[Lonergan_l] IMPLEMENTATION WITHOUT VISION = Bad Faith

[nichola...@utoronto.ca]

Dear Folks & John,

Without vision the people perish--Proverbs 29:18

How perceptive of you to recognize anthropomorphisms, which like myth
or fiction in a constructed vision does not make it unreal. INSIGHT is
an essay in aid of the appropriation of one's rational
self-consciousness and what I'm pointing to is the appropriation of
one's imaginative self-consciousness, a wider horizon, which involves
one in constructing an appropriate vision at the level of our times.
It does not involve an intelligent/imaginative, theory/vision split,
but calls for an imaginative intelligence in constructing a visionary
theory, by reading the classics and not distracting ourselves with
mathematical and scientific models, which have landed us in morass of
technology. In my much neglected Lonergan transcripts, Lonergan
recalls a round-table discusion, with a number of professors,on the
topic of education. All agreed that what was needed was for more
students and professors to reopen the Classics Departments. When asked
what their sons were studying, they all answered--computers!! What is
called for is not simply Newman's rational but also an imaginative
assent, a reason and a will to create by shrugging off the Atlas
complex of being stuck and duped into under-sanding, as,the myth of
Atlas recounts. Implementation without vision is bad faith.

John seems to be positing a totally transcendent God, somekind of
transcendental signifier (Derrida), wich suits our modern alienation.
Lonergan admits that David Tracy was right in pointing out the
weakness, the failure of INSIGHT'S chs. 19 & 20 to start from the
horizon of the subject; as Lonergan says, they are simply a wrap-up
job on his way to Rome.
[see, LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND MEANING, Response by Lonergan]

The proper perspective is an acceptance of that expressed by T.S.
Eliot: "The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is
Incarnation." [Dry Salvages, No.3 of 'Four Quartets', part 5];
Northrop Frye: "The journey that the Word is taking through us."
[Bible Lectures]; Est deus in nobis (Ovid, Fasti).

Hope the following is of some help:

"Everyone with any social function has some model community in his
mind in the light of
which he does his job, such as a community of better health for the
doctor, of clearer
judgment for the teacher, of fewer wrecked and wasted lives for the
social worker. The
model so contructed is a myth or fiction, and in normal minds it is
known to be a
fiction. That does not make it unreal; what happens is rather an
interchange of reality
and illusion in the mind. Most of what we call objective reality is a
human construct
[even cosmologies are fictions] left over from yesterday; much of it
could do with
imrovement, and the model that hope affords shows up a good deal of
this contruct as both
undesireable and removable, and to that extent unreal. The touchstone
of reality is the
fictional model vision. The Epistle of James talks about "works"
[implementation] as the complement of faith [2:14-26], but it seems to
me a better
metaphor to regard faith and hope, the dialectic of belief and vision,
as the parents of
which works [implementation] are the offspring." Frye, CW. vol. 4, p.350

--NWG

Quoting jaray...@aol.com:

