horizon and metaphor
Gerard O'Reilly
May we explore a bit your interpretation and criticism of Lonergan’s ‘metaphorical’ use of the word ‘horizon’?
It’s an interesting topic. It’s also one that you’ve been raising for well over three years on the list, one that seems to be important to you, and one (perhaps one of many!) on which you appear to have found the replies you’ve received here unsatisfactory and frustrating. You even said in a recent post (23 March) replying to Lowell,
“I do not know of anyone who has even hinted that I might be on to something in saying that all the talk about "horizons" is using the language of the counterposition that knowing is some kind of taking a look.”
I can understand your frustration at some of the answers you have received in connection with the topic. For example, answers that have laid stress on ‘mere metaphor’ have also struck me as downplaying the significance of the issues you raise, and answers that have suggested or perhaps even assumed you are drawing a contrast between metaphor and truth as part of a naive and self-destructive relativism have been (at least as I understand matters) been to that extent misconstruing you and jumping hastily to conclusions.
Lonergan’s use of and understanding of metaphor do seem to me to form an important topic. Though he says relatively little directly about metaphor, I think, some of the things he does say clearly reflect a recognition of its importance.
In Insight, for example, he says, “It is true that nearly all we say is metaphor” (Collected Works edition, p. 568).
In ‘Dimensions of Meaning’ in Collection (CW4), on p. 241, he writes:
“Classical culture...distinguished the literal and the figurative meanings of words and phrases, and it conveyed more than a suggestion that literal meaning is somehow first, while figurative meaning is a dress or ornament that makes the literal meaning more striking, more vivid, more effective. Perhaps it was Giambattista Vico in his Scienza nuova that first put forward the contrary view by proclaiming the priority of poetry.”
Similarly, in Method (p. 73), “With Giambattista Vico, then, we hold for the priority of poetry. Literal meaning literally expressed is a later ideal and only with enormous effort and care can it be realized.”
Later in the same work (p. 343), the first of two aspects of the second of the two positive functions of a critical metaphysics he mentions is that “it provides a criterion for distinguishing for settling the difference between literal and metaphorical meaning.”
As well as being an important topic, it’s also a very big topic to explore, partly because of its connections with a number of fundamental issues in Lonergan’s thought, and partly because of the considerable influence on you of the whole approach to metaphor of Lakoff & Johnson in their books Metaphors We Live By (1980) and Philosophy in the Flesh (1999), which has shaped the way you conceptualize the problem.
Because it’s such a big topic, one obviously cannot say everything relevant at once. So in this particular post (i) I will not address myself to any of the complex issues arising from Lakoff & Johnson’s books. (It’s been many years since I studied parts of those books, so I need to do some homework/revision to be able to discuss their views intelligently). (ii) Nor will I yet respond directly to your criticisms of Lonergan’s use of the word ‘horizon’, e.g., that in his metaphoric use of it, he is, as you put it, “using the language of the counterposition” and thereby suggesting that knowing is looking (despite his fundamental and repeated rejection of any such idea).
Rather, (iii) I will focus on raising for closer discussion the narrower, and in some respects clearly prior, issue of what Lonergan meant when he compared and contrasted what he called the literal sense of ‘horizon’ and ‘a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the term’ in Method in Theology (pp. 235-36) which you have discussed in various posts, and in a nearly identical passage from an earlier lecture of his, presented in 1968, during the period when he was working on Method entitled ‘Horizons’, which you discussed here in a post of 20 April 2013.
First, I give the passage (Collected Works, vol. 17, pp. 10-11) from the 1968 lecture on ‘Horizons’, where Lonergan says:
(Passage A)
“Literally, the horizon is the line where apparently earth and sky meet. It is the boundary of one’s field of vision. And, as one moves about, this boundary recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different horizons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and horizon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen.
As our field of vision, so too the range of our interests and the scope of our knowledge are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one’s standpoint, so too the range of one’s interests and the scope of one’s knowledge vary with the period in which one lives, with one’s social background and milieu, with one’s education and personal development. In this fashion, there has arisen a metaphorical or analogous meaning of the word ‘horizon’. In this sense, what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s interests and knowledge: one knows nothing about it and one cares less. And what lies within one’s horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge.”
At the beginning of a somewhat fuller treatment of the contrast in Method (pp. 235-36), he writes in only very slightly different fashion:
(Passage B)
“In its literal sense the word, horizon, denotes the bounding circle, the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one’s field of vision. As one moves about, it recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different horizons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and horizon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen.
As our field of vision, so too the scope of our knowledge, and the range of our interests are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one’s standpoint, so too the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests vary with the period in which one lives, one’s social background and milieu, one’s education and personal development. So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one’s horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge.”
Let me now present three passages from posts of yours to the list, in which you have expressed and/or argued for your understanding of these paragraphs. I am inclined to adopt the working hypothesis that each of these passages still represent your view of what Lonergan says. But, partly because they come from posts over a period of three years, I’d be grateful if you could let me know whether that working hypothesis is correct. (I would not want to waste your time by analysing or criticizing views you longer hold!) You may well, of course, still stand by what you asserted but also wish to clarify some details of the expression of those views.
If you would be happy to do that, I can then comment relevantly on your interpretation. The three passages I’ve picked out are these:
(i) In a post on 7 January 1913, you wrote, “Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing, but his use of the horizon metaphor draws more heavily upon the similarities. My criticism of the horizon metaphor emphasizes the differences.”
(ii) In a post of 20 April 2013, you quoted the 1968 version of the second paragraph, and then immediately went on to say:
“The metaphorical or analogous meaning of ‘horizon’ that Lonergan is explicating is complex. In what follows, I argue that Lonergan’s text here involves more that just a use of metaphorical language, but is an argument from analogy.
Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process. More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks, and between differences between persons in terms of three factors: (1) the differences in the periods in which each person has lived, (2) the differences in the social backgrounds and milieus of persons, and (3) the differences in education and personal development of persons. Each of these there ways in which persons can differ is analogous to looking from a different spatial location. Each of these three kinds of differences results in a difference in a person’s metaphorical horizon. It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it. Lonergan insists again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same person can change what she knows and cares about. No person’s horizon is fixed forever. Just as when a boat sails west, causing westerly things to rise above, and easterly things to fall below, the horizon of a passenger, so also a knower can move metaphorically so as to become interested in new things, and uninterested in old things.”
(iii) In a very recent post (24 March 2016), you write:
‘Lonergan says (MiT 236):
"So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge." The source domain of the horizon metaphor is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one's field of vision" (MiT 235). This is why I say that the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests."’
This is a rather long email. There is no need to hurry with a reply. Indeed there is no obligation to reply at all. But if you do, I hope that our discussion will help both of us to refine our understandings. I also hope that in exploring and trying to resolve any disagreements, we can exemplify how, when operating in the intellectual pattern of experience and motivated by the pure desire to know, ARGUMENT IS WAR is not a metaphor we live by!
With best wishes,
Gerard
Jaray...@aol.com
By now, millions of people have watched FOX news host Lauren Green’s grilling of writer Reza Aslan. Last week, the clip of the interview made the Internet flare up—mostly in outcry that a news anchor would so flagrantly suggest that Muslim thinkers are more biased and agenda-driven than other (presumably white, Christian) talking heads.
Though Green’s questions received scorn, media reaction largely avoided the more substantive questions brought up by the interview and Aslan’s new book,Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. And that’s too bad. These are lines of inquiry worth tracing: What does Jesus stand for, and who gets to decide? Who has the authority to determine what a figure of massive religious and cultural importance really “means”?
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taken from The Ethics of Discernment: Lonergan's Foundations for Ethics by Pat Byrne
Gerard O'Reilly
I am aware of the two other articles you mention in volume 17 in addition to article 2 from which I quoted 'Passage A' in my post. I am also aware of a number of other references in the Collected Works. However, I thought it better to initiate a thread of renewed discussion of these matters by starting with a clear focus on something which, though undeniably representative of the main thrust of Lonergan's thought on these matters, is nevertheless something very specific and definite.
As I mentioned, one can't say everything at once. Nor can one address every issue at once, and if a particular thread branches out immediately from its initial focus into very broad themes, it can very quickly lose structure and direction--a common danger in the kind of online forum this list is. I think it can often be more helpful to start a new thread, not just when one is changing the subject to something distinctly different, but also when one is intending abruptly to broaden it. (I'm sure others have made this point here in the past, though perhaps not very recently.) Not that I'm suggesting that this was the intention of your post, given that you kindly and encouragingly welcomed my exploring what I raised in mine. Perhaps it would have been better, though, if I had given a much more specific name to the thread, such as "Understanding Lonergan's use of 'horizon' in Method in Theology".
Finally, I too am concerned with how one moves from latent to explicit metaphysics. However (though I have no proprietary rights over the themes I suggest nor any right to dictate where others, especially the moderator ;-) , choose to take a thread, if anywhere) the issues of this thread, at least as I have begun it and tried to frame it, belong much more to cognitional theory than to metaphysics. Accordingly, given the proper order of the main questions in philosophy as Lonergan conceives matters (with cognitional theory first), I seriously wonder whether we should (at least in this thread) be seeking, as you put it, "to deepen our understandings of horizon and metaphor in L's overall work in the light of his metaphysics" (italics added). I dare say that once we've made our long and arduous climb to the position where we have correctly made our latent metaphysics explicit, we will have a new perspective on horizon and metaphor and much else besides, but the normal route to that height surely starts with investigating what we are doing when we are knowing. First things first.
Best wishes,
Gerard
Richard Moodey
...
Gerard O'Reilly
Thanks very much for your reply. You'll see that, in the hope of maintaining the focus and preserving the thematic continuity of the discussion, I've brought the main parts of your reply back from the 'staying on track?' thread to the 'horizon and metaphor' thread to which it relates.
I presume from your reply that you still substantially hold to what you said in the comments I picked out from those you have made about Passage A and Passage B cited in my earlier post (see below).
What I'll do, then, in this post is (i) to offer a fairly close reading of Passage B in its context of Section 1 of chapter 10 of Method in Theology, and (ii) make some remarks on the three comments on Passage A and Passage B I quoted from earlier posts of yours. I won't try to deal with other issues you raised in your response just now.
----
In these two passages, Lonergan compares and contrasts the original literal sense of 'horizon' with a later sense which he describes as 'metaphorical or perhaps analogical'--as the version in Method (Passage B) has it. For ease of reference, here it is again:
Passage B:
“In its literal sense the word, horizon, denotes the bounding circle, the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one’s field of vision. As one moves about, it recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different horizons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and horizon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen.
As our field of vision, so too the scope of our knowledge, and the range of our interests are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one’s standpoint, so too the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests vary with the period in which one lives, one’s social background and milieu, one’s education and personal development. So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one’s horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge.”
First, consider the context. In general, ‘horizon’ is, a very common and important word in Method (a 'key word', as you rightly put it), occurring there more than 100 times. By contrast, in Insight it occurs, I think, just three times. Lonergan virtually always uses the word in a sense which is not the literal one but one which Lonergan here calls ‘metaphorical or perhaps analogical’. I think the only place in either Insight or Method in which it appears in its original literal use is this passage at the beginning of Section 1 (‘Horizons’) of the chapter on the functional specialty Dialectic (chapter 10).
In the context of the book as a whole, the main reason why Lonergan's discussion of his metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon here is important is its intimate relation to another key notion in Method, conversion, which is discussed explicitly in the next section of this chapter and characterized as a kind of horizon-shift, as well as playing a key role in the functional specialty of Foundations, which is concerned with objectifying the horizon(s) implicit in conversion(s).
Chapter 10, on Dialectic, as the two introductory paragraphs that precede the section on Horizons indicate, “deals with conflicts”. But “not all opposition is dialectical.” Some differences “will be eliminated by uncovering fresh data”. Other, ‘perspectival’, differences “merely witness to the complexity of historical reality”. Still, “beyond these there are fundamental conflicts stemming from an explicit or implicit cognitional theory, an ethical stance, a religious outlook”, which it is the function of dialectic to bring to light and objectify (p. 235).
After this preamble he comes to the section of the chapter on Horizons, which begins with the two quoted paragraphs constituting Passage B. In these, Lonergan compares and contrasts a literal visual sense and a metaphorical or (perhaps) analogical meaning of ‘horizon’. The main point of the comparison and contrast is to clarify the sense of the word ‘horizon’ and the kind of horizon with which he is concerned, both in this chapter and elsewhere in Method, the kind of sense he is almost invariably using when he speaks without qualification of horizons.
He begins the first paragraph by noting that the literal sense (sense 1) refers (p. 235) to “the bounding circle, the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one’s field of vision.” But horizons differ, and corresponding to each different horizon there is a different subset of the totality of visible objects. What makes horizons differ? The different (literal) standpoints of the persons whose horizons at a given time are in question. (In fact, the same sense of ‘horizon’ applies not just to human persons but also to other suitably vision-endowed organisms, say, wolves or birds.) And it is not just that different individuals in different places have different horizons. The horizons of those individual persons (and, one might add, of those other organisms with suitable visual systems) also change. How? As a result of (literal) movement (if one moves forward, for example, one’s horizon “recedes in front and closes in behind"), movement which by changing the standpoint of the mover also changes the limit of the field of vision and the members of the current set of objects that can be seen.
Notice that in this paragraph Lonergan makes no mention of knowledge in this characterization of the literal sense of ‘horizon’. It is purely a matter of a line limiting a field of ocular vision. Of course, though Lonergan doesn’t actually mention it, vision gives a kind of cognitive access to (visible) objects, but insofar as this can be regarded as an implicit reference to knowledge, it is to the knowledge we share with the animals rather than the properly human knowing which is the concern of Lonergan in Method and the chief object of the person engaged in cognitional theory.
But this literal sense is not the only sense of ‘horizon’. For, as Lonergan notes in the second paragraph, it is not only our field of vision that has limits or bounds, for “the scope of our knowledge, and the range of our interests” are also bounded. Nor is it just fields of vision that differ, because “the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests vary with the period in which one lives, one’s social background and milieu, one’s education and personal development.” So, consequent upon these two facts, a second meaning of ‘horizon’ has come about which is “metaphorical or perhaps analogous”. And in this second meaning (p. 236), “what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one’s horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge.”
Notice in respect of this meaning (sense 2) of ‘horizon’, in contrast with the literal sense, that
(i) knowledge is explicitly mentioned as an intrinsic part of the characterization of the second sense of ‘horizon’;
(ii) in the characterization of sense 2 vision drops out of the picture and is not mentioned;
(iii) the new sense of 'horizon' is introduced by an analogy, not to the literal horizon which is a line, but to field of vision bounded by that line; and indeed
(iv) the characterization of sense 2 makes no reference to a line.
Still, though a horizon (in sense 2) is, unlike a horizon in sense 1, not a line, even a metaphorical one, notions of ‘beyond’ and ‘within’ still apply. The difference is that in the metaphorical/analogical sense (sense 2), it is a question of something being outside ('beyond') or within an area, a field, whereas in the literal sense 1, it is a question of something lying 'beyond' (i.e., on the far side of) or 'within' it (i.e., on the near side of) a line.
Lonergan does not give an explicit definition here, but it is clearly implicit in his characterization that in sense 2 of the word, a horizon is at least fundamentally concerned with “the scope one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests”, even if there is more to be said in delineating its nature and giving a more complete definition.
We can, I take it, call this comparison between the two kinds of horizon (two senses of ‘horizon’) the drawing of an analogy between the two. But, as you have pointed out before, with analogies generally, the analogy will not be complete. There will be points of analogy (similarity) and points of disanalogy (dissimilarity). I strongly agree with you that to understand what's going on with Lonergan's use of 'horizon', we need to examine both the similarities and the differences. That is why I am exploring both in an effort to understand accurately and distinguish between between the literal use and Lonergan's main use. You seem to prefer to put it, following Lakoff and Johnson, as a question of the similarities and differences between the source domain and the target domain of the 'conceptual metaphor'. (I agree that that can be a very useful approach in analysing metaphorical language and thought, but I won't address in this post the question of precisely what similarities and differences there may between that approach and what I am doing here.)
Now, as we have seen, Lonergan has explicitly mentioned two respects in which the two kinds of horizon are similar, namely, (i) that both (though in different ways) determine bounds and limits, and (ii) that they both can differ or vary, as between individuals and for a particular individual (though again in quite different ways).
Of course, both kinds of horizon give those whose horizons they are some kind of cognitive access to their respective objects at the same time as determining the limits of that cognitive access—unless and until those horizons change. In this we have a third point of analogy/similarity between the literal sense of ‘horizon’ and the other ‘metaphorical or analogical’ one, though one might reasonably regard it as the prime point of analogy or similarity, as what motivates drawing the analogy or making the comparison in the first place. (However, both the kind of cognitive access involved and the kinds of objects involved differ radically.)
But, even in these similarities, we have differences between features of the two senses of ‘horizon’ delineated by Lonergan, as is only natural when the chief purpose of comparing and contrasting the two senses is to clarify the second one, the one which plays a significant role in Method. Let's look at these differences a little more closely.
First, horizons in the first, literal, sense give access only to limited sets of external (already-out-there-now, if you like) objects currently perceivable through the sense of sight, whether or not those currently visible objects are or even can be inquired into or understood or judged about or evaluated by the individual sighted animal, human or otherwise, for whom the line that is the horizon determines their field of vision (cf. animal knowing). In the second sense, horizons make possible (limited) access to objects in the world mediated by meaning, including objects (whether spatial or visible or not) that can be inquired into and perhaps understood and judged about and evaluated.
Secondly, from every different literal standpoint, horizons in the literal sense are necessarily different, and necessarily change with significant physical movement. In the second sense of ‘horizon’, if I make a train journey or aeroplane flight, however far I travel, nothing about my journey entails that my horizon will change as I move or be different when I arrive. Again, twins brought up together, going to school and college together, and having very similar beliefs and lifestyles are not going to have their horizons become suddenly radically different just because one of them takes the train to a town fifty miles away.
Thirdly, if I stay put in one place, my literal horizon does not change (at least barring earthquakes, landslides, or other changes 'out there'), whereas my intellectual or moral horizon, which determines the range of my knowledge and interests (sense 2), can change without my moving to a different place, because what changes my horizon in sense 2 is what and how I think. This is because an individual's horizon, in sense 2, is not determined by what is already-out-there-now but by a constellation of factors within the self, so to speak, of that individual--by his or her non-literal standpoint. (Lonergan uses the word 'standpoint', which occurs seventeen times in Method, in various ways more or less closely related to this sense of 'horizon'.
Fourthly, a further illustration of the fact that these two kinds of horizon are two very different things is that in Lonergan's sense (though not in the literal sense), one may speak of 'movement into a new horizon' (e.g., Method, p. 237), which would clearly make no sense with regard to the literal sense of the word.
Now consider the further context supplied by the succeeding paragraphs. Immediately after these two paragraphs which I have been trying to illuminate, Lonergan reverts to speaking of horizons without qualifying his meaning as either literal or metaphorical/analogical and tries further to elucidate the ways in which they can differ. When he does so, of course, he is speaking not of literal horizons but the other kind. Thus he notes (p. 236), “Differences in horizon may be complementary, or genetic, or dialectical.” Complementary differences of horizon relate to the division of cognitive labour “needed for the functioning of a communal world”. Genetically different horizons are “related as successive stages in some process of development”, where later horizons partly include and partly transform earlier horizons. But the key kind of difference in this context is the dialectical one: “Thirdly, horizons may be opposed dialectically. What in one is found intelligible, in another is unintelligible. What for one is true, for another is false. What for one is good, for another is evil.” (p. 236)
Note the reference here to the intelligible, the true, the good (and their contraries), i.e., to the objects intended by the second, third and fourth levels of conscious intentionality (intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility) in Lonergan’s terminology, and the fact that those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon’. These further levels beyond ocular vision (first level: experience) have no relevance to the characterization of the literal sense 1 of ‘horizon’, but are absolutely required to explain sense 2, a fact which gives us a fifth kind of disanalogy with sense 2, that is, with the sense which Lonergan is focused on clarifying by contrast with the literal sense.
After describing in three successive paragraphs those three ways in which horizons differ (not in the literal sense but in the metaphorical or analogical sense Lonergan is interested in), he concludes the discussion in the final paragraph of the chapter section (p. 237): “Horizons, finally, are the structured resultant of past achievement and, as well, both the condition and the limitation of further development." Again, horizons in the literal sense do not depend on past achievement--it's simply a matter of where an appropriately visually endowed animal, human or otherwise, happens to be. Nor is one's literal horizon related to development.
Now, in the light of this reading of Lonergan's own account in Method of his 'metaphorical or perhaps analogical' use of the word 'horizon' for which I have argued, showing how he distinguishes and contrasts two different concepts of horizon corresponding to two different kinds of horizon, let me make some remarks on your comments which I quoted in my earlier post.
(i) In a post on 7 January 1913, you wrote, “Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing, but his use of the horizon metaphor draws more heavily upon the similarities. My criticism of the horizon metaphor emphasizes the differences.”
But, secondly, in the light of my interpretation and explanation of those key paragraphs on which we have now both commented, I cannot agree that Lonergan, in his use of the word 'horizon' "draws more heavily upon the similarities". In his account of the two concepts of horizon, he acknowledges the similarities between the two senses of horizon (if there were no similarities the two senses would be completely unrelated and the comparison would be pointless) but he emphasizes the differences precisely in order to clarify his meaning, the meaning he wants his readers to understand, by contrast with that of the literal sense discussed there. (l do not say that Lonergan always uses his notion of horizon in ways that are consistent in every point of detail with the passage from Section 1 of chapter 10 of Method that I have discussed--he doesn't--but such occasional deviations seem to be the exception rather than the rule.)
Thirdly, you say that your criticism of Lonergan's use of 'horizon' emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing. But, as should already be clear from what I have argued above, it seems to me from what you say that your criticism doesn't really touch the metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon which Lonergan is almost invariably using, and which he has been careful to contrast with the literal visual concept in the ways I have been elucidating in some detail.
To be sure, it is natural enough to describe Lonergan's meaning (sense 2) as a metaphorical concept (a collocation, by the way, that Lakoff and Johnson, in the early chapters at least of Metaphors We Live By, appear to use interchangeably with 'conceptual metaphor'). Among other things, it is a transferred concept deriving originally from the image of a literal horizon, though significantly different from a literal horizon in the ways required by the new meaning. (Note the virtual identity of 'literal' meaning between the Latin transferre and the Greek metapherein--'to carry across'. The word 'metaphor' itself turns out to be in a way metaphorical!)
In this connection I think it is important to distinguish between a linguistic use being metaphorical by origin and it having by convention a metaphorical meaning and uses. (This could be related to the interesting question why Lonergan speaks of a meaning of 'horizon' which is 'metaphorical or perhaps analogical'. Could he possibly have in mind that it is metaphorical by origin and analogical by meaning? However, I won't digress by trying to answer that question.)
Still, the way in which a new meaning or use is metaphorical by origin (whatever else we may say about its meaning as used) is important, because we need to consider not just how the inventor of the use came upon it by thinking metaphorically, but also how its meaning comes to be understood by others (by insight) as part of the explanation of how its meaning 'spreads' and becomes conventional.
I suggest that it commonly happens with the generation of new meaning by metaphor, that the image associated with a literal concept (in this case, horizon) provides a phantasm in which one can intellectually grasp, with the help of an abstraction by which one attends to what is relevant and disregards what is irrelevant, the idea of a different type of horizon, the one which Lonergan wishes the reader to understand and which he conceptualizes largely in terms of the range and scope of a person's knowledge and interests.
There is a passage near the end of Chapter 1 of Insight (CW3 at p. 55) which I think is highly relevant to this point:
"Properly, to abstract is to grasp the essential and to disregard the incidental, to see what is significant and set aside the irrelevant, to recognize the important as important and the negligible as negligible... Abstraction is the selectivity of intelligence...
Hence, relative to any given insight or cluster of insights the essential, significant, important consists (1) in the set of aspects in the data necessary for the occurrence of the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of related concepts necessary for the expression of the insight or insights. On the other hand the incidental, irrelevant, negligible consists (1) in other concomitant aspects of the data that do not fall under the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of concepts that correspond to the merely concomitant aspects of the data."
And again, lower down the same page:
"What alone is essential is insight into insight. Hence, the incidental includes (1) the particular insights chosen as examples, (2) the formulation of these insights, and (3) the images evoked by the formulation." (Italics added.)
In the light of these considerations and on the basis of my reading of Passage A and Passage B and the section of Method in which Passage B occurs, explained above in some detail, I wonder:
Have you been distracted by the salience and 'visibility' of that whole image of a literal horizon?
Are you, perhaps for that reason, failing to keep separate what is essential, significant, and important to having the insight (into the metaphorical/analogical use of the term) and to conceptualizing the idea which is its content from the incidental, irrelevant and negligible aspects of the phantasm which do not carry over into, and are as it were left behind as irrelevant by, the insight and its conceptualization?
Are you taking as essential to the insight and the concept a feature that is merely incidental, namely, the images evoked by the formulation?
(ii) In a post of 20 April 2013, you quoted the 1968 version of the second paragraph, and then immediately went on to say:
Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process. More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks, and between differences between persons in terms of three factors: (1) the differences in the periods in which each person has lived, (2) the differences in the social backgrounds and milieus of persons, and (3) the differences in education and personal development of persons. Each of these there ways in which persons can differ is analogous to looking from a different spatial location. Each of these three kinds of differences results in a difference in a person’s metaphorical horizon. It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it. Lonergan insists again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same person can change what she knows and cares about. No person’s horizon is fixed forever. Just as when a boat sails west, causing westerly things to rise above, and easterly things to fall below, the horizon of a passenger, so also a knower can move metaphorically so as to become interested in new things, and uninterested in old things.”
In it, you start by saying, “Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process.” (Italics added.)
I agree that there are some analogies (as well as disanalogies), as I have tried to make clear, but I see no evidence in the quoted text or the context that Lonergan is intending to present us in that paragraph with an argument that the analogy between the two kinds of horizon tells us or establishes something specifically about the knowing process. The discussion of horizon (in sense 1), after all, makes no explicit reference to knowledge at all, and appears to be introduced and characterized as a means of clarifying by contrast Lonergan’s ‘default’ sense of ‘horizon’ as used in Method. Moreover, the characterization of that sense (sense 2) makes no explicit reference to the structure of human cognition or the like. I don’t find the conclusion of an argument of that kind, or indeed the premisses. So I'm more than a little puzzled by your claim.
You go on to say, “More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks”, on the one hand, and “differences between persons in terms of three factors” (of period, social milieu and individual background). Though it strikes me as a little odd that you are comparing a change in an individual with differences between different individuals, that's not important enough to dwell on. I agree that the fact that literal horizons and metaphorical horizons can change and differ is a point of analogy, but, as I've pointed out above, the ways in which they do so are strongly contrasted by Lonergan.
I agree with the following sentence insofar as you are asserting that the three kinds of difference each result in differences in people’s metaphorical horizons (i.e., ‘horizon’, sense 2).
Next, you say, “It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it.” Interesting. I might have said that, in the first place, it is a metaphorical horizon because it’s clearly not a literal horizon! But, be that as it may, Lonergan doesn't actually make such a connection or assert anything to that effect in the passage in question. Still, in putting it as you do, you may be reflecting what I teased out above as the implicit contrast (not made explicit by Lonergan) between the kinds of knowing (animal knowing [perceptual] and properly human knowing [intelligent and reasonable]) relevant respectively to the two kinds of horizon.
You go on to say, “Lonergan insists again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same person can change what she knows and cares about.”
