Basil Xavier, Ethnophilosophy

 

basilxavier@gmail.com

Dear Fr Ivo Coelho,

New year Wishes from Fr Dr BASIL XAVIER, SJ

I've met you in some of our ACPR meetings but you may not remember me.

Just to introduce myself, I'm a Jesuit priest for Madurai Province, teaching philosophy at both UG and PG levels in Arul Anandar College, Madurai since 1998. (Kindly see my Short CV in the attached file)

Now I'm interested in a Post Doctoral Fellowship on Lonergan in Lonergan Institute,  Boston College, USA. I know you are  the only Indian Expert on Lonergan. My Ph.D is on Ethnophilosophy or Folk philosophy or Dalit Philosophy.

Kindly see the attached files for my recently published two books.

Will you suggest to me some possible topics connecting Lonergan and Ethnophilosophy? You also talk about the transcultural aspect of Lonergan's philosophy in your book.

I'll be grateful to you. I know you must be very busy now. Will you spend a few minutes for me dear Ivo? 

I'll be happy if you reply as soon as possible as the deadline is Jan 15, 2021. Please Fr..

Love,

BASIL SJ

Dear Basil,

thank you for your mail and your inquiry. 

I respond very briefly in the midst of other things.

The one thing that comes to me is: as part of the DATA of theology, Lonergan sees also the lived experience of people - the experience of the recognized saints and mystics, but also of ordinary people. I think that could be a fruitful line of inquiry. the one who has opened up this topic, if I am not mistaken, is Robert Doran. He, but also Fred Lawrence, are very sensitive to the political social economic aspects of life and of theology. 

You might find something in Method in Theology, ch. 11: Foundations, section 7: special theological categories. On CWL 14:272 he speaks of deriving categories from religious interiority, not only individual but also as community and history, and keep in mind the fourth set of categories, which anticipate that in the data we can expect to find not only authenticity but also many manifestations of unauthenticity, and the fifth set which moves on the assumption that God has intervened in this history ("progress, decline, redemption").

I guess you could read the whole of MT, in the sense that it champions a dialectical method of doing theology, a method that is "open to all comers", each one working from his own standpoint, with the differing viewpoints meeting in the functional specialty dialectic. in that sense, Lonergan sees method not as an individual affair but as done in team, group, community, and in fact with as much diversity as possible... within the church, but also within the larger society with differing religious, moral, intellectual standpoints, but also cultural, social, historical, psychological, and ethnic differences.

you might find helpful also the whole discussion of the biases, fundamentally in Insight: individual, group and general bias. the discussion on group and general bias, with the shorter and longer cycles of decline, is most interesting, it was a fundamental part of Lonergan's philosophy of history, and I think in the background were Hegel and Marx (see esp. group bias). General bias is, I think, peculiarly Lonergan's take on things; it would apply very much to the area of ecology, because it is the tendency of all human beings, moving by practicality and sometimes by greed, to take the short term rather than the long term view, to concentrate on the here and now to the disregard of the larger picture. 

I hope that might stimulate you!

wishes for your work. you could consult Fred Lawrence himself, or else Doran, or both.

Ivo