>
> Nick,
>
> you say,
>
> "God does not sit around trying to understand and, since we are made
> in God's image" we should strive to be artists and to create."
>
>
>
> Further questions arise: Are we to play God, pretending?" or "Are we
> to recognize the first Commandment that there is only one God, that
> we are not be deluded?" Let us not confuse the image that we are
> for the creative reality that God is.
>
> God does not need to "sit around" anthropomorphisms, true. But
> we do need to understand what God has done, what God enables us to
> keep on doing using the imagination given us in and through the
> further anthromorphic "bosom-of-God" image. To authenticate the
> "both/and" should we not say that only God creates; we piggy back on
> that creative power--never able to dispense w. a basic
> understanding of God's creation? Poe and the impressionists were
> still within the trying-to-understand, reflective frame of mind.
> Unlike Verlaine or Rimbaud, Einstein understood his limitations.
> Are not even the postmodernists (who disclaim so much) trying to
> make us "understand"? Or does Frye have a different view on such
> matters?
>
> In another email, you yourself answered such questions by
> reflecting on thaumazetein, wonder etc as interpreted by Aristotle,
> Vico, Voegelin, Lonergan. Better not play these giants against Blake
> or Frye--two other giants. Being artists, it seems to me, and
> trying to "create" is for us MADE in God's image a mere weak
> derivative ability for we, unlike God, first have to try to
> understand. Or could one say that for great artists the
> creative-understanding faculty is a single, comprehensive function?
> Lonergan needed interpreters to help him understand and discourse
> on symbols, myth and the "creative" process in humans. In which way
> was BL misguided in following Susan Langer?
>
> John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nichola...@utoronto.ca
> To: Lonergan <loner...@skipperweb.org>
> Sent: Mon, Nov 23, 2009 12:26 pm
> Subject: Re: [Lonergan_l] WHERE IS HOME? WHERE IS HERE?
>
>
> Dear Jeremy,
>
> What counts is the intellectual imagination, whose purpose is to
> create not to understand. You are right in recognizing that it is
> not a question of either/or but rather both/and. Like the mind/body
> split the failure to recognize the intellectual imagination is the
> source of much of our misery. "The imagination is the bosom of God",
> as Blake says. God does not sit around trying to understand and,
> since we are made in God's image" we should strive to be artists and
> to create.
>
> --NWG
>
>
> Quoting Jeremy Blackwood <jeremy.b...@marquette.edu>:
>
>> If the only true point of discourse is to "give man a home" in that
>> sense, then the very book whose depths of wisdom you plumb (Insight)
>> ought not have been written.
>>
>> Whence the either/or? Neither a soulless mind NOR a mindless soul is
>> the answer. What counts, after all, is the authenticity of the whole.
>>
>> Jeremy W. Blackwood
>> Doctoral Student
>> Marquette University
>> Theology Department
>>
>> On Nov 23, 2009, at 12:07 PM, <nichola...@utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Folks,
>>>
>>> Are we jumping the gun by indulging ourselves in such refined >>
>>> speculations about Lonergan as we see in the comments of Phil and
>>> >> Catherine? Some time back Catherine asked me why I was so
>>> opposed >> to theory and my only answer could be
>>> INSIGHT 547/570: "But explanation [theory] does not give man a >>
>>> home" To reach home, which is here and now" we must radically >>
>>> transcend the physical universe and begin to explore the verbal >>
>>> universe. Remember, the word "universe" is a metaphor no matter
>>> how >> we try to embrace it. In reading Proust it is well to
>>> remember we >> are in a literary context and any chemical or
>>> physical references >> must be seen as metaphors, like the bones
>>> in Ezekiel. It is the >> study of myth and metaphor, not
>>> linguistics and semiotics, that is >> the proper study of language
>>> and its future and which can lift us >> from theory to vision, to
>>> our true home, the anagogical perspective >> that St. Thomas
>>> mentions.
>>>
>>> Every breakthrough in education is a breakthrough in vision, to >>
>>> quote Frye, ON EDUCATION. The study of Scripture, literature,the
>>> >> verbal universe, and not mathematics, physics, chemistry,
>>> etc.,is >> the right direction is the true reward we find in
>>> studying Lonergan >> and St. Thomas.
>>>
>>>
>>> Article 10: Does Sacred Scripture have multiple senses underlying a
>>> single passage?
>>> Here St. Thomas gives an orderly account of the different senses of
>>> Scripture. The foundational sense is the literal or historical sense,
>>> though even here we have to be careful about how we identify this
>>> sense. (See reply to obj. 3 on parabolic speech.)
>>>
>>> Given this basic sense, the other (so-called spiritual senses) fall
>>> into place:
>>>
>>> When something in the Old Testament is understood to be a type or
>>> figure of something in the New Testament, there is the allegorical
>>> sense. So, for instance, many things that happen to Joseph in the
>>> book of Genesis are figures of Christ; the passover is a figure of
>>> Christ's sacrifice and of the Mass, etc.
>>> When something in either Testament is put before us for imitation in
>>> our lives, this is the moral or tropological sense.
>>>
>>> When something prefigures eternal glory, this is the anagogical sense.
>>> (Take, for instance, the promise of a land flowing with milk and
>>> honey)
>>>
>>> --NWG
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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[Maxim Faust]

Nicholas,

RE: "... one's imaginative self-consciousness..."; "... an imaginative
intelligence in constructing a visionary theory..."

Have you not heard of R. M. Doran's work?

Frye does not mediate a sound cognitive theory/epistemology/metaphysics.

Max

[nichola...@utoronto.ca]

Dear Folks & Max,

Cavalier and ad hominem remarks serve only to point a finger at
yourself. When you've read the 30 vols. of Frye's Collected Works I'm
sure you'll agree that he is truly among the "greats". Which Frye book
are you referring tg in your in your comment?

Joseph Campbell, makes the pertinent point that when the knight errant
is going on his quest through the woods he doesn't stop to brush off
the pigeon droppings!!

Cheers,

P.S. Bob Doran's literary education is as limited as my education is
in neuclear physics. His writing is a function of reading someone like
J.D. MacDonald!!

--NWG

[Jeremy Blackwood]

Nicholas,

The issue isn't literary education so much as it is the relation
between the literary and the theoretic. It is one thing to have read
great works and even to be educated in what makes them so and how they
function as such; it is quite another to know how the literary realm
relates to the theoretic realm, and while you've spent a lot of
theoretic effort in these emails trying to justify the notion that the
theoretic isn't where it's at, you seem not to have noticed that
you've been arguing theoretically, not imaginatively.