Again, I’m puzzled. If I simply wanted to communicate the two points you mention, I would (I hope!) merely have said them straight out. There is surely not the slightest difficulty in understanding and agreeing with them. Surely it’s more plausible and more to the point to recognize that Lonergan was taking up an already well-established use of ‘horizon’ (whether it be called metaphorical or not, or analogical) and wanted to clarify it by contrast with the literal sense and spell out its implications for his philosophical and methodological purposes, especially in view of the way he is going to use it in connection with his notions of conversion and the functional specialty Foundations.
(iii) In a very recent post (24 March 2016), you write:
‘Lonergan says (MiT 236):
"So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge." The source domain of the horizon metaphor is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one's field of vision" (MiT 235). This is why I say that the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests."’
Are you taking the second statement to be a more or less immediate inference from the first? I'm not sure whether you are, but if you are, then it appears that you are assuming that because the image of knowing as seeing is present in the literal sense of horizon, it must also be present in the metaphorical/analogical sense. If you are assuming that, I think my exposition of Lonergan's account of the contrast between the two concepts of horizon has shown that to be a mistake. (Might it be that you are failing to distinguish the meaning from the phantasm in which one originally grasps the meaning, and/or conflating the two concepts or at least failing to distinguish them clearly, perhaps as a result of thinking of the different meanings of 'horizon' as together constituting one concept?) As I say, I'm unclear just what you intend.
Are you perhaps taking it that because source domain and target domain are intrinsic explanatory features of a conceptual metaphor, and because there is something in the source domain (the literal sense of 'horizon') that involves seeing, then the feature of seeing must either transfer to the target domain, or at least be intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole, since the metaphor as a whole somehow includes both the literal and the metaphorical use? I'm very far from confident that that's what you are intending to say, partly because it's unclear to me how the KNOWING IS SEEING conceptual metaphor would then fit in. Is that maybe related to your claim (dubious as an interpretation, I have argued) in quotation (ii) that Lonergan is arguing from analogy to establish something about the nature of the knowing process?
Perhaps you can explain the argument better, expanding it to make it clearer to me how you reach the conclusion.
The later parts of what I said above in my response to the first quote from you seem highly relevant here, too, in particular the quotations from Insight, chapter 1, with reference to what is essential, significant, and important to the insight (and its conceptualization) as opposed to what is incidental, irrelevant,and negligible to them, and to the danger of being misled by the merely incidental feature of "the images evoked by the formulation".
-------
I've gone into quite a fair amount of detail in examining these texts and your comments, because I think that (i) doing so is necessary if we are to understand the passages correctly; (ii) establishing a correct understanding of how Lonergan actually uses 'horizon' is a prerequisite of making a sound judgement about the existence and nature of any problems that may be implicit in the way he uses the word; and (iii) without going into interpretative detail we are unlikely to understand in what respects you and I disagree and why.
I don't suppose I've got everything quite right in this post, so, to help me correct and refine my understanding, I will welcome your comments (and those of others, too) on what I have said by way of interpreting Passage B and the section of chapter 10 of Method in which it occurs. I would also welcome your comments, Dick, on my remarks on the comments I quoted from you.
With all good wishes,
Gerard
<SNIP>....</SNIP>Gerard et al.,
Gerard, thank you for quoting what I have written about the horizon metaphor. My position hasn't changed, at least not substantially, but I do have much more to say about metaphor than I have posted on the list. I hesitate to do so because I'm sensitive to the wishes of others to keep focused on Lonergan's texts."Horizon" is a useful metaphor, and using it well requires exploring the similarities between the source domain -- the line between sky and sea as seen from a moving ship -- and the target domain -- the scope of a person's knowledge and interests. My point is that using metaphors well in philosophy and social science (in contrast, say, to poetry) also requires exploring the differences between the source domain and the target domain. Of course, given the pervasiveness of metaphors in language, this can only be done for important or key metaphors. Otherwise, the topic being investigated disappears, and it becomes about metaphor rather than about the target domain. When I say that "horizon" is a useful metaphor, I am saying that it is useful for exploring differences among persons in what they know and are interested in. It is a tool for exploring the topic, and, as Gerard points out, the exploration of differences in what people know and are interested is the topic, not the nature of metaphor.Lonergan, it seems to me, is very clear about the relation between the metaphor "Knowing Is Seeing" and the basic counterposition. Valid insights can be expressed in the language of the counterposition, which I understand to be language that carries with it the assumption that knowing is nothing more than taking a look."Horizon" does seem to have become a key term, both in Lonergan's texts and in the texts of those who seek to interpret and develop philosophy, theology, and the social sciences along the pathways he has pointed out. A person's horizon changes as she matures, and the various kinds of conversions are changes in the convert's horizon. My position is that there is a real possibility, especially when writing for, or speaking to, people who don't know Lonergan, that the language of "horizons," and the imagery it evokes, can reinforce their belief that knowing is looking.
I came to the study of Lonergan from the study of Aquinas in a Jesuit seminary. One of the key metaphysical doctrines I learned was the analogy of being. Paying attention to the similarities and differences between source and target domains of a metaphor is a way of exploring the analogy of being. I also hold that Lonergan's doctrine of the isomorphism between the structure of knowing and the structure of being is the doctrine of the analogy of proper proportionality, expressed in different language. Perhaps this speaks to your comment, John, about exploring metaphor in the light of Lonergan's metaphysics. There is "proportionality" between the elements in the source domain and the elements in the target domain.>
>But just as I find a danger in writing about "horizons" without some discounting of the "knowing is seeing" metaphor implied in it, I also find a danger in saying "what we are doing when we are knowing." The danger there is the possible interpretation that the collectivity to which "we" refers is a knowing subject. This is a debated issue, with phrases such as "collective memory" and "collective consciousness" suggesting that there is indeed something like a "group mind."
Best regards,
Dick
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Gerard O'Reilly
I was well aware, John, of the passages you mention in your post (except for McPartland's book which I haven't yet read--I'm grateful for the pointer to that). Indeed I referred in my post not only to the passage you mention from Method, p. 237, on moving from one horizon to another, but also to the intimate connection of Lonergan's treatment of 'horizon' with his treatment of conversions and the functional specialty Foundations and to the fact that he explains his notion of horizon largely to make use of it in connection with those topics. I am well aware, too, of the extensive use he makes of the notion of horizon (I mentioned that he uses the term more than 100 times in Method) with different nuances in different contexts.
I suspect from your post, though, that you are not fully grasping why I chose to focus in detail on what I did in that long last post addressed (primarily) to Dick.
Of course I agree with you that it would not be good 'if we get hung up on horizon as metaphorical in L's overall work'. One could hardly disagree, given your use of the somewhat pejorative expression 'hung up on'! (As for 'missing the boat', as you put it--well, I would point out that there are many boats in many ports, and many worthwhile journeys on which people may embark; and if others have not yet reached the same port as you, they will have to start any journey they make from where they are now.)
I also agree with you that in the further passages you quote in your post, 'L was hardly thinking of "knowing as seeing."'
But the problem, at least as I understand it, with your gentle warning that we should not 'get hung up on' the topic is that (though I wouldn't myself have thought to put it in quite those terms) there is a sense in which Dick is 'hung up on' what he takes to be Lonergan's unfortunate and misleading metaphorical use of 'horizon'. And that seems to be in significant part because of his (mis)interpretation of the specific passages I discussed, passages on which he had earlier commented to justify his view that they involve the 'Knowing is seeing' metaphor, the use of which reinforces the counterposition.
If that really is the relevant problem, we don't advance the discussion very far or help Dick (where he is) by saying or suggesting that he is "hung up on" horizon as metaphorical (though maybe you were suggesting that he and I are both 'hung up on' the topic!). Nor is it immediately relevant to point to other passages in other contexts in respect of which, as you say, 'L was hardly thinking of "knowing as seeing".'
Dick has been raising the same concerns on the list and making essentially the same points and arguments about Lonergan's use of 'horizon' since 2012. In my post I was therefore attempting to get to grips with the reasons and arguments he gives for his conclusions, trying in the process, among other things, to help him understand that a close examination of the very passages which he has used to justify his position (important passages in which BL does not merely use but also explicitly expounds his use of 'horizon') shows that in them Lonergan is not representing knowing as looking/seeing.
Dick:
In a post of 30 January 2013, you wrote (italics added by me):
'I am not at all surprised that there are members of the Lonergan community who disagree with me about this. Nor am I surprised that, so far, no one who disagrees with me has been able to explain what Lonergan meant by “horizon” in a way that does not include the metaphor “Knowing Is Seeing.”
I hope I may have surprised you!
Gerard
Sara Terreault
Catherine Blanche King
Hi John and all:
There is another point here: If I read it correctly, what Dick is saying about the term "horizon" could be said about ANY term that Lonergan uses and where those terms are also used in common language. (And what I mean by "read" above, is "understand.")
That is, Lonergan uses such terms as INSIGHT, which easily could be misinterpreted as "looking inside." Or one could interpret "self-appropriation" as "to hug oneself" or "to remember one's own history." Or one could interpret "understanding" as the actual "concrete" foundations under a house, or that that a house or a building stands on.
At some point, however, the single interpretative frame, as controlling of all thought, of the literal-minded person can undergo an insight and a change where that person comes to understand that: perhaps there's more to this "seeing" than first "meets the eye," and that my own meaning of such terms MAY not be the only meaning to be considered; especially where great thinkers are concerned.
Take Plato, for instance, whose metaphorical use of prisoner's and cave's, light and dark, going out and coming back, made it through the centuries as just that: meaningful metaphor, all of which, as I understand those terms, are related on that level of thought to Lonergan's use of "horizon."
The other question is: If Lonergan used technical terms only to write texts, his Insight would be even more easy to ignore (by those who might benefit greatly from reading it). Such writing is often called "jargon" by those who don't want to understand the difference between common and technical meaning, or how technical meaning actually serves systematic understanding for those who are involved in specialized fields.
How much attention would Lonergan's work get if he didn't use terms that, at the start, are commonsense-amenable, like "Insight: A Study of Human Understanding"?
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2016 12:30 PM
To: loner...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Jaray...@aol.com
[1] “Modern sociocultural systems originated in post Feudal Europe in the commercial and industrial revolutions when centers of economic production gradually shifted from the countryside to burgeoning cities. Separate pre-modern communities began to form broader integrated market systems.” Charles L. Harper, Bryan F. Lebeau, “Social Change and Religion in America” http://are.as.wvu.edu/sochange.htm The world may now be on the verge of another depression such as Lonergan witnessed in 1929, which led him to write two books on business cycles.
[2] See James Marsh, Lonergan in the World: Self-Appropriation and Justice (Univ. of Toronto, 2014). Marsh critiques self-absorption, otherness and those who fall prey to a pre-critical realism which claims that knowing of the real world should be immediate, thus distorting the meaning and role of real justice in the process.
2) While we interpret Taylor’s view of secularity as one that can help bridge the religious with the secular, Berger writes that since Nietzsche’s proclamation of the “death of God” in the late 19th century, it was assumed that religion would soon pass from the scene. Instead since the 20th century, “the alleged fact became increasingly dubious. . .(It) is very dubious indeed as a description of our point in time at the beginning of the 21st century. Religion has not been declining.”[3] Instead, Berger finds that in many parts of the world there has been an explosion of religious faith.” (Ibid). Intellectuals of many stripes had predicted religion’s decline due to the progress of the scientific: science would replace “the irrationality and superstition of religion. Not only Nietzsche but other seminal modern thinkers thought so--notably Marx (religion as opiate of the masses) and Freud (religion as illusion).” (ibid).
[3] For Peter Berger, “Secularization Falsified”, (www.firstthings.com/article/2008/02/002-secularization-falsified) there is “a confusion of categories.” Modernity is not necessarily secularizing but “it is necessarily pluralizing.” It is characterized by an increasing plurality, within the same society, of different beliefs, values, and worldviews.” Plurality poses “a challenge to all religious traditions” in that there are “all these others,” both far and near with which they must “cope”. This challenge, however, is not the one assumed by secularization theory.” (Ibid).
For Berger, the two great figures of classical sociology, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, also erred on this point. “Durkheim explained religion as nothing but a metaphor of social order. Weber believed that… ‘rationalization’, the increasing dominance of a scientific mindset, would destroy the ‘magical garden’ of premodern worldviews. . . Durkheim, an enlightened atheist, saw modern secularity as progress. Weber was not happy about what he saw: ‘ostensibly the imprisonment of modern man in the ‘iron cage’ of rationality. But . . . both agreed on what was supposedly happening. Not to put too fine a point on it, they were mistaken. Modernity is not intrinsically secularizing.” (ibid).
3)Al-Ghazali is important for his view on the relationship of revelation to the Prophets and on the role of reason in interpreting revelation; he assigns reason a prominent role. This was later challenged by fundamentalist interpreters. For him, reason’s demonstrative arguments can reach conclusions that are beyond doubt. “The results of true demonstrations do not conflict with revelation since neither reason nor revelation are false.”[4] If demonstration proves that something contradicts the literal meaning of revelation, the scholar needs to interpret (ta'wîl) the outward text and read it as a symbol of a deeper truth. There are, for instance, valid demonstrative arguments proving that God cannot have a "hand" or sit on a "throne." Interpreting revealed passages whose outward meaning is not disproved by a valid demonstration, is not allowed. Al-Ghazali taught all human beings have a natural affinity to know God through the heart--the center of a human being. Heart, for him, is a metaphor for knowledge (ilm). Ilm consists of more than just intellectual acts; it combines both immanent and transcendent aspects. Aristotle gave us no logical demonstrations for God or for spiritual realities. For Al-Ghazali, faith seeks understanding. He writes in "The Elaboration of the Marvels of the Heart" that all hearts are naturally disposed to experientially know spiritual realities. Humans differ from non-rational animals in that they have a divine “exalted charge,” a possible unique nobility. In sec. 33:72, he invokes the Word of God: “We did offer the trust to the heavens, to earth and to the mountains, but they declined to bear it, for they feared it.” Humans did accept the offer. This indicates that humans possess a unique characteristic distinguishing them from heaven, earth and mountains. It renders them capable of trusting God.
[4] N. Heer, “The Priority of Reason in the Interpretation of Scripture: Ibn Taymiyah and the Mutakallinum” in The Literary Heritage of Classical Islam, M. Mir, ed. (Princeton; Davin Press, 181-95. Quoted by Frank Griffel, “Al-Ghazali”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Griffel adds that the charge that al-Ghazali led to the devolution of reason within Islam errs; it fails to understand the intricacies of medieval debates. The clearest break between revelation and reason including the Sufis’ tolerance of diverse views came with Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) who questioned the orthodoxy of the Sufi orders and the roles of philosophy or theology in Islam. He wanted to completely separate the Islamic faith from any Christian connection, feeling that Sufis shrines that lauded Sufi “saints” deviated from Islam. In his “On the Necessity of the Straight Path,” he preached that the beginning of Muslim life was the point at which "a perfect dissimilarity with the non-Muslims has been achieved." He opposed celebrating Muhammad’s birthday or the construction of mosques around the tombs of Sufi saints saying: "Many Muslims do not even know of the Christian origins of these.” See Muhammad Umar Memon, Ibn Taymiyya's Struggle against Popular Religion, with an annotated translation of Kitab Iqitada, The Hague, (1976), 78.
Please let this Lonergan amateur (literally) rush in ... . Horizon *is* a metaphor, and it *is* a visual metaphor, and "seeing" is a synecdochic metaphor for sensing in general, and a visual metaphor *might* be misleading in the context of epistemology, *if* it leads to the mistake that seeing = knowing. But from Lonergan's own explanation of the horizon metaphor, he is not suggesting that we automatically *know* everything within our horizon (that is, that we automatically *know* what we can *see*), but rather that we can see what we can see (duh!), and that's the first condition for possible knowing. (Outside of our horizon, no possibility for knowing). Seeing what is in our horizon does not replace or fulfil the need for attention, questions, insights, judgement in order to *know*. We see (or sense) what is in our horizon, we know *some* of it (because we have attended to it, had insights into it and judged our insights), and *may* come to know more of it by attention, questioning, having insights and judging. Sara
On 18 April 2016 at 09:26, Gerard O'Reilly <ger...@fianchetto.co.uk> wrote:
John, Dick, (and all),
I was well aware, John, of the passages you mention in your post (except for McPartland's book which I haven't yet read--I'm grateful for the pointer to that). Indeed I referred in my post not only to the passage you mention from Method, p. 237, on moving from one horizon to another, but also to the intimate connection of Lonergan's treatment of 'horizon' with his treatment of conversions and the functional specialty Foundations and to the fact that he explains his notion of horizon largely to make use of it in connection with those topics. I am well aware, too, of the extensive use he makes of the notion of horizon (I mentioned that he uses the term more than 100 times in Method) with different nuances in different contexts.
I suspect from your post, though, that you are not fully grasping why I chose to focus in detail on what I did in that long last post addressed (primarily) to Dick.
Of course I agree with you that it would not be good 'if we get hung up on horizon as metaphorical in L's overall work'. One could hardly disagree, given your use of the somewhat pejorative expression 'hung up on'! (As for 'missing the boat', as you put it--well, I would point out that there are many boats in many ports, and many worthwhile journeys on which people may embark; and if others have not yet reached the same port as you, they will have to start any journey they make from where they are now.)
I also agree with you that in the further passages you quote in your post, 'L was hardly thinking of "knowing as seeing."'
But the problem, at least as I understand it, with your gentle warning that we should not 'get hung up on' the topic is that (though I wouldn't myself have thought to put it in quite those terms) there is a sense in which Dick is 'hung up on' what he takes to be Lonergan's unfortunate and misleading metaphorical use of 'horizon'. And that seems to be in significant part because of his (mis)interpretation of the specific passages I discussed, passages on which he had earlier commented to justify his view that they involve the 'Knowing is seeing' metaphor, the use of which reinforces the counterposition.
If that really is the relevant problem, we don't advance the discussion very far or help Dick (where he is) by saying or suggesting that he is "hung up on" horizon as metaphorical (though maybe you were suggesting that he and I are both 'hung up on' the topic!). Nor is it immediately relevant to point to other passages in other contexts in respect of which, as you say, 'L was hardly thinking of "knowing as seeing".'
Dick has been raising the same concerns on the list and making essentially the same points and arguments about Lonergan's use of 'horizon' since 2012. In my post I was therefore attempting to get to grips with the reasons and arguments he gives for his conclusions, trying in the process, among other things, to help him understand that a close examination of the very passages which he has used to justify his position (important passages in which BL does not merely use but also explicitly expounds his use of 'horizon') shows that in them Lonergan is not representing knowing as looking/seeing.
Dick:
In a post of 30 January 2013, you wrote (italics added by me):
'I am not at all surprised that there are members of the Lonergan community who disagree with me about this. Nor am I surprised that, so far, no one who disagrees with me has been able to explain what Lonergan meant by “horizon” in a way that does not include the metaphor “Knowing Is Seeing.”
I hope I may have surprised you!
Gerard
On 15/04/2016 20:30, Jaraymaker via Lonergan_L wrote:
Hi,I perused the exchange between Gerard and Dick on horizon (and "metaphor").Gerard quotes MiT 235-237 and well so. I would note that the sec. p. 237 following,"2. Conversions and Breakdowns" begins with de Finance who speaks of "a horizontal exercise" of freedom within an established horizon. The vertical exercise of freedom "is the set of judgments and decisions by which we move from one horizon to another...."One should advert to the large roles of horizon in phenomenology and in MiT where the notion is treated extensively with different nuances. For example, in previewing the FS in MiT, chapter 5, p. 131, he stresses that "foundations present, not doctrines, but the horizon within which the meaning of doctrines can be apprehended."On might look at this passage from McPartland:
Jaray...@aol.com
BERNARD LONERGAN’S THIRD WAY OF THE HEART AND MIND: BRIDGING SOME BUDDHIST-
CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM-SECULARIST MISUNDERSTANDINGS WITH AN ETHICAL SECULARITY
In summary, I have to write with a BROAD BRUSH, but risk going astray in various alleys....
I must say that you and other participants, esp. Sara, Mike, Gerard, Doug, Charlie and others on this site keep me on my toes .... Lowell did so in my previous book. Thanks!
John
Hi John and all:
There is another point here: If I read it correctly, what Dick is saying about the term "horizon" could be said about ANY term that Lonergan uses and where those terms are also used in common language. (And what I mean by "read" above, is "understand.")
That is, Lonergan uses such terms as INSIGHT, which easily could be misinterpreted as "looking inside." Or one could interpret "self-appropriation" as "to hug oneself" or "to remember one's own history." Or one could interpret "understanding" as the actual "concrete" foundations under a house, or that that a house or a building stands on.
At some point, however, the single interpretative frame, as controlling of all thought, of the literal-minded person can undergo an insight and a change where that person comes to understand that: perhaps there's more to this "seeing" than first "meets the eye," and that my own meaning of such terms MAY not be the only meaning to be considered; especially where great thinkers are concerned.
Take Plato, for instance, whose metaphorical use of prisoner's and cave's, light and dark, going out and coming back, made it through the centuries as just that: meaningful metaphor, all of which, as I understand those terms, are related on that level of thought to Lonergan's use of "horizon."
The other question is: If Lonergan used technical terms only to write texts, his Insight would be even more easy to ignore (by those who might benefit greatly from reading it). Such writing is often called "jargon" by those who don't want to understand the difference between common and technical meaning, or how technical meaning actually serves systematic understanding for those who are involved in specialized fields.
How much attention would Lonergan's work get if he didn't use terms that, at the start, are commonsense-amenable, like "Insight: A Study of Human Understanding"?
Readers are not potted plants. And teaching is a hopeful thing. At some point, a writer has to realize that giving away the prison to the prisoners is defeats the purpose--not such a good idea.
Finally, a good amount of the narrative in Insight is devoted to quite-common sources of MIS-understanding. I suggest these are excellent readings for anyone grappling with other people's however-temporary ignorance, e.g., students'; and about not only with what Lonergan means, but with their own self-meaning.
Catherine
From: Jaraymaker via Lonergan_L <loner...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2016 12:30 PM
To: loner...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Hi,I perused the exchange between Gerard and Dick on horizon (and "metaphor").Gerard quotes MiT 235-237 and well so. I would note that the sec. p. 237 following,"2. Conversions and Breakdowns" begins with de Finance who speaks of "a horizontal exercise" of freedom within an established horizon. The vertical exercise of freedom "is the set of judgments and decisions by which we move from one horizon to another...."One should advert to the large roles of horizon in phenomenology and in MiT where the notion is treated extensively with different nuances. For example, in previewing the FS in MiT, chapter 5, p. 131, he stresses that "foundations present, not doctrines, but the horizon within which the meaning of doctrines can be apprehended."On might look at this passage from McPartland:
Sara Terreault
Sebastien Nkoa
http://luc.edu/media/lucedu/law/students/publications/ilr/pdfs/Powell.pdf
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Jaray...@aol.com
A. Moderate Muslim Views of Natural Law as a Potential Bridge with Modernity
The meaning of “the Islamic World" is not easy to delineate due to its historical and cultural diversity[1] as well as its geographic spread. Yet, there are some consistent characteristics in Islam. In his Islam Past, Present & Future, Kung uses five paradigms to discuss the changes that have occurred throughout Islamic history, highlighting both the unity and diversity of the Islamic world. He seeks to bridge traditional Islam views with modern secularist thinking. Another way to help build bridges between the Christian and Islamic worlds is to consider the history or natural law, as studied e. g. by St. Thomas Aquinas or more recently by Ali Ezzati and Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im. Russel Powell draws on Lonergan to provide “a framework for Christian-Muslim dialogue. “Lonergan moves from the individual subject to universal insights rather than presuming to deduce universals a priori, without regard for history, culture and individual experience.”[2] We agree with Powell that addressing human rights and social justice using natural theory is a better starting point for meaningful dialogue than is a focus on theological concerns.
“If Muslims and Christians mutually acknowledge and defend basic human dignity as a consequence of commonly held natural law conclusions, reconciliation and the formation of solidarity become more likely.” (Ibid). Anver Emon’s examination of natural law from an Islamic perspective is helpful in bridging medieval Islamic thought and postmodernist views.[3] Premodern Sunni Muslim jurists asked how reason alone could be the basis for asserting the good and the bad, thereby justifying Sharia obligations and prohibitions. They theorized about the authority of reason amidst competing theologies of God. Others have contrasted natural law and postmodernist views which dismisses natural law in modern societies. Natural law is the theory that some laws are basic and fundamental to human nature being discoverable “by human reason without reference to specific legislative enactments or judicial decisions.”[4][1] Reacting “to the penetration of Western capitalist modernity into all aspects of Muslim society from the Arab world to Southeast Asia,” some 19th century Muslim intellectuals such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) outlined a project for an ‘Islamic modernism’, seeking to reach a medium between adaptation and rejection. See
http://social-epistemology.com/2015/06/15/sir-sayyid-ahmad-khan-1817-1898-on-taqlid-ijtihad-and-science-religion-compatibility-tauseef-ahmad-parray/ and John L. Esposito, “Contemporary Islam: Reformation or Revolution?” The Oxford History of Islam, (Oxford Univ., 1999), 644-45 on ijtihad or independent reasoning.
In his The Future of Islam (Oxford Univ, 2010), Esposito suggests that the future of Islam and the effectiveness of its hoped-for-reforms will depend both on Muslim reformers and on the potential role of Western nations now struggling with Muslim migrations. Active Muslim moderates and enlightened Western policies are needed to offset present impasses. We need a rethinking of Islam based on the history of reforms within Islam itself. (93-98).
[2] Russel Powell “Toward Reconciliation in the Middle East: A Framework for Christian-Muslim Dialogue Using Natural Law Tradition,” Social Science Research, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1031269
[3] Univ. of Toronto, Law Faculty, http://religion.utoronto.ca/people/cross-appointed-faculty/anver-emon/
[4] “Natural Law” at http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Natural+Law+Theory based on J. Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law (Gordian,1971); see J. Fuchs, Natural Law (1965); J. Stone, Human Law and Human Justice (1965); A. Battaglia, Toward a Reformulation of Natural Law (1981). Natural law became the basis for Hugo Grotius’ development of the theory of international law. For Spinoza and Leibniz, natural law is the basis of ethics and morality. Rousseau made natural law a basis for democratic and egalitarian principles. The influence of natural law theory declined in the 19th century under the impact of positivism and materialism. But, in the 20th century, Maritain saw in natural law a foundation to oppose totalitarianism. For him, “there is a single natural law governing all beings with a human nature. The first principles of this law are known connaturally, not rationally or through concepts — by an activity that Maritain, following Aquinas, called ‘synderesis.’ Thus, ‘natural ‘law’ is ‘natural’ because it not only reflects human nature, but is known naturally.” See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maritain/ Natural Law was seen as a “universal moral code (having) a validity for every culture and government. It is the proper and just standard for governmental law, functioning as a criterion for evaluating civil law. The content of Natural Law and revealed law is basically the same, but Natural Law operates by reason based on natural principles. Since Natural Law and natural rights intersect, the two underly the U. S Declaration of Independence. Postmodern morality and social constructivism lead to moral relativism, the view that culture dictates what is right or wrong.
See “Natural Law” http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/udhr/concepts/384.html, retrieved March, 2016.
John
Lowell
Was there any connection between BL and Niebuhr? I felt at least that what compelled him to write in 1944, might have been similar to what compelled BL to 'make an account of ourselves’ when he wrote For a New Political Economy.
Jaray...@aol.com
I pick up a used book this weekend (while looking for Hardy Boys copies for my son). Reinhold Niebuhr’s Children of Light, Children of Darkness. I am partway through, but it seemed to have some interesting insights in line with BL’s emergent flow of history and the long term effects of bias. There is also a point of view of democracy of working out solutions (but never final answers) to problems of our times, enabling the creativity of history and so on.
