(19) The Natural-Physical Scientist & Positivist Thought

The Natural-Physical Scientist and Positivist Thought

For those whose philosophical roots are positivist, post-positivist, perennialist, modernist, classicist, etc., transcendental method is completely self-verifiable and, therefore, follows the tenets of at least 400 years of the development of scientific method. The present work connects the theory and the verification procedures with your praxis, beginning in your sensing capacity and its activities, through an applied step-by-step pedagogy.

Further, Lonergan addresses the movement of modern science in his Method in Theology:


. . . . at once it may be noted that modern science derives its distinctive character from this grouping together of logical and non-logical operations. The logical tend to consolidate what has been achieved. The non-logical keep all achievement open to further advance. The conjunction of the two results in an open, ongoing, progressive and cumulative process. This process contrasts sharply not only with the static fixity that resulted from Aristotle’s concentration on the necessary and the immutable but also with Hegel’s dialectic which is a movement enclosed within a complete system. (1972, p. 6)


With transcendental method, then, Lonergan goes to the source of the scientific project, and to the source of the logical and the non-logical that conjoin to produce science. As such, the theory identifies and gives explanation to the open, ongoing, progressive and cumulative process that science is. That source is itself a questing; and the questing produces more or less articulate questions, in vastly varying conceptualizations. In this way, the theory analyzes and accounts for our questing, our questions, and our recalcitrant openness to the unknown, all of which come before the specific knowledge that gives form to our various fields of knowledge that, in turn, claim scientific method as their fundamental methodological tenet. And though at first experimental, the experiment moves to verification. In this way, the project of understanding and of verifying transcendental method is far from a matter of belief or of arbitrary acceptance of procedures. On the contrary, TM overtly requires the critical employment of this tenet.

Further, the general in general empirical method does not refer to the difference of method in science, but to the difference of the data under our consideration in this science, and under the control of scientific method. That is, the general method is the same as that of any science; however, the data is the human mind and, thus, is different in that regard. Here, Lonergan draws from and adheres to the well-known tenets of empirical method long-developed for the data of the natural sciences, et al, and generalizes these tenets to include the object-data of the structure and activities of human consciousness--the mind.

The material points are of course, first, that the methods of the natural sciences are themselves a development and refinement of the method of consciousness and its normative component that the scientist employs and has refined; and second, that the data of the mind is fully intelligible, theoretically recount-able, and show themselves so regularly through the sounds and sights of our language as to seem mundane. The data, therefore, is verifiable using all of the critical fine-tuning that positivist science has to offer.

Of course, empirical inquiry and verification procedures are central to the methods of the natural sciences. The present work employs scientific method and those verification procedures. However, again, the present work takes as its content actual conscious structure and aspects of its dynamism. Speaking of his purposes for writing Insight, A Study of Human Understanding, Lonergan tells us:


But there is also a third purpose that I hope to achieve through an appropriation of the modes of scientific thought. For such thought is methodical and the scientist pins his faith, not on this or that scientific system or conclusion, but on the validity of scientific method itself. But what ultimately is the nature and ground of method but a reflective grasp and specialized application of the object of our inquiry, namely, of the dynamic structure immanent and recurrently operative in human cognitional activity? It follows that empirical science as methodical not merely offers a clue for the discovery but also exhibits concrete instances for the examination of the larger, multiform dynamism that we are seeking to explore. (1958, pp. xxi-xxii; 2000, p. 16)


Indeed, in the beginning chapters of Insight, A Study of Human Understanding we find the author taking the objects and procedures of the scientist and the mathematician as prime examples for showing how consciousness is structured and how it operates in its most open and yet critical form--for the scientist is especially good at the process under our consideration.

Further, by definition, a unified field theory (UFT) need not be limited to the data of natural world, its relationships and principles alone. For, oddly, the natural scientist understands well, but does not see, relationships and principles that govern natural data and from which all science is built. Furthermore, if scientists are to actually find such a theory, then these findings must also be self-consistent. That is, the scientist and his-her questions do not stand somewhere outside of a unified field, but are intimate aspects of it. In this way, to be a good unified field theory, a theory must include in its analysis the scientist, all human beings, emergent human history, and how we actually go about asking our questions and developing knowledge.

A good UFT, then, must be about more than mere natural or physical sciences; it must also be philosophical. For instance, if a UFT is to be self-consistent, it must explain, and at least it cannot conflict with, some theory that explains the exigencies of the mind (and not only the brain), like transcendental method. This is so precisely because the term everything means just that, and because such a theory is completely empirical, scientific, and verifiable as well as completely post-modern in reflectively taking up and answering the cognitional, epistemological, and metaphysical questions, “what is, and how does the mind work?” and, “what is knowledge?” and, “what does it mean to be?” etc.

Furthermore, speaking to analytic philosophers who are often identified with positivist and classicist thought, Joseph Fitzpatrick remarks in his essay, “Bernard Lonergan: Educationist and Philosopher”:


. . . . if we wish Lonergan’s philosophy to penetrate the thinking of today’s analytic philosophers, we need to explain how he can be both psychological in his approach and yet account for normativity. (2002, pp. 92-3)


If our case is a good one, then for scientists in all scientific fields, a new horizon is upon us. For the authority for the projects of philosophy, cognitive science, moral theory and education need not be derived merely from fear, hope or arbitrariness; or fear of not knowing; or from the shadow of mere statistical science trying to duplicate the experimental security of the natural sciences; or from a forceful or even reasonable belief or opinion; or from the lyrical sound of the argument or the charming personality of the teacher--or pied piper. Rather the authority of such projects is derived from your own critical regard for public meaning in human affairs and for constantly recoverable evidence.

There is only so much that is appropriate for book prefaces and introductions. And so we will speak further to these different viewpoints and further develop the notion of normativity in later chapters. However, my hope is that the present work will help to fulfill the project of explanation and subsequent healing of our theoretical, scholarly, and professional fields that Joseph Fitzpatrick and others speak of, without abandoning critical thought to the nuances of meaning or to the principles of mere subjectivity or relativism (Lonergan, 1972, pp. 263 & 351).

Again, I do not expect you to believe me or to be uncritical in your judgment of the present work. However, a scientist would be open enough to entertain an experiment that may, indeed, move you from disbelief or belief, to true knowledge of your own basic structure: “the rock” within you.

We need no longer assume that the natural sciences have a hegemonic hold on reality while all other “sciences” float around, unhooked to anything real.