(12) Audience--Everyone Understands Something

Audience


Everyone Understands Something

The present work is about understanding human understanding and knowledge or, in other language, what it means to have insights into insights and to know what that and what other knowing mean. As such, it goes to the foundations of any person and any study, any field and body of knowledge and, indeed, any culture. It is, then, written for any person who wants to develop your own reflective and self-reflective powers, and your critical self-knowledge; and for teachers who want to awaken such movements of mind in your students. The work is also for you who want to begin incorporating a working theory of knowledge and a verified (verifiable to you and your students) cognitional theory into the foundations of any formal field of study. Such incorporation goes by many names; however, our reference will be to foundational review. Further, such incorporation will have vast implications towards long-term self-corrective action in all common and cultural endeavors, and in all fields of inquiry.

I hope I have written in a way that you will find the work relatively easy to understand and to relate to your own experience.

More specifically, the work is for scientists, educators, philosophers, ethicists, and brain-mind cognitive theorists who are rightly steeped in the tenets of critical-scientific method, and who want to gain critical and verifiable entrance into the structure of human cognition through a pedagogical method. Such a method is laid out in the present work and includes concrete experimentation and verification components.[5]

Also, teachers familiar enough with Lonergan’s work to build courses around the insights therein, again, can benefit from adding these reflections and exercises to your own curricular materials.

Further, this book is for those who want to study in a critical, theoretical, but also personal and practical context—a context that, though not founded in religious doctrine, is generally amenable to the religious quest that is manifest in any and all human culture. However, we will carve out a clear distinction between the religious quest, on the one hand, and religious doctrine, on the other. We will say more about the relationship of your critical judgment to the religious quest as our work unfolds.

Again, whatever are your personal and professional interests, I ask that you do not abandon your critical capacities. Rather I expect you to bring those capacities to full application on the present work, and seek to enhance those capacities through it.


Speaking to Current Thought on the Matter of Philosophy

Everyone also has a philosophical lens out of which we think (our philosophical foundations). But many of us have never inspected that lens. As my intended audience includes educators and educational theorists, curriculum writers and developers, cognitive and moral theorists, and theorists in other fields, I assume I am speaking to many who have rarely or never wandered “very far from a set of assumptions that are neither formulated nor scrutinized” (Lonergan, 1958, p. 416; 2000, p. 441). Thus, and if you have never been involved in such scrutiny, you probably already assume a variation on one of two opposing and rather dismaying notions that, from either view, may cause you to regard the critical claims of the present work as impossible, even absurd, from the beginning.

The first dismaying notion concerns, again, assumptions about the data under review and our methods of approaching such data—the human mind. That is, under these assumptions, our present project cannot be done critically, on principle. This is so because, if you are thinking through this lens, you already have a lock on the perimeters of the data--on what we can and cannot ask about and develop verified theory about, i.e., we cannot bring our questions to cognition and the human mind and remain critical and scientific at the same time—the brain, maybe; but not the mind.

Further, many others take your view about what constitutes data for scientific review; and certainly these folks are not those fuzzy relativists, deconstructionists, social scientists, rewriters of history, transformation theorists, etc., who are all involved in various abstract and ungrounded arguments that all add up to one thing: intelligent-sounding pseudo-science. From this lens, only the natural and physical sciences and their related fields, and maybe statistics in some multi-blind studies, can provide authentic data, and methods to approach such data; and consequently the data of these fields are the only data we can be truly critical, unbiased, and scientific about.

Let me say up front that, first, we will help you scrutinize this assumption; and second, our movement through theory, its application to the evidence, and your own critical judgments will conflict with it in a comprehensive way.

The second dismaying notion is that anything goes, and various versions of this view. Here, everything is interpreted and keeps changing, and so there is nothing really known, true, or real, except maybe in a fuzzy sort of way. Here, all theorists, scholars, and academicians are “liberal” and are really about ivory towers, ego, and arbitrariness; and none has a lock on anything save their own hubris, whatsoever, especially in the fields of education and human studies. Such folks have nary a ground, no umbrella, no net, no guide and no connection whatsoever with concrete truth or reality, no workable or non-arbitrary vision for the future; and further, they all should stop looking for one. Anything they say, in fact, is just subjective, personal, and sentimental bias; and only a too-soft heart will listen (bleed), and then only out of a similarly ungrounded sense of social indulgence. And paying attention to social amenities or tearful anecdotes can hardly be called “scientific.”

Moreover, from this lens, those who think they have a lock on knowledge-truth-reality in any field are really closed-minded buffoons. Furthermore, they are only fooling themselves, for they have no such lock, and can have none--on principle.