Was there any connection between BL and Niebuhr? I felt at least that what compelled him to write in 1944, might have been similar to what compelled BL to 'make an account of ourselves’ when he wrote For a New Political Economy.
Lowell
Richard Moodey
...
Richard Moodey
...
Richard Moodey
...
Richard Moodey
...
Richard Moodey
...
Catherine Blanche King
Dick
Isn't it just easier (and better pedagogy) to get your students used to the fact that terms have different meanings in different contexts, and that especially in a classroom where theory is often a basic framework, it's a good thing to be aware of which context they are in?
In other words, students are not potted plants. Instead of avoiding specific words, like horizon, seeing/ looking, or insight (we could go on and on), wouldn't it be more educative to guide them to understand your own meaning and context (not to mention theory) and that, for instance, when you use "seeing" you are talking about the full gamut of what actually occurs when we see, and not meaning what may be commonly meant by that term--and that the common meaning of "seeing" is not set in stone, so to speak, but is "commonly" a misnomer, especially if, in that context, "seeing" has nothing to do with the understanding process.
I think Lonergan talks somewhere about purifying the commonsense language of a time and place, and not getting rid of it. We need it. It's just that we need to know more than that, about it and other kinds of meanings and "horizons" that differ from it.
Teach them how to fish?
Catherine
Sent: Wednesday, May 4, 2016 8:43 AM
To: Lonergan_L
Subject: Re: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Tony
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Lonergan and the Philosophy of Historical Existence at this link
"For a final illustration, I would like to suggest what Lonergan's view of love may have done to Lonergan's theological interests. In the mid-40s, Lonergan developed the position that there are operations in us by which we attain God as God really is.[1] The question of the relationship between experience and grace marked the opening of a 30-year dialog between the old theology of grace and a newer theology that takes experience seriously. Lonergan's interest shifted from the question of how we "attain God" (attingitur Deus) toward how we are in love with God. At the same time, questions of historicity had enriched the dialog by asking what being in love means for history as well as for consciousness. It is this awareness of history that led Lonergan to write, "doctrines are not just doctrines. . . . They can strengthen or burden the individual's allegiance. They can unite or disrupt. They can confer authority and power."[2] That is, the concern of doctrines is just as much concerned with the policies and values that ought to shape our common future as its parallel specialty, history, is concerned with the policies and values that have shaped our common past. Lonergan's mature doctrine is that God's love is double. It is the outer word in our history and the inner word in our hearts. It concerns how thoroughly the faithful might let God's love be their love and how totally Christ's incarnation might incarnate in them God's love for this world. This transformation represents, it seems to me, God flooding Lonergan's heart with the divine love for this world as well as for God.
[1] De ente supernaturali: Supplementum schematicum. Notes for students, Collège de l'Immaculée Conception, Montreal, 1946), cited by Doran, 52.
[2] Method in Theology 319." END quoting Tad Dunne.
What a great contextualization! Just in CASE, I will forward this message privately to Tad to see whether he would care to respond or EVEN accede to Tony's wish that he be part of this list. AND since I risk getting into hot water with the appendix I just included in my present MS, I'm forwarding the appendix to Tad also for possible comments by him. The MS is titled
BERNARD LONERGAN’S THIRD WAY OF THE HEART AND MIND: BRIDGING SOME BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM-SECULARIST MISUNDERSTANDINGS WITH AN ETHICAL SECULARITY
INTRODUCTION
PART I Introducing the Heart-Mercy-Mind Interdisciplinary Issues Explored in this Book ...
APPENDIX
Lonergan was a seminal thinker as can be gauged from all his writings including his original proposals in the field of economics. Our interpretation of his method as GEM-FS invites further reflection as to whether and how reduplicative eight-step functional specialization--based on the dynamic nature of our four conscious intentional operations--could be analogously compared as a method with how spacetime and a physical genome are respectively foundational in the fields of physics and biology.
GEM-FS, physics and biology are each characterized and constituted by a basic fourfold pattern. Analogously to GEM-FS, there occurs in physics a fourfold timespace dynamism modified by quantum uncertainties. Likewise, a physical genome has to account for how the DNA base thymine is replaced by uracil in RNA. In all three cases, a basic fourfold dynamic structure is foundationally affected by basic components which transform the basic elements.
While we are here pointing to possibly important analogies, this book has in principle focused on the inner depths of ethics and possible spiritualities needed in human conduct. The inner depths of persons explored in ethics and spirituality are subject to such human frailties as ignorance, bias and evil.
Cognitionally, the human race has made great progress, but such “progress” is all too often marred by some of the problems this book has touched on. The challenge is for exponents of the religions and of secularity to make up for the deficiencies in life and in academia so as to help relieve the plights now facing humanity and our planet.
Jaray...@aol.com
Hi John,You quote MiT, chapter 5, p. 131: "foundations present, not doctrines, but the horizon within which the meaning of doctrines can be apprehended." Would this be a paraphrase that does not change the meaning significantly? "foundations present, not doctrines, but the point of view from which the meaning of doctrines can be apprehended."Best regards,Dick
On Friday, April 15, 2016 at 3:30:10 PM UTC-4, jaraymaker wrote:
Hi,I perused the exchange between Gerard and Dick on horizon (and "metaphor").Gerard quotes MiT 235-237 and well so. I would note that the sec. p. 237 following,"2. Conversions and Breakdowns" begins with de Finance who speaks of "a horizontal exercise" of freedom within an established horizon. The vertical exercise of freedom "is the set of judgments and decisions by which we move from one horizon to another...."One should advert to the large roles of horizon in phenomenology and in MiT where the notion is treated extensively with different nuances. For example, in previewing the FS in MiT, chapter 5, p. 131, he stresses that "foundations present, not doctrines, but the horizon within which the meaning of doctrines can be apprehended."On might look at this passage from McPartland:
where McPartland speaks of the transcendental structure of the basic horizon of inquiry.With horizon, L opened many doors that transcend the departure point which Dick and Gerard refer to. Most of these doors have to do with crucial notion of CONVERSION.One might say that GEM-FS seeks to find the convergence of horizons in treating of the conversions. "Conversion as lived affects all of a man's conscious and intentional operations. It directs his gaze, pervades his imagination. . . . But as communal and historical, as a movement with its own cultural, institutional and doctrinal dimensions, conversion calls forth" reflection. (MiT, 131). Lonergan then explores the horizons within which this can occur, including those of foundations. Such horizons are helpful in exploring, e. g. how Christianity, Islam and secularity define their standpoints. For Lonergan, religious conversion presupposes moving from the first mediating phase of the FS to the second mediated phase. “Conversion occurs, not in the context of doing theology, but in the context of becoming religious.” (MiT, 268).In my view, one will miss the boat if we get hung up on horizon as metaphorical in L's overall work. In the quoted passages above, L was hardly thinking of "knowing as seeing." These are two completely different contexts. A next step, might be to look at L's "Metaphysics as Horizon" in Collection,
John
In a message dated 4/15/2016 3:25:54 P.M. W. Europe Daylight Time, ger...@fianchetto.co.uk writes:
...
Jaray...@aol.com
To: Jaray...@aol.com
Sent: 5/5/2016 3:30:13 P.M. W. Europe Daylight Time
Subj: RE: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphorJohn:
Thanks for getting me caught up on the current discussion in the Lonergan discussion group. (By the way, I still am a subscriber, although I admit I'm rather "quiet"!)
One item I'd like to clear up regards what Lonergan calls a "fifth level." What he has in mind, I believe, is not a distinct level of individual consciousness. Rather, he is thinking of the vertical finality in the entire universe of emergent probability. He ordinarily spoke of it as a "fifth" level, and more recently as a "sixth" level. What he envisioned, I believe, is the emergent reality of actual, historical communities. One's participation in community is the fuller context of one's individual consciousness. One's individual consciousness is both confirmed and sublated by a "we-consciousness" that establishes one as part of a community or communities and, most fully, as being in love with God.
I published this view back in 1995. You can find it as "Lonergan and Being in Love" at my website: http://users.wowway.com/~tdunne5273/ During the years since then I added several appendices as new data and views about it became available.
Hope this helps! (Feel free to share it.)
-Tad Dunne
________________________________
From: Jaray...@aol.com [Jaray...@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2016 3:20 AM
To: Thomas Dunne
Cc: jray...@hotmail.com
Subject: Fwd: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Tad,
I HOPE you will not feel overburdened by this email to the Lonergan discussion group which I moderate:
________________________________
From: loner...@googlegroups.com
To: loner...@googlegroups.com
Sent: 5/5/2016 9:15:21 A.M. W. Europe Daylight Time
Subj: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Tony and all,
Agreed that Tad Dunne is one of the best elucidators of GEM--a term he often uses. If one expands to "GEM-FS" which automatically includes MiT's mediating and mediating phases, the so-called "fifth level" is foundationally included as part of the mediated phase's reduplicated expansion of the fourth level. The first three levels--also reduplicated in the mediated phase-- are reinforced through redeployment in the mediated phase's functions. Here I would quote Tad's words below (not knowing whether he would agree with my claim):
"Lonergan's mature doctrine is that God's love is double. It is the outer word in our history and the inner word in our hearts." Thus in my view, the outer and inner word of God would act in history and in our hearts a bit the way it has in a St. Francis or a Pope Francis--to mention two KEY persons.
If you look at McPartland's reference in his
Lonergan and the Philosophy of Historical Existence at this link
https://books.google.de/books?id=DLqDFc54qgYC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=basic+horizon+philosophy+lonergan&source=bl&ots=faskI4y0eo&sig=okbA99BWGLG-ECdUJv6f_1ChL2s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9u-Hgp#v=onepage&q=basic%20horizon%20philosophy%20lonergan&f=false
where he goes into EQUIVALENCE OF MEANNING, cognitve, moral and spiritual norms, basic horizons, etc one might say that Dunne, Vertin and McPartland don't need that "fifth level" since it is IMPLICITLY INCLUDED in the fourth. Speculating on a fifth level only tends to confuse--as I see it.
Let me quote Dunne from the link:
"For a final illustration, I would like to suggest what Lonergan's view of love may have done to Lonergan's theological interests. In the mid-40s, Lonergan developed the position that there are operations in us by which we attain God as God really is.[1]<file:///C:/Users/jaraymaker/Documents/Be_in_Love.doc#_ftn1> The question of the relationship between experience and grace marked the opening of a 30-year dialog between the old theology of grace and a newer theology that takes experience seriously. Lonergan's interest shifted from the question of how we "attain God" (attingitur Deus) toward how we are in love with God. At the same time, questions of historicity had enriched the dialog by asking what being in love means for history as well as for consciousness. It is this awareness of history that led Lonergan to write, "doctrines are not just doctrines. . . . They can strengthen or burden the individual's allegiance. They can unite or disrupt. They can confer authority and power."[2]<file:///C:/Users/jaraymaker/Documents/Be_in_Love.doc#_ftn2> That is, the concern of doctrines is just as much concerned with the policies and values that ought to shape our common future as its parallel specialty, history, is concerned with the policies and values that have shaped our common past. Lonergan's mature doctrine is that God's love is double. It is the outer word in our history and the inner word in our hearts. It concerns how thoroughly the faithful might let God's love be their love and how totally Christ's incarnation might incarnate in them God's love for this world. This transformation represents, it seems to me, God flooding Lonergan's heart with the divine love for this world as well as for God.
________________________________
[1]<file:///C:/Users/jaraymaker/Documents/Be_in_Love.doc#_ftnref1> De ente supernaturali: Supplementum schematicum. Notes for students, Collège de l'Immaculée Conception, Montreal, 1946), cited by Doran, 52.
[2]<file:///C:/Users/jaraymaker/Documents/Be_in_Love.doc#_ftnref2> Method in Theology 319." END quoting Tad Dunne.
What a great contextualization! Just in CASE, I will forward this message privately to Tad to see whether he would care to respond or EVEN accede to Tony's wish that he be part of this list. AND since I risk getting into hot water with the appendix I just included in my present MS, I'm forwarding the appendix to Tad also for possible comments by him. The MS is titled
BERNARD LONERGAN’S THIRD WAY OF THE HEART AND MIND: BRIDGING SOME BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM-SECULARIST MISUNDERSTANDINGS WITH AN ETHICAL SECULARITY
INTRODUCTION
PART I Introducing the Heart-Mercy-Mind Interdisciplinary Issues Explored in this Book ...
APPENDIX
Lonergan was a seminal thinker as can be gauged from all his writings including his original proposals in the field of economics. Our interpretation of his method as GEM-FS invites further reflection as to whether and how reduplicative eight-step functional specialization--based on the dynamic nature of our four conscious intentional operations--could be analogously compared as a method with how spacetime and a physical genome are respectively foundational in the fields of physics and biology.
GEM-FS, physics and biology are each characterized and constituted by a basic fourfold pattern. Analogously to GEM-FS, there occurs in physics a fourfold timespace dynamism modified by quantum uncertainties. Likewise, a physical genome has to account for how the DNA base thymine is replaced by uracil in RNA. In all three cases, a basic fourfold dynamic structure is foundationally affected by basic components which transform the basic elements.
While we are here pointing to possibly important analogies, this book has in principle focused on the inner depths of ethics and possible spiritualities needed in human conduct. The inner depths of persons explored in ethics and spirituality are subject to such human frailties as ignorance, bias and evil.
Cognitionally, the human race has made great progress, but such “progress” is all too often marred by some of the problems this book has touched on. The challenge is for exponents of the religions and of secularity to make up for the deficiencies in life and in academia so as to help relieve the plights now facing humanity and our planet.
John
In a message dated 5/5/2016 6:54:36 A.M. W. Europe Daylight Time, ton...@gmail.com writes:
John
You cover many topics in this post. Let me address one.
The attached mentions Doran's "fourth" level as part of L's standard cognitional structure, but then Dunne includes an analysis of a dispute arising from Doran's "fifth" level. Which one is your post referring to ?
As always, Dunne's writings are very elucidating. I wish he were a member of this group.
Tony
On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 8:59 AM, Richard Moodey <richard...@gmail.com<mailto:richard...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Gerard,
Again, I apologize for the delay. I greatly appreciate your reflections on my repeated references to L's use of the horizon metaphor. You have followed what I have been trying to say with great insight and precision. I want to respond to this set of questions. You ask:
"I wonder: Have you been distracted by the salience and 'visibility' of that whole image of a literal horizon? Are you, perhaps for that reason, failing to keep separate what is essential, significant, and important to having the insight (into the metaphorical/analogical use of the term) and to conceptualizing the idea which is its content from the incidental, irrelevant and negligible aspects of the phantasm which do not carry over into, and are as it were left behind as irrelevant by, the insight and its conceptualization? Are you taking as essential to the insight and the concept a feature that is merely incidental, namely, the images evoked by the formulation?"
Perhaps you can better understand my concern about the images if I explain the polemical context in sociology from which I think and write. Sociologist often quote with approval the statement Peter Berger made in Invitation to Sociology and repeated in his later works: "Sociology is a way of seeing." I quote that in all my classes, in order to disagree with it. Sociology is, rather, a way of experiencing, understanding and judging. In a more elaborated sense, it consists of methods of data construction, of asking questions for understanding, of formulating hypotheses that result from insights, of asking about the truth or falsity of these hypotheses, of mobilizing the arguments and evidence that make possible the reflective insights that enable us to say, "Yes, this is probably true" or "No, this is probably false." To say that sociology is a way of seeing is to use the language of the basic counter position in a way that obscures just what it is that responsible sociologists actually do.
So I am, perhaps, "hung up" on the danger that I see in an uncritical use of the horizon metaphor. An abstract theoretical formulation does, indeed, abstract from the image, but I find that in my teaching I have to be careful about the images present to my students, images that provide the phantasms into which I hope they will have insights.
So instead of speaking of horizons, I prefer to say that at different times of the day the same person will be in different "patterns of experience" (biological, aesthetic, dramatic, intellectual, etc.) and that different persons will be at different "stages of moral and intellectual development." (If I were teaching theology, I would say at different "stages of moral, intellectual and religious development.") The things that are in the scope of a person's interests will differ as that person shifts from one pattern of experience to another, and two persons at different stages of development will, when in an intellectual pattern of experience, have different things about which they ask questions and which they draw upon as evidence. It is economical to say that as a person shifts from one pattern of experience to another there is a shift in her horizon, or to use differences in horizons to describe persons at different stages of development. But in a pedagogical context, I don't want to suggest that these are differences in what persons see. They are differences in what persons experience, understand, and judge.
I think that people who know Lonergan well are not likely to misinterpret his use of "horizon." They know that Lonergan would not affirm the counter position. But I teach, and usually write for, people who don't know Lonergan at all, let alone "well." So I avoid using "horizon," or, if I do use it, I am careful explicitly to add the caution that knowing is not seeing.
Best regards,
Dick
On Friday, April 15, 2016 at 9:25:51 AM UTC-4, gerard wrote:
I've gone into quite a fair amount of detail in examining these texts and your comments, because I think that (i) doing so is necessary if we are to understand the passages correctly; (ii) establishing a correct understanding of how Lonergan actually uses 'horizon' is a prerequisite of making a sound judgement about the existence and nature of any problems that may be implicit in the way he uses the word; and (iii) without going into interpretative detail we are unlikely to understand in what respects you and I disagree and why.
I don't suppose I've got everything quite right in this post, so, to help me correct and refine my understanding, I will welcome your comments (and those of others, too) on what I have said by way of interpreting Passage B and the section of chapter 10 of Method in which it occurs. I would also welcome your comments, Dick, on my remarks on the comments I quoted from you.
With all good wishes,
Gerard
On 11/04/2016 18:20, Richard Moodey wrote:
Gerard et al.,
<SNIP>....</SNIP>
Gerard, thank you for quoting what I have written about the horizon metaphor. My position hasn't changed, at least not substantially, but I do have much more to say about metaphor than I have posted on the list. I hesitate to do so because I'm sensitive to the wishes of others to keep focused on Lonergan's texts.
"Horizon" is a useful metaphor, and using it well requires exploring the similarities between the source domain -- the line between sky and sea as seen from a moving ship -- and the target domain -- the scope of a person's knowledge and interests. My point is that using metaphors well in philosophy and social science (in contrast, say, to poetry) also requires exploring the differences between the source domain and the target domain. Of course, given the pervasiveness of metaphors in language, this can only be done for important or key metaphors. Otherwise, the topic being investigated disappears, and it becomes about metaphor rather than about the target domain. When I say that "horizon" is a useful metaphor, I am saying that it is useful for exploring differences among persons in what they know and are interested in. It is a tool for exploring the topic, and, as Gerard points out, the exploration of differences in what people know and are interested is the topic, not the nature of metaphor.
Lonergan, it seems to me, is very clear about the relation between the metaphor "Knowing Is Seeing" and the basic counterposition. Valid insights can be expressed in the language of the counterposition, which I understand to be l
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Catherine Blanche King
Hello Dick:
Two things: First, I think one of the points (not only Lonergan's) to developing theory is to put everyone on the same page, so to speak, with the meaning that the terms referred to in that theoretical context. So that, for instance, E=MC2 generally means the same for all physicists and refers to the same verifiable functioning reality.
In philosophy and in the other human sciences and fields, it's more difficult to maintain the same meanings, however, precisely because a person's already-established PHILOSOPHICAL foundations import on and already inform all philosophical issues and HAVE since we/they began asking questions. When that occurs, the issue is not merely changing a meaning of a term to become critically minded in a field of study, or even for a particular person's philosophy (aka Lonergan's), but changing one's own foundations. And so instead of everyone understanding basically what E=MC2 means, we have to raise the questions (1) what each philosopher means by each term and (2) what are our own foundations and (3) now we can ask: are we involved in any of the philosophical counter-positions that this philosopher is clarifying for us and that would impinge on our having a correct philosophy?
The second issue is that the judgment you make about x today (in today's context) becomes a part of the constellation of judgments that inform your further judgments and that come forward as relevant to whatever is the context when you are trying to know something new. Different context and content, same general cognitional activity that issued in a judgment.
Also, judgments don't occur in a meaning vacuum. They are the completion of the Is-it-so? question: the answer yes or no--to a prior question for intelligibility and meaning. Judgments close around the insight content that we accumulate after questioning and reflecting before we make a judgment for its truth.
Gerard O'Reilly
Dick,
Thanks for your response. No need whatever to apologize for the delay. I realize you must be very busy.
It is doubtless a frivolous streak in my character, but I must confess I enjoyed the delicious structural ambiguity of your third sentence, which reads, “You have followed what I have been trying to say with great insight and precision.” The grammatical structure allows two interpretations. According to one, I have, with great insight and precision, followed what you were trying to say, whereas, on the other interpretation, you have been trying to say something with great insight and precision, and I have followed it!
It just goes to show how difficult it is for any of us (you, me, Lonergan…) to write in such a way that nobody can misunderstand what we say! (And indeed in this case, too, I am unsure whether either interpretation fully corresponds to your intention.)
More seriously, I was in various ways puzzled and a little perplexed by your post.
(i) I had hoped that in your reply you would address and assess my fairly detailed reading of the passages I discussed and my comments on your earlier statements on those passages, e.g., by making it clear whether and where you agreed with me, and, if there were points of my interpretation and arguments which you thought mistaken, why you disagreed. I still very much hope you will carefully consider and respond to the interpretation and arguments I proposed when you have time.
(ii) Instead, perhaps because you have been so busy, you pass over the interpretation I offered and declare that you want “to respond to” a set of three questions I asked, questions which arose from the interpretation I offered. Fine, except that I was then disappointed to find that you did not actually answer those questions. Rather than attempting to answer those very specific questions, you launched into what I think it is fair to call a digression on “the polemical context” from which you think and write.
I am not suggesting your digression wasn’t interesting, and it does indeed give me a very slightly fuller understanding of your “concern about the images”. However, I think it’s better if I try not to be distracted by the details of your digression but try to keep the focus on the issues I raised before in the hope of keeping the discussion we have started on track.
Naturally, as an alternative to a direct answer to the questions, I would also regard an explanation of why you think a question I ask is misguided as one genuine kind of answer you might give. But I suggest that our conversation is more likely to be mutually beneficial if we try to answer questions and address issues already raised rather than make a practice of changing the subject.
As I said in my earlier post:
“I've gone into quite a fair amount of detail in examining these texts and your comments, because I think that (i) doing so is necessary if we are to understand the passages correctly; (ii) establishing a correct understanding of how Lonergan actually uses 'horizon' is a prerequisite of making a sound judgement about the existence and nature of any problems that may be implicit in the way he uses the word; and (iii) without going into interpretative detail we are unlikely to understand in what respects you and I disagree and why.
I don't suppose I've got everything quite right in this post, so, to help me correct and refine my understanding, I will welcome your comments (and those of others, too) on what I have said by way of interpreting Passage B and the section of chapter 10 of Method in which it occurs. I would also welcome your comments, Dick, on my remarks on the comments I quoted from you.”
(iii) One aspect of keeping the focus on the discussion we started is the hope I expressed in the last sentence of (i) above. What I will also do here, with the same intent and hope, is try briefly to give somewhat sharper formulation to a part of my earlier argument on the two meanings of ‘horizon’ Lonergan discusses, the literal and the “metaphorical or perhaps analogical”, which relates to those questions which you quoted but then responded to without answering.
First, for clarity and convenience, let us call the literal and metaphorical horizons, as characterized by Lonergan in that section, L-horizons and M-horizons respectively. Lonergan, who normally shows no interest in L-horizons, is trying in Passage B and that section to clarify what he means when speaking of M-horizons by contrasting them with L-horizons.
Secondly, I remind you that I gave reasons in the earlier post (see below) to show that Lonergan is not, as you had claimed, arguing there that the analogy between L-horizons and M-horizons tells us anything specifically about the structure of cognitional process. That suggests, at least, that we should be very cautious before concluding that his use of a concept of an M-horizon implies anything at all about cognitional process, let alone anything counterpositional,
Now, thirdly, the concept of an L-horizon is a visual concept, i.e. a concept of something visible, of something already-out-there-now in the world of immediacy which is visible to man and beast alike, provided the humans and beasts have the requisite kind of visual apparatus. But the concept of an M-horizon (the kind of horizon Lonergan is interested in clarifying) pertains to the world mediated by meaning. It is not the concept of something visible, and it is a fortiori not the concept of something already-out-there-now which is visible to man and beast alike. (The beasts don’t have M-horizons, the kind of horizons that can be dialectically opposed.)
It should therefore be clear that, although Lonergan does not directly make any point about the structure of cognitional process in his explanation and use of the concept of an M-horizon, insofar as there is any indirect reference to types of knowledge involved in apprehending the two kinds of horizon, it is only the L-horizon that has anything to do ‘knowing as seeing’. In no way does Lonergan characterize an M-horizon in terms of seeing or vision. On the contrary—again see my earlier post for details. The only mention of vision or a field of vision is when Lonergan speaks of the boundedness and variability shared in different ways and for different reasons by ‘our field of vision’ (i.e., our L-horizon) and by ‘the scope of our knowledge, and the range of our interests’ (i.e., our M-horizon), and goes on to suggest that it is those two points of analogy (boundedness and variability) which explain why a ‘metaphorical or perhaps analogous’ meaning of the word ‘horizon’ (i.e., the concept of an M-horizon) has arisen. There is really no reason to suppose that the concept of horizon Lonergan habitually employed, which is the concept of an M-horizon, has the slightest implication of the counterpositional myth that ‘knowing is seeing’.
Fourthly, it may well happen that the primary image a particular person (such as yourself, perhaps) associates with the concept of an M-horizon is a visual image of an L-horizon. But I’m confident you will agree that the concept is not the image anyone associates with it, any more than the intelligible form grasped by insight into an image is the image in which, by an insight, one grasps intelligible form.
It would seem, then, that the ‘risk’ that Lonergan’s use of the concept of an M-horizon will convey, foster or reinforce the mythical idea that knowing is looking arises only for persons who either (i) are confusing concept and image, i.e., the concept of an M-horizon with some image of an L-horizon they associate with it even though it doesn’t correspond to it, or (ii) are failing to distinguish the two different concepts of horizon and the two different kinds of horizon the concepts signify--or, to put it another way, are taking the metaphorical concept of horizon literally. Otherwise it seems very hard, if not impossible, for a person who has understood what an M-horizon is and is thinking about what an M-horizon is to suppose that the use of the concept of an M-horizon, as explained in these passages by Lonergan, in any way implies ‘the basic counterposition’ that knowing is a matter of looking.
(iii) In a post addressed primarily to you and to John on 18 April, I reminded you of something you said in a post of 30 January 2013 (italics added by me):
“I am not at all surprised that there are members of the Lonergan community who disagree with me about this. Nor am I surprised that, so far, no one who disagrees with me has been able to explain what Lonergan meant by ‘horizon’ in a way that does not include the metaphor ‘Knowing Is Seeing’.”
I then added, “I hope I may have surprised you!”
That is, I have explained what Lonergan meant by an M-horizon in a way that shows that it does not include what you call the conceptual metaphor KNOWING IS SEEING.
I’m still wondering: did I surprise you?
With best wishes,
Gerard
From: loner...@googlegroups.com [mailto:loner...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Richard Moodey
Sent: 04 May 2016 15:59
To: Lonergan_L <loner...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Hi Gerard,
--
Jaray...@aol.com
[1] Giovanni Sala, Theological Aspects of Bernard Lonergan’s Method in Theology, tr. Donald E. Buzzelli www.lonergan.org/dialogue_partners/Sala/theological_aspects_of_bernard_l.htm For Lonergan, there is an inversion in the way conversion would ordinarily occur. Logically, “religious conversion should come last, since it is the culmination of the human spirit’s natural movement of self-transcendence. But in the real order God . . . takes the initiative”. It leads to religious conversion, then “expands in different ways into all of human life—into free and responsible choices, and finally into the reordering of one’s explicit criterion for knowledge and truth.”
