'relation' its implications and a possible 'advance'

[Hugh Williams]

Listers all,

In John's unearthing of the exchange in Lonergan's "The Triune God: Systematics" (pp.739-741) with (in my humble view) the great American Thomist, Gerard Smith, the issue of the ontological status of relation(s) arose in a more or less cryptic manner.

I'm not sure we fully appreciate the problematic these two Jesuits in their exchange are wrestling with ... and admittedly we have only one side of the exchange to go on - Lonergan's letter of response to Smith's letter of inquiry.

Be that as it may, I'm of the firm view that we have here something of considerable importance ... and I tried to illustrate this in a recent note to John under another subject-line where some reference to the struggles in and around the Roman Catholic Church's synodal process under Pope Francis is unfolding in relatively full view in our own ‘time’.

Please allow me one more try at clarifying what I'll call for our purposes here - this metaphysical problematic of 'relation':

Many philosophers both secular and religious have made claims of there being a reality or order existing between us as human beings in our various practices.

This 'reality or order' is of interest both phenomenologically and ontologically. For me, it was the good Thomist, Norris Clarke, who really brought home the philosophical aspects of the issue when he argued, as a result of his serious and sustained engagement with process thinkers, that a new ontological category which he called 'system' was very much needed.

Phenomenologists have spoken of something very similar in their references to the phenomenon of 'shared agency'.

Clarke explains his own speculative efforts most simply in terms of there being an aspect of human reality of 'being in this together' that is not strictly speaking acting as an individual agent. Instead, it is persons acting within and upon a system's behalf, in a field of relations, because of a shared activity, understanding, and valuation.

Ontologically, among those influenced by Aristotle, it is said to be located in the shared accidents of substances, while those working more under the influence of phenomenology might locate it in the shared self-interpretations – i.e., in the shared knowledge and understanding and shared sense of self-esteem and self-worth of the human members.

It is metaphysically a form of the one in the many and it raises the question of the ontological basis of the relational. It concerns the quality of relations and the nature of 'spirit' in the field of human practices and their various communities.

The key question in discerning the nature of these relations, according to Clarke, concerns the nature of the system, its actual history, present purposes and practices, along with the nature of its members.

This becomes fundamental for discerning the health or ill-health, functionality or dysfunctionality, of the system and its relations.

Pursuit of such an inquiry into what we might call a social ontology, in my view, requires an attentive grounding in what I would call certain familiar illustrative examples. These examples require concrete sensible content lest we become lost among abstractions, which is a genuine intellectual liability. This is the reason I’ve returned with some insistence to the Roman Catholic Church’s synodal process.

One might say quite bluntly, that here we have an example of an institutional system, perhaps in certain quarters in serious ill-health, earnestly trying to renew and restore itself. … and this is why, I feel quite strongly that Pope Francis’ recent interview, widely publicized, is at best a source of misunderstanding, and at worst, in terms of synodality, an inappropriate expression of opinion – not at all helpful at this stage of the process ...

But again, this is only an illustrative example which is more or less familiar to me and perhaps a few others. John’s and Pierre’s recent book, in my view, can be interpreted as another attempt to consider aspects of this issue through Lonergan’s study of the system of economy. (In my view, even Rahner, in certain respects, in his SiW can be read as making his own way into this problematic ….)

Nevertheless, there is an issue here that goes to the heart of what it means to be human but yet is too easily misunderstood or ignored.  Thus, the speculative and transcendental effort to spell out this problematic-question, to use Rahner’s pregnant terms, is both good and important …

what say you on this matter  ...

Hugh

[jaraymaker]

Hugh,

 

although I have bowed out as to further discussion here on these complicated issues, I must say that below you DO link many important, ongoing developments in an attempt at "systematic integration" open to development. As to my book with Pierre and its call for six GEM-FS conversions or turnarounds, it was our way to address the gigantic problems our planet faces while offering hints at synodal ways to address said problems in Pope Francis' present initiatives. I'm following up on such issues in a book Sebastien Nknoa from Cameroon have started jointly writing.... I suppose these are all "relational" issues as you suggest,    John

[PIERRE WHALON]

And we all remember how Lonergan characterized us as « systems on the move. » 

I am writing a review of Jonathan Heaps new book, The Ambiguity of Being: Lonergan and the Problems of the Supernatural. He is the director of the Lonergan Institute at Seton Hill University. He distinguishes between the medieval solution to the problem of the supernatural, which is metaphysical, and the modern problem, whose solution he argues is hermeneutical. It has some relation to what you have raised, Hugh. 

More soon.

Pierre

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[Hugh Williams]

Pierre, John, et al,

I believe these are very important developments.

I find Pierre's distinction below between the metaphysical and hermeneutical treatments of the Supernatural quite intriguing and look forward to more on that ...

For better or worse this latest round of exchanges has deeply renewed this question of 'relation' and its ontological status for me ...

(Rahner remains relevant here ...)

and not to toot my horn (as one will see if one should actually look and see ... for it is more like Heidegger once said - a being willing to 'stand naked' before the other) 

... I'd share that I have at least as a matter of both 'research and interpretation' attempted to treat of this question in some depth in my

published dissertation which is freely accessible at -   https://www.academia.edu/32604816/Dialogical_Practice_and_the_Ontology_of_the_Human_Person

This relational problematic, however, does not really emerge until Part Two, where for about 100 pages I try very imperfectly and incompletely to sort this thing (problematic) out primarily by way of Norris Clarke and Charles Taylor, though nine or ten other thinkers are referred to especially those who have been involved in the thomist-process philosophy exchanges. 

Clearly in this third millennium especially... there has been important work done on this problematic, though no one to the best of my knowledge has been able to pull things together ... and indeed it may very well be something that is beyond the capabilities of any one thinker (which I believe Lonergan had some intimations about, especially in his MiT).

Charles Taylor, on the other hand, is no slouch on this matter given his Hegelian influences, and he has a nice way of summing up certain aspects of this problematic by looking forward to the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty while at the same time looking back to those aspects of/in Plato and Aristotle that would tend to conceive the knowledge - being relationship as participational rather than as representational, especially after Descartes and Kant. 

Lonergan does not feature in my work at that time, perhaps because as most on this list would say ... he warrants his own treatment given his profound project and genius. 

Nevertheless, as you all well know by now, I'd tend to see him on the representational side of the 'being and knowledge' relation ...

thanks

Hugh

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