Philosophical Musings

Heidegger's formale Anzeige or formal indication

2012-01-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

MAN AND WORLD
Volume 30, Number 4, 413-430, DOI: 10.1023/A:1004250206794
Heidegger's formal indication: A question of method in Being and Time
Ryan Streeter
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l0k4k1381g52w26r/

Abstract
For Heidegger, phenomenological investigation is carried out by formal indication, the name given to the methodical approach he assumes in Being and Time. This paper attempts to draw attention to the nature of formal indication in light of the fact that it has been largely lost upon American scholarship (mainly due to its inconsistent translation). The roots of the concept of formal indication are shown in two ways. First, its thematic treatment in Heidegger's 1921/22 Winter Semester course, Phenomenological Investigations into Aristotle, is examined to make clear what Heidegger silently assumes in Being and Time. Second, Heidegger's adaptation of Husserl's use of the term, indication, is outlined to clarify the concept even more. The enhanced understanding of formal indication granted by these two points leads to a better grasp of Heidegger's concept of truth, for formal indication and truth are mutually implied for Heidegger. Finally, it is suggested that the reader of Being and Time, on the basis of what formal indication demands, approach the work not as a doctrine to be learned but as a task always requiring further completion.

I need to understand better Heidegger's formale Anzeige. Reading Arthos, it appears to be suspiciously like Lonergan's heuristic structure. Arthos says it is akin to Gadamer's Richtungssinn. [Arthos, The Inner Word in Gadamer's Hermeneutics 283.]

Levinas on creatureliness and humility

2011-12-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

The following is from the thesis of Francesco Marcoccio, SDB, of the ICC province, on Emmanuel Levinas. Fr Joan-Maria Vernet had mentioned something to the effect that Levinas, on being questioned about the Eucharist, had said that the entire Old Testament pointed to the Eucharist. The remark was made as an aside, off-record, during an interview. The incident had been narrated to Fr Vernet by Marcoccio, then working on his doctoral thesis on Levinas while residing at the Salesian house of Testaccio, Rome. This is what Marcoccio wrote back to me in an e-mail of 17 December 2011:

Levinas nel saggio "Un Dieu Homme?" giunge a formulare la tesi che l'Eucaristia è il modello dell'essere ostaggio per l'altro secondo la sua prospettiva. Ti allego una parte della mia tesi che rende ragione del percorso. Purtroppo non ritrovo la citazione esatta, se la troverò te la invio volentieri.

Here follows the extract from his thesis.

3.2. Creaturalità e umiltà

Dire Dio implica la riformulazione del senso della soggettività creaturale. L'uomo nel recupero della "situazione ontologica della creaturalità" si fa risposta responsabile. Nella prospettiva levinasiana la creazione, la separazione, la possibilità stessa di un'esistenza atea, l'idea di Infinito, rompono con l'autonomia superba e inglobante dell'Io che vuole sapere, comprendere e capire tutto e restituiscono all'uomo la giusta dimensione. Rivelare Dio non è più, per l'uomo, improgionarlo nelle sterili categorie onto-teo-logiche, ma rispondere "umilmente" a una convocazione etica radicata sulla chiamata all'essere. La creaturalità che istituisce la finitezza è insieme la porta d'accesso dell'infinito nel finito e all'infinito del finito; la creatura è il recinto dell'infinito che parla e insieme l'apertura, il luogo appropriato da cui si può accogliere l'infinito[1].

Lévinas afferma che la trascendenza è umiltà: già per Kierkegaard il motivo biblico dell'umiltà di Dio contiene l'idea che la trascendenza del Trascendente risiede nella persecuzione e nell'umiliazione legate alla sconfitta dove si manifesta come sua sollecitazione. L'umiltà, spogliata da ogni connotazione psicologica o morale, è una maniera originale di proximité dans le retrait, una modalità d'una apertura sottratta ad ogni presa di possesso, un modo di un Dio non contaminato dall'essere[2].