(John)
Jaray...@aol.com
[1] Our GEM-FS bridge focuses first on person-to-person relations. Relations between collectivities are more difficult to bridge because collectivities can only act through their representatives and agents (individual persons empowered to speak and act in the name of the larger collectivity). This requires a degree of political organization of the collectivity as has been argued by Voegelin. Dick Moodey, following Robert Swanson, argues that “every organized collectivity, large or small, has a constitution which in many cases is not formally articulated in documents.” The constitution of a collectivity should specify who can represent it with what degree of jurisdiction; mutual trust is essential when trying to bridge (overcome) our time age-old differences. For Moodey, science can't save the world! https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lonergan_l/hKDunkR8FYU Science’s proper goal is knowing the world better. The more we know, the more effective our actions are likely to be, but there is a big gap between what we know and power-holders' decisions. To the extent that their decisions promote their personal or factional interests, scientific knowledge as such will make no difference. Lonergan knew that powerful decision-makers worldwide are biased. Sociologists have no special knowledge about how to counteract individual, group, or general biases that corrupt our decision-makers' consciences. Still, their input is helpful in an interdisciplinary effort such as this book’s.
Gerard O'Reilly
Dick, John, and all,
In response to John’s request in a post from another thread this morning (‘I wonder whether Gerard would comment on the very pointed, INTRICATE questions he asked Dick a couple of months ago to clarify. Perhaps he could resubmit his questions or do so in more compact form.’), I resubmit here (see below) my last post to Dick in the ‘horizon and metaphor’ thread, with some very minor omissions.
Rather than me making further comment on the questions at this point, I think it’s up to you, Dick, to consider and respond to the questions I asked you—if you wish to continue our discussion and have the time, energy and interest to do so.
With best wishes,
Gerard
From: loner...@googlegroups.com [mailto:loner...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Gerard O'Reilly
Sent: 06 May 2016 14:51
To: loner...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Dick,
Thanks for your response. No need whatever to apologize for the delay. I realize you must be very busy.
<SNIP>
</SNIP>
Richard Moodey
Hi Gerard,
I have delayed far too long in reponding to your post of April 8th. I agree with your hope that ARGUMENT IS WAR will not be a metaphor “we live by.” Argument as a form of civil, or even ecumenical, conversation can be what Sertillanges called “a prayer unto truth.”
Your working hypothesis that what I wrote about the literal meaning of “horizon” and the metaphorical or analogous meanings still reflects my thinking. I appreciate the way you have pulled together the passages in which Lonergan wrote about metaphor and about horizon as metaphor.
It seems to me that you recognize that I want to distancing myself from the phrase “mere metaphor.” I say this because true sentences can contain metaphorical expressions, just as false sentences can contain literal expressions. To ask of a declarative sentence “Is it true?” results in a different kind of judgment than to ask of that sentence “Does in contain any metaphorical expressions?” The answer “yes” to the second question does not make it more probable that I will answer “no” to the first.
In his chapter on “The Notion of Judgment,” Lonergan says: “The king is dead” and “Der König ist tot.” There are two sentences, but only one proposition. I want to propose another two sentences that express the same proposition: (1) “When a person experiences intellectual conversion, his horizon will be expanded.” (2) “When a person experiences intellectual conversion, he will ask and try to answer many more questions than he did before his conversion.” Another might translate the first sentence differently by talking about the scope of a person’s interests rather than the numbers of questions he will ask. If we conversed about our different translations, we might come to an agreement about how one translation of the metaphorical sentence might be better than another.
I refrain from using “horizon” to signify the scope of a person’s interests, but I do not assume that I have the right to tell others not to use it this way. I agree that it is a convenient metaphor. I might be inclined to use it if I felt that I had the space to add that KNOWING IS SEEING can be understood as an affirmation of the basic counterposition. Lonergan was very critical of this metaphor, not because it is a metaphor, but because of the image of knowing and being it can generate. It can generate naive realism, the belief that reality is what is already out there now, real, and that to know this reality all I have to do is to take a good look at it. He says, and I say: reality is known, not by looking carefully, but by judging reasonably.
As to the charge of embracing a “self-destructive relativism,” I claim to be an epistemological and ontological realist. To explain my position, I will contrast it with what I understand Aristotle to have held. (If you judge my interpretation of Aristotle to be faulty, then I am willing to admit to having constructed a straw man in order to define my position by contrasst.)
Aristotle denied that matter and form could be physically separated, even though he affirmed a conceptual distinction between them -- no form can exist apart from some matter, and “prime matter” does not exist apart from some form (hylomorphism). In his parable of the sculptor and his statue, the form of the statue first informs the sculptor’s mind or soul. It is not an essential form of the man, but an accidental form. The essential form of the man stands as matter to the accidental form of the statue.
By carving the marble, the sculptor informs the marble with the identical form that is in his mind. “Identical” I understand in the strong sense; it is not a “copy” of the mental form, but the “same” form informing different matter. Matter is the principle of differentiation – one pig differs from another because the one essential form informs two (empirically) distinct bits of matter.
When the viewer of the statue sees it, the identical form is now present as an accidental form in the soul of the viewer. The very same form informs the mind of the sculptor, the marble, and the mind of the viewer.
(This doctrine has been influential in the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. When “transubstantiation” occurs in Mass, the essential form of the bread is replaced by the incarnate Jesus – body/human soul/Divine essence. The accidental forms of the bread, however, remain. Each person who consumes the consecrated host consumes the one incarnate God. This is why Catholic theologians reject the claim that the Eucharist is a symbol of Christ.)
My understanding of modern science leads me to deny the truth of Aristotle’s notion of form, but also leads me to affirm the necessity of affirming the truth of a different notion of form. To give just one example, evolutionary theory requires that I understand how the forms of biological species change. Slight differences in the forms (as expressed in the genetic code) of members of the same biological species result in differentitial rates of survival for the different varieties, which results in changes in the essential form of the species. Instead of using “form,” I now say that the “information” contained in the genes of an individual is what shapes both the development of individuals – I don’t mean to deny epigenesis, however -- and the shaping of the different molecules that “flow through” our bodies continuously.
I don’t regard my beliefs about evolution to be “self-destructively relativistic,” even though I assert that different individuals in a species have slightly different DNA sequences. These differences are very slight: I haven’t done the experimental work, but I believe the geneticists who tell me that genetic differences between any two contemporary humans amounts to different locations of just two nucleotides per thousand. Fruit flies (the victems of countless genetic studies) have ten times that. The genetic differences between any two fruit flies is probably greater than the genetic differences between a human and a chimp.
I say that the genetic differences between two persons (with the exception of identical twins) living in the same household are less than the psychological difference between those same two persons. This is the domain in which a critic is likely to say that my position to be self-destructively relativistic. I say that the psychological differences between any two persons are the result of differences in their learning histories. Each experience, whether passive or active, is a learning experience, and each learning experience leaves a residue. I say “residue” rather than “memory” because of the association of “memory” with something I can consciously recall. The vast majority of the residues of earlier experiences can’t be consciously remembered.
You are correct that Lakoff and Johnson (1980; 1999) have influenced me a great deal. I agree with their rejection of the notion of the disembodied mind , and with their emphasis on an “empirically responsible philosophy.” They say (1999, 551-552): “The question is clear: Do you choose empirical responsibility or a priori philosophical assumptions? Most of what you believe about philosophy and much of what you believe about life will depend on your answer. We have been arguing for an empirically responsible philosophy—a philosophy informed by an ongoing critical engagement with the best empirical science available.” I have always read Lonergan as advocating an empirically responsible philosophy, and as having gone beyond Lakoff and Johnson by distinguishing empirical method as understood in the physical sciences from generalized empirical method.
This has been a long response, and I hope it has not strayed too far from the questions to which you wanted me to respond. If I have failed to answer a question or criticism, please let me know.
Best regards
On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 8:15:51 AM UTC-4, gerard wrote:
Dick,
May we explore a bit your interpretation and criticism of Lonergan’s ‘metaphorical’ use of the word ‘horizon’?
It’s an interesting topic. It’s also one that you’ve been raising for well over three years on the list, one that seems to be important to you, and one (perhaps one of many!) on which you appear to have found the replies you’ve received here unsatisfactory and frustrating. You even said in a recent post (23 March) replying to Lowell,
“I do not know of anyone who has even hinted that I might be on to something in saying that all the talk about "horizons" is using the language of the counterposition that knowing is some kind of taking a look.”
I can understand your frustration at some of the answers you have received in connection with the topic. For example, answers that have laid stress on ‘mere metaphor’ have also struck me as downplaying the significance of the issues you raise, and answers that have suggested or perhaps even assumed you are drawing a contrast between metaphor and truth as part of a naive and self-destructive relativism have been (at least as I understand matters)
been to that extent misconstruing you and jumping hastily to conclusions.
Lonergan’s use of and understanding of metaphor do seem to me to form an important topic. Though he says relatively little directly about metaphor, I think, some of the things he does say clearly reflect a recognition of its importance.
In Insight, for example, he says, “It is true that nearly all we say is metaphor” (Collected Works edition, p. 568).
In ‘Dimensions of Meaning’ in Collection (CW4), on p. 241, he writes:
“Classical culture...distinguished the literal and the figurative meanings of words and phrases, and it conveyed more than a suggestion that literal meaning is somehow first, while figurative meaning is a dress or ornament that makes the literal meaning more striking, more vivid, more effective. Perhaps it was Giambattista Vico in his Scienza nuova that first put forward the contrary view by proclaiming the priority of poetry.”
Similarly, in Method (p. 73), “With Giambattista Vico, then, we hold for the priority of poetry. Literal meaning literally expressed is a later ideal and only with enormous effort and care can it be realized.”
Later in the same work (p. 343), the first of two aspects of the second of the two positive functions of a critical metaphysics he mentions is that “it provides a criterion for distinguishing for settling the difference between literal and metaphorical meaning.”
As well as being an important topic, it’s also a very big topic to explore, partly because of its connections with a number of fundamental issues in Lonergan’s thought, and partly because of the considerable influence on you of the whole approach to metaphor of Lakoff & Johnson in their books Metaphors We Live By (1980) and Philosophy in the Flesh (1999), which has shaped the way you conceptualize the problem.
Because it’s such a big topic, one obviously cannot say everything relevant at once. So
in this particular post (i) I will not address myself to any of the complex issues arising from Lakoff & Johnson’s books. (It’s been many years since I studied parts of those books, so I need to do some homework/revision to be able to discuss their views intelligently). (ii) Nor will I yet respond directly to your criticisms of Lonergan’s use of the word ‘horizon’, e.g., that in his metaphoric use of it, he is, as you put it, “using the language of the counterposition” and thereby suggesting that knowing is looking (despite his fundamental and repeated rejection of any such idea).
Rather, (iii) I will focus on raising for closer discussion the narrower, and in some respects clearly prior, issue of what Lonergan meant when he compared and contrasted what he called the literal sense of ‘horizon’ and ‘a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the term’ in Method in Theology (pp. 235-36) which you have discussed in various posts, and in a nearly identical passage from an earlier lecture
of his, presented in 1968, during the period when he was working on Method entitled ‘Horizons’, which you discussed here in a post of 20 April 2013.
First, I give the passage (Collected Works, vol. 17, pp. 10-11) from the 1968 lecture on ‘Horizons’, where Lonergan says:
(Passage A)
“Literally, the horizon is the line where apparently earth and sky meet. It is the boundary of one’s field of vision. And, as one moves about, this boundary recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different horizons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and horizon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen.
As our field of vision, so too the range of our interests and the scope of our knowledge are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one’s standpoint, so too the range of one’s interests and the scope of one’s knowledge vary with the period in which one lives, with one’s social background and milieu, with one’s education and personal development. In this fashion, there has arisen a metaphorical or analogous meaning of the word ‘horizon’. In this sense, what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s interests and knowledge: one knows nothing about it and one cares less. And what lies within one’s horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge.”
At the beginning of a somewhat fuller treatment of the contrast in Method (pp. 235-36), he writes in only very slightly different fashion:
(Passage B)
“In its literal sense the word, horizon, denotes the bounding circle, the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one’s field of vision. As one moves about, it recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different horizons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and horizon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen.
As our field of vision, so too the scope of our knowledge, and the range of our interests are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one’s standpoint, so too the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests vary with the period in which one lives, one’s social background and milieu, one’s education and personal development. So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one’s horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge.”
Let me now present three passages from posts of yours to the list, in which you have expressed and/or argued for your understanding of these paragraphs. I am inclined to adopt the working hypothesis that each of these passages still represent your view of what Lonergan says. But, partly because they come from posts over a period of three years, I’d be grateful if you could let me know whether that working hypothesis is correct. (I would not want to waste your time by analysing or criticizing views you longer hold!) You may well, of course, still stand by what you asserted but also wish to clarify some details of the expression of those views.
If you would be happy to do that, I can then comment relevantly on your interpretation. The three passages I’ve picked out are these:
(i) In a post on 7 January 1913, you wrote, “Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing, but his use of the horizon metaphor draws more heavily upon the similarities. My criticism of the horizon metaphor emphasizes the differences.”
(ii) In a post of 20 April 2013, you quoted the 1968 version of the second paragraph, and then immediately went on to say:
“The metaphorical or analogous meaning of ‘horizon’ that Lonergan is explicating is complex. In what follows, I argue that Lonergan’s text here involves more that just a use of metaphorical language, but is an argument from analogy.
Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process. More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks, and between differences between persons in terms of three factors: (1) the differences in the periods in which each person has lived, (2) the differences in the social backgrounds and milieus of persons, and (3) the differences in education and personal development of persons. Each of these there ways in which persons can differ is analogous to looking from a different spatial location. Each of these three kinds of differences results in a difference in a person’s metaphorical horizon. It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it. Lonergan insists again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same person can change what she knows and cares about. No person’s horizon is fixed forever. Just as when a boat sails west, causing westerly things to rise above, and easterly things to fall below, the horizon of a passenger, so also a knower can move metaphorically so as to become interested in new things, and uninterested in old things.”
(iii) In a very recent post (24 March 2016), you write:
‘Lonergan says (MiT 236):
"So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge." The source domain of the horizon metaphor is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one's field of vision" (MiT 235). This is why I say that the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests."’
Gerard O'Reilly
Hi, Dick.
You haven’t “delayed far too long” in replying to my initial 8 April post on this topic. You replied to it on 11 April, and in that reply you answered the main question in my post, which was whether the quotes from earlier posts of yours that I included in my message still represented your position on Lonergan on ‘horizon’, as you had interpreted his statements in Method (pp. 235-6) and his earlier 1968 lecture (CWL17, pp. 10-11). And the point of that question was to enable me to address your interpretation of Lonergan’s account in those passages of his ‘metaphorical or perhaps analogical’ use of the word ‘horizon’. As I said then, I did not want to waste your time by analysing or criticizing views you no longer held.
Your answer to that question was that your position had not substantially changed. Having established that much, I proceeded in subsequent posts to give an interpretation of those passages, arguing in some detail for my interpretation and in criticism of some of your comments on those passages and, in particular, against your repeated claim that that in his metaphoric use of ‘horizon’, Lonergan is, as you put it, “using the language of the counterposition” (despite his fundamental and repeated rejection of any such idea) and thereby suggesting that knowing is looking.
I am referring particularly to my post of 15 April, and (in reply to a post from you on 4 May) another fairly lengthy post on 6 May. In the latter post, as well recapitulating more compendiously some of the points made in my 15 April post, I expressed (i) my disappointment that you had neither commented on the interpretation of those passages that I offered nor answered any of the specific questions I asked, and (ii) my hope that you would be able at some point to find time to consider carefully and respond to the interpretation and arguments I had put forward.
I remain hopeful, even though my hopes were again disappointed by your latest post.
You say at the end of your post, “I hope it has not strayed too far from the questions to which you wanted me to respond. If I have failed to answer a question or criticism, please let me know.” Well, I am letting you know! The only question of mine you answered in that post was the one which (as I mentioned above) you had already answered on 11 April. Granted, you responded to a charge of embracing a self-destructive relativism, but that was not a charge I had brought against you in my posts. Rather than be sidetracked by getting involved in answering what you say in your post in response to that charge, I will stubbornly try to persist in keeping to the topic and simply repeat my hope that you will be able at some point to find time to consider carefully and respond to the interpretation and arguments I put forward in my posts of 15 April and 6 May, both of which were included in my post of yesterday sent at John’s request. But perhaps you are working on that, even as I tap away at my keyboard!
With best wishes,
Gerard
Jaray...@aol.com
The historical fact is that any text that was written before the scientific revolution (for instance) will differ according to the differentiation of consciousness that has or has not transpired in history up to the time of that writing. Hence, in the quote below, Lonergan talks about the different "patterns of experience." So that we refer to "theology" today. But when we try to understand the Gnostic texts written in pre-scientific-revolutionary times and don't account for the historical differences of time and place, we are likely to misunderstand from the get-go.
And to your later reference to Gnosticism today, it's the same issue. The "tradition" may have "persisted" today, but it will have changed under the same historical principles. Accordingly, if we don't understand different historical "registers of meaning" (as Sara says), then we are likely to begin our study with a huge set of misunderstandings in place as the assumptive backdrop of our study. We will assume our own state of differentiation of mind and import it on their texts.
Or, referring again to that ABCDE text from Insight, our attempt to understand A will be understood well or not according to whether or not we understand something of THEIR BCDE, and by implication something of our own." End quoting Catherine.
Catherine three points again reflect the one telling presupposition in much if not all of Dick's postings. Dick is good in the various sociological insights in the first phase of functional specialization... but somehow some of the most important aspects of MiT's second phase get left out, are passed over... Maybe Gerard can briefly comment on this and whether it is relevant to differentiating a literal horizon from a metaphorical-analogical one. L is not speaking from a counterpositonal "seeing is knowing".
"Horizon" plays a very important role in various passages in MiT, e. g. L's comments on "genetically distinctt horizons" beginning p. 257, where he amplifies on the realms of meaning and on fully differentiated consciousness to which Catherine alludes,
John
Richard Moodey
Richard Moodey
Hi Gerard,
I’m going to quote your post selectively, recognizing that by doing this I might again miss some questions to which you want me to respond. If I do, please let me know.
Gerard: In the context of the book [Method] as a whole, the main reason why
Lonergan's discussion of his metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon here is
important is its intimate relation to another key notion in Method, conversion, which is
discussed explicitly in the next section of this chapter and characterized as a
kind of horizon-shift, as well as playing a key role in the functional
specialty of Foundations, which is concerned with objectifying the horizon(s)
implicit in conversion(s).
Dick: I follow what you say here, and agree with it up to the final phrase: “which is concerned with objectifying the horizon(s) implicit in conversion (s).” About this phrase, I have to ask what you mean by “objectifying the horizon(s).” The meaning I attribute to this phrase is to make horizon(s) the object of inquiry. There is a meaning of “objectifying” used by some sociologists (P.A. Sorokin; Berger and Luckmann) that involves making something that had been private an “object” in the public domain. Sorokin gives the example of Newton’s discovery of the laws of motion. He “objectified” this discovery by writing and publishing his hitherto private insights (Sorokin called insights “mental integrations”). I don’t think either Lonergan or you mean this exactly. Do you mean, or do you think Lonergan meant, something more than making “horizon(s)” an object (or objects) of inquiry by asking questions about it (them)?
Gerard: Chapter 10, on Dialectic, as the two introductory
paragraphs that precede the section on Horizons indicate, “deals with
conflicts”. But “not all opposition is dialectical.” Some differences “will be
eliminated by uncovering fresh data”. Other, ‘perspectival’, differences
“merely witness to the complexity of historical reality”. Still, “beyond these
there are fundamental conflicts stemming from an explicit or implicit
cognitional theory, an ethical stance, a religious outlook”, which it is the
function of dialectic to bring to light and objectify (p. 235).
Dick: Again, this verb that
I’m not sure I fully understand. It seems to me that you (and Lonergan) mean
something beyond making these kinds of oppositions objects of knowing by
asking, and seeking to answer, questions about them. I get a strong hint of a
notion of a process (objectifying) that results in “products” (objects). But I
believe that Lonergan means the objects of kinds of intentional acts listed on
p. 6: “seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, inquiring, imagining,
understanding, conceiving, formulating, reflecting, marshalling and weighing
the evidence, judging, deliberting, evaluating, deciding, speaking, writing.”
He adds on p. 7 that these are transitive, not just grammatically, “but also in
the psychological sense that by the operation one becomes aware of the
object.” My question, then, is how
does dialectic objectify anything in a way that differs from the way each of
the operations listed on p. 6 objectifies the objects of intentional acts?
[You provide a very clear exposition of the literal meaning of horizon. And repeat several times the phrase, “visible objects,” which are objects of the kind of knowing we have in common with other animals, but not the distinctively human kind of knowing that is Lonergan’s principal object of inquiry. Your account of the contrast between the literal and metaphorical (or perhaps analogous) meanings of “horizon” is equally clear and convincing.]
Gerard: Notice in respect of this meaning (sense 2) of
‘horizon’, in contrast with the literal sense, that
(i) knowledge is explicitly mentioned as an intrinsic part of the
characterization of the second sense of ‘horizon’;
(ii) in the characterization of sense 2 vision
drops out of the picture and is not mentioned;
(iii) the new sense of 'horizon' is introduced
by an analogy, not to the literal horizon which is a line, but to field of
vision bounded by that line; and indeed
(iv) the characterization of sense 2 makes no
reference to a line.
Dick: This is an excellent
way of spelling out the difference between the two meanings.
Gerard: Still, though a horizon (in sense 2) is, unlike a
horizon in sense 1, not a line, even a metaphorical one, notions of ‘beyond’
and ‘within’ still apply. The difference is that in the metaphorical/analogical
sense (sense 2), it is a question of something being outside ('beyond') or
within an area, a field, whereas in the
literal sense 1, it is a question of something lying 'beyond' (i.e., on the far
side of) or 'within' it (i.e., on the near side of) a line.
Dick: I bring in Lakoff and Johnson here. “Horizon” in both sense 1 and sense 2 are specific instances of the container metaphor, a primary metaphor or a “schema” in their language. The container schema is systematicaly related to the “in-out” schema. In Metaphors We Live By, they discuss (with many examples) container metaphors from pp. 29 to 32, in their chapter “Ontological Metaphors.” In Philosophy in the Flesh, they discuss “container schema logic” on pp. 32 ff.
Gerard: We can, I take it, call
this comparison between the two kinds of horizon (two senses of ‘horizon’) the
drawing of an analogy between the two. But, as you have pointed out before,
with analogies generally, the analogy will not be complete. There will be points
of analogy (similarity) and points of disanalogy (dissimilarity). I
strongly agree with you that to understand what's going on with Lonergan's use
of 'horizon', we need to examine both the similarities and the differences.
That is why I am exploring both in an effort to understand accurately and
distinguish between between the literal use and Lonergan's main use. You seem
to prefer to put it, following Lakoff and Johnson, as a question of the
similarities and differences between the source domain and the target domain of
the 'conceptual metaphor'. (I agree that that can be a very useful approach in
analysing metaphorical language and thought, but I won't address in this post
the question of precisely what similarities and differences there may between that
approach and what I am doing here.)
Dick: Although we agree on the importance of spelling out, as far as is possible, the similarities and differences between the analogues, there might be an important difference between our positions that is suggested by what I take to be scare quotes around “conceptual metaphor.” I use that combination of words confidently, rather than in the sense of “so-called conceptual metaphor.” I do so because I am convinced that I habitually think metaphorically, in addition to using metaphors in my speaking and writing. A further difference lies in the importance I attach to distinguishing between the target and source domains. An analogy may or may not be directional, but a metaphor is always directional. That is, it has a from-to structure. In the case of “horizon,” my thinking moves from the literal sense of the visible objects within the range of my vision to the sense of the scope of my interests. Put differently, I do not understand the literal sense of “horizon” by moving from the scope of my interests to the visible objects I can see. I put this in the first person singular because I want to leave open the possibility that your personal self-appropriation leads you to say that you do go from the scope of your interests to your understanding of “horizon” as signifying the visible objects contained within your field of vision.
You make four points about disanalogies a
literal sense and Lonergan’s metaphorical sense of “horizon” with which I
agree. In my first version of this
response, I had quoted each followed with “I agree.” I decided to shorten my
post by inserting this summary statement. I do quote, however, parts of your
statement of the fifth disanalogy.
Gerard: …. Thus he notes (p. 236), “Differences in horizon may be complementary, or genetic, or dialectical.”
Dick: By this I understand Lonergan to mean: Differences between the scope of interests of different persons may be completmentary or dialectical, and differences between the scope of interests of the same person at different times my be genetic.
Gerard: Complementary differences of horizon relate to the division of cognitive labour “needed for the functioning of a communal world”.
Dick: This is why I attribute such differences to the different persons whose division of labor works for the benefit of a community.
Gerard: Genetically different horizons are “related as successive stages in some process of development”, where later horizons partly include and partly transform earlier horizons.
Dick: I attribute this to individuals, because I believe L was thinking about the stages of individual development, primarily. However, he might have been thinking about the process of development of a collectivity, and to the extent that he was, my position might very well be in dialectical opposition to his.
Gerard: But the key kind of difference in this context is the dialectical one: “Thirdly, horizons may be opposed dialectically. What in one is found intelligible, in another is unintelligible. What for one is true, for another is false. What for one is good, for another is evil.” (p. 236)
Dick: This is primarily about the conflicting horizons of different persons, and only secondarily about conflicting horizons of the same person. The primacy of differences between persons is exemplified by “What for one is true, for another is false, ….” I contend, however, that there can be dialectical oppositions between the metaphorical horizons of the same person, when we take into account Lonergan’s discussion of patterns of experience. We have often alluded to the contrast between the common sense and intellectual patterns of experience. There is a dialectical relationship between being concerned about what is concrete, short-range, and practical and being concerned about what is abstract, long-range and theoretical. Without going into detail, I believe that the relations between the different patterns of experience in which I find myself at different times is dialectical.
Gerard: Note the reference here to the intelligible, the
true, the good (and their contraries), i.e., to the objects intended by the
second, third and fourth levels of conscious intentionality (intelligence,
reasonableness, and responsibility) in Lonergan’s terminology, and the fact
that those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon’.
Dick: Although I agree with what I think you mean here, I want to translate it into my idiom. I prefer to say that when I am being intelligent, reasonable and responsible I am asking different kinds of questions: (1) intelligent: What is it? What is its nature? (2) reasonable: Is it true? Is it good? (3) responsible: What shall I do? Asking these different kinds of questions puts me into different kinds of personal states. What Lonergan calls “different levels of conscience intentionality,” I prefer to call “different kinds of personal states.” A major difference between the formulation I prefer and Lonergan’s formulation is that I avoid the metaphor of “levels.” This is a spatial metaphor, as is the horizon metaphor.
The image that the combination of these metaphors evokes for me is that of changing horizons, not by being on the deck of a ship that moves from on place to another, but of getting into a helicopter on the deck of a stationary ship, and rising up to a higher altitude. At the level of being intelligent, I am no longer seeing objects, but am asking and answering questions about the essential natures of things. Then I ask the pilot to take me to a still higher altitude, where I can be reasonable. At this altitude, my horizon is no longer constituted by asking questions about the natures of things, but by asking whether or not the answers I have gotten by direct insights are true or false, or, if I have been asking practical questions, whether or not each of the alternative courses of action are good or bad (or, in the moral sense, good or evil). Then I ask the pilot to go to a still higher altitude in which I am attempting to be responsible by making my decisions either to do something or to avoid doing something conform to my judgments about which courses of action are good and which courses of action are bad – or evil.
So, when you say “those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon,’” I understand you to mean that there are layers of horizons, analogous to the layers of a cake. A person moves from a “lower” layer to a “higher” one by asking different kinds of questions.