You argue for "an imaginative intelligence" to be used "in
constructing a visionary theory." Few here would disagree with you in
principle (I think I can safely say that). That is, few here would
deny the vital role of the imagination, images, symbolic
representation, etc. in constituting authentic intelligence,
reasonableness, and responsibility (if not love, as well) or the vital
role of intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility in
constituting authentic imagination, images, symbols, etc. In my
reading, the disagreement is over whether and to what extent each
(imagination and intelligence) has its own proper role that is to be
carried out in partnership with the other, rather than being subsumed
into the other. Unless I missed it, I have not seen anyone here argue
for the reduction of the imaginative to the intelligent; yet, I am
seeing in your emails a tendency to reduce intelligence to the
imaginative.

What is needed is both an imaginative and symbolic way to appreciate
the function and role of intelligence, on the one hand, and an
explanatory and theoretic way to appreciate the function and role of
imagination, on the other. On the former point, it may be true that
Frye is a guide, but not if he suggests the reduction of intelligence
to the criteria dictated by imagination; on the latter point, an
explanatory and theoretic way to appreciate the function and role of
the imagination, images, symbols, etc., one will find few guides
better than Bob Doran.

In other words, to play off the Campbell comment you noted, I don't
think anyone here is suggesting that the knight's quest stop, but they
are requesting that the questing be done responsibly. Many of us, I
think, are simply suggesting that the knight be careful lest he find
that, upon reaching the climax of the quest, the pigeon droppings have
ruined his armor and sword.

Jeremy W. Blackwood
Doctoral Student
Marquette University
Theology Department

[nichola...@utoronto.ca]

Dear Jeremey,

Here are some points of discussion, in Lonergan, which I find helpful
in relating in relating him to the wider context of Frye's work:

Symbolic cosciousness is a representation of the "known unknown."
Basic horizon is constituted by the self-transcendence of questioning,
yet, since answers are always less than questions, there arises an
area that Lonergan calls the "known unknown". The known unknown is the
field of mystery, and, in Lonergan's words, "though the field of
mystery is contracted by the advance of knowledge, it cannot be
eliminated from human living." [Insight, 546]. In brief, there is
always the further question. Lonergan describes the "known unknown"
as being apprehended as the sphere of "the unexplored and strange, of
the undefined surplus of significance and momentousness." [Insight,
532]. It is distinguished from the sphere of reality that is
domisticated, familiar, common - what historians of religion call the
"profane". Symbolic consciousness, then, is an awareness and
expression of the transcendental intentionality of basic horizon - a
condition midway between knowledge and ignorance - and, as such, itisa
psychic orientation that consists in "some cosmic dimension, in some
intimations of unplumbed depths that accrue to man's feelings,
emotions, sentiments." [Insight, 532].

Since the questioning of man is unrestricted, in the sense that he can
question everything, the object of his questioning is unrestricted. In
short, symbolic consciousness represents ultimate meaning and value.
Moreover, this ultimate meaning and value, according to Lonergan,
cannot be construed as the product of a "merely subjective" desire to
escape from the harsh reality of the world into a dreamland of a
beyond, for reality, in his viewpoint, is defined in terms of the
intentionality of human cognitional process and not in terms of
something "out there" opposed to something merely subjective "in
here". In other words, man's "ultimate concern" is the very core of
objectivity. "Since intending is just another name for meaning, it
follows that complete intelligibility (i.e., ultimate meaning) so far
from beng meaningless to us, is in fact at the root of all our
attempts to mean anything at all." [A Second Collection, 42].

Now some form of representation of ultimate meaning and value in
concrete living must be effected if man is to carry out the
imperatives of basic horizon. His knowing and responsible acting
[creating] are always underpinned by the intention of being, i.e., the
intention of "what is", and the intention of the good, and therefore
some intimation, some image, some recognition, of being and the good
must be operative in his concrete horizon.

Symbolic consciousness must assume that task of providing such a
representation. This is the case because the phenomenon of the known
unknown precludes the possibility of a conceptual representation of
ultimate meaning and value. So the representation of ultimate meaning
is ultimate mystery. Yet Lonergan maintains that even if man were to
attain the totality of correct judgments, his finite mind could not
grasp that totality as a whole, [Insight, 643] and, that even more
fundamentally, there would still remain the necessity for dynamic
images to convey on the psychic level the totality of all there is, a
necessity, he asserts, "that has its ground in the very being of man"
[Insight, 547].

Lonergan is saying that an existential condition for authentic human
living is an affective disposition which effectively orients man to
fidelity to the pure desire to know and the intention of the good.
Symbolic consciousness, then, is an essential component in authentic
self-constitution. It is the correspondence of the psychic level with
the intentionality of basic horizon. Without it, man's mind and will,
on the one hand, and his sensitivity, on the other, would be locked in
deadly combat, and the unity of his being would be torn asunder. This
is the key to undertanding the somewhat inevitable shift to Romanticism.

