spinoza circle

[Doug Mounce]

Hey Lonerganistas,

Just-wanted to convey my feelings of fun after attending the Spinoza Circle this morning.  Leonardo Moauro spoke on, "Essence and Existence: Spinoza Between Suarez and Eternalism".  I got to ask the first question using my recent reading in Gilson, and another attendee also referenced Gilson.  I couldn't conveniently recall what Lonergan said about Suarez.  

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[Hugh Williams]

Doug et al,

Doug makes reference below to Spinoza and the issue of essence and existence while making some reference to Gilson’s treatment of the issue as it may relate to Suarez …

Only Doug could do this in three or four lines. And I especially note his reference to ‘the fun’ of it all …

 I’ve been known to suck the fun out of many a good conversation. Though this is not my intention here. But you know ….. any time Gilson is mentioned …..😳😳😂

 So a few quick points,

•  Back a few years ago Suarez, at least Gilson’s treatment of Suarez, which is extensive, featured somewhat prominently on this list. For example, a few of us were detecting certain signs of Suarez in the debate between Jeremy Wilkins and Gavin Kerr. It is a very complex issue having to do with one’s account of ‘essence’ and ‘existence’ and the nature of their relationship.
•  For Gilson this always relates to the struggle between 'idealism and realism' within the history of philosophy. Some of us, at the time, believed we were detecting signs of idealism in Lonergan or perhaps more aptly, in some of his progeny.
•  Now I take Doug's post as an opportunity to say that Gilson saw Marx as basically a realist who philosophically speaks of ‘being’ as a ‘givenness’ that has an ‘objectivity’ that transcends the human mind, or as we might say – is ‘mind-independent’ in a certain fundamental sense. Marx in venturing into these philosophical waters had Hegel and his differences with Hegel as his main concern. But as much as Gilson sees Marx’s thought as a new type of social-ontology that Gilson philosophically understood to center around the question of ‘how is it intentional acts are incarnated or embodied in nature and the material world; how is it that intentionality can penetrate our language, our institutions, and the products of our work?’ Gilson as always saw this issue returning us to the philosophical problem of idealism versus realism, which we, or some of us on this list, perhaps under the influence of Lonergan, have managed to transpose into the problem of ‘intentionality analysis and causality’.
•  Marx philosophically tries to reorient Hegelian philosophy materialistically and he does develop a highly complex social theory based upon a social ontology (a metaphysical insight and position) that remains largely implicit and even incomplete in its ontological-epistemological account (see Joan Robinson’s “Economic Philosophy”, 1962, pp.38-39). Frankly this is an area of metaphysics that most thinkers try and avoid ... 
• And yet, Gilson (and Thomas Langan), in their study of Marx and Marxism take up a study of the Marxist manuals produced in the Soviet Union, because this they believed, for the time of their study, was where serious work was being done to try and give, for better or worse, a more complete philosophical account. Clearly this basis for a study of Marx’s social ontology has its serious risks and limitations much in the way a study of Thomas based upon Thomistic manuals would be seriously limited and even distorted. Gilson, I believe was well aware of this difficulty.
•  Now, I’m going to dare to make (or repeat) a further outrageous claim – I’m of the view, even conviction, that Phil McShane in his lifetime work of trying to argue for the centrality of Lonergan’s work in economy also knew that this was a work based upon a complex social ontology that too remain undeveloped, and that there was some good basis for arguing that serious engagement with Marxism was needed, even necessary given our times … And apart from what I believe to be McShane's own interests late in his career, I'd offer as complimenting evidence a reference to Einstein’s famous essay on “Why Socialism?” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2025). This brief and highly lucid essay by one of the greatest minds of our time, was a tremendous act of courage and defiance written at a time and in a culture when anti-communism was raging in the U.S.. It was without doubt a major embarrassment to the ruling classes of the day. Einstein wrote his essay as an endorsement of Monthly Review’s inaugural edition believing this publication to be a crucial public service in the educational realm of what he too saw to be a critical struggle to win over the hearts and minds of the people in seeing that there was and could be a better alternative …

 Hugh

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[Doug Mounce]

Dear Hugh,

Thanks for the reference to Einstein's essay.  His use of "planned economy" rather than socialism might be one way to encourage conversation.  No doubt that Phil had great dreams for social advance that would benefit every individual but I would guess that Lonergan scholars remain focused on their career.  This isn't to say that educating the next generation isn't essential.  Of course, there are good reasons to doubt that my study will do much to advance our economy or even help educate anyone.  

In any case, I won't have time to follow the other links so I'll instead recommend a link of my own - to Thurman Arnold's, “The Folklore of Capitalism”.  This 1938 article from the New Yorker says he is funnier than Einstein's Thorsten Veblen, and the writer even goes so far as to say that, "In some quarters Mr. Arnold is already being hailed as more important than Marx" - granted it's a review article in a weekly magazine. regards, Doug

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1938/01/15/1938-01-15-069-tny-cards-000034087

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[Hugh Williams]

Doug,

I've come to the view that for various reasons how the terms

'socialist' and 'capitalist' are understood, appreciated, and used in much of the West and particularly in the US is a worthy study.

It involves the powerful affects of propaganda and social conditioning.

I like the 'communications' suggestion around 'planned economy', however in Canada the discussion might be better centered around

a 'cooperative economy'. (Though we must realize that in certain areas of our hemisphere, or in the world more generally, even 'cooperative'

was/is equated with 'communist'.)

And yet going 'deeper' into the areas of social-psychology, one might want to explore what is it in our individual and collective experience and culture about 'socialism' that arouses such deep feelings?

In the Canadian-Christian orbit of Lonergan, he seems to have settled on what he called the 'third way' of Catholic social teachings, 

which frankly, in my own view these days, seems to me to be a somewhat dubious notion .... i.e. as argued elsewhere, a notion basically captured/subsumed by liberalism ...

Hugh

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