The Zeroth Transcendental Precept

[David Bibby]

Dear All,

Lonergan identified four main transcendental precepts:

1. Be attentive

2. Be intelligent 

3. Be reasonable

4. Be responsible

I’ve been experimenting with mapping these onto the ψ-notation I’ve been exploring (with a little help from AI). To keep them from sounding like pure abstractions, I placed them in a concrete context. At first I used anger management, but bias reduction works equally well as an illustration.

Here are the five steps, mapped onto ψ-notation:

1. Openness / Suspension of Judgment

• “Acknowledge you may not know the whole story.”

• Cultivate openness, suspend assumptions, and resist jumping to conclusions.

• → ψ_suspension

2. Listening / Attentiveness

• “Listen carefully to the other person or to the data before you.”

• Attend not only to what is said but also to tone, context, and what might be unsaid.

• → ψ_attention

3. Inquiry / Curiosity

• “Ask questions, seek to understand perspectives.”

• Instead of defending one’s stance, move into questioning.

• → ψ_questioning → ψ_insight

4. Critical Reflection

• “Test your assumptions, weigh the evidence, challenge stereotypes.”

• This is a moment of judgment: what is actually true, reasonable, justifiable?

• → ψ_judgement

5. Responsible Action

• “Act fairly, change your behaviour, advocate justice, build relationships.”

• The transformation becomes embodied in conduct.

• → ψ_decision / ψ_integration

The last four steps map cleanly onto Lonergan’s four transcendental precepts. But what about the first one, ψ_suspension? This seems to suggest a further transcendental precept right at the start, a kind of zeroth precept, because it preconditions all the rest that follows. Unless we suspend judgment and refrain from autopiloting along the tracks of habituation and familiarity, bias will follow us as we try to implement the other steps.

A name for this zeroth transcendental precept might be: Be open, or Be detached. It differs from the first (“Be attentive”) in that it is not another cognitive act but the existential condition that allows attentiveness to be authentic.

Here’s a brief AI summary of why this matters:

• It captures the apophatic moment: we must first let-go, step-back, “unknow” in order to know.

• It honours the role of inverse insight: realising that our first answers, perceptions, and habits are inadequate.

• It also bridges naturally to theological language (kenosis, humility, grace) and to intercultural parallels (Buddhist emptiness, Socratic ignorance).

Perhaps naming a zeroth precept helps us recognize the self-emptying openness that makes the four transcendental precepts truly possible. Does that add something genuinely new?

Kind regards,

David

[Doug Mounce]

Hi David,

I like the idea of a zeroth precept because it has a parallel example in the zeroth law of thermodynamics (laws that no one typically denies).  Similar to method, with Lonergan's use of operations and outcomes to describe and explain knowledge, these typically are understood as used by everyone (at least the first three in regards to methods).  

I also like how your exploration resulted in an apophatic approach as well as the inverse insight.  Similar methods would be the difference between inductive and deductive approaches, and ideological orientations like conventionalism or fallibilism.  One method that Polya promotes in "How to Solve It" involves using a closely related problem to gain insight into a new problem that is otherwise resisting solution and I've never found a good parallel in Lonergan's examples.

In any case, method was how I first found a use for what Lonergan teaches, and the examples of how folks move between the levels continues to fascinate me.  I don't argue as much about what knowledge (science) means, but ChatGPT's answer to `what is science' is typical of the idea that it is physics, chemistry and biology whereas the `more philosophical' answer suggests reason and evidence as the type of feature that most would find acceptable in a foundational or zeroth or given precept.

PS - this recent Perspective in PLOS Biology illustrates some of the tensions that naturally arise from the assumptions "scientists" make.  

Science becomes trustworthy by constantly questioning itself

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003334

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[David Bibby]

Dear Doug,

Thank you for these thoughtful connections, and for linking the PLOS Biology article. I especially appreciate your mention of orientations such as conventionalism and fallibilism: unless we first suspend our frameworks and admit their revisability, we cannot genuinely be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, or responsible.

Your reference to Polya illustrates a very practical truth - progress often depends on the willingness to step back and reframe. The use of a related situation to gain insight into a new one resonates with Lonergan’s point about analogy: its fruitfulness depends on the correctness of the insight into the first situation.

The article’s emphasis on humility, self-criticism, and self-correction shows how science institutionalises this stance. In that sense, the zeroth precept, Be open, is what keeps both personal inquiry and science itself genuinely self-correcting.

Thanks again for your stimulating reflections.

Kind regards,

David

On 2 Sep 2025, at 16:25, Doug Mounce <doug....@gmail.com> wrote:



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