By proposing an alternative formulation, I abandon the spatial metaphor of higher and lower levels. However, I acknowledge that I am still using a container metaphor, because, as Lakoff and Johnson say, we imagine states as metaphorical containers. So when I say that asking “Is it true?” puts me in a different deliberative state than asking “What is its nature?”, I do not claim that this idiom eliminates conceptual metaphors.
Lonergan uses another spatial metaphor as an alternative to “levels” – that of expansion. When I ask about the nature of something, I do not thereby eliminate my perceptions, but expand my “horizon” beyond what can be seen, heard, touched, etc. And when I have formulated the results of my insights into the nature of something, I do not thereby eliminate the results of my perceptions and my insights, but expand my “horizon” to include the conditions that must be satisfied for me to affirm or deny the truth or goodness of the object being considered. Further, when I ask “What shall I do?”, I do not thereby eliminate the results of perceptions, insights, and judgments, but expand my horizon from just knowing something to doing something. This is what Hamlet failed to do: "The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought." He understood and judged, but couldn't decide.
I have to concede, however, that the picture of the helicopter rising to ever higher altitudes can be harmonized with my picture of ever expanding horizons. This is because we can see further from a higher altitude than we can from a lower altitude, and rising to the higher altitude does not cause us to lose sight of those things we saw from the surface, but puts them into a larger context. [I’m sorry that this response has been so long!]
Gerard: After describing in three successive paragraphs those three ways in which horizons differ (not in the literal sense but in the metaphorical or analogical sense Lonergan is interested in), he concludes the discussion in the final paragraph of the chapter section (p. 237): “Horizons, finally, are the structured resultant of past achievement and, as well, both the condition and the limitation of further development." Again, horizons in the literal sense do not depend on past achievement--it's simply a matter of where an appropriately visually endowed animal, human or otherwise, happens to be. Nor is one's literal horizon related to development.
Dick: I agree.
Gerard: (i) In a post on 7 January 1913, you wrote, “Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing, but his use of the horizon metaphor draws more heavily upon the similarities. My criticism of the horizon metaphor emphasizes the differences.” First, I agree that Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing. But, secondly, in the light of my interpretation and explanation of those key paragraphs on which we have now both commented, I cannot agree that Lonergan, in his use of the word 'horizon' "draws more heavily upon the similarities".
Dick: You have persuaded me. I agree that Lonergan does an excellent job of bringing out the differences as well as the similarities. And I agree that “occasional deviations seem to be the exception rather than the rule.”
Gerard: Thirdly, you say that your criticism of Lonergan's use of 'horizon' emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing. But, as should already be clear from what I have argued above, it seems to me from what you say that your criticism doesn't really touch the metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon which Lonergan is almost invariably using, and which he has been careful to contrast with the literal visual concept in the ways I have been elucidating in some detail.
Dick: Your comments have helped me to think through my position in a way that I had not previously been able to express very clearly. I spend a great deal of my time either teaching classes to undergraduates, preparing for these classes and evaluating – in a variety of ways – what my students have and have not learned. In my post on this list-serve, my criticisms of Lonergan’s use of “horizon” have been addressed to an audience of men and women who know his philosophy well enough that you are very unlikely to take the counter-position, “knowing is nothing more than taking a look.” I deal with students who, for the most part, are mostly naïve realists who believe that, somehow, “the facts speak of themselves.” For them, knowing the facts better is a matter of looking at them more carefully. Others are, in Allan Bloom's terms, "cheerful nihilists." I avoid using the horizon metaphor in my attempts to lead students into personal self-appropriation – the shorter, rather than the longer journey, in Catherine’s terms. I explain the transcendental precepts without using either the horizons metaphor or the levels metaphor. They do not have the background to make the distinctions that you have brought out so well. I have had some success in convincing my students – some of my students – that knowing is completed by judging rather than by looking more carefully. I will continue to avoid using the horizon metaphor with them, except in the case of the rare student who actually reads things Lonergan has written.
Gerard: To be sure, it is natural enough to describe Lonergan's meaning (sense 2) as a metaphorical concept (a collocation, by the way, that Lakoff and Johnson, in the early chapters at least of Metaphors We Live By, appear to use interchangeably with 'conceptual metaphor'). Among other things, it is atransferred concept deriving originally from the image of a literal horizon, though significantly different from a literal horizon in the ways required by the new meaning. (Note the virtual identity of 'literal' meaning between the Latin transferre and the Greek metapherein--'to carry across'. The word 'metaphor' itself turns out to be in a way metaphorical!)
Dick: Yes, there are hidden metaphors in the word “metaphor.” The way Lonergan complements Lakoff and Johnson is in his emphasis on the personal acts of expriencing, understanding, judging, deciding and loving. The relations between the source domain (horizon as the container of visible objects) and the target domain (horizon as the scope of personal interests) can only be grasped by acts of understanding. I emphasize the plurals, “relations,” and “acts,” because the power of metaphorical language and metaphoric thinking (using conceptual metaphors) depends upon insights into both the similarities and the differences between the source and target. You say much the same in the following:
Gerard: Still, the way in which a new meaning or use is
metaphorical by origin (whatever else we may say about its meaning as used) is
important, because we need to consider not just how the inventor of the use
came upon it by thinking metaphorically, but also how its meaning comes to be
understood by others (by insight) as part of the explanation of how its meaning
'spreads' and becomes conventional.
Dick: It seems to me that we agree on the importance of maintaining the connection between insights and metaphors.
Gerard: I suggest that it commonly happens with the generation of new meaning by metaphor, that the image associated with a literal concept (in this case, horizon) provides a phantasm in which one can intellectually grasp, with the help of an abstraction by which one attends to what is relevant and disregards what is irrelevant, the idea of a different type of horizon, the one which Lonergan wishes the reader to understand and which he conceptualizes largely in terms of the range and scope of a person's knowledge and interests.
Dick: The only thing I want to add to this is that insights depend upon phantasms, and that the abstractions that “help” are the results of insights, and that many of our insights result in “enriching abstractions,” rather than “impoverishing abstractions.” This is saying, in somewhat different words what you say in the following:
Gerard: There is a passage near the end of Chapter 1 of Insight (CW3 at p. 55) which I think is highly relevant to this point:
"Properly, to abstract is to grasp the
essential and to disregard the incidental, to see what is significant and set
aside the irrelevant, to recognize the important as important and the negligible
as negligible... Abstraction is the selectivity of intelligence...
Hence, relative to any given insight or
cluster of insights the essential, significant, important consists (1) in the
set of aspects in the data necessary for the occurrence of the insight or
insights, or (2) in the set of related concepts necessary for the expression of
the insight or insights. On the other hand the incidental, irrelevant,
negligible consists (1) in other concomitant aspects of the data that do not
fall under the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of concepts that
correspond to the merely concomitant aspects of the data."
And again, lower down the same page:
"What alone is essential is insight into
insight. Hence, the incidental includes (1) the particular insights chosen as
examples, (2) the formulation of these insights, and (3) the images evoked by the formulation." (Italics
added.)
In the light of these considerations and on the basis of my reading of Passage A and Passage B and the section of Method in which Passage Boccurs, explained above in some detail, I wonder:
Have you been distracted by the salience and
'visibility' of that whole image of a literal horizon?
Dick: As I said above, I don’t think I have been distracted so much as I have been worried that my students would be distracted.
Gerard: Are you, perhaps for that reason, failing to keep
separate what is essential, significant, and important to having the insight
(into the metaphorical/analogical use of the term) and to conceptualizing the idea
which is its content from the incidental, irrelevant and negligible aspects of
the phantasm which do not carry over into, and are as it were left behind as
irrelevant by, the insight and its conceptualization?
Are you taking as essential to the insight and
the concept a feature that is merely incidental, namely, the images evoked by the formulation?
Dick: No, but I can understand how you or others on this list serve might judge me to have failed in this respect. The difference between what is essential and what is merely incidental is not simply a matter of direct insight, but also a matter for acts of judging. I do not know your insight directly, but only by interpreting the sentences in which you formulate it; you do not know my insight directly, but only only by interpreting my sentences. If our formulations turn out to be expressions of different propositions, rather than just different ways of expression the same proposition, then we are faced with a question for reflection: which hypothetical formulation is more likely to be true? One of the ways our formulations will probably differ is in what is emphasized as being essential and what is left out as merely incidental.
Gerard: (ii) In a post of 20 April 2013, you quoted the 1968 version of the second paragraph, and then immediately went on to say:
[paragraph 1] “The metaphorical or analogous meaning of ‘horizon’ that Lonergan is explicating is complex. In what follows, I argue that Lonergan’s text here involves more tha[n] just a use of metaphorical language, but is an argument from analogy.”
[paragraph 2] “Lonergan
argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and
the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something
about the knowing process. More specifically he argues that there is an analogy
between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial
location from which that person looks, and between differences between
persons in terms of three factors: (1) the differences in the periods in which
each person has lived, (2) the differences in the social backgrounds and
milieus of persons, and (3) the differences in education and personal
development of persons. Each of these there [three] ways in which persons can
differ is analogous to looking from a different spatial location. Each of
these three kinds of differences results in a difference in a person’s
metaphorical horizon. It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or
being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it. Lonergan insists
again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds
the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that
different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same
person can change what she knows and cares about. No person’s horizon is fixed
forever. Just as when a boat sails west, causing westerly things to rise
above, and easterly things to fall below, the horizon of a passenger, so also a
knower can move metaphorically so as to become interested in new things, and
uninterested in old things.”
I
don't disagree with your first paragraph here. I’m less convinced by the
second.
In it, you start by saying, “Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process.” (Italics added.)
I agree that there are some
analogies (as well as disanalogies), as I have tried to make clear, but I see
no evidence in the quoted text or the context that Lonergan is intending to
present us in that paragraph with an argument that the analogy between the two
kinds of horizon tells us or establishes something specifically about the knowing process.
Dick: I say that it tells me something about the knowing process because of the way I connect different metaphorical horizons to differences in the kinds of questions persons ask. This is the result of the way I translate Lonergan’s idiom, as I discussed above. Different kinds of questions are important elements in the knowing process. You are correct, however, in pointing to absence of explicit references in the quoted texts to the structure of the knowing process.
Gerard: The discussion of horizon (in sense 1), after all, makes no explicit reference to knowledge at all, and appears to be introduced and characterized as a means of clarifying by contrast Lonergan’s ‘default’ sense of ‘horizon’ as used in Method. Moreover, the characterization of that sense (sense 2) makes no explicit reference to the structure of human cognition or the like.
I
don’t find the conclusion of an argument of that kind, or indeed the premisses.
So I'm more than a little puzzled by your claim.
Dick: I requote what I quoted immediately before the very long response for which I apologized: “Note the reference here to the intelligible, the true, the good (and their contraries), i.e., to the objects intended by the second, third and fourth levels of conscious intentionality (intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility) in Lonergan’s terminology, and the fact that those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon’. “ It seems to me that you are saying that this three-level structure of conscious intentionality is constitutive of the metaphorical sense of “horizon.”
Gerard: You go on to say, “More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks”, on the one hand, and “differences between persons in terms of three factors” (of period, social milieu and individual background). Though it strikes me as a little odd that you are comparing a change in an individual with differences between different individuals, that's not important enough to dwell on. I agree that the fact that literal horizons and metaphorical horizons can change and differ is a point of analogy, but, as I've pointed out above, the ways in which they do so are strongly contrasted by Lonergan.
Dick: I have already gone into some detail about differences between dialectical differences in one person and differences between persons.
Gerard: (iii)
In a very recent post (24 March 2016), you write: ‘Lonergan says (MiT 236):
"So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the
word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside
the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But
what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an
object of interest and of knowledge." The source domain of the horizon
metaphor is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is
the limit of one's field of vision" (MiT 235). This is why I say that the
image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to
refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests."’
After much thought I'm still not sure how to construe your argument here. I'm really struggling to understand how you get from the statement that the source domain of the 'horizon metaphor' is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet ... the limit of one's field of vision", to the statement that "the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests." That will probably not surprise you, given the interpretation I've offered of the relevant passages.
Are you taking the second statement to be
a more or less immediate inference from the first? I'm not sure whether you
are, but if you are, then it appears that you are assuming that because the
image of knowing as seeing is present in the literal sense of horizon, it must
also be present in the metaphorical/analogical sense. If you are assuming that,
I think my exposition of Lonergan's account of the contrast between the two
concepts of horizon has shown that to be a mistake. (Might it be that you are
failing to distinguish the meaning from the phantasm in which one originally
grasps the meaning, and/or conflating the two concepts or at least failing to
distinguish them clearly, perhaps as a result of thinking of the different
meanings of 'horizon' as together constituting one concept?) As I say, I'm
unclear just what you intend.
Dick: Here is another attempt to clarify where I stand. I do not think that Lonergan meant to say that knowing is taking a look by his use of “horizon,” nor do I think that men and women who know Lonergan well are likely to infer that knowing is taking a look from Lonergan’s use of “horizon.” In my teaching, I think it important to help students to understand that knowing involves experiencing, understanding and judging. I don’t want to use language that leads them to think that knowing is, after all, just taking a look.
Gerard: Are you perhaps taking it that because source domain and target domain are intrinsic explanatory features of a conceptual metaphor, and because there is something in the source domain (the literal sense of 'horizon') that involves seeing, then the feature of seeing must either transfer to the target domain, or at least be intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole, since the metaphor as a whole somehow includes both the literal and the metaphorical use?
Dick: This is a very clearly stated question. I do take source domain and target domain to be essential features of metaphors, but I do not say that everything in the source domain “must transfer to the target domain.” We agree on the importance of insights into differences between source and target, as well as insights into similarities. Then you say “or at least be intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole.” I do believe that the image of seeing the visual objects within the literal horizon is intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole, but deny that this must be transferred to the target domain. My worry is that those who are not fully weaned from the belief that knowing is just taking a look at what’s already out there now might not understand – have the insight – that we do not answer questions for intelligence or questions for reflection just by taking a look at what’s “out there.” The metaphor as a whole must be grasped by readers and hearers by insights into both similarities and differences.
Gerard: I'm very far from
confident that that's what you are intending to say, partly because it's
unclear to me how the KNOWING IS SEEING conceptual metaphor would then fit in.
Is that maybe related to your claim (dubious as an interpretation, I have
argued) in quotation (ii) that Lonergan is arguing from analogy to establish
something about the nature of the knowing process?
Dick: I plead guilty to being unclear about the difference between my interpretation of Lonergan, in the sense of trying to understand – and put into my words -- what he meant by the words he wrote, and my practical judgments about what to say in trying to teach my students – and, in some instances, to communicate to my fellow sociologists – what I think is most important about Lonergan’s philosophy for good social theory. I am sensitive to the implications of “standpoint” because in sociology and anthropology that is a metaphor widely used by theorists who embrace a position that is too relativistic (sometimes nihilistic) for me. I reject "standpoint epistemology."
Gerard: I've gone into quite a fair amount of detail in examining these texts
and your comments, because I think that (i) doing so is necessary if we are to
understand the passages correctly; (ii) establishing a correct understanding of
how Lonergan actually uses 'horizon' is a prerequisite of making a sound
judgement about the existence and nature of any problems that may be implicit
in the way he uses the word; and (iii) without going into interpretative detail
we are unlikely to understand in what respects you and I disagree and why.
Dick: It seems to me that we
disagree very little about the interpretation of Loneran’s texts. Where we
disagree seems to me be in two areas: (1) the practical insight about what to
say to undergraduate students in a one-semester (for me, sociology) course, and (2) the
degree to which abstraction from image or phantasm allows me (or you) to leave
it behind. I suspect that I am more convinced than you are that I can be “captured”
by the images I entertain, and that the images into which I have insights
continue to have an effect on the more abstract concepts that are the products
of my insights. That might be a topic for further exploration.
Best regards,
Dick
On Friday, April 15, 2016 at 9:25:51 AM UTC-4, gerard wrote:
Dick,
Thanks very much for your reply. You'll see that, in the hope of maintaining the focus and preserving the thematic continuity of the discussion, I've brought the main parts of your reply back from the 'staying on track?' thread to the 'horizon and metaphor' thread to which it relates.
I presume from your reply that you still substantially hold to what you said in the comments I picked out from those you have made about Passage A and Passage B cited in my earlier post (see below).
What I'll do, then, in this post is (i) to offer a fairly close reading of Passage B in its context of Section 1 of chapter 10 of Method in Theology, and (ii) make some remarks on the three comments on Passage A and Passage B I quoted from earlier posts of yours. I won't try to deal with other issues you raised in your response just now.
----
In these two passages, Lonergan compares and contrasts the original literal sense of 'horizon' with a later sense which he describes as 'metaphorical or perhaps analogical'--as the version in Method (Passage B) has it. For ease of reference, here it is again:
Passage B:
“In its literal sense the word, horizon, denotes the bounding circle, the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one’s field of vision. As one moves about, it recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different horizons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and horizon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen.
As our field of vision, so too the scope of our knowledge, and the range of our interests are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one’s standpoint, so too the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests vary with the period in which one lives, one’s social background and milieu, one’s education and personal development. So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one’s horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge.”
(i) In a post on 7 January 1913, you wrote, “Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing, but his use of the horizon metaphor draws more heavily upon the similarities. My criticism of the horizon metaphor emphasizes the differences.”
First, I agree that Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing.
But, secondly, in the light of my interpretation and explanation of those key paragraphs on which we have now both commented, I cannot agree that Lonergan, in his use of the word 'horizon' "draws more heavily upon the similarities". In his account of the two concepts of horizon, he acknowledges the similarities between the two senses of horizon (if there were no similarities the two senses would be completely unrelated and the comparison would be pointless) but he emphasizes the differences precisely in order to clarify his meaning, the meaning he wants his readers to understand, by contrast with that of the literal sense discussed there. (l do not say that Lonergan always uses his notion of horizon in ways that are consistent in every point of detail with the passage from Section 1 of chapter 10 of Method that I have discussed--he doesn't--but such occasional deviations seem to be the exception rather than the rule.)
Thirdly, you say that your criticism of Lonergan's use of 'horizon' emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing. But, as should already be clear from what I have argued above, it seems to me from what you say that your criticism doesn't really touch the metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon which Lonergan is almost invariably using, and which he has been careful to contrast with the literal visual concept in the ways I have been elucidating in some detail.
To be sure, it is natural enough to describe Lonergan's meaning (sense 2) as a metaphorical concept (a collocation, by the way, that Lakoff and Johnson, in the early chapters at least of Metaphors We Live By, appear to use interchangeably with 'conceptual metaphor'). Among other things, it is a transferred concept deriving originally from the image of a literal horizon, though significantly different from a literal horizon in the ways required by the new meaning. (Note the virtual identity of 'literal' meaning between the Latin transferre and the Greek metapherein--'to carry across'. The word 'metaphor' itself turns out to be in a way metaphorical!)
In this connection I think it is important to distinguish between a linguistic use being metaphorical by origin and it having by convention a metaphorical meaning and uses. (This could be related to the interesting question why Lonergan speaks of a meaning of 'horizon' which is 'metaphorical or perhaps analogical'. Could he possibly have in mind that it is metaphorical by origin and analogical by meaning? However, I won't digress by trying to answer that question.)
Still, the way in which a new meaning or use is metaphorical by origin (whatever else we may say about its meaning as used) is important, because we need to consider not just how the inventor of the use came upon it by thinking metaphorically, but also how its meaning comes to be understood by others (by insight) as part of the explanation of how its meaning 'spreads' and becomes conventional.
I suggest that it commonly happens with the generation of new meaning by metaphor, that the image associated with a literal concept (in this case, horizon) provides a phantasm in which one can intellectually grasp, with the help of an abstraction by which one attends to what is relevant and disregards what is irrelevant, the idea of a different type of horizon, the one which Lonergan wishes the reader to understand and which he conceptualizes largely in terms of the range and scope of a person's knowledge and interests.
There is a passage near the end of Chapter 1 of Insight (CW3 at p. 55) which I think is highly relevant to this point:
"Properly, to abstract is to grasp the essential and to disregard the incidental, to see what is significant and set aside the irrelevant, to recognize the important as important and the negligible as negligible... Abstraction is the selectivity of intelligence...
Hence, relative to any given insight or cluster of insights the essential, significant, important consists (1) in the set of aspects in the data necessary for the occurrence of the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of related concepts necessary for the expression of the insight or insights. On the other hand the incidental, irrelevant, negligible consists (1) in other concomitant aspects of the data that do not fall under the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of concepts that correspond to the merely concomitant aspects of the data."
And again, lower down the same page:
"What alone is essential is insight into insight. Hence, the incidental includes (1) the particular insights chosen as examples, (2) the formulation of these insights, and (3) the images evoked by the formulation." (Italics added.)
In the light of these considerations and on the basis of my reading of Passage A and Passage B and the section of Method in which Passage B occurs, explained above in some detail, I wonder:
Have you been distracted by the salience and 'visibility' of that whole image of a literal horizon?
Are you, perhaps for that reason, failing to keep separate what is essential, significant, and important to having the insight (into the metaphorical/analogical use of the term) and to conceptualizing the idea which is its content from the incidental, irrelevant and negligible aspects of the phantasm which do not carry over into, and are as it were left behind as irrelevant by, the insight and its conceptualization?
Are you taking as essential to the insight and the concept a feature that is merely incidental, namely, the images evoked by the formulation?
(ii) In a post of 20 April 2013, you quoted the 1968 version of the second paragraph, and then immediately went on to say:
“The metaphorical or analogous meaning of ‘horizon’ that Lonergan is explicating is complex. In what follows, I argue that Lonergan’s text here involves more tha[n] just a use of metaphorical language, but is an argument from analogy.
Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process. More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks, and between differences between persons in terms of three factors: (1) the differences in the periods in which each person has lived, (2) the differences in the social backgrounds and milieus of persons, and (3) the differences in education and personal development of persons. Each of these there ways in which persons can differ is analogous to looking from a different spatial location. Each of these three kinds of differences results in a difference in a person’s metaphorical horizon. It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it. Lonergan insists again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same person can change what she knows and cares about. No person’s horizon is fixed forever. Just as when a boat sails west, causing westerly things to rise above, and easterly things to fall below, the horizon of a passenger, so also a knower can move metaphorically so as to become interested in new things, and uninterested in old things.”
I don't disagree with your first paragraph here. I’m less convinced by the second.
In it, you start by saying, “Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process.” (Italics added.)
I agree that there are some analogies (as well as disanalogies), as I have tried to make clear, but I see no evidence in the quoted text or the context that Lonergan is intending to present us in that paragraph with an argument that the analogy between the two kinds of horizon tells us or establishes something specifically about the knowing process. The discussion of horizon (in sense 1), after all, makes no explicit reference to knowledge at all, and appears to be introduced and characterized as a means of clarifying by contrast Lonergan’s ‘default’ sense of ‘horizon’ as used in Method. Moreover, the characterization of that sense (sense 2) makes no explicit reference to the structure of human cognition or the like. I don’t find the conclusion of an argument of that kind, or indeed the premisses. So I'm more than a little puzzled by your claim.
You go on to say, “More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks”, on the one hand, and “differences between persons in terms of three factors” (of period, social milieu and individual background). Though it strikes me as a little odd that you are comparing a change in an individual with differences between different individuals, that's not important enough to dwell on. I agree that the fact that literal horizons and metaphorical horizons can change and differ is a point of analogy, but, as I've pointed out above, the ways in which they do so are strongly contrasted by Lonergan.
I agree with the following sentence insofar as you are asserting that the three kinds of difference each result in differences in people’s metaphorical horizons (i.e., ‘horizon’, sense 2).
Next, you say, “It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it.” Interesting. I might have said that, in the first place, it is a metaphorical horizon because it’s clearly not a literal horizon! But, be that as it may, Lonergan doesn't actually make such a connection or assert anything to that effect in the passage in question. Still, in putting it as you do, you may be reflecting what I teased out above as the implicit contrast (not made explicit by Lonergan) between the kinds of knowing (animal knowing [perceptual] and properly human knowing [intelligent and reasonable]) relevant respectively to the two kinds of horizon.
You go on to say, “Lonergan insists again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same person can change what she knows and cares about.”
Again, I’m puzzled. If I simply wanted to communicate the two points you mention, I would (I hope!) merely have said them straight out. There is surely not the slightest difficulty in understanding and agreeing with them. Surely it’s more plausible and more to the point to recognize that Lonergan was taking up an already well-established use of ‘horizon’ (whether it be called metaphorical or not, or analogical) and wanted to clarify it by contrast with the literal sense and spell out its implications for his philosophical and methodological purposes, especially in view of the way he is going to use it in connection with his notions of conversion and the functional specialty Foundations.
(iii) In a very recent post (24 March 2016), you write:
‘Lonergan says (MiT 236):
"So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge." The source domain of the horizon metaphor is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one's field of vision" (MiT 235). This is why I say that the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests."’
After much thought I'm still not sure how to construe your argument here. I'm really struggling to understand how you get from the statement that the source domain of the 'horizon metaphor' is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet ... the limit of one's field of vision", to the statement that "the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests." That will probably not surprise you, given the interpretation I've offered of the relevant passages.
Are you taking the second statement to be a more or less immediate inference from the first? I'm not sure whether you are, but if you are, then it appears that you are assuming that because the image of knowing as seeing is present in the literal sense of horizon, it must also be present in the metaphorical/analogical sense. If you are assuming that, I think my exposition of Lonergan's account of the contrast between the two concepts of horizon has shown that to be a mistake. (Might it be that you are failing to distinguish the meaning from the phantasm in which one originally grasps the meaning, and/or conflating the two concepts or at least failing to distinguish them clearly, perhaps as a result of thinking of the different meanings of 'horizon' as together constituting one concept?) As I say, I'm unclear just what you intend.
Are you perhaps taking it that because source domain and target domain are intrinsic explanatory features of a conceptual metaphor, and because there is something in the source domain (the literal sense of 'horizon') that involves seeing, then the feature of seeing must either transfer to the target domain, or at least be intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole, since the metaphor as a whole somehow includes both the literal and the metaphorical use? I'm very far from confident that that's what you are intending to say, partly because it's unclear to me how the KNOWING IS SEEING conceptual metaphor would then fit in. Is that maybe related to your claim (dubious as an interpretation, I have argued) in quotation (ii) that Lonergan is arguing from analogy to establish something about the nature of the knowing process?
Perhaps you can explain the argument better, expanding it to make it clearer to me how you reach the conclusion.
The later parts of what I said above in my response to the first quote from you seem highly relevant here, too, in particular the quotations from Insight, chapter 1, with reference to what is essential, significant, and important to the insight (and its conceptualization) as opposed to what is incidental, irrelevant,and negligible to them, and to the danger of being misled by the merely incidental feature of "the images evoked by the formulation".
-------
I've gone into quite a fair amount of detail in examining these texts and your comments, because I think that (i) doing so is necessary if we are to understand the passages correctly; (ii) establishing a correct understanding of how Lonergan actually uses 'horizon' is a prerequisite of making a sound judgement about the existence and nature of any problems that may be implicit in the way he uses the word; and (iii) without going into interpretative detail we are unlikely to understand in what respects you and I disagree and why.
I don't suppose I've got everything quite right in this post, so, to help me correct and refine my understanding, I will welcome your comments (and those of others, too) on what I have said by way of interpreting Passage B and the section of chapter 10 of Method in which it occurs. I would also welcome your comments, Dick, on my remarks on the comments I quoted from you.