It should not be surprising that Lonergan finds in symbolic
consciousness a kind of understanding and judgment which follows the
"laws" of image and feeling rather than the laws of logic which can
stampeed the mind just as easily as emotions.

Cheers,
--NWG

Quoting Jeremy Blackwood <jeremy.b...@marquette.edu>:

>>>> answered--computers!! What is

>>>>> Lonergan. Better not play these giants against Blake or Frye--two other

[Joe F]

Fiction has a negative connotation of being make believe. But the
world view of a 'more just world' for a legal scholar is not a fiction
but a potency,.

[Jeremy Blackwood]

Joe-

Yes, such a notion of fiction as 'not real' depends upon a specific
(namely, already out there now) notion of 'real.' The question is,
when someone like Nicholas says something is 'not real,' we must ask
whether they are not maybe already in a non-intellectual
differentiation in which 'real' does not constitute a strictly
intellectual or theoretic claim.

Sometimes, persons' positions can be helpful in spite of their
explicit affirmations, especially if those affirmations are simply the
result of insufficient differentiation. That may be the case here.

Sent from my iPod

[Joe F]

Hi Jeremy,

I am not criticizing Nicholas because I don't understand what he is saying.

Joe

[Catherine B. King]

Hello Nicholas and Jeremy, et al:

If I understand the argument correctly, we are exploring the relationship
between (1) theory and the known, and (2) what Nicholas calls forward from
Lonergan's writings: The known unknown and human questioning that presses
us forward into that unknown, and where the cusp of our regard for that
unknown is often first expressed in story, myth, poetry, etc., where the
inclusion of image and feeling, and all of the human desires and fears are a
part of that expression. I say "included," but not as excluding language as
expression of what it means to be human.

Nicholas says: "It should not be surprising that Lonergan finds in symbolic

consciousness a kind of understanding and judgment which follows the 'laws'

of image and feeling rather than the laws of logic which can stampeed (do
you mean stampede?) the mind just as easily as emotions."

But again, you seem to be juxtaposing above a strawman contradiction that
you project onto the thought of those who write here. You would be wrong in
such an interpretation. Again, it seems you are arguing against a
positivist interpretation of Lonergan's work, rather than what anyone here
(in my reading) really thinks. Certainly Lonergan himself had enough to say
and critique about logic and a positivist rendering of philosophical issues.
And for myself, with Piscitelli, I would give primacy to poetry over
theory--but would follow--that theory and its adherence to a universal
viewpoint, in our time, brings needed critique to mythic consciousness and
its expression, and its waywardness, and especially to its power over the
less differentiated mind.

Underneath the issue here also is what "knowing" means. Referring back to
Nicolas' quote above, if there are "kinds of understanding and judgment"
that follow the "laws of image and feeling," that understanding and judgment
render such "knowledge" only in a non-critical sense. Here, that "kind" of
knowledge may drive our thought, speech, and actions, but it is uncritical
as it cannot be distinguished from anything else at all, e.g. belief,
neuroses, fantasy, dreams, "justified" tyrannies, insanities, and "God
telling me to do things," etc., all of which can find "reason" to underwrite
all sorts of evil in history. God help us, indeed. For all of its assumed
incursions into and conversations with the divine, it's still human and,
thus, needs constant critique.

For all of its problems, without the thrust of theory and theoretical
consciousness, we are back in the dark ages. Theory and theoretical
consciousness give us the language of the "known unknown" in the first
place, and it offers a needed negative dialectic to, generally stated, the
complex of mythic consciousness. That would include the laws of image and
feeling as again included in symbolic consciousness and expressions, but not
excluding or separated from human language (Piscitelli, 1977).

But Nicholas' reading of Lonergan's references to symbol, etc., are again
couched in an either/or polemic, rather than a more nuanced view of how
theory and our quest into the unknown are related to one another--as
dialectically and mutually critique-ing/informing. If I read you rightly,
Nicholas, you seem to be saying that, because literary or mythic
consciousness is often the first to press into unknown arenas of meaning,
and that it is by its nature comprehensive (though undifferentiated), that
somehow theory or theoretical consciousness has no place in (1) Lonergan's
thought or (2) our own needs as persons in the history of human being in the
world. If so, you would be also comprehensively wrong in this.

Finally, the vectoral movements/metaphors of "the way up" and "the way down"
can be applied to the movement and relationship between theory and myth, and
the known (with its universal viewpoint) and the unknown. That universal
viewpoint would always keep one eye on mythic-poetic expression.

