogs. How did he
>>>> come to know about fermentations and the germ theory? That might
>>>> motivate a discussion of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
>>>>
>>>> Joe
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 11/4/09, Doug Mounce <mou...@uw.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> While helping my teenage twins study, I noticed that in
>>>>> chemistry they
>>>>> used the Law of Conservation with the Kinetic Theory, and in
>>>>> history
>>>>> they
>>>>> only used characters and events, to describe and explain
>>>>> foundations
>>>>> and
>>>>> classification schemes.
>>>>>
>>>>> The kids grasped how experience gives rise to this understanding
>>>>> about
>>>>> Law, and they accepted the theory as they had hints about how it
>>>>> could
>>>>> be
>>>>> proven, but does anyone teach Law and Theory in history? I know I
>>>>> didn't
>>>>> when I was in a formal program, but I'm not sure I could teach
>>>>> it now
>>>>> without the Law of GEM and the subject/object Theory. regards,
>>>>> Doug
>>>>>
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Joe F
I am sure you are right that Freud obscured something by error
subsequent to his 'discovery of the genuine category of the
psychogenic'. But I am trying to understand Lonergan's positive remark
about this discovery. Lonergan does say that Freud's sacrifice was a
sacrifice of mechanist determinism but that Freud remained professedly
deterministic. All the remarks about Marcuse may be true but
nevertheless according to Lonergan Freud was part of a movement of the
liberation of sciences despite his determinism and made a significant
discovery. That's the whole point, that Lonergan is enabling a sifting
of wheat from chaff regarding these minds. As youths they seem
exemplary to me and well worth holding out. Especially Darwin who
gained the respect and friendship of his two main mentors, Lyell and
Humboldt by, I recently learned, refuting them well. It is the
admixture of positions and counterpositions that we study.
Joe
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