020.387
Thought of Bernard Lonergan
Department
of Religion, University of Manitoba
Course Objective:
‘The unexamined life is not worth living’
(Socrates), is the basic presupposition of this course.
Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), a Canadian Jesuit
“scientist-humanist-philosopher-theologian” spent most of his life
uncovering an integrated and generalized method of inquiry which he saw as able
to overcome modern divisions and fragmentation in knowledge.
My hope is that this course will challenge you to
discover dimensions in your human subjectivity that help you to engage life’s
fundamental questions.
Core Readings: six
essays by Bernard Lonergan, written over a period of forty years: “Cognitional
Structure,” “The Subject,” “Natural Right and Historical Mindedness,”
“Healing and Creating in History,” “The Absence of God in Modern
Culture,” and “Self-transcendence: Intellectual, Moral, Religious.”
Lest you think this is going to too easy, consider two
typical passages from Lonergan’s work.
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“Though
I cannot recall to each reader your own personal experiences, you can do
so for yourself and thereby pluck my general phrases from the dim world of
thought to set them in the pulsing flow of life.... the point here ... is
appropriation; the point is to discover, to identify, to become familiar
with, the activities of your own intelligence.” (Insight:
A Study of Human Understanding, 13–14) |
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“...
we are so endowed that we not only ask questions leading to
self-transcendence, not only can recognize correct answers constitutive of
intentional self-transcendence, but also respond with the stirring of our
very being when we glimpse the possibility ... of ourselves as moral
beings, the realization that we not only choose between courses of action
but also thereby makes ourselves authentic
human beings or unauthentic ones.”
(Method in Theology, 38) |
Requirements:
1. Assigned readings, class attendance and active
participation
2. Two short quizzes (choices among short “essay”
questions covering broad course topics)
3. Critical Research Paper 3000-3500 words) on an
issue/question related to Lonergan
Professor:
Dr. David Creamer, S.J., 124, St. Paul’s College; email: creamer@ms.umanitoba.ca
Course Time & Location:
Term 1, Wednesday Evenings, 5:30-8:30 pm, St. Paul’s
College, Room 258
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Bernard Lonergan is considered by many intellectuals to be the finest philosophic thinker of the twentieth century—Time |