But because we are on the other side of the scientific revolution in
history, and because we on this site are beginning with and in the field of
self-appropriation/affirmation (including a critical appropriation of what
knowing means), we can find theory and theoretical developments on "the way
up," and the unknown that we press into with our poetical consciousness, and
that then becomes known, as "the way down." Neither of these is averse to
either a secular and-or religious interpretation of who we are in history.

Regards,

Catherine

[nichola...@utoronto.ca]

Dear Folks, Joe & Jeremy:

Elizabeth Anscombe, at the Lonergan Florida Conference, stoped smoking
her cigar and said to Loneran, "I don't understand you at all!".
Lonergan said later he'd wished he had replied, "What's
missing?"--Insight!!!

The word "fiction" means "to make", "to create", see Vico's principle
verum factum first formulated in 1710.

FRYE ON LONERGAN:

"Generalized empirical method operates on a combination of both the
data of sense and the data of consciousness: it does not treat of
objects without taking into account the corresponding operations of
the subject; it does not treat of the subjects operations without
taking into account the corresponding objects."

[B. Lonergan, A Third Collection, 1985, p.141]

I think we've come across this before in some of our postings?!!

Here's how Frye expresses it:

"As soon as we realize that observation is affected by the observer,
we have to incorporate the observer into the phenomena to be observed,
and make him an object too. This fact has transformed the physical
sciences, and of course the social sciences are based entirely on the
sense of the need to observe the community of observers. That leaves
us with nothing genuinely "subjective" except a structure of
language...which is the only thing left that can be distinguished from
the objective world. Even that structure is objective to each student
of it. People are "subjects", then, not as people, but only to the
extent that they form a community within a linguistic structure which
records some observation of the objective."

[Northrop Frye, THE GREAT CODE, 1982, 21 -22]

"To conclude, our aim regards:

(5) not a development indicated by appealing either to the logic of
the as yet unknown goal or to a presupposed and as yet unexplained
ontologically structured metaphysics, but a development that can begin
in any sufficiently cultured consciousness..." [INSIGHT, 1957) XXVIII.

Cheers,

NWG

Quoting Jeremy Blackwood <jeremy.b...@marquette.edu>:

> Joe-
>
> Yes, such a notion of fiction as 'not real' depends upon a specific
> (namely, already out there now) notion of 'real.' The question is, when
> someone like Nicholas says something is 'not real,' we must ask whether
> they are not maybe already in a non-intellectual differentiation in
> which 'real' does not constitute a strictly intellectual or theoretic
> claim.
>
> Sometimes, persons' positions can be helpful in spite of their explicit
> affirmations, especially if those affirmations are simply the result of
> insufficient differentiation. That may be the case here.
>
> Sent from my iPod
>
> On Nov 27, 2009, at 4:50 PM, Joe F <172...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Fiction has a negative connotation of being make believe. But the
>> world view of a 'more just world' for a legal scholar is not a fiction
>> but a potency,.
>>

[Jeremy Blackwood]

Nicholas:

> That leaves us with nothing genuinely "subjective" except a
> structure of language

This is where your perspective and mine, at least, would definitely
part ways. The structure of language is not freestandingly subjective
in the way Frye seems to want it to be. I think this is an inadequate
understanding of 'objective' and 'subjective' at work.

Catherine:

Amen.

Now, I must return my attention to my studies. Doctoral exams are
coming in just a few months!

Sent from my iPod

[Joe F]

If not all. This is one of those cases in which the author, in this
case Northrop Frye has a neat idea but he can't get it across right
away. So rather than jump on it I think it best to give it some more
thought. So far what I get is that in a world in which everything is
made into an object of study, including 'the observer' what is left to
be sacro-sanct, free-wheeling, let be, subjective. My answer would be
that whatever it is will most likely be found in the sacred and one's
relation to it. But Frye is thinking 'language'. And that sort of
makes sense to me because language is ever standing outside the
observed as a vehicle for the observed. In this sense fictions, and
fictions upon fictions, abound. And we are like little slugs that ooze
along these fictions. And when we find someone else in the same one we
are lucky to have found a friend. To me the sacred is that which is
left alone from empirical testing. So I would guess the way to go to
the truly subjective is in refining the structures and meanings of the
language which we consider sacred.

Joe

[Maxim Faust]

Jeremy,

Re "...but not if [Frye] suggests the reduction of intelligence to the
criteria dictated by imagination". I trust that you will not be surprised
to find that the problem is more complex. Here's NF in the Introduction to
*Words with Power: Being a Second study of the Bible and Literature*, 1990:

"A more serious issue, to me, is the number of literary critics who seem to
be as unwilling as Biblical critics to admit that myth and metaphor form the
primary language of their own subject. Ever since Plato, most literary
critics have connected the word "thought" with dialectical and conceptual
idioms, and ignored or denied the existence of poetic and imaginative
thought. This attitude continued into the twentieth century with I. A.
Richard's *Science and Poetry*, with its suggestion that mythical thinking
has been superseded by scientific thinking, and that consequently poets must
confine themselves to pseudo-statements. The early criticism of t. S.
Eliot, though considerably more cautious than ths, also exhibited an array
of confusions clustering around te word "thought". Since then *there has
been a slowly growing realization that mythological thinking cannot be
superseded, because it forms the framework and context for all thinking*.
But the old views still persist, if in more sophisticated forms, and there
are still far too many literary critics who are both ignorant and
contemptuous of the mental processes that produce literature."