Mixed within the carriers of this view are those who think all real and objective knowledge can never have a personal component, or have an intimate dimension and, at the same time, remain objective knowledge. There indeed is a reality, but subjectivity has little or nothing to do with it.

If you are picturing “The Scream” painting, so am I.

It goes without saying that, under either of these assumptions philosophy as a reflection on knowledge is ruled out of court at the start. Ethics, of course, follows suit--a wispy idealized adjunct to the hard sciences, carried about in the briefcases of good, worried, but painfully sentimental professors who feel, if they do not understand, the political writing on the wall. On the one view, neither philosophy nor ethics is hard science. On the other view, neither really matters anyway, so what is the point?

Finally, the view from either assumption is that, though some “big names” are attractive and can write well, a philosopher, of all people, will never discover or be able to explain to us in reasonable terms how our studies, our natural science, our ethics, our politics, and our education all fit together and point towards a future. Obvious self-contradictions aside, from either view, if there is a “rock” to build on, no one has found it, given theory to it, or expects anyone to listen if they do; for on principle, it cannot be done (Lonergan, 1972, pp. 19-20). And by the way, there is no rock but only hard science and clouds, and even then we are not really certain.

All I can say in these early passages is that, as un-scrutinized, both assumptions emerge from the half-light of fuzzy thought set up in static cul-de-sacs; and, more importantly, neither of these assumptions matches the deeper, equally exigent assumptions of scientists or persons of good common sense--assumptions that come into play when they actually move forward in any field of inquiry, whether in concrete human living that is inexorably good, or in building speculative and-or verified theory in any science.

As far as going forward while performing a philosophical contradiction is concerned, persons who perform such a feat, and who claim to be philosophers, "feat themselves" right out of the argument and the community of persons who are efforting to understand. We need pay as much attention to them as we do to mad persons.

And so we have conflicting sets of assumptions and several lenses to look through. We look through one lens when we go forward in any field of discourse where things get done. And we look through another lens when we think about what we are doing with our philosophical inheritance in place (above). That is, when science and commonsense work well, they do so from employing a right set of assumptions and lenses about the good-knowledge-true-real complex we all live in. It is when we start thinking about our philosophical assumptions, or when we are challenged, that we forget what we already have and work with, and what already works for and in us—rightly in most cases.

When viewed against the working assumptions of scientists and good commonsense, our half-lighted two-views and fuzzy assumptions, as described above, suffer the charge of standing on a bad orthodoxy of assumptions. Such orthodoxy interferes with a very old and sometimes very slow movement of true knowledge in science and culture, evidenced everywhere in the world, where we understand and create anew a real-world for us all to live in.

Furthermore, both of our above half-lighted assumptions are caught in the philosopher’s headlights for wearing different fashions, but bought from the same dogmatic store. That is, first, we think from an unquestioned absolutism that is always right or, second, we think from a hand-wringing relativism that is also always right--about its own lens--that no one can ever really be right. As long as such a dual orthodoxy of assumptions stands for you, no argument and its drawn implications can be put forth to challenge you. Even if the breakdown of half-lighted assumptions begins to occur in you, such a breakdown “cannot be expected to transform the long-established habits of mind that were generated and nourished” by an equally long-accepted orthodoxy of conclusions (1958, p. 425; 2000, p. 450).

Again, you will find in the present work a way to scrutinize these assumptions and to either accept them on more thoughtful grounds, or to change those views, according to your own critical capabilities with regard to the theories and practice presented. If you will consider a break in such orthodoxy of mind, in the present work you will find, by comparison, the briefest argument for the existence of “the rock” and, more importantly, an unfettered way to personally and critically find your own path to it.

I say “path” because, again, the transformation of “long-established habits of mind,” and the deeper insights that may emerge from such explorations and transformations, will not occur by merely engaging the present work. The path, however—referring to your own foundational review and then to the pedagogy regarding the verification process—will forge the first trail to what can be an ever-expanding set of insights for you. As with any habits, however, your old habits of mind will take their time dissolving towards the new insights and choices you make.

Furthermore, understood from an empirical point of view, an exploration of transcendental method and what Lonergan calls the self-appropriation-affirmation process speak to our audience of theoreticians and scholars from all knowledge fields, and especially to all whose present views emerge from neglected, inherited, half-lighted philosophical assumptions and-or static philosophical cul-de-sacs. Further, discovering transcendental method-in-you by employing transcendental method-the-theory and going through the self-appropriation process includes a discovery of the broad outlines of the self-corrective process within you. That is, we will find that such a process is, at the writ-small level (you and me), an intimate part of your own movements of mind and, at the writ-large level, of the movements of all of human history. This self-corrective process is not “necessary” in the logical sense, but rather can be shown to be a regularly established empirical fact; and our present study gives the clarity of experiment that will lead you through the process that will acknowledge and confirm that fact in critical fashion.