With all good wishes,
Gerard
On 11/04/2016 18:20, Richard Moodey wrote:
<SNIP>....</SNIP>Gerard et al.,
Gerard, thank you for quoting what I have written about the horizon metaphor. My position hasn't changed, at least not substantially, but I do have much more to say about metaphor than I have posted on the list. I hesitate to do so because I'm sensitive to the wishes of others to keep focused on Lonergan's texts."Horizon" is a useful metaphor, and using it well requires exploring the similarities between the source domain -- the line between sky and sea as seen from a moving ship -- and the target domain -- the scope of a person's knowledge and interests. My point is that using metaphors well in philosophy and social science (in contrast, say, to poetry) also requires exploring the differences between the source domain and the target domain. Of course, given the pervasiveness of metaphors in language, this can only be done for important or key metaphors. Otherwise, the topic being investigated disappears, and it becomes about metaphor rather than about the target domain. When I say that "horizon" is a useful metaphor, I am saying that it is useful for exploring differences among persons in what they know and are interested in. It is a tool for exploring the topic, and, as Gerard points out, the exploration of differences in what people know and are interested is the topic, not the nature of metaphor.
Lonergan, it seems to me, is very clear about the relation between the metaphor "Knowing Is Seeing" and the basic counterposition. Valid insights can be expressed in the language of the counterposition, which I understand to be language that carries with it the assumption that knowing is nothing more than taking a look."Horizon" does seem to have become a key term, both in Lonergan's texts and in the texts of those who seek to interpret and develop philosophy, theology, and the social sciences along the pathways he has pointed out. A person's horizon changes as she matures, and the various kinds of conversions are changes in the convert's horizon. My position is that there is a real possibility, especially when writing for, or speaking to, people who don't know Lonergan, that the language of "horizons," and the imagery it evokes, can reinforce their belief that knowing is looking.
I came to the study of Lonergan from the study of Aquinas in a Jesuit seminary. One of the key metaphysical doctrines I learned was the analogy of being. Paying attention to the similarities and differences between source and target domains of a metaphor is a way of exploring the analogy of being. I also hold that Lonergan's doctrine of the isomorphism between the structure of knowing and the structure of being is the doctrine of the analogy of proper proportionality, expressed in different language. Perhaps this speaks to your comment, John, about exploring metaphor in the light of Lonergan's metaphysics. There is "proportionality" between the elements in the source domain and the elements in the target domain.>
<SNIP>....</SNIP>><SNIP>....</SNIP>>>But just as I find a danger in writing about "horizons" without some discounting of the "knowing is seeing" metaphor implied in it, I also find a danger in saying "what we are doing when we are knowing." The danger there is the possible interpretation that the collectivity to which "we" refers is a knowing subject. This is a debated issue, with phrases such as "collective memory" and "collective consciousness" suggesting that there is indeed something like a "group mind."
Best regards,
Dick
In a message dated 4/8/2016 2:15:56 P.M. W. Europe Daylight Time, ger...@fianchetto.co.uk writes:Dick,
May we explore a bit your interpretation and criticism of Lonergan’s ‘metaphorical’ use of the word ‘horizon’?
It’s an interesting topic. It’s also one that you’ve been raising for well over three years on the list, one that seems to be important to you, and one (perhaps one of many!) on which you appear to have found the replies you’ve received here unsatisfactory and frustrating. You even said in a recent post (23 March) replying to Lowell,
“I do not know of anyone who has even hinted that I might be on to something in saying that all the talk about "horizons" is using the language of the counterposition that knowing is some kind of taking a look.”
I can understand your frustration at some of the answers you have received in connection with the topic. For example, answers that have laid stress on ‘mere metaphor’ have also struck me as downplaying the significance of the issues you raise, and answers that have suggested or perhaps even assumed you are drawing a contrast between metaphor and truth as part of a naive and self-destructive relativism have been (at least as I understand matters) been to that extent misconstruing you and jumping hastily to conclusions.
Lonergan’s use of and understanding of metaphor do seem to me to form an important topic. Though he says relatively little directly about metaphor, I think, some of the things he does say clearly reflect a recognition of its importance.
In Insight, for example, he says, “It is true that nearly all we say is metaphor” (Collected Works edition, p. 568).
In ‘Dimensions of Meaning’ in Collection (CW4), on p. 241, he writes:
“Classical culture...distinguished the literal and the figurative meanings of words and phrases, and it conveyed more than a suggestion that literal meaning is somehow first, while figurative meaning is a dress or ornament that makes the literal meaning more striking, more vivid, more effective. Perhaps it was Giambattista Vico in his Scienza nuova that first put forward the contrary view by proclaiming the priority of poetry.”
Similarly, in Method (p. 73), “With Giambattista Vico, then, we hold for the priority of poetry. Literal meaning literally expressed is a later ideal and only with enormous effort and care can it be realized.”
Later in the same work (p. 343), the first of two aspects of the second of the two positive functions of a critical metaphysics he mentions is that “it provides a criterion for distinguishing for settling the difference between literal and metaphorical meaning.”
As well as being an important topic, it’s also a very big topic to explore, partly because of its connections with a number of fundamental issues in Lonergan’s thought, and partly because of the considerable influence on you of the whole approach to metaphor of Lakoff & Johnson in their books Metaphors We Live By (1980) and Philosophy in the Flesh (1999), which has shaped the way you conceptualize the problem.
Because it’s such a big topic, one obviously cannot say everything relevant at once. So in this particular post (i) I will not address myself to any of the complex issues arising from Lakoff & Johnson’s books. (It’s been many years since I studied parts of those books, so I need to do some homework/revision to be able to discuss their views intelligently). (ii) Nor will I yet respond directly to your criticisms of Lonergan’s use of the word ‘horizon’, e.g., that in his metaphoric use of it, he is, as you put it, “using the language of the counterposition” and thereby suggesting that knowing is looking (despite his fundamental and repeated rejection of any such idea).
Rather, (iii) I will focus on raising for closer discussion the narrower, and in some respects clearly prior, issue of what Lonergan meant when he compared and contrasted what he called the literal sense of ‘horizon’ and ‘a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the term’ in Method in Theology (pp. 235-36) which you have discussed in various posts, and in a nearly identical passage from an earlier lecture of his, presented in 1968, during the period when he was working on Method entitled ‘Horizons’, which you discussed here in a post of 20 April 2013.
First, I give the passage (Collected Works, vol. 17, pp. 10-11) from the 1968 lecture on ‘Horizons’, where Lonergan says:
(Passage A)
“Literally, the horizon is the line where apparently earth and sky meet. It is the boundary of one’s field of vision. And, as one moves about, this boundary recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different horizons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and horizon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon
...
Gerard O'Reilly
Hi, Dick.
Many thanks for your detailed and interesting reply to my post of 15 April. I have read it through with appreciation, and will give it the closer attention and thought it deserves with a view to responding as soon as I can. However, I should add that unfortunately this is unlikely to be before at least the middle of next week, as I have numerous pressing commitments requiring my sustained attention over the next several days.
With thanks again, and all good wishes,
Gerard
From: loner...@googlegroups.com [mailto:loner...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Richard Moodey
Sent: 22 June 2016 01:27
To: Lonergan_L <loner...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Hi Gerard,
--
re...@yahoo.com
From: Gerard O'Reilly <ger...@fianchetto.co.uk>
To: loner...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2016 2:07 AM
Subject: RE: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Gerard O'Reilly
Hi, Dave, Dick (and all),
I'm sorry to have unable to contribute to the group for a few
weeks. I will be sending off a reply to you, Dick, very shortly.
But first, in this post, let me thank you for and respond to
your comments, Dave.
You say, "I think it is key to the discussion of horizon not to
get bogged down in the metaphorical but to move to the
explanatory and defined."
I entirely agree that it would be far preferable not to get
bogged down, but if one believes as I do (correctly or
otherwise) that Dick is already bogged down in the metaphorical
(insofar as his views on metaphor seem to be a significant
aspect of what is preventing him from getting a firm grasp of
Lonergan’s concept of horizon), there is surely something to be
said for trying to throw him a rope rather than leaving him to
be sucked down further into the bog.
On and off, for well over three years, Dick has been presenting
in this forum, and sometimes arguing for, his understanding of
metaphor and, in particular, how that relates to what (as he
sees it) is wrong with Lonergan's use of 'horizon' in the
passages we have been discussing. He has frequently found the
responses to his criticisms here frustrating, and some others in
the group have experienced no less frustration at the failure of
their attempts to show him 'the error of his ways'. I hadn't
been involved in these earlier exchanges, but recently I thought
I might enter the discussion and try a different approach,
namely, to explore whether a much more detailed discussion of
the points Dick has made about Lonergan's language and the
particular passages he has brought up for discussion in
interpreting Lonergan's 'horizon metaphor' might help shed light
on the issues he has brought to the table in this connection and
lead us to a better understanding of those issues and of each
other.
I readily acknowledge that I haven't explored the riches of
Lonergan's discussion of horizons elsewhere, notably in the
parts of the Lectures on Existentialism you mention, or
examined the nuances and other differences in his use of the
notion of horizon in various places, such as the Topics in
Education lectures. However, in the context of the ongoing
discussions with Dick I thought it might be more useful if I
tried to pin the discussion down (at least initially) by
adopting a much narrower focus and trying to maintain that
focus. Time will tell how helpful my approach will prove.
Perhaps I should have called the thread 'metaphor and horizon'
rather than 'horizon and metaphor'! That might have reflected
the fact that, for me at least, the notion of horizon in
Lonergan is not problematic, whereas (i) I find the issues
around metaphor much more puzzling and (ii) I have the
impression that metaphor in Lonergan is a topic which is not
only important but under-explored. Though he says relatively
little directly about metaphor, I think, some of the things he
does say clearly reflect a recognition of its importance.
In Insight, for example, he says, “It is true that
nearly all we say is metaphor” (Collected Works edition,
p. 568).
In ‘Dimensions of Meaning’ in Collection (CW4), on p.
241, he writes:
“Classical culture...distinguished the literal and the
figurative meanings of words and phrases, and it conveyed more
than a suggestion that literal meaning is somehow first, while
figurative meaning is a dress or ornament that makes the
literal meaning more striking, more vivid, more effective.
Perhaps it was Giambattista Vico in his Scienza nuova
that first put forward the contrary view by proclaiming the
priority of poetry.”
Similarly, in Method (p. 73), “With Giambattista Vico,
then, we hold for the priority of poetry. Literal meaning
literally expressed is a later ideal and only with enormous
effort and care can it be realized.”
Later in Method (p. 343), Lonergan most intriguingly
mentions, as the first of two aspects of the second of its two
positive functions, that critical metaphysics “provides a
criterion for settling the difference between literal and
metaphorical meaning.” I'm not aware of where Lonergan or
Lonergan scholars may have developed this suggestion
systematically. However, that may well simply reflect the limits
of my memory and my reading, and I'd be glad to be pointed by
you or others in the direction of any helpful work on this.
Your second paragraph on 'metaphor in general' is very
compressed. I agree that Lonergan uses metaphors in explanatory
contexts since we have to use (at least initially) the language
we have (and share with others). The notion of 'metaphorical
meaning' is to my mind a very tricky one, but I agree that in
defining we do in some sense 'go beyond' it. However, I think
that is just what Dick, despite his best efforts, has so far
been finding it very hard to do. One question that seems to
arise is: supposing that in defining the metaphorical meaning of
a term we have in some sense gone beyond it, have we somehow
left that metaphorical meaning behind? Another is: does defining
a metaphorical meaning transform it into a (purely?) literal
meaning, or at least render it in literal terms? Again, when you
write, "There are both literal and metaphorical meanings of
conception, but as defined it is...[etc.]", are you envisaging
the definition as defining the literal meaning/use of the term,
or the metaphorical? Or are you defining the act designated or
identified by the word in one of its uses, whether a literal or
a metaphorical one? I think these are not particularly easy
questions to answer straightforwardly and clearly. And if
Lonergan saw it as one of the positive functions of a critical
metaphysics to provide a criterion for settling the difference
between literal and metaphorical meaning, perhaps he might have
agreed!
Whatever is to be said by way of answer to these questions, I
entirely agree with you that we will not have an explanatory
grasp of conception until we have understood its relations to
the other key acts with which it occurs in the structure of
human knowledge acquisition.
Gerard
Hi All -
I would like to add some comments which I hope will assist in clarifying the discussion.
I think it is key to the discussion of horizon not to get bogged down in the metaphorical but to move to the explanatory and defined. So a horizon is defined by the “scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interest†. (Method, p. 236) To know my horizon is to know what I know and am interested in and to know another’s is to know what they know and are interested in. And to know means to understand mine and otherrs’ knowledge and interest not as an “object†in some impersonal or disembodied sense, but as the knowledge and interests I and they happen to have and to verify that understanding. This is not an easy task. I recommend reading the sections on horizon in Lonergan’s lectures on existentialism which provides a very rich discussion of horizons.With respect to metaphor in general, Lonergan, while using metaphors in explanatory contexts (since we have to use the language we have) goes beyond the metaphorical meaning to definitions and explanations. A case in point is the understand of conception as presented in the Topics in Education lectures. There are both literal and metaphorical meanings of conception, but as defined it is the “expression of an act of understanding†(p. 173 – Topics in Education) which combines the sensible presentation that leads to understanding and the understanding (p 174). The expression is a definition. So we have a term “conception†which is related to other terms not by considering its metaphorical meaning and use, but by understanding its relations to other terms which refer to cognitive operations and their contents. I believe he does the same thing with horizon by defining it as the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interest.
Dave Oyler
Gerard O'Reilly
Many thanks for your very full and appreciative comments posted on 22 June in reply to my post of 15 April. I’m very sorry that I haven’t been able to reply sooner.
Rather than addressing your comments one by one, I will be selective, too. And I don't propose to try to say everything I want to say in reply in a single email— there's such a lot worth discussing in your wide-ranging comments. This post is in a way a preliminary reply.
(A) By way of setting
the stage, and to indicate the scope of this
reply, let me first very roughly categorize the range of
your
comments.
(i)
Some of your comments relate very obviously and directly to
what, in
the passages we've been discussing (especially
Method,
pp. 235-6), Lonergan meant by the term 'horizon', both in
what he
calls its literal sense and in what he calls its
'metaphorical or
perhaps analogical' meaning. I shall sometimes, as a
convenient
abbreviation, call the different kinds of horizon to which
he so
refers L-horizons and M-horizons respectively ('L' for
'literal', 'M'
for 'metaphorical').
(ii)
Other comments relate less directly to this and more to
other
(Lonerganian) terms I used in expounding the passages,
e.g., what he
and I mean by 'objectifying horizons'.
(iii)
Still other comments relate to not so much to what
Lonergan wrote as
to your own 'translations' of his terminology.
(iv)
Yet others relate more directly to your use of the
terminology
introduced by Lakoff & Johnson in their 1980 book Metaphors
We Live By.
(v)
Others relate less to the specific passages about
'horizon' from
Lonergan under discussion and their interpretation than to
other
pertinent questions about the psychological facts relating
to the
place of images, metaphors, abstraction, etc., both in our
human
cognition and to the communication of the content of
insights
(including, for example, to your students).
(vi)
Finally, you sum up what you now take to be our areas of
agreement
and disagreement, suggesting an area for further
exploration.
I
have been making some notes on these various themes, but,
as you have
often said, one cannot say everything at once. What, then,
am I
dealing with in this particular post?
Primarily
with aspects of (i) and (vi).
I intend to come back to a direct consideration of (iii) and (v) in further posts. I will also postpone any consideration of (iv) for the moment, though I will certainly come to back to that, too, because I think the way you try to follow Lakoff & Johnson (insufficiently critically, in my view) is tending to compound confusion.
(B) In your summing-up, you say, “It seems to me that we disagree very little about the interpretation of Lonergan’s texts”, and that where we disagree seems to be about the practical question of what you should say to your students (which I mentioned as (v) above), and about “the degree to which abstraction from image or phantasm allows me (or you) to leave it behind”.
Now, from a number of remarks you make in your comments it would appear that the area of disagreement between us on the interpretation of Lonergan’s use of ‘horizon’ on pp. 235-6 of Method has significantly diminished.
For instance, you say that I “provide a very clear exposition of the literal meaning of horizon” and an “equally clear and convincing” account of the contrast between the literal and metaphorical (or perhaps analogous) meanings of ‘horizon’.
In
reply to my statement that “in the light of my
interpretation and
explanation” I disagreed with your claim that Lonergan, in
his use
of the word ‘horizon’, “draws more heavily upon the
similarities” [between seeing and knowing than upon the
differences], you said with emphasis:
“You
have persuaded me.
I agree that Lonergan does an excellent job of bringing
out the
differences as well as the similarities.”
Again, in reply to my arguing that your criticism didn't really touch the metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon which Lonergan is almost invariably using (as opposed to the literal visual concept with which he contrasted it), you say, “Your comments have helped me to think through my position in a way that I had not previously been able to express very clearly.”
Moreover, in response to my argument against your claim that Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process, you concede that Lonergan says nothing explicit on that point and you fall back on the position that the analogy tells you something about the knowing process because of the way you (as a result of the way you translate Lonergan’s idiom) connect different metaphorical horizons to differences in the kinds of questions persons ask. I’ll come back to this topic—an example of (iii) above.
I'm very pleased to have persuaded you that Lonergan skilfully brings out the differences no less than the similarities between knowing and seeing in distinguishing as he does between his normal (metaphorical or perhaps analogical) sense of 'horizon' (M-horizon) and the literal sense (L-horizon). Pleased, too, if my comments have helped you to think your position through more clearly than before.
Because these comments of yours make it at least appear that we have at least significantly reduced the area of disagreement about the interpretation of these passages— specifically about what Lonergan meant, I will, leaving aside for the moment the matters mentioned as (ii)-(v) above, which are not central to the exposition/interpretation as such, take it as a very provisional working hypothesis that you substantially (though probably not completely) accept my exposition of those passages as correct.
[To recapitulate the essentials of my interpretation: the concept of an L-horizon is a visual concept, i.e. a concept of something visible, of something already-out-there-now in the world of immediacy which is visible to man and beast alike, provided the humans and beasts have some appropriate kind of visual apparatus. In contrast, the concept of an M-horizon (the kind of horizon Lonergan is interested in clarifying) is a concept pertaining to the world mediated by meaning. It is not the concept of something visible, and it is a fortiori not the concept of something already-out-there-now which is visible to man and beast alike. (The beasts don’t have M-horizons, the kind of horizons that can be dialectically opposed.)
As you have conceded, Lonergan does not directly make any point about the structure of cognitional process in his explanation and use of the concept of an M-horizon in Method, pp. 235-6. Insofar as there is any indirect reference to types of knowledge involved in apprehending the two kinds of horizon, it is only the L-horizon that has anything to do ‘knowing as seeing’. In no way does Lonergan characterize an M-horizon in terms of seeing or vision. On the contrary, the only mention of vision or a field of vision is when Lonergan speaks of the boundedness and variability shared in different ways and for different reasons by ‘our field of vision’ (i.e., the limit of which is our L-horizon) and by ‘the scope of our knowledge and the range of our interests’ (i.e., our M-horizon), and goes on to suggest that it is those two points of analogy (boundedness and variability) which explain why a ‘metaphorical or perhaps analogous’ meaning of the word ‘horizon’ (i.e., the concept of an M-horizon) has arisen. There is really no reason to suppose that the concept of horizon Lonergan habitually employed, which is the concept of an M-horizon, has the slightest implication of the counterpositional myth that ‘knowing is seeing’.]
(C) Of course, even agreement on what Lonergan meant would not necessarily mean that we would agree that what he says about M-horizons is true and/or that it is helpful! But let us stick with the interpretation of Lonergan, with what he meant, for a bit longer, so that we can explore how much we have really reduced the area of disagreement.
Going back to the early days of the discussions on Lonergan on ‘horizon’ in Method, you say in a post of 30 January 2013, “So far, no one who disagrees with me has been able to explain what Lonergan meant by ‘horizon’ in a way that does not include the metaphor ‘Knowing Is Seeing’.”
I think that in what you say you've accepted and been persuaded of in my comments you are implicitly accepting (and should therefore explicitly accept) that I have succeeded in explaining what Lonergan meant by an M-horizon in a way that shows that it does not include the metaphor KNOWING IS SEEING. Can you confirm whether or not you accept this?
I ask because (i) it’s a very important point, (ii) it isn’t something you mention explicitly in your comments (even though I hope it was intended to be implicit in your assessment of my account of the contrast between L-horizons and M-horizons as very ‘clear and convincing’), and (iii) I fancy I detect suggestions in some of your comments that you either haven’t yet understood and accepted it or else haven’t yet thought through the implications of understanding it.
A fourth reason I ask is that given the variety of themes touched on in your comments (see list above), I’ve been struggling to understand the interrelations between the themes as they relate to your position as a whole and consequently to come up with a strategy for tackling them in a rational order. Eventually I realized that my uncertainty whether and to what extent you have grasped and accepted this very important point was exacerbating my difficulty.
(D) I said I would comment briefly on your questions about what Lonergan and I mean by objectifying horizons’. As I mentioned, I don’t regard this as particularly relevant to the question of what Lonergan meant by ‘horizon’, so I think that any detailed discussion would be better placed in a new thread. So I won’t go into this now, but I suggest you carefully read the whole of the chapter in Method on ‘Dialectic’, particularly pp. 250, 253 and 262, as well as the short Chapter 5 on Functional Specialties, especially sections (4) and (5). If that doesn’t help you clarify your mind sufficiently, and you still think it significant enough, you might wish to start another thread.
(E) Finally, for this post, I have a very specific question. In connection with Lonergan’s use of ‘horizon’ you have very frequently spoken of him using ‘the language of the counterposition’ (or some variant on that phrase). Moreover, in a post of 26 July 2013 you say to Catherine, “He [Lonergan] argues that true insights have often been expressed in the language of the counterposition that consists in the belief that knowing is looking.”
My question is: do you know of anywhere Lonergan actually uses the phrase, ‘the language of the counterposition’? He doesn’t use it in either Insight or Method. I can’t recall him using it elsewhere, but I may have missed it. Can you supply a reference? Or is this phrase your personal way of ‘translating’ what Lonergan sometimes says when he speaks of discoveries ‘being formulated as’ counterpositions?
With best wishes,Gerard
From: loner...@googlegroups.com [mailto:loner...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Richard Moodey
Sent: 22 June 2016 01:27
To: Lonergan_L <loner...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor
Hi Gerard,I’m going to quote your post selectively, recognizing that by doing this I might again miss some questions to which you want me to respond. If I do, please let me know.
Gerard: In the context of the book [Method] as a whole, the main reason why Lonergan's discussion of his metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon here is important is its intimate relation to another key notion in Method, conversion, which is discussed explicitly in the next section of this chapter and characterized as a kind of horizon-shift, as well as playing a key role in the functional specialty of Foundations, which is concerned with objectifying the horizon(s) implicit in conversion(s).
Dick: I follow what you say here, and agree with it up to the final phrase: “which is concerned with objectifying the horizon(s) implicit in conversion (s).†About this phrase, I have to ask what you mean by “objectifying the horizon(s).†The meaning I attribute to this phrase is to make horizon(s) the object of inquiry. There is a meaning of “objectifying†used by some sociologists (P.A. Sorokin; Berger and Luckmann) that involves making something that had been private an “object†in the public domain. Sorokin gives the example of Newton’s discovery of the laws of motion. He “objectified†this discovery by writing and publishing his hitherto private insights (Sorokin called insights “mental integrations†). I don’t think either Lonergan or you mean this exactly. Do you mean, or do you think Lonergan meant, something more than making “horizon(s)†an object (or objects) of inquiry by asking questions about it (them)?
Gerard: Chapter 10, on Dialectic, as the two introductory paragraphs that precede the section on Horizons indicate, “deals with conflicts†. But “not all opposition is dialectical.†Some differences “will be eliminated by uncovering fresh data†. Other, ‘perspectival’, differences “merely witness to the complexity of historical reality†. Still, “beyond these there are fundamental conflicts stemming from an explicit or implicit cognitional theory, an ethical stance, a religious outlook†, which it is the function of dialectic to bring to light and objectify (p. 235).Dick: Again, this verb that I’m not sure I fully understand. It seems to me that you (and Lonergan) mean something beyond making these kinds of oppositions objects of knowing by asking, and seeking to answer, questions about them. I get a strong hint of a notion of a process (objectifying) that results in “products†(objects). But I believe that Lonergan means the objects of kinds of intentional acts listed on p. 6: “seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, inquiring, imagining, understanding, conceiving, formulating, reflecting, marshalling and weighing the evidence, judging, deliberting, evaluating, deciding, speaking, writing.†He adds on p. 7 that these are transitive, not just grammatically, “but also in the psychological sense that by the operation one becomes aware of the object.†My question, then, is how does dialectic objectify anything in a way that differs from the way each of the operations listed on p. 6 objectifies the objects of intentional acts?[You provide a very clear exposition of the literal meaning of horizon. And repeat several times the phrase, “visible objects,†which are objects of the kind of knowing we have in common with other animals, but not the distinctively human kind of knowing that is Lonergan’s principal object of inquiry. Your account of the contrast between the literal and metaphorical (or perhaps analogous) meanings of “horizon†is equally clear and convincing.]
Gerard: Notice in respect of this meaning (sense 2) of ‘horizon’, in contrast with the literal sense, that
(i) knowledge is explicitly mentioned as an intrinsic part of the characterization of the second sense of ‘horizon’;
(ii) in the characterization of sense 2 vision drops out of the picture and is not mentioned;
(iii) the new sense of 'horizon' is introduced by an analogy, not to the literal horizon which is a line, but to field of vision bounded by that line; and indeed
(iv) the characterization of sense 2 makes no reference to a line.
Dick: This is an excellent way of spelling out the difference between the two meanings.
Gerard: Still, though a horizon (in sense 2) is, unlike a horizon in sense 1, not a line, even a metaphorical one, notions of ‘beyond’ and ‘within’ still apply. The difference is that in the metaphorical/analogical sense (sense 2), it is a question of something being outside ('beyond') or within an area, a field, whereas in the literal sense 1, it is a question of something lying 'beyond' (i.e., on the far side of) or 'within' it (i.e., on the near side of) a line.Dick: I bring in Lakoff and Johnson here. “Horizon†in both sense 1 and sense 2 are specific instances of the container metaphor, a primary metaphor or a “schema†in their language. The container schema is systematicaly related to the “in-out†schema. In Metaphors We Live By, they discuss (with many examples) container metaphors from pp. 29 to 32, in their chapter “Ontological Metaphors.†In Philosophy in the Flesh, they discuss “container schema logic†on pp. 32 ff.Gerard: We can, I take it, call this comparison between the two kinds of horizon (two senses of ‘horizon’) the drawing of an analogy between the two. But, as you have pointed out before, with analogies generally, the analogy will not be complete. There will be points of analogy (similarity) and points of disanalogy (dissimilarity). I strongly agree with you that to understand what's going on with Lonergan's use of 'horizon', we need to examine both the similarities and the differences. That is why I am exploring both in an effort to understand accurately and distinguish between between the literal use and Lonergan's main use. You seem to prefer to put it, following Lakoff and Johnson, as a question of the similarities and differences between the source domain and the target domain of the 'conceptual metaphor'. (I agree that that can be a very useful approach in analysing metaphorical language and thought, but I won't address in this post the question of precisely what similarities and differences there may between that approach and what I am doing here.)Dick: Although we agree on the importance of spelling out, as far as is possible, the similarities and differences between the analogues, there might be an important difference between our positions that is suggested by what I take to be scare quotes around “conceptual metaphor.†I use that combination of words confidently, rather than in the sense of “so-called conceptual metaphor.†I do so because I am convinced that I habitually think metaphorically, in addition to using metaphors in my speaking and writing. A further difference lies in the importance I attach to distinguishing between the target and source domains. An analogy may or may not be directional, but a metaphor is always directional. That is, it has a from-to structure. In the case of “horizon,†my thinking moves from the literal sense of the visible objects within the range of my vision to the sense of the scope of my interests. Put differently, I do not understand the literal sense of “horizon†by moving from the scope of my interests to the visible objects I can see. I put this in the first person singular because I want to leave open the possibility that your personal self-appropriation leads you to say that you do go from the scope of your interests to your understanding of “horizon†as signifying the visible objects contained within your field of vision.You make four points about disanalogies a literal sense and Lonergan’s metaphorical sense of “horizon†with which I agree. In my first version of this response, I had quoted each followed with “I agree.†I decided to shorten my post by inserting this summary statement. I do quote, however, parts of your statement of the fifth disanalogy.Gerard: …. Thus he notes (p. 236), “Differences in horizon may be complementary, or genetic, or dialectical.â€
Dick: By this I understand Lonergan to mean: Differences between the scope of interests of different persons may be completmentary or dialectical, and differences between the scope of interests of the same person at different times my be genetic.