By "myth" I interpret him to mean an authoritatively storied image of the
nature and destiny of human existence.

Max

>>>> asked what their sons were studying, they all answered--computers!! What

[Jeremy Blackwood]

Maxim:

I agree that, for instance, in the case of biblical texts myth and
metaphor is the primary language. But as far as I'm concerned, myth/
symbol/literature/etc. has no more business telling the theoretic what
is and is not 'intelligent' than empirical science has telling
philosophy what 'the real' does and does not mean. It is complex in
many ways, but I do not advocate the mythic/symbolic/literary
derivation of theoretic or metaphysical categories any more than I
advocate the theoretic-metaphysical derivation of mythic/symbolic/
literary categories. I'm in total agreement with "the priority of
poetry" as BL put it, but that does not mean that peotry gets to
dictate theoretical norms for me any more than it did for him.

Sent from my iPod

[Doug Mounce]

Jeremy, would you have time to quickly describe, and maybe explain, how
you use the terms subjective and objective?

Any other reports-from-the-front about exams, theses, or Doran's project
would be greatly appreciated. Doug

[Jeremy Blackwood]

Doug, et al -

Quickly:

What I meant by 'an inadequate notion of objective and
subjective' (however I exactly put it) was that the subject, by being
made an object, does not thereby cease being a subject. What is made
the object is precisely the 'being-a-subject,' so it is wrong to say
that subjectivity is no longer genuinely subjective (or however
Nicholas exactly put it). It IS subjective still.

Subject: what intends; what asks questions
Object: what is intended; what is asked about
Subjectivity: intending; questioning
Objectivity: authentic intending; asking all the relevant questions

Updates on Doran will have to come another time. Hope this helps,
though.

Sent from my iPod

[Joe F]

I thought that in that selection that Max gave us some time ago CWL
18? ( would like to track it down again), conversion occurred in the
human sciences because the subject became the object. For example a
psychologist engaged in the study of humanity and human behavior,
cannot be entirely coldly detached like a Nazi but recognize that he
or she is learning and incorporating what is being learned an thus
changing and the term used was 'conversion'. I thought that this could
be applied to the Darwinian ecologist, the now self-reflecting steward
of the environment in which he or she is part of that environment and
thus in that sense on the side of the object. Thus the study of
biology has become a human science, with the subject on the side of
the object which is a huge satisfaction for those of us who prepared
for medicine via a degree in biology. Lonergan made sense of it for
me.

Joe

[Jeremy Blackwood]

Joe -

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I meant that the subject doesn't cease being a subject when it's made an object because it's AS a subject that it is an object. (That is, the subject-as-subject becomes the subject-as-object, but it thereby remains a subject.) I think that would agree with what you're saying here, but I wanted to make sure.

Even with my intermittent paying attention to this list, I seem to remember something like the reference you mention here. I, too, would be curious to see it again so I can read it for myself.

Jeremy W. Blackwood
Doctoral Student
Marquette University
Theology Department

[Maxim Faust]

Jeremy, Joe,

This is a philosophical tease I've prepared for conversations:

[First, throw out the theme of objectivity. Easy to do. Many topical issues.
Then move the term in refence to "self knowledge".]

'Whatever a subject knows is an object of the subject's knowing. Among all
that a subject can know, the subject is included, but only if the data is
available and incites the question, 'What am I?' Lot's of luck answering
that one! But if you do, you have knowledge of an object. You have
knowledge governed by an object. You have a case of objective knowledge."

... usually follows a good hour of noticeably raised voices. Please. I'm
referring to conversations without an agenda. Each is its own pallet of
colors. You have to adapt.

Max

[Joe F]

Hi Jeremy,

Yes I think so. I hope we can get the reference again. Are there
objective qualifications which differentiate a being viewed as a
subject from a being viewed as an object?

Joe

[Joe F]

Max,

What makes it more difficult is that at some point in history
(seventeenth century) the terms exchanged meanings. What was
understudy was the 'subject' rather than the object. Oscar Wilde said
'I can make a quip on any subject'. 'Ok then, on the queen'. 'The
queen is not a subject'. By the way if you recall the reference on the
human sciences would appreciate it.

