PHIL5001 · Philosophy

Lonergan?s Critical Realism: Insight and Beyond

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) was a philosophical and religious thinker deeply concerned about the philosophical, ethical, social, and religious situation of the twentieth century. That situation was defined by confusionconfusion over whether knowledge was possible, what it consisted in, and how to judge between rival accounts. His proposal was to make a beginning by asking what precisely it is to understand.His cognitional theory and its social, metaphysical, ethical, and religious implications are elaborated in his major philosophical workInsight.This course will examine Lonergans account of human knowing inInsight, an account he calls self-appropriation or making ones self ones own through the discovery and deliberate participation in the structured relations among the activities of one's own consciousness. Topics include: critical and nave realism, commonsense and scientific forms of knowledge, bias and error, ethics, and philosophical considerations of religious transcendence. The course will also engage important philosophical writings afterInsight.