Gerard: Complementary differences of horizon relate to the division of cognitive labour “needed for the functioning of a communal world†.
Dick: This is why I attribute such differences to the different persons whose division of labor works for the benefit of a community.
Gerard: Genetically different horizons are “related as successive stages in some process of development†, where later horizons partly include and partly transform earlier horizons.
Dick: I attribute this to individuals, because I believe L was thinking about the stages of individual development, primarily. However, he might have been thinking about the process of development of a collectivity, and to the extent that he was, my position might very well be in dialectical opposition to his.
Gerard: But the key kind of difference in this context is the dialectical one: “Thirdly, horizons may be opposed dialectically. What in one is found intelligible, in another is unintelligible. What for one is true, for another is false. What for one is good, for another is evil.†(p. 236)Dick: This is primarily about the conflicting horizons of different persons, and only secondarily about conflicting horizons of the same person. The primacy of differences between persons is exemplified by “What for one is true, for another is false, ….†I contend, however, that there can be dialectical oppositions between the metaphorical horizons of the same person, when we take into account Lonergan’s discussion of patterns of experience. We have often alluded to the contrast between the common sense and intellectual patterns of experience. There is a dialectical relationship between being concerned about what is concrete, short-range, and practical and being concerned about what is abstract, long-range and theoretical. Without going into detail, I believe that the relations between the different patterns of experience in which I find myself at different times is dialectical.
Gerard: Note the reference here to the intelligible, the true, the good (and their contraries), i.e., to the objects intended by the second, third and fourth levels of conscious intentionality (intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility) in Lonergan’s terminology, and the fact that those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon’.Dick: Although I agree with what I think you mean here, I want to translate it into my idiom. I prefer to say that when I am being intelligent, reasonable and responsible I am asking different kinds of questions: (1) intelligent: What is it? What is its nature? (2) reasonable: Is it true? Is it good? (3) responsible: What shall I do? Asking these different kinds of questions puts me into different kinds of personal states. What Lonergan calls “different levels of conscience intentionality,†I prefer to call “different kinds of personal states.†A major difference between the formulation I prefer and Lonergan’s formulation is that I avoid the metaphor of “levels.†This is a spatial metaphor, as is the horizon metaphor.The image that the combination of these metaphors evokes for me is that of changing horizons, not by being on the deck of a ship that moves from on place to another, but of getting into a helicopter on the deck of a stationary ship, and rising up to a higher altitude. At the level of being intelligent, I am no longer seeing objects, but am asking and answering questions about the essential natures of things. Then I ask the pilot to take me to a still higher altitude, where I can be reasonable. At this altitude, my horizon is no longer constituted by asking questions about the natures of things, but by asking whether or not the answers I have gotten by direct insights are true or false, or, if I have been asking practical questions, whether or not each of the alternative courses of action are good or bad (or, in the moral sense, good or evil). Then I ask the pilot to go to a still higher altitude in which I am attempting to be responsible by making my decisions either to do something or to avoid doing something conform to my judgments about which courses of action are good and which courses of action are bad – or evil.So, when you say “those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon,’†I understand you to mean that there are layers of horizons, analogous to the layers of a cake. A person moves from a “lower†layer to a “higher†one by asking different kinds of questions.By proposing an alternative formulation, I abandon the spatial metaphor of higher and lower levels. However, I acknowledge that I am still using a container metaphor, because, as Lakoff and Johnson say, we imagine states as metaphorical containers. So when I say that asking “Is it true?†puts me in a different deliberative state than asking “What is its nature?†, I do not claim that this idiom eliminates conceptual metaphors.Lonergan uses another spatial metaphor as an alternative to “levels†– that of expansion. When I ask about the nature of something, I do not thereby eliminate my perceptions, but expand my “horizon†beyond what can be seen, heard, touched, etc. And when I have formulated the results of my insights into the nature of something, I do not thereby eliminate the results of my perceptions and my insights, but expand my “horizon†to include the conditions that must be satisfied for me to affirm or deny the truth or goodness of the object being considered. Further, when I ask “What shall I do?†, I do not thereby eliminate the results of perceptions, insights, and judgments, but expand my horizon from just knowing something to doing something. This is what Hamlet failed to do: "The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought." He understood and judged, but couldn't decide.I have to concede, however, that the picture of the helicopter rising to ever higher altitudes can be harmonized with my picture of ever expanding horizons. This is because we can see further from a higher altitude than we can from a lower altitude, and rising to the higher altitude does not cause us to lose sight of those things we saw from the surface, but puts them into a larger context. [I’m sorry that this response has been so long!]Gerard: After describing in three successive paragraphs those three ways in which horizons differ (not in the literal sense but in the metaphorical or analogical sense Lonergan is interested in), he concludes the discussion in the final paragraph of the chapter section (p. 237): “Horizons, finally, are the structured resultant of past achievement and, as well, both the condition and the limitation of further development." Again, horizons in the literal sense do not depend on past achievement--it's simply a matter of where an appropriately visually endowed animal, human or otherwise, happens to be. Nor is one's literal horizon related to development.Dick: I agree.Gerard: (i) In a post on 7 January 1913, you wrote, “Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing, but his use of the horizon metaphor draws more heavily upon the similarities. My criticism of the horizon metaphor emphasizes the differences.†First, I agree that Lonergan emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing. But, secondly, in the light of my interpretation and explanation of those key paragraphs on which we have now both commented, I cannot agree that Lonergan, in his use of the word 'horizon' "draws more heavily upon the similarities".Dick: You have persuaded me. I agree that Lonergan does an excellent job of bringing out the differences as well as the similarities. And I agree that “occasional deviations seem to be the exception rather than the rule.â€
Gerard: Thirdly, you say that your criticism of Lonergan's use of 'horizon' emphasizes the differences between seeing and knowing. But, as should already be clear from what I have argued above, it seems to me from what you say that your criticism doesn't really touch the metaphorical/analogical concept of horizon which Lonergan is almost invariably using, and which he has been careful to contrast with the literal visual concept in the ways I have been elucidating in some detail.
Dick: Your comments have helped me to think through my position in a way that I had not previously been able to express very clearly. I spend a great deal of my time either teaching classes to undergraduates, preparing for these classes and evaluating – in a variety of ways – what my students have and have not learned. In my post on this list-serve, my criticisms of Lonergan’s use of “horizon†have been addressed to an audience of men and women who know his philosophy well enough that you are very unlikely to take the counter-position, “knowing is nothing more than taking a look.†I deal with students who, for the most part, are mostly naïve realists who believe that, somehow, “the facts speak of themselves.†For them, knowing the facts better is a matter of looking at them more carefully. Others are, in Allan Bloom's terms, "cheerful nihilists." I avoid using the horizon metaphor in my attempts to lead students into personal self-appropriation – the shorter, rather than the longer journey, in Catherine’s terms. I explain the transcendental precepts without using either the horizons metaphor or the levels metaphor. They do not have the background to make the distinctions that you have brought out so well. I have had some success in convincing my students – some of my students – that knowing is completed by judging rather than by looking more carefully. I will continue to avoid using the horizon metaphor with them, except in the case of the rare student who actually reads things Lonergan has written.
Gerard: To be sure, it is natural enough to describe Lonergan's meaning (sense 2) as a metaphorical concept (a collocation, by the way, that Lakoff and Johnson, in the early chapters at least of Metaphors We Live By, appear to use interchangeably with 'conceptual metaphor'). Among other things, it is atransferred concept deriving originally from the image of a literal horizon, though significantly different from a literal horizon in the ways required by the new meaning. (Note the virtual identity of 'literal' meaning between the Latin transferre and the Greek metapherein--'to carry across'. The word 'metaphor' itself turns out to be in a way metaphorical!)
Dick: Yes, there are hidden metaphors in the word “metaphor.†The way Lonergan complements Lakoff and Johnson is in his emphasis on the personal acts of expriencing, understanding, judging, deciding and loving. The relations between the source domain (horizon as the container of visible objects) and the target domain (horizon as the scope of personal interests) can only be grasped by acts of understanding. I emphasize the plurals, “relations,†and “acts,†because the power of metaphorical language and metaphoric thinking (using conceptual metaphors) depends upon insights into both the similarities and the differences between the source and target. You say much the same in the following:
Gerard: Still, the way in which a new meaning or use is metaphorical by origin (whatever else we may say about its meaning as used) is important, because we need to consider not just how the inventor of the use came upon it by thinking metaphorically, but also how its meaning comes to be understood by others (by insight) as part of the explanation of how its meaning 'spreads' and becomes conventional.Dick: It seems to me that we agree on the importance of maintaining the connection between insights and metaphors.Gerard: I suggest that it commonly happens with the generation of new meaning by metaphor, that the image associated with a literal concept (in this case, horizon) provides a phantasm in which one can intellectually grasp, with the help of an abstraction by which one attends to what is relevant and disregards what is irrelevant, the idea of a different type of horizon, the one which Lonergan wishes the reader to understand and which he conceptualizes largely in terms of the range and scope of a person's knowledge and interests.
Dick: The only thing I want to add to this is that insights depend upon phantasms, and that the abstractions that “help†are the results of insights, and that many of our insights result in “enriching abstractions,†rather than “impoverishing abstractions.†This is saying, in somewhat different words what you say in the following:
Gerard: There is a passage near the end of Chapter 1 of Insight (CW3 at p. 55) which I think is highly relevant to this point:
"Properly, to abstract is to grasp the essential and to disregard the incidental, to see what is significant and set aside the irrelevant, to recognize the important as important and the negligible as negligible... Abstraction is the selectivity of intelligence...
Hence, relative to any given insight or cluster of insights the essential, significant, important consists (1) in the set of aspects in the data necessary for the occurrence of the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of related concepts necessary for the expression of the insight or insights. On the other hand the incidental, irrelevant, negligible consists (1) in other concomitant aspects of the data that do not fall under the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of concepts that correspond to the merely concomitant aspects of the data."
And again, lower down the same page:
"What alone is essential is insight into insight. Hence, the incidental includes (1) the particular insights chosen as examples, (2) the formulation of these insights, and (3) the images evoked by the formulation." (Italics added.)
In the light of these considerations and on the basis of my reading of Passage A and Passage B and the section of Method in which Passage Boccurs, explained above in some detail, I wonder:
Have you been distracted by the salience and 'visibility' of that whole image of a literal horizon?
Dick: As I said above, I don’t think I have been distracted so much as I have been worried that my students would be distracted.
Gerard: Are you, perhaps for that reason, failing to keep separate what is essential, significant, and important to having the insight (into the metaphorical/analogical use of the term) and to conceptualizing the idea which is its content from the incidental, irrelevant and negligible aspects of the phantasm which do not carry over into, and are as it were left behind as irrelevant by, the insight and its conceptualization?
Are you taking as essential to the insight and the concept a feature that is merely incidental, namely, the images evoked by the formulation?Dick: No, but I can understand how you or others on this list serve might judge me to have failed in this respect. The difference between what is essential and what is merely incidental is not simply a matter of direct insight, but also a matter for acts of judging. I do not know your insight directly, but only by interpreting the sentences in which you formulate it; you do not know my insight directly, but only only by interpreting my sentences. If our formulations turn out to be expressions of different propositions, rather than just different ways of expression the same proposition, then we are faced with a question for reflection: which hypothetical formulation is more likely to be true? One of the ways our formulations will probably differ is in what is emphasized as being essential and what is left out as merely incidental.Gerard: (ii) In a post of 20 April 2013, you quoted the 1968 version of the second paragraph, and then immediately went on to say:
[paragraph 1] “The metaphorical or analogous meaning of ‘horizon’ that Lonergan is explicating is complex. In what follows, I argue that Lonergan’s text here involves more tha[n] just a use of metaphorical language, but is an argument from analogy.â€
[paragraph 2] “Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process. More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks, and between differences between persons in terms of three factors: (1) the differences in the periods in which each person has lived, (2) the differences in the social backgrounds and milieus of persons, and (3) the differences in education and personal development of persons. Each of these there [three] ways in which persons can differ is analogous to looking from a different spatial location. Each of these three kinds of differences results in a difference in a person’s metaphorical horizon. It is a metaphorical horizon, because knowing something or being interest[ed] in something is not just looking at at it. Lonergan insists again and again that knowing is not just taking a look. Nevertheless, he finds the horizon metaphor useful as a way of communicating the points (1) that different people know and care about different things, and (2) that the same person can change what she knows and cares about. No person’s horizon is fixed forever. Just as when a boat sails west, causing westerly things to rise above, and easterly things to fall below, the horizon of a passenger, so also a knower can move metaphorically so as to become interested in new things, and uninterested in old things.â€I don't disagree with your first paragraph here. I’m less convinced by the second.
In it, you start by saying, “Lonergan argues that the analogy between a field of vision, bounded by a horizon, and the range and scope of a person’s interests and knowledge tells us something about the knowing process.†(Italics added.)
I agree that there are some analogies (as well as disanalogies), as I have tried to make clear, but I see no evidence in the quoted text or the context that Lonergan is intending to present us in that paragraph with an argument that the analogy between the two kinds of horizon tells us or establishes something specifically about the knowing process.
Dick: I say that it tells me something about the knowing process because of the way I connect different metaphorical horizons to differences in the kinds of questions persons ask. This is the result of the way I translate Lonergan’s idiom, as I discussed above. Different kinds of questions are important elements in the knowing process. You are correct, however, in pointing to absence of explicit references in the quoted texts to the structure of the knowing process.Gerard: The discussion of horizon (in sense 1), after all, makes no explicit reference to knowledge at all, and appears to be introduced and characterized as a means of clarifying by contrast Lonergan’s ‘default’ sense of ‘horizon’ as used in Method. Moreover, the characterization of that sense (sense 2) makes no explicit reference to the structure of human cognition or the like.I don’t find the conclusion of an argument of that kind, or indeed the premisses. So I'm more than a little puzzled by your claim.Dick: I requote what I quoted immediately before the very long response for which I apologized: “Note the reference here to the intelligible, the true, the good (and their contraries), i.e., to the objects intended by the second, third and fourth levels of conscious intentionality (intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility) in Lonergan’s terminology, and the fact that those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon’. “ It seems to me that you are saying that this three-level structure of conscious intentionality is constitutive of the metaphorical sense of “horizon.â€Gerard: You go on to say, “More specifically he argues that there is an analogy between the change in a person’s field of vision that result from the spatial location from which that person looks†, on the one hand, and “differences between persons in terms of three factors†(of period, social milieu and individual background). Though it strikes me as a little odd that you are comparing a change in an individual with differences between different individuals, that's not important enough to dwell on. I agree that the fact that literal horizons and metaphorical horizons can change and differ is a point of analogy, but, as I've pointed out above, the ways in which they do so are strongly contrasted by Lonergan.
Dick: I have already gone into some detail about differences between dialectical differences in one person and differences between persons.
Gerard: (iii) In a very recent post (24 March 2016), you write: ‘Lonergan says (MiT 236):
"So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge." The source domain of the horizon metaphor is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one's field of vision" (MiT 235). This is why I say that the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests."’
After much thought I'm still not sure how to construe your argument here. I'm really struggling to understand how you get from the statement that the source domain of the 'horizon metaphor' is "the line at which earth and sky appear to meet ... the limit of one's field of vision", to the statement that "the image of knowing as seeing is present in the use of "horizon" to refer to "the range of one's knowledge and interests." That will probably not surprise you, given the interpretation I've offered of the relevant passages.
Are you taking the second statement to be a more or less immediate inference from the first? I'm not sure whether you are, but if you are, then it appears that you are assuming that because the image of knowing as seeing is present in the literal sense of horizon, it must also be present in the metaphorical/analogical sense. If you are assuming that, I think my exposition of Lonergan's account of the contrast between the two concepts of horizon has shown that to be a mistake. (Might it be that you are failing to distinguish the meaning from the phantasm in which one originally grasps the meaning, and/or conflating the two concepts or at least failing to distinguish them clearly, perhaps as a result of thinking of the different meanings of 'horizon' as together constituting one concept?) As I say, I'm unclear just what you intend.
Dick: Here is another attempt to clarify where I stand. I do not think that Lonergan meant to say that knowing is taking a look by his use of “horizon,†nor do I think that men and women who know Lonergan well are likely to infer that knowing is taking a look from Lonergan’s use of “horizon.†In my teaching, I think it important to help students to understand that knowing involves experiencing, understanding and judging. I don’t want to use language that leads them to think that knowing is, after all, just taking a look.
Gerard: Are you perhaps taking it that because source domain and target domain are intrinsic explanatory features of a conceptual metaphor, and because there is something in the source domain (the literal sense of 'horizon') that involves seeing, then the feature of seeing must either transfer to the target domain, or at least be intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole, since the metaphor as a whole somehow includes both the literal and the metaphorical use?
Dick: This is a very clearly stated question. I do take source domain and target domain to be essential features of metaphors, but I do not say that everything in the source domain “must transfer to the target domain.†We agree on the importance of insights into differences between source and target, as well as insights into similarities. Then you say “or at least be intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole.†I do believe that the image of seeing the visual objects within the literal horizon is intrinsic to the metaphor as a whole, but deny that this must be transferred to the target domain. My worry is that those who are not fully weaned from the belief that knowing is just taking a look at what’s already out there now might not understand – have the insight – that we do not answer questions for intelligence or questions for reflection just by taking a look at what’s “out there.†The metaphor as a whole must be grasped by readers and hearers by insights into both similarities and differences.
Gerard: I'm very far from confident that that's what you are intending to say, partly because it's unclear to me how the KNOWING IS SEEING conceptual metaphor would then fit in. Is that maybe related to your claim (dubious as an interpretation, I have argued) in quotation (ii) that Lonergan is arguing from analogy to establish something about the nature of the knowing process?
Dick: I plead guilty to being unclear about the difference between my interpretation of Lonergan, in the sense of trying to understand – and put into my words -- what he meant by the words he wrote, and my practical judgments about what to say in trying to teach my students – and, in some instances, to communicate to my fellow sociologists – what I think is most important about Lonergan’s philosophy for good social theory. I am sensitive to the implications of “standpoint†because in sociology and anthropology that is a metaphor widely used by theorists who embrace a position that is too relativistic (sometimes nihilistic) for me. I reject "standpoint epistemology."
Gerard: I've gone into quite a fair amount of detail in examining these texts and your comments, because I think that (i) doing so is necessary if we are to understand the passages correctly; (ii) establishing a correct understanding of how Lonergan actually uses 'horizon' is a prerequisite of making a sound judgement about the existence and nature of any problems that may be implicit in the way he uses the word; and (iii) without going into interpretative detail we are unlikely to understand in what respects you and I disagree and why.
Dick: It seems to me that we disagree very little about the interpretation of Loneran’s texts. Where we disagree seems to me be in two areas: (1) the practical insight about what to say to undergraduate students in a one-semester (for me, sociology) course, and (2) the degree to which abstraction from image or phantasm allows me (or you) to leave it behind. I suspect that I am more convinced than you are that I can be “captured†by the images I entertain, and that the images into which I have insights continue to have an effect on the more abstract concepts that are the products of my insights. That might be a topic for further exploration.
Best regards,Dick
Gerard O'Reilly
Just a couple more quotes from you supplementary to the one I gave at (E) below about the Lonerganian or perhaps Moodeyan phrase, 'the language of the counterposition'.
Addressing John in a post on 23 July 2015, you wrote:
Lonergan was working towards what he later said in Insight about cutting the umbilical cord that ties us to our “maternal imagination,” but in this earlier work he expressed himself in what he would later call the language of a counter-position in suggesting that we can “see” distances “objectively.”
In another post, of 24 Mar 2016, you wrote:
The reason Lonergan says that formulating knowing by using the metaphor "knowing is seeing" is the language of the counter-position is that... [etc.]
As I said in the main post, I'd be glad to learn where (if at all) Lonergan used the phrase you attribute to him in these posts.
Best wishes,
Gerard
-------- Forwarded Message --------
| Subject: | Re: [lonergan_l] horizon and metaphor |
|---|
| Date: | Wed, 27 Jul 2016 13:36:17 +0100 |
|---|---|
| From: | Gerard O'Reilly <ger...@fianchetto.co.uk> |
| To: | loner...@googlegroups.com |
Joseph Martos
Richard Moodey
Gerard O'Reilly
I will give some thought to the question of how apt your use of that phrase is in interpreting or 'translating' the passages to which you refer. As I mentioned in the post to which you are replying (my last but one post), I shall be returning to the topic of some of your ways of 'translating' Lonergan's terminology. From my use of scare-quotes, you will doubtless have gathered that I will be expressing doubts about the accuracy of some of those 'translations'!
While I turn my attention back to that, I also look forward to hearing your reply to the other question I asked you, in (C) of my email (a question that I think is much more important to establishing how things stand in the discussion we've been having), namely: do you accept that I have succeeded in explaining what Lonergan meant by ‘horizon’ in a way that does not include the metaphor ‘Knowing Is Seeing’?
With thanks and best wishes,
Gerard
--
Richard Moodey
(D) I said I would comment briefly on your questions about what Lonergan and I mean by objectifying horizons’. As I mentioned, I don’t regard this as particularly relevant to the question of what Lonergan meant by ‘horizon’, so I think that any detailed discussion would be better placed in a new thread. So I won’t go into this now, but I suggest you carefully read the whole of the chapter in Method on ‘Dialectic’, particularly pp. 250, 253 and 262, as well as the short Chapter 5 on <fon
Catherine Blanche King
Hello Gerard and Dick:
I am doing a one-eyed reading of your recent exchange; but will risk interfering a bit by offering a focus on a section of Insight, particularly the text surrounding the below quote from chapter 17: "Metaphysics as Dialectic" where he talks about "the sketch."
QUOTING with my parentheses
"Though this sketch claims to be no more enlightening than the assertion that physics is a mathematization of sensible data, it will serve to bring out the significance of the upper blade of method. For that upper blade forces out into the open the fact that the proximate sources of meaning (not merely sensing) lie in the interpreter's own experience, understanding, and judgment (of pattern and relation of what is sensed/imagined and then, as what-knowledge, brought back to the concrete again). (new paragraph)
My comments: Several significant issues emerge here which none of us should overlook. However, one main issue is the import of our moving out of a viewpoint that restricts us to ONLY our own concrete experience (commonsense), to the critical generalization that is required to acquire a universal viewpoint (see the references for the UV in the index).
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2016 9:06 AM
To: loner...@googlegroups.com
Gerard O'Reilly
It's excellent that after all this time you seem to have come round to agreeing (i) that what Lonergan meant by ‘horizon’ (in the sense he calls metaphorical or perhaps analogical) can be explained in a way that does not include the metaphor ‘Knowing Is Seeing’, (ii) that he does not formulate his notion of horizon as a counterposition, and therefore (iii) that he is not guilty of using the language of the counterposition in using the notion of horizon in the way he does in the passages we've been discussing.
Having indicated your acceptance of this, you add, "You have not convinced me that the image is not necessary to the insight." I'm also pleased about that, because I never had any intention of trying to convince you that images are not necessary for us to attain insights!
However, I do think the penultimate paragraph of your post is a bit confused. Or maybe it has just confused me!
I will try to indicate what I mean by this. But I fear it will have to wait a little longer. I had hoped and even expected to finish today a couple of posts to you which are well in progress, but various matters requiring my immediate attention have come to me by email today and unavoidably distracted me, so unfortunately it hasn’t proved possible. I now fear it will probably be Wednesday before I can post more, so for now I’ll just send you this message of thanks-and-appreciation cum promissory note. More, as soon as I can.
With apologies for the delay, and my very best wishes,
Gerard
--
Gerard O'Reilly
Hi, Dick.
In your post of 22 June, commenting on my long discussion of the interpretation of Lonergan on ‘horizon’, you spoke of “[your] interpretation of Lonergan, in the sense of trying to understand – and put into [your] words -- what he meant by the words he wrote”.
With this notion of interpretation in mind, I want to comment on certain interpretative points you make in that post. I will also consider some of the ways you ‘translate’ what Lonergan says into your own idiom.
I begin by quoting a section from your post, which of course includes your reproductions of my comments. I will preface new comments I interpose with lower-case italic ‘gor:’, and separate them out from quotations of your post by means of horizontal lines.
Beginning of quotation from your post:
Gerard: But the key kind of difference in this context is the dialectical one: “Thirdly, horizons may be opposed dialectically. What in one is found intelligible, in another is unintelligible. What for one is true, for another is false. What for one is good, for another is evil.” (p. 236)
Dick: This is primarily about the conflicting horizons of different persons, and only secondarily about conflicting horizons of the same person. The primacy of differences between persons is exemplified by “What for one is true, for another is false, ….” I contend, however, that there can be dialectical oppositions between the metaphorical horizons of the same person, when we take into account Lonergan’s discussion of patterns of experience. We have often alluded to the contrast between the common sense and intellectual patterns of experience. There is a dialectical relationship between being concerned about what is concrete, short-range, and practical and being concerned about what is abstract, long-range and theoretical. Without going into detail, I believe that the relations between the different patterns of experience in which I find myself at different times is dialectical.
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gor: (i) When you say, “I contend, however, that there can be dialectical oppositions between the metaphorical horizons of the same person, when we take into account Lonergan’s discussion of patterns of experience”, it looks, from the words, “I contend, however”, that you don’t take yourself to be expounding what Lonergan meant by an M-horizon but giving your own different opinion of what an M-horizon is, in criticism of his account. Is that what you intended? Or are you just intending to point out some further fact about an M-horizon in Lonergan’s own sense which you think he has overlooked?
There is indeed no suggestion, in this passage or its context in Method, that temporary switches from one pattern of experience to another (and back again) are what Lonergan is talking about. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Remember that this section occurs in a chapter of Method in Theology in which Lonergan is setting out his conception of the functional specialty, dialectic, which deals with conflicts. In the introduction to the chapter (p. 235), immediately before he begins the section on horizons, he contrasts, on the one hand, differences that will be eliminated by uncovering fresh data and perspectival differences (the latter “merely witness to the complexity of historical reality”) with, on the other hand, dialectical differences, which are conflicts, “fundamental conflicts stemming from an explicit or implicit cognitional theory, an ethical stance, a religious outlook. They profoundly modify one’s mentality. They are to be overcome only through an intellectual, moral, religious conversion. The function of dialectic will be to bring such conflicts to light.” As spoken of here, these dialectical conflicts are at least as applicable to conflicts within an individual person as to those between different persons.
(ii) You say that “there can be dialectical oppositions between the metaphorical horizons of the same person” in virtue of a change from one pattern of experience to another. (As just indicated, Lonergan implicitly envisages talk of dialectical oppositions between the horizons of the same person at different times as related to conversions.)