Further, normative has different definitions in different fields; however, generally it refers to a basic and defined form and operation with an inborn-assumed, or overtly developed and applied, qualifying standard. Such a standard is either arbitrarily or reasonably established; and if reasonably established, it is “rooted” in a discoverable and verifiable data field and, thus, in equally reasonable ground. However, the self-corrective process is both assumed in all discourse, and inborn as central to what it means to be intelligent in a human way.

Further, that inborn self-corrective process in all human beings has a qualitative aspect to it. Indeed, though the qualitative aspect of it (we make good-bad analytical and critical judgments) is developmental in the context of community, this aspect is central to what it means to self-correct; for we commonly self-correct not only in terms of truth-falsity and of what others want or do not want, but also in terms of stages and levels of more or less excellence understood concretely and on its own terms—nuanced, conflicting, and complex, but excellent or not, nevertheless.

In this sense, the self-corrective process is established around our intentions-questions that seek both critical analysis and excellence for ourselves and for what we are about—nuanced and complex, but excellent or not, nevertheless. Hence, the process is the operating foundation from which all assumed, reflectively developed, and-or applied normative standards, arise. Our present project is to analyze and empirically establish through personal verification the structure and dynamism of consciousness from which all such intentions-questions continue to arise.

On the other hand, like any established normative order and standard, the self-corrective process is also violable. That is, we have a “track” that we can fall off of, and get back on. For instance, we all make many judgments every day as a matter of course, and we often self-correct those judgments if we find that we have been rash or that our judgments are ill-informed. I trust you have experienced both reasons to self-correct. However, rashness and judging on ill-information are violations of the given “track” and normative order--of our making well-informed and reasonable judgments in order to decide and act on what we know. That is, such judgments aim to settle on the truth and the truly good, and only that, of whatever specific content is under consideration, e.g., where are your keys right now? Or, you are drunk and should not drive.

As I hope you will recognize, sometimes we fail in both our understanding of what really is (e.g., where your keys are), and in our actions on what is truly good-bad for us and for others (e.g., driving while drunk). Though some values are truly and rightly relative, value (excellence, good, etc.) is still the assumed aim.

Further, some analysis and evaluation are not merely “normative” for us in the sense of being arbitrarily established, or even established by culturally condition, but ultimately relative schemes. So our question is bold in regarding the “roots” or establishment of the reality of normative orders. We find those roots in both the empirically established reality of the human intention towards understanding, good, and truth; and in their common and regular manifestation in human history as established ways of life. Those ways of life are, again, approached by the same intentions of storied analysis and explained qualifications.

Also, in falling off-track of our self-corrective process, we can become dogmatic in our general attitudes by habitually making rash judgments, by habitually “jumping to conclusions” before we have understood all relevant meaning, before conflicts in goods are addressed, and by remaining closed-minded when openness and a change-of-mind may be called for. We all make judgments and we all make mistaken judgments. However, a habitual dogmatism is a habitual violation of the normative-seeking functions of the self-corrective process of human consciousness. That process is set up (tracked) to listen for the fullness of meaning, good, and truth before making judgments.

Again, the normative structures in our lives emerge from the “track” that is empirically established in conscious order. As empirically established, to deny that track is to fall off of it. Related to the self-corrective process, though we sometimes fail, then, the thrust that underpins our normative functions of self-correction continually move us towards making true, good, and, thus, sound judgments. Such judgments, in turn, prepare the way for us to decide and act in equally good and sound fashion, and to self-correct within our developmental patterns (Piscitelli, 1985). In this sense, what Lonergan calls the transcendental precepts are normative, but are also empirically established in a corresponding structure of consciousness that produces them, i.e., be attentive and intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible, be loving (1972, p. 53).

Thus, in the case of our present study, a removal of any dogmatism roving about in the crevices of your mind as you read this document will help you remain open to questions about your own interior processes and habits and to your ability to critique and-or verify them in critical fashion. In this way, it will be good to postpone your judgment about this or any other text until you have at least explored what the text has to say, thereby releasing and setting in motion your own given self-corrective functions towards their own concrete and normative fulfillment.

Furthermore, Lonergan gives the name self-appropriation-affirmation to the deeper insights this work is aimed at—in the infrastructure of your interior domain. Such insights can flow from your critical knowledge of and identity-with your own conscious operations. Such operations will be unearthed in a critical way with the guidance of a qualified theory. However, if the insights surrounding self-appropriation are difficult to inspire--and they are--the full understanding of the implications of those insights will take much more effort than, again, the beginning foundational review and a few exercises provided here will afford you. Thus, this work is merely a path to the potential but explosive power of those deeper insights.