Joe

On 12/1/09, Maxim Faust <maxim...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jeremy Blackwood]

Joe-

If you ask about a human being as biological, you aren't asking about it as questioning, so you aren't asking about a subject-as-object, but about just an object.

However, if you ask about a human being as intelligent and rational, you are asking about it as questioning, so you are asking about a subject-as-object, not just an object.

That's briefly how I would distinguish the two.

Jeremy W. Blackwood
Doctoral Student
Marquette University
Theology Department

[jaray...@aol.com]

Nick,

BL relied on many authors to make his own case but I'm not sure he would have accepted one of Frye's claims which you quote below, namely

"That leaves us with nothing genuinely "subjective" except a structure of language...which is the only thing left that can be distinguished from the objective world. Even that structure is objective to each student of it. People are "subjects", then, not as people, but only to the extent that they form a community within a linguistic structure which records some observation of the objective."

You stated that you studied Piscitelli, Catherine's mentor. In a PdF file which I can't reproduce here, Piscitelli seems to read Ricoeur on intentionality and myth in ways that would not be fully consonant with the above claims Frye makes. Ricoeur, like BL, wanted to penetrate into ways that subjects through their questions, for example, explore dimensions beyond and that help structure human language(s) and human communities,

John

-----Original Message-----
From: nichola...@utoronto.ca
To: Lonergan <loner...@skipperweb.org>

Sent: Sat, Nov 28, 2009 9:08 am
Subject: Re: [Lonergan_l] IMPLEMENTATION WITHOUT VISION = Bad Faith

[Maxim Faust]

Joe,

My take on the current state of science is that today Biology,
the exploration of all forms of organic being, has become Organic Chemistry
providing the base for the higher orders of Botony and Zoology. The latter
includes Human Physiology and is distinct from Psychology insmuch as the
former presents the lower system sublated by the order of human cognitive
and volitional dynamics, the whole sublated by the order of grace.... oh,
wait! I'm rushing ahead of the current state....

:o)

(I wish I knew how to make eyebrows)

I'm bemused by your claim that "at some point in history
(seventeenth century) the terms [(subject(ivity) and object(ivity)]
exchanged meanings." Including studies of our history is tied to any claim
to take Lonergan's lead and is always detailed according to the questions
pursued. Mine target the 8th FS. So I better know something about, say,
Blackwell's studies of Homer, and that Bacon concurred with him in his
assessment of Myth as the fruit of the earliest (oral ... *my
addition*) exigence
of the philosophical spirit in contrast with the view of Myth as the first
spun web of religion's oppression. Anyway, I scan what I have of the 17th
century and don't know who or what you are referring to. Care to enlighten
me?

Let me add that you seem to dismiss my sample of what I call a philosophical
tease. Or perhaps the value of philosophy resides only in the printed or
lectured word?

Max

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:28 PM, Jeremy Blackwood <

[Joe F]

Hi Jeremy

The way I see it (and this is a matter of personal opinion- it works
for me), the enlightened environmentalist, and this may include anyone
with a concern for the environment, is the subject who finds himself
taking part in those mutual relations of an environment with other
living organic beings around us. Thus the subject finds himself in the
milieu but he finds himself there not merely as a biological object
but as an intelligent, self-reflecting biological object. This is not
mere object but an object which is at the same time a subject and must
be thought of as a being having all the qualifications of a subject.
Therefore I think as we begin to encounter ourselves we begin to
encounter ourselves as participants who are subjects as well as
objects.

And from this I believe one can assert that one discovers oneself
truly not only in the privacy of self-reflection but also in
reflection upon the collegial relationships one establishes within
community. A person discovers himself no less in reaching out in
participation then in solitary self-reflection. As evidence for this I
find that many ecologists view themselves more than as lone observers
but as stewards and advocates. And also there is the case of Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin whose interest in the Divine Milieu led him to
even confer a priestly quality on this stewardship.

As self-reflecting beings we become known to ourselves as the subjects
which we are in community. That's the meaning of team spirit.

Joe

takes a part in the environment as a self-reflecting object not a
simply biological.

[Maxim Faust]

Joe,

Beautiful!

This old biological me, from busy head to shuffling foot,
*expresses*meaning and value, is the
*stuff* of intersubjectivity. The image of the handshake is the human
milieu.

Then, "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name...."!

Max

[Joe F]

Dear Max,

Just follow the examples given in the OED for the terms 'subject' and
'object'. I think that is where I noticed this exchange of meanings.
One should always have references at hand when making such assertions
so I apologize if that doesn't substantiate it.

Joe

I think that is the current take on sciences with physics as allowing
for chemistry.

[Paul Robinson]

Joe & Max,

Since I've just been to the pub I'll risk the wrath of the list ...