But how well does what you say really fit in with the way Lonergan characterizes an M-horizon as ‘the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests’? If, for example, I shift from studying cognitional theory or conceptual metaphor theory (in the intellectual pattern of experience) to cooking and eating my dinner (presumably an activity basically belonging to the biological pattern of experience), I obviously do not cease to possess the knowledge I have acquired in study—the scope of my knowledge does not change. Nor, equally obviously, do I cease to be a person who is interested in cognitional theory and conceptual metaphor theory—the range of my interests does not change.
What typically does happen in a switch from one of the patterns of experience named by Lonergan to another is chiefly a switch of attention. OK, that switch of attention could be described as a change in what one is for the moment concerned about or interested in, but it would be bizarre indeed to say, for example, that because I switched at 6pm from my studies to preparing and eating dinner and then returned to my studies at 7pm that between 6pm and 7pm I had lost the knowledge I had acquired in the intellectual pattern of experience, or that I was no longer interested in cognitional theory, or indeed any other intellectual pursuit. As Lonergan says, “what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares.” According to Lonergan’s meaning, while moving physically will change my L-horizon, it takes a lot more than a mere shift of attention to change a person’s M-horizon. It is a significant change in the range of one’s knowledge and interests that changes one’s M-horizon. And as far as dialectical opposition is concerned, Lonergan’s account is that such opposition can only be overcome by intellectual, moral or religious conversion, and so not by a mere shift to another pattern of experience.
The kind of thing you are describing as a change of horizon, then, is not a change of one’s M-horizon as characterized in our texts by Lonergan. I would certainly grant that different metaphorical concepts could in principle be based on a certain literal concept, in this case the concept of an L-horizon, reflecting different selections of points of analogy and disanalogy. But it would be important to be clear that one would then have a different metaphorical concept. And in this case, the feature you pick out in respect of horizon change is irrelevant to and incompatible with Lonergan’s conception. There is in Lonergan’s writings, as far as I am aware, no suggestion that the relation between the different patterns of experience in which I find myself at different times is dialectical.
(iii) Incidentally, when you talk about the contrast “between the common sense and intellectual patterns of experience”, it looks as though you may be confusing patterns of experience and differentiations of consciousness (though it may have been just a slip). Lonergan talks about the intellectual pattern of experience (as also about the biological, aesthetic and dramatic patterns, and so on, but does he talk about ‘the common sense pattern of experience’? He says a lot, of course, about the common sense (lack of) differentiation of consciousness.
No doubt you have your reasons to contend otherwise, but please note that the primary point of the exercise (as I mentioned in an earlier post) was to try to get straight what Lonergan meant, and there seems to be no evidence that what you add is what Lonergan is talking about in this context. And, whether or not you are involved in a confusion between patterns of experience and differentiations of consciousness, your contention seems more likely to confuse the issue than to illuminate it.
-------------------------------------------
Continuing to quote from your post:
Gerard: Note the reference here to the intelligible, the true, the good (and their contraries), i.e., to the objects intended by the second, third and fourth levels of conscious intentionality (intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility) in Lonergan’s terminology, and the fact that those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon’.
Dick: Although I agree with what I think you mean here, I want to translate it into my idiom. I prefer to say that when I am being intelligent, reasonable and responsible I am asking different kinds of questions: (1) intelligent: What is it? What is its nature? (2) reasonable: Is it true? Is it good? (3) responsible: What shall I do? Asking these different kinds of questions puts me into different kinds of personal states. What Lonergan calls “different levels of conscience intentionality,” I prefer to call “different kinds of personal states.” A major difference between the formulation I prefer and Lonergan’s formulation is that I avoid the metaphor of “levels.” This is a spatial metaphor, as is the horizon metaphor.
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gor: (i) I’m sorry if my use of Lonergan’s terminology confused you. The point I was trying to bring out was simply that Lonergan characterizes the dialectical differences that can occur between M-horizons (dialectical differences are impossible between different L-horizons) by reference to objects of characteristically human knowing and valuation (the intelligible, the true and the good), as opposed to the objects in the visual field determined by an L-horizon, which as mere visibles relate only to the knowing we share with other animals.
(ii) I am concerned about how much you are apt to take away from, or add to, Lonergan’s meaning by the way you ‘translate’ things into your own idiom. Normally a translator of a text into another language or idiom will try to preserve the meaning as far as possible, even though it may be impossible to preserve every nuance.
I am aware that you have expressed dislike of Lonergan’s talk of levels. (In this post, you suggest that it is because it “ is a spatial metaphor, as is the horizon metaphor”.)
However, by translating ‘different levels of consci[ous] intentionality’ as ‘different kinds of personal states’, a significant amount of meaning is lost in translation, namely, what is indicated by Lonergan’s use of his terminology about the relations between the intentional states/operations in the structured process of human cognition. ‘Different kinds’ doesn’t express as much as ‘different levels’. For one thing, there are different kinds of states and operation within what Lonergan calls the three levels of cognitional process. But, even leaving that aside, Lonergan’s talk of levels (spatial metaphor though it may originally have been) is at least partly explanatory insofar as it expresses something of the structure (of human cognition) in which not only the different kinds of questions but the operations that are performed in the effort to answer them are related, whereas simply to speak of different kinds of questions as indicating different kinds of personal states doesn’t itself give any indication of the relations between the operations.
Yes, one can get round that by further talk, but the metaphor of levels, as Lonergan explains it in Insight, is a useful way of communicating compendiously and without circumlocution the relations of presupposition and complementation that obtain among the key elements in the structure of human cognition. Remember Lonergan’s schematic representation of his explanation in Insight, ch. 9, of the ‘three levels of cognitional process’ (p. 299), where he sums things up thus:
“I. Data. Perceptual Images. Free Images. Utterances.
II. Questions for Intelligence. Insights. Formulations.
III. Questions for Reflection. Reflection. Judgment.
The second level presupposes and complements the first. The third level presupposes and complements the second.” And of course it is the judgement that completes a particular cognition and is the decisive element in its structure.
--------------------------------
You continue:
Dick: The image that the combination of these metaphors evokes for me is that of changing horizons, not by being on the deck of a ship that moves from on place to another, but of getting into a helicopter on the deck of a stationary ship, and rising up to a higher altitude. At the level of being intelligent, I am no longer seeing objects, but am asking and answering questions about the essential natures of things. Then I ask the pilot to take me to a still higher altitude, where I can be reasonable. At this altitude, my horizon is no longer constituted by asking questions about the natures of things, but by asking whether or not the answers I have gotten by direct insights are true or false, or, if I have been asking practical questions, whether or not each of the alternative courses of action are good or bad (or, in the moral sense, good or evil). Then I ask the pilot to go to a still higher altitude in which I am attempting to be responsible by making my decisions either to do something or to avoid doing something conform to my judgments about which courses of action are good and which courses of action are bad – or evil.
So, when you say “those levels are constitutive of the second sense of ‘horizon,’” I understand you to mean that there are layers of horizons, analogous to the layers of a cake. A person moves from a “lower” layer to a “higher” one by asking different kinds of questions.
By proposing an alternative formulation, I abandon the spatial metaphor of higher and lower levels. However, I acknowledge that I am still using a container metaphor, because, as Lakoff and Johnson say, we imagine states as metaphorical containers. So when I say that asking “Is it true?” puts me in a different deliberative state than asking “What is its nature?”, I do not claim that this idiom eliminates conceptual metaphors.
Lonergan uses another spatial metaphor as an alternative to “levels” – that of expansion. When I ask about the nature of something, I do not thereby eliminate my perceptions, but expand my “horizon” beyond what can be seen, heard, touched, etc. And when I have formulated the results of my insights into the nature of something, I do not thereby eliminate the results of my perceptions and my insights, but expand my “horizon” to include the conditions that must be satisfied for me to affirm or deny the truth or goodness of the object being considered. Further, when I ask “What shall I do?”, I do not thereby eliminate the results of perceptions, insights, and judgments, but expand my horizon from just knowing something to doing something. This is what Hamlet failed to do: "The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought." He understood and judged, but couldn't decide.
I have to concede, however, that the picture of the helicopter rising to ever higher altitudes can be harmonized with my picture of ever expanding horizons. This is because we can see further from a higher altitude than we can from a lower altitude, and rising to the higher altitude does not cause us to lose sight of those things we saw from the surface, but puts them into a larger context.
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gor: I found this the most surprising part of your post. I don’t mean anything remotely like the kind of thing you attribute to me in the second paragraph of that last passage. And nor does Lonergan. But the way you argue in the first of these paragraphs for the conclusion you draw about what I meant which you express in the second, beginning “So”, is, I think,revealing.
You don’t say why you want to combine these metaphors (the ‘horizon metaphor’ and the metaphor of ‘levels of conscious intentionality’) but you describe the image the combination of the metaphors evokes for you. The phantasm you have thus formed suggests to you an idea (as the content of an insight) to the effect that asking each new question-type, epitomizing the successive levels of conscious intentionality, puts you into a new horizon, and you then conceptualize the series of what Lonergan calls the levels of conscious intentionality accordingly as a set of layered horizons, “analogous to the layers of a cake”. And without further ado or argument, you attribute that meaning to me (and by implication, perhaps, to Lonergan, too).
I don’t in the least object to your playing around with images in the effort to understand (disposing the phantasm, so to speak); it’s what we humans do. But what has happened in this case is that you have irrelevantly combined visual images of literal horizons (L-horizons) in literal fashion to reach a conclusion about what I meant by an M-horizon, the concept of which is not a visual concept. Only by so doing can you suppose that the ‘ascending levels’ of cognitional process each constitute one as occupying a new horizon.
I would call that taking the metaphors literally. And, unsurprisingly, you reach a quite mistaken conclusion by doing so.
(ii) Let us call to mind what Lakoff & Johnson, who you say have strongly influenced your thinking, say in their 1980 book (Metaphors We Live By, p. 6) say: “Whenever in this book we speak of metaphors,... it should be understood that metaphor means metaphorical concept.” In terms of that statement, if you are indeed following them, it would appear that combining the two metaphors should mean combining the concept of an M-horizon (i.e., the concept of the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests) with the concept of the levels of conscious intentionality (i.e., the structured set of types of conscious operation a knower performs in achieving a cognition, namely, those included in and summarized as ‘experiencing’, which is presupposed and complemented by the operations summarized as ‘understanding’, which is in its turn presupposed and complemented by the reflective operations summarized as ‘judging’, where the judgement itself completes the structure), the levels which combine intelligently and intelligibly to constitute the structure of a human cognition. (For the purposes of the point I am making, I have no need to bring the ‘fourth level’ leading to decision.)
Later in the email to which you were replying, I quoted two passages from near the end of Chapter 1 of Insight (CW3 at p. 55) which I think are highly relevant to this point:
“Properly, to abstract is to grasp the essential and to disregard the incidental, to see what is significant and set aside the irrelevant, to recognize the important as important and the negligible as negligible... Abstraction is the selectivity of intelligence...
Hence, relative to any given insight or cluster of insights the essential, significant, important consists (1) in the set of aspects in the data necessary for the occurrence of the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of related concepts necessary for the expression of the insight or insights. On the other hand the incidental, irrelevant, negligible consists (1) in other concomitant aspects of the data that do not fall under the insight or insights, or (2) in the set of concepts that correspond to the merely concomitant aspects of the data.”
And again, lower down the same page:
“What alone is essential is insight into insight. Hence, the incidental includes (1) the particular insights chosen as examples, (2) the formulation of these insights, and (3) the images evoked by the formulation”. (Italics added.)
When I then wondered if you had been distracted by the salience and ‘visibility’ of the image of a literal horizon, you answered, “I don’t think I have been distracted so much as I have been worried that my students would be distracted.” And when I further wondered whether you had perhaps been failing to keep what is essential, significant, and important to having the insight (into the metaphorical/analogical use of the term ‘horizon’) and to conceptualizing the idea which is the content of that insight separate from the incidental, irrelevant and negligible aspects of the phantasm, which do not carry over into, and are as it were left behind as irrelevant by, the insight and its conceptualization, you answered flatly ‘No’.
However, it is clear that in this particular ‘combining of metaphors’, from which you concluded to a false interpretation of what I meant, that is exactly what you were doing. You said yourself that you were taking the image that the combination of these metaphors evokes for you, and (as I have indicated) what you have actually done is to combine irrelevant features of your visual images of literal horizons in literal fashion to reach a (quite false) conclusion about the non-visual concept of an M-horizon I had been expounding.
(iii) In this passage you also indicate that an advantage of proposing your alternative formulation is that you abandon the spatial metaphor of higher and lower levels. (Is the point of doing that the idea or feeling or fear that spatial metaphors encourage the ‘Knowing is Seeing’ metaphor? Do you still feel the need to do that if you have now abandoned the idea that Lonergan’s use of ‘horizon’ involves using ‘the language of the counterposition’?) You acknowledge that you are still using a ‘conceptual metaphor', namely, a container metaphor, citing Lakoff and Johnson as saying we imagine states as metaphorical containers, so that asking “Is it true?” puts one in a different deliberative state than asking “What is its nature?” I’m guessing (I’m not sure) you felt that using ‘the container metaphor’, though undesirable, was at least not as bad as using the metaphor of levels of cognitional process.
I note two points about this. First, it strikes me that it’s not clear why one shouldn’t regard the container metaphor as also to a significant degree a spatial metaphor. Secondly, it may be that Lakoff & Johnson do say that, but when you/they say ‘we imagine states as metaphorical containers’, are you saying that the state of wondering whether a proposition is true is a metaphorical container, and that the state of wondering what the nature of something is another metaphorical container, so that switching from one kind of wondering to another is getting out of one metaphorical container and getting into another metaphorical container? I don’t understand.
-------------------------------------
I now resume quoting from your post, at a later point in which you responded to my criticism that in a passage from Lonergan you had quoted, “I see no evidence in the quoted text or the context that Lonergan is intending to present us in that paragraph with an argument that the analogy between the two kinds of horizon tells us or establishes something specifically about the knowing process.”
Dick: I say that it tells me something about the knowing process because of the way I connect different metaphorical horizons to differences in the kinds of questions persons ask. This is the result of the way I translate Lonergan’s idiom, as I discussed above. [gor: italics added]
-----------------------------
gor: This looks like another example of a ‘translation’ you make that significantly changes the meaning.
You
are apparently accepting that Lonergan doesn’t argue
that the analogy tells us something about the knowing
process.
However, despite that, you are still (I think) saying that
the
analogy itself tells you
something
about the knowing process. However, the reason you give is
nothing to
do with Lonergan but with the way you
connect different types of question to different
‘metaphorical
horizons’. Do you have any evidence of Lonergan speaking
of using
the move from a question for intelligence to a question
for
reflection as a change of horizon? If not, why do you
speak of
yourself as ‘translating Lonergan’s idiom’. A case,
perhaps, of
the well-known Italian adage, ‘traduttore,
traditore’?
As
you'll have understood, I haven't been convinced by some
of your 'translations'. But, in the light of the
characterization of interpretation I quoted from you at
the top of this post, I wonder: do you see those
translations of yours as part of your
interpretation? Or do you see them, chiefly or partly,
as some kind of transposition or adaptation of Lonergan?
I’ll stop there for now with this further instalment by way of response to your long post of 22 June, and will reply separately to your post of 31 July in this same thread.
With all good wishes,
Gerard
Gerard O'Reilly
Dick,
In my earlier reply to your post to me of 31 July I said I thought your penultimate paragraph was a bit confused (or else that it had maybe just confused me!).
In
it you wrote:
“The
horizon metaphor evokes an image -- for me it is of a person
in the
ocean, out of sight of land, seeing one ship disappear as it
sails
away and sinks below the distant horizon, and another ship
appear as
approaches and rises above the horizon. To understand what
Lonergan
meant when he wrote about horizons, both you and I must have
insights, not just into the words on the page, but also into
the
image those words evoke. Your image might differ from mine in
some
details, but is probably based, as mine is, on Lonergan's
description
of a literal horizon on p. 235-6 of Method.
Then he draws the analogy between the scope and range of
one's vision
and ‘the scope of one's knowledge and the range of one's
interests’. Because we have been over these passages
repeatedly,
the insight that pivots between the more concrete and
imaginable
example and the abstract formulation comes readily to each
of us.
But, in my experience, the image does not simply go away.
The image
is necessary, not just for the initial insight, but for each
insight
by which I understand the sentences in which Lonergan uses
‘horizon’
and means the abstract formulation, ‘the scope of one's
knowledge
and the range of one's interests’.”
I’ve been puzzling over this paragraph for some time, but I’m still not confident I understand what you mean, which has made it difficult for me to comment. For if I were to base any detailed comments on a fundamentally mistaken interpretation of what you wrote, it would probably be of very little help and might, moreover, be rather irritating.
So in this post, if I may, l’d like to put to you a few questions to try to get clearer about your meaning, first, in respect of the opening phrase of the paragraph, and secondly about the flow or progression of the paragraph as a whole.
You
begin by saying, “The horizon metaphor evokes an image”.
What
do you mean by ’the horizon metaphor’ in that sentence? If
you are intending to follow the declared practice of Lakoff
&
Johnson’s Metaphors
We Live By,
according to which 'metaphor' means 'metaphorical concept',
which I quoted in my earlier email last night, a natural
interpretation for me of what you say is to suppose that by
‘the horizon metaphor’ you mean
the metaphorical concept of horizon. Is
that correct? Quite possibly not, for in the context of our
discussion
the metaphorical concept of a horizon is the concept of the
scope of
one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests, and then
it
would, I think, be hard to understand why that concept
should evoke
the image of your ocean-goer observing ships disappear or
appear over
the horizon. Two issues arise immediately here.
First,
then, I wonder: what is it in your experience that in fact
evokes for
you that image?
Can it really be the
metaphorical concept (or the thought) of the scope of a
person’s
knowledge and the range of his interests that
evokes for you that image. Or is it the literal concept of a
horizon
(or the concept or thought of a literal horizon) that evokes
it? Or
is it simply the word
‘horizon’ that, when you see or hear or imagine it, evokes
the
ocean-going image for you? I’m guessing that might be the
best
candidate. (Is it perhaps even a combination or fusion of
some of
these? Or, again, could it be something else entirely?)
Secondly, how should I understand the flow of the paragraph from one sentence to the next?
I would certainly find it easier to follow the progression of the paragraph as a whole if your first sentence had started, “The word ‘horizon’ evokes an image”,and then continued as it does.
Thus, the first three sentences appear to refer to images of an L-horizon. The fourth sentence, beginning “Then he draws the analogy...”, would then naturally read as the point where the ‘horizon metaphor’ first enters the story. The final three sentences would then appear to be about the image of an L-horizon you’ve described (or the similar one you expect me to have), with the fifth sentence referring to that image as ‘the more concrete and intelligible example’ in which we grasp Lonergan’s metaphorical or perhaps analogical meaning of horizon as ‘the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests’, and the last two sentences asserting (I surmise, but I’m not sure) that that image does not disappear, but is necessary not only for the initial insight into the metaphorical/analogical meaning but for every further insight into other sentences in which Lonergan uses the word ‘horizon’ to mean the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests.Of course, the fact that I would have found that formulation easier to understand does not mean that that was what you meant! I may have misconstrued you entirely.
If you can help me out when you have time, please, with these questions about what you intended, I will be very grateful and should also be better placed to comment on what you said.
With thanks and best wishes,
Gerard--
Richard Moodey
“<font
Gerard O'Reilly
Thanks very much for that reply. I'm glad you think that "the word 'horizon'" preserves what you intended by "the horizon metaphor" in that first sentence of the paragraph I asked about.
That helps me make more sense of the rest of that paragraph. I'm very busy just at the moment, but I will think further and comment as soon as I have time.
Warm regards,
Gerard
--
Jaray...@aol.com
One item I'd like to clear up regards what Lonergan calls a "fifth level." What he has in mind, I believe, is not a distinct level of individual consciousness. Rather, he is thinking of the vertical finality in the entire universe of emergent probability. He ordinarily spoke of it as a "fifth" level, and more recently as a "sixth" level. What he envisioned, I believe, is the emergent reality of actual, historical communities. One's participation in community is the fuller context of one's individual consciousness. One's individual consciousness is both confirmed and sublated by a "we-consciousness" that establishes one as part of a community or communities and, most fully, as being in love with God.
I published this view back in 1995. You can find it as "Lonergan and Being in Love" at my website: http://users.wowway.com/~tdunne5273/ During the years since then I added several appendices as new data and views about it became available." END quoting Tad.
Jaray...@aol.com
Born in Prague in the year when Kant's first Critique appeared, Bolzano became one of the most acute critics both of Kant and of German Idealism. He died in Prague in the same year in which Frege was born; Frege is philosophically closer to him than any other thinker of the nineteenth or twentieth century.
Bolzano was the only outstanding proponent of utilitarianism among German-speaking philosophers, and was a creative mathematician whose name is duly remembered in the annals of this discipline. HisWissenschaftslehre (Theory of Science) of 1837 makes him the greatest logician in the period between Leibniz and Frege.
The book was sadly neglected by Bolzano's contemporaries, but rediscovered by Brentano pupils: its ontology of propositions and ideas provided Husserl with much of his ammunition in his fight against psychologism and in support of phenomenology. END quote
Please note that Bolzano was also an original, integrative thinker--perhaps even more overlooked than Lonergan. Without Bolzano, there would not have been a phenomenology as originally conceived by Husserl.
Yesterday, I invoked Tad Dunne, one of the best, clearest explorers of Lonergan's legacy. I quote Tad again as to a fifth level. "What he has in mind, I believe, is not a distinct level of individual consciousness. Rather, he is thinking of the vertical finality in the entire universe of emergent probability. He ordinarily spoke of it as a "fifth" level, and more recently as a "sixth" level. What he envisioned, I believe, is the emergent reality of actual, historical communities. One's participation in community is the fuller context of one's individual consciousness. One's individual consciousness is both confirmed and sublated by a "we-consciousness" that establishes one as part of a community or communities and, most fully, as being in love with God." END quote
To summarize again as to this long story, Lonergan kept broadening his and his readers' horizons. Not only that but he helps us in his writings integrate the horizons of many original thinkers--as Tad suggests to include a "WE-consciounsess".
Joe Martos focusing on the motive for metaphor helps concretize the reach for "we- consciousness" at least as I see it,
John
Richard Moodey
Jaray...@aol.com
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Jaray...@aol.com
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Jaray...@aol.com
Richard Moodey
Michael Albertson
The following book review is the second in a series originally published in the Journal of the Oasis Foundation. The six books selected highlight aspects of aspects of Christianity and Islamic history and culture in the Middle East and their bearing on the situation in the region today.
Oasis was founded in 2004 in Venice to encourage mutual understanding and opportunities for encounter between the Western world and the Muslim majority world. According to Oasis, “interreligious dialogue involves intercultural dialogue because religious experience is always lived and expressed through the medium of culture: not merely at the theological and spiritual level, but also at the political, economic, and social ones.”
********
One of the most disorienting aspects of Sunni Islam, a religion without Church, is the dialectic relationship between the unitary nature of its dogmatic core and the plurality of the interpretations made of that core.
In his latest book, Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy, Jonathan Brown, a professor of Islamic Civilization at Georgetown University, sheds some light on this apparent contradiction. However, to shed light does not necessarily mean to resolve. As Brown writes, “Some aspects of Islam that seem glaringly problematic today actually result from efforts to answer some questions so fundamental that they have never been resolved definitively by anyone. Their answers to these questions are not so much right nor wrong as they are choices between competing priorities”.
The proliferation of sometimes conflicting interpretations and trends emerging from this single body of doctrine therefore remains a matter of fact that the author addresses by taking his cue from an ancient master, the great Indian theologian and reformer Shah Wali Allah (1703-1772), author of Al-Insaf fī Bayān asbāb al-Ikhtilāf (“An Even-handed Elucidation of the Causes of Disagreement”).
The journey on which Brown embarks in the company of his mentor can be divided into three stages.
The first corresponds to the formative period of Islamic tradition, during which the meaning of the Qur’an was unlocked through the efforts of the scholars, who interpreted it through the lens of Muhammad’s sunna and resort to reason. Brown proceeds to give a lucid and compelling review of the methodologies that the different schools developed to approach the Scriptures, collect and preserve the words and deeds of the Prophet, and thus derive from them practical rules.
The second stage was the consolidation of what Brown defines, not without admiration, as “the edifice of classical Islam” and the sharia system. In the author’s words, “far from a myopic or rigid body of law, the Sunni Sharia tradition thus became a swirl of stunning diversity.” For this reason, he observes, “The statement that ‘The sharia says ...’ is thus automatically misleading, as there is almost always more than one answer to any legal question”.
During this second stage, Islamic scholars elaborated their complex epistemological apparatus. This was made up of distinctions in the Scripture between attestation and indication, literal and allegorical meanings, general and specific language, of cross-references between the Qur’an and hadīths and instructions on how to decode a language that is often idiomatic and hyperbolic. Brown suggests at this point that many of today’s exegetical approaches, be they contextualist or hermeneutical, might not perhaps be as original as is often thought.
The third stage refers to the fracture caused by the incursion of modernity, as a result of which some Muslims, uncomfortable with the conflict between modern reason and theological reason, began to question the value of the medieval edifice. The interpretative divergences of the past, of which Brown gives an abundance of examples, were transformed into even more radical and seemingly intractable conflicts.
An emblematic example is to be found in the interpretation of a verse (4:34) in the Qur’an that, in case of acts of disobedience by wives, suggests that husbands should proceed from verbal reprimands to physical violence. Here the dilemma really is insoluble, since no possible compromise may be made between obedience to God’s word and accommodation to the spirit of the times.
Brown himself, whose interest in the Islamic tradition is not merely academic*, leaves the question in abeyance. He rejects a literal interpretation of the text (“There is no such thing as literal meaning”, he says), but adds, “One must accept that a husband using violence to discipline his wife is not inherently, absolutely and categorically wrong. There must be some time, place or situation when it is allowed, or God would not have permitted it”. It is a position that may well leave a bad taste in the mouth, but, neither fundamentalist nor modernist, it probably best captures the feeling of many Muslims.
[* Brown converted to Islam in 1997.]
Michele Brignone is the managing editor of Oasis. He is also a lecturer in Arabic Language at the Catholic University of Milan. His research focuses on modern Islamic political thought and modern Islamic intellectual history. This article is republished with the permission of Oasis.
Jaray...@aol.com
Part 1: "Underground"
Serving as an introduction into the perplexing mind of the narrator, this part is split into nine chapters. The introduction to these chapters propounds a number of riddles whose meanings are further developed as the narration continues. Chapters two, three, and four, deal with suffering and the irrational pleasure of suffering. Chapters five and six discuss the moral and intellectual fluctuation the narrator feels, along with his conscious insecurities regarding ”inertia”-inaction. Chapters seven through nine cover theories of reason and logic, closing with the last two chapters as a summary and transition into Part 2.
The narrator begins by discussing War as people's rebellion against the assumption that everything needs to happen for a purpose, because humans do things without purpose, and this is what determines human history.
Secondly, the narrator's desire for happiness is exemplified by his liver pain and toothache. The narrator mentions that utopian society removes suffering and pain, but man desires these two things and needs them to be happy. According to the narrator, removing pain and suffering in society takes away a man's freedom. This parallels Raskolnikow's behavior in Dostoyevsky's later novel, Crime and Punishment. He says that, due to the cruelty of society, human beings only moan about pain in order to spread their suffering to others. He builds up his own paranoia to the point he is incapable of looking his co-workers in the eye. " END quote
In my view, a sensitive person like Dostoevsky anticipated what Kafka would say 100 years laler. Both men knew that answering ongoing human absurdities sometimes necessitates speaking in poetic riddles (accessible to sensitive poetic souls like Lonergan and Thomas Merton)--but NOT to an Erdogan manipulator as I just wrote. ETC ETC
John
Jaray...@aol.com
Hi John,
--