(29) CONCLUSION: The Big Picture & the Long Road

Conclusion: The Big Picture and the Long Road

Again, I do not seek to replace Lonergan’s work or the work of authors who are authentically involved in the project broadly known as “Lonergan studies” and the journey towards self-appropriation. Rather, I add to this broad field of literature some specific pedagogical exercises to help you inspect your philosophical inheritance and to close the gap between your own personal experience as transcendental method-in-operation and transcendental method-the theory and, thus, to lay the groundwork and conditions for self-appropriation to occur.

Further, I encourage you who are teachers to make critical self-reflection accessible to those who are new to philosophy in either secular or religious education. I intend understanding--of ourselves more deeply, and that we gain a self-reflective and critical basis for this and all other knowledge.

Furthermore, in common language, philosophy is about what is intimate to us, but also about gaining a broader view, or grasping elements of “the big picture.” The present work is an introduction to what I hope will become for you a lifelong love affair with reflection, self-reflection, and an embrace of philosophical thought as a good and healthy thing for you to do. Such thought has practical import and advantage, especially for teachers who influence others in their own journey of transformation.

Again, the essential elements of the present work are pedagogical and, relatively speaking, brief. Though I think brevity is important to persons new to philosophy, I must also stress the inadequacy of brevity to the project of deepening your thought and broadening your horizons that the philosophical enterprise is about, and that Lonergan so stressed in his work:


. . . for the labor of self-appropriation cannot occur as a single leap. Essentially, it is a development of the subject and in the subject and, like all development, it can be solid and fruitful only on being painstaking and slow. (Lonergan, 1958, p. xxiii & 2000, p. 17)


I agree with Lonergan: Any singular brief and focused encounter with methodical self-reflection, as the present volume intends to afford, will fail to produce an instantly full and “fruitful” horizon in and for you. However, “brief” and “focused” are not necessarily equated with “shallow” and “exclusive” of import. If done rightly, any fruit-bearing that comes from a serious engagement with the present work will begin with a good planting now that will set the conditions for fruit to blossom and appear later. To follow the metaphor: when planting fruit trees, the gardener must begin with rich soil, till, plant, nurture the seedlings, weed, sit back, and hope for good weather. We must do likewise with the nurturing of our own minds, hearts, and souls.

I suggest that the present work affords you a good planting and your engagement here a good tilling and tending. The insights you gain here--and I hope there are many, and that they are incisive--must still work their way into the deeper recesses of your thought where your old assumptions live—hence, the need for foundational review. You acquired those assumptions long ago; and they are woven-in tightly--ingrown--with your feelings and images, and with your other understanding, interests, values, beliefs, and judgments. Thus, you should understand now--and after you finish this work--that your own horizons have great potential to grow, even though you may not, at present, understand what that means or what the fruit will look and feel like when it matures and is ready to consume (to live well). Your best discovery from this text, then, will be of the rock within you that rests at the foundation of all of your other thought and development. Thus, your brief encounter with focused philosophical thought can only be a beginning to the potential growth that resides within you—in principle.

What remains now is to read with openness, a critical mind, patience and sincerity; to stand committed to the delights of exploring, understanding and transforming your own interior life; and to patiently take on the exercises either alone, or in the presence of others, and with a good teacher who shares your openness and interest. I leave you to that project and wish you well in your journey of self-discovery.


Catherine Blanche King