Philosophy of probability is one of my areas, and Lorraine Daston in "How
Probabilities Came to Be Objective and Subjective", Historia Mathematica 21
(1994), 330-44, claims that in 14th century scholastic philosophy:
The objective in this context referred to the objects of thought, and the
subjective to objects in themselves... This (to modern ears) inverted sense
survived well into the 18th century.
... the most common eighteenth-century definition is the "objective" lens
("object glass") of a microscope or telescope... Already in 1820 a German
dictionary defines Objektivitat as "relation to an external object" and
Subjektiv as "personal, inner, inhering in us, in opposition to objective"
Etc. I could probably send you the article if you want. And I guess her book
on Objectivty might be relevant ... I haven't my copy to hand:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11277

Cheers,
Paul

[Joe F]

Paul,

That's great to have corroboration of something I read so long ago. I
felt I had gone out on a limb having mentioned it. Thank you.

Joe

[Maxim Faust]

Paul, Joe,

The mini review of the book *Objectivity* does not provide any notable
support for the idea of an "inverted sense" of objectivity and subjectivity.
So perhaps an attempt to formulate the contrast would help readers here. I
suspect that your reply will capture something of Kant's influence, but I
can't be sure.

Max

[mou...@uw.edu]

I would guess the change of significance is more between the *antigua via* and the *via moderna*. This is more of a difference between the world as Aquinas defined it, and Dante gave it artistic expression, compared to the world after Luther (who praised Ockham as the greatest dialectician) where either/or categorization began to rule the realm of thought.

There's a sense in-which objectification begins to play a role that underlies a basic problem in assumptions by Descartes and Kant.

[Maxim Faust]

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Maxim Faust <maxim...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Doug, Paul, Joe,
>
> Did you read the book's Table of Contents?! This must be a grand defence of
> what we know as Perceptual Realism. I may be multiply mistaken, but this
> book could be a superb occasion for as many student's of Lonergan as
> possible to write reviews. It's sounds like the perfect opening.
>
> Max

[Maxim Faust]

Hello, Paul,

Great to read a new voice! I'm wondering whether you've managed to fit in
some reading of Lonergan's work yet. Anyway, about the career advice:

A duck walks into a pub and orders a pint of lager and a ham sandwich. The
landlord looks at him and says, "But you're a duck". "I see your eyes are
working", replies the duck. "And you talk!" exclaims the landlord. "I see
your ears are working", says the duck, "Now can I just have my beer and my
sandwich please?". "I'm working on the building site across the road. I'm a
plasterer and I'm on my break. ", explains the duck. The landlord serves him
and he drinks his beer, eats his sandwich and leaves.

This continues for two weeks. Then one day the circus comes to town. The
ringleader of the circus comes into the pub and the landlord says to him,
"You're with the circus aren't you?, I know this duck that would be just
brilliant in your circus, he talks, drinks beer and everything!". "Sounds
marvellous", says the ringleader, "get him to give me a call".

So the next day when the duck comes into the pub the landlord says, "Hey Mr.
Duck, I reckon I can line you up with a top job, paying really good money!".
"Yeah?", says the duck, "Sounds great, where is it?". "At the circus", says
the landlord. "The circus?", the duck enquires. "That's right", replies the
landlord. "The circus? That place with the big tent? With all the animals?
With the big canvas roof with the hole in the middle?", asks the duck.
"That's right!", says the landlord. The duck looks confused, "What the hell
would they want with a plasterer?"

Maxim Faust

Gatineau, QC

Great to read a new voice

On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 12:35 PM, <mou...@uw.edu> wrote:

>
> Thanks for the introduction! Many of my posts might be linearly plotted to
> a pint, but I would also say that a wonderful career could combine teaching
> and plastering. Doug
>
>
> On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, Paul Robinson wrote:
>
> Hi Doug and Max,
>>
>> No worries. What I had in mind is that the book has a little section on
>> the
>> history of the word "objectivity". I'll look it up when I next have it in
>> my
>> hands.
>>
>> I don't think we've been introduced. I'm 26, a protestant from Northern
>> Ireland, have a BA in Philosophy, an MSc in Philosophy of Science, and an
>> MSc in Cognitive Science. I studied Lonergan at Queen's Uni Belfast under
>> Tim Lynch and I've briefly met Bob Doran in Toronto. I also do a bit of
>> plastering and am wondering whether to stick at that or do a PhD. And I
>> like
>> the odd pint. Pictures attached.
>>
>> All good wishes,
>> Paul

[Maxim Faust]

... delete inquiry re reading Lonergan. In my haste to post the Duck
joke, I missed your mention of studying Lonergan under Tim Lynch.

max

[Maxim Faust]

Nick, John,

Joseph Fitzpatrick, *Philosophica Encounters: Lonergan and the analytic
tradition*, Univ. of Toronto Press, 2005 is a masterful exposition
of partial turns to the subject.

Max