Il saggio Un Dieu Homme? offre preziose indicazioni sulla prossimità di Dio come umiltà. Lévinas alla luce dell'idea teologica dell'incarnazione si interroga sul valore filosofico di due problemi: l'umiliazione che si infligge l'Essere supremo, la discesa del Creatore al livello della creatura, l'assunzione nella Passività più passiva della passività e la modalità di produzione da parte di questa passività dell'idea di espiazione per gli altri (UDH, 69).

Queste due caratteristiche del divino mediate dalla tradizione ebraico-cristiana, che sono estranee alla filosofia di Platone, di Aristotele e di Hegel, sono valide dal punto di vista filosofico e rivelano l'ambiguità della trascendenza e il modo originale della presenza di Dio. Umiltà e povertà sono un modo (mé-ontologique) di rimanere nell'essere e non una condizione sociale (UDH, 70-71).

Lévinas, citando Is 57,15, afferma che Dio si umilia per abitare con il povero e l'oppresso; Egli è il Dio dello straniero, dell'orfano e della vedova, la sua traccia[3] si trova nel volto del prossimo, nel faccia a faccia. "Dire Dio" è praticare il diritto verso il povero e il misero, chi fa così può dire di conoscerlo veramente (Ger 22,16). La nozione di un Dio-uomo afferma in questa transustanziazione del Creatore in creatura, l'idea, filosoficamente rilevante, di sostituzione, la quale attacca il principio d'identità ed esprime il segreto della soggettività (UDH, 73-74). L'umiltà, modalità della trascendenza assume nella soggettività la caratteristica dell'ossessione, dell'accusa e della passività al di qua dell'identità. L'io è colui che è eletto per portare tutta la responsabilità del mondo e il messianismo è lo scompiglio dell'essere "perseverante nel suo essere" che comincia in me (UDH, 76).

"Dire Dio" in questo senso diviene esplicitamente "profezia", la dicibilità di Dio non è nient'altro che l'attestazione attraverso l'esperienza etica. E' il tema levinasiano della Kenosi di Dio. L'uomo ha anche la responsabilità di Dio, in forma più azzardata -afferma Baccarini- è la responsabilità di Dio. Alla parola Dio fa riscontro un ascolto esperienziale che facendosi domanda e invocazione porta al linguaggio tutta la ricchezza e l'inesuaribilità del messaggio[4].

[1]. Cf. E.BACCARINI, Dire "Tu"..., 166.

[2]. Cf. M. FAESSLER, L'intrigue du Tout-Autre. Dieu dans la pensée d'E. Lévinas, in "Etudes théol. et relig.", 4, 1980, 121; continua il nostro autore: "Par elle Il se signifie Autre-dans-le-Meme, autrement qu'etre, extravagance mé-ontologique bouleversant le présent de la coscience et l'ouvrant à une conjoncture de relation où elle ne pourra plus se derober".

[3]. Per Lévinas il concetto di traccia traduce filosoficamente il motivo biblico dell'umiltà di Dio. E' una sorta di pietra angolare: essa esige che la relazione tra il Creatore e la creatura non sia più pensato nei termini della correlazione alla luce dell'esperienza, ma come irrettitudine nello scompiglio di una significanza che non si sincronizza con il discorso che la comprende (M. FAESSLER, L'intrigue..., 121).

[4]. Cf. E. BACCARINI, Dire "Tu"...,168-169. Interessante anche quanto afferma più avanti: "nel nostro dire possiamo cogliere Dio come seconda persona solo nella dimensione ontologica della nostra creaturalità, cioè Egli è il nostro Tu come condizione di possibilità di dirci "Io". Egli è la condizione del nostro essere soggetti che ci rivolgiamo a Lui nell'invocazione. Si produce un movimento sintomatico dal parlare con gli uomini di Dio al parlare con Dio degli uomini. L'approccio dialogico si caratterizza così come percorso bidirezionale: da un lato il riconoscimento ontologico del Tu e la conseguente impossibilità dell'approccio "diretto" e dall'altro proprio l'irrettitudine di questo approccio rende necessario l'incontro con i tu nel contatto comunicativo, che tuttavia ormai non è più soltanto linguistico, ma operativamente etico" (Ibidem, 173).

Molecular striving

2011-07-31T22:12:00.000-07:00

'Molecular striving': irritating phrase of McShane that keeps cropping up regularly, not least in the strange biography I am reviewing: Lambert and McShane, Bernard Lonergan: His Life and Leading Ideas.

'Molecular striving' is rooted in Lonergan's idea of the way each lower level in our beings is sublated by the higher: the chemical, for example, making systematic what was merely coincident on the lower, physical level; and the botanical making systematic what was merely coincident on the chemical level; and so on.

Phil's insistence is one implication of this: that every higher science has to master the lower aggregates it systematizes, down to the lowest level. No theology, therefore, without biology and botany and chemistry and physics.... Perhaps this insistence takes its stand on Lonergan's at a question session in the 1970 Boston Workshop, "Theology as Public Discourse": How much physics should a theologian know? And Lonergan's answer, vigorous and spontaneous: Well, he should be able to ready Lindsay and Margenau. (Lambert and McShane, 192)

The unpacking of that comment would call for a scholarly thesis. Phil is perhaps the only one at present insisting again and again on it, on what Lonergan once called the 'existential gap', the failure to properly appreciate the world of theory. Phil talks about a failure on Lonergan's part to identity a 'theoretical conversion.' Perhaps he is right.

But, but, but: there is a point to the molecular striving. Even my effort to read, to do philosophy or theology, is conditioned in a very real way by what is going on at each lower level. The connectedness between thought and sexuality, for example, has often been noted. Or perhaps I should say: between sexuality and anything, any superstructure.

Malkovsky on De Smet

2011-07-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

"The subtleties of De Smet's interpretation of Samkara are at times nearly as challenging as those of the great acarya himself." B.J. Malkovsky, "Introduction," The Role of Divine Grace in the Soteriology of Samkaracarya (Leiden, etc.: Brill, 2001) xvi.

"It is a tribute to the high regard that De Smet enjoyed in India that in the planning stage of the volume [New Perspectives in Advaita Vedanta] on well-known Hindu philosopher suggested to me that all the essays ought perhaps to deal with the contribution of De Smet himself to Advaita studies." Malkovsky xvi n 5.

Phenomenology of the eye

2011-04-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

I've heard of a phenomenology of the smile, but has someone, anyone, worked out a phenomenology of the eye? I was staring at the curtain in my office, and suddenly one of the designs began looking like an eye. I found myself wondering: what is it that is so fascinating about the eye? Why are we so drawn to the eyes? The eyes are points in the human body that are actually some sort of opening. There is a mysterious depth to them: the white cornea, within which the darker iris, and at the centre the aperture, the pupil that actually lets in light on to the retina.... But none of this really accounts for the way the eye pulls, the way it is, in many ways, the centre of a person, and certainly of a person's face... (though sometimes I find myself looking at the mouth). The way the eyes register and express a whole range of emotions. The dull eye of one who is bored, the vacant eye of one who does not understand, or is perhaps, temporarily or more permanently, absent; the bright eyes of one who understands, who catches the point; the scornful eye, the disdainful look; the penetrating eye that sees through you; the compassionate eye, the angry eye, the eye lit up with passion; the interested eye, the bored eye...

And are we talking only about the human eye? What about animal eyes? Is there something analogous there? Perhaps there is....

Panikkar and Heidegger

2011-04-13T21:03:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that Panikkar is drawing heavily from Heidegger, especially from his critique of Being as presence, his attack on Substance, and his critique of onto-theology; but Panikkar himself seems to opt for a more 'clearly' 'theistic' - or 'religious' - position than Heidegger himself.

Still reading Panikkar ...

2011-04-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

Some days ago I was bored reading Panikkar. Today I find I am irritated. He jumps about, he is not serious. Or is it that he is - too profound? Or perhaps I am not in the mood to jump into the deep waters he is indicating - God and Being, God and Being and Person, and all that. Ground trod by, opened up by, people like Heidegger and Whitehead, to name just two. Heidegger who questioned the whole of the Western tradition's identification of Being and God, God and Being. Whitