Hegel and Lonergan on Vorstellung '

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John Raymaker

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Jul 22, 2026, 1:03:09 PM (4 days ago) Jul 22
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For G.W.F. Hegel, Vorstellung (often translated as "representation" or "picture-thinking") is a mode of consciousness that understands abstract truths through images, symbols, and narratives rather than pure, rigorous concepts. It is an intermediate cognitive stage between immediate sense perception and pure philosophical comprehension.

In Insight, page 448, Lonergan writes that he breaks "completely from mere extroverted consciousness, not because it is illusory, but because it is confusing and philosophically irrelevant. AT the same time, a mmmore thorough and precise account of human knowing enables us to eliminiate the rigidity  of the Kantian apriori .... to define metaphysics by the integral heuristic structure of this drive, and so to conceive philosophy as universal knowledge without infringing  upon the autonomy either of empirical science or of  commmon sense."

He then writes on  "Scientifc Method and Philosophy".....   

I write the above to provide a context for the notion of Vorstellung (idea, notion,concept) which Pierre and someone else brought up,   John

PIERRE WHALON

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Jul 23, 2026, 7:27:33 AM (3 days ago) Jul 23
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Exactly, John.

Which is why I asked about « representation. » How are our friends on the site using the word?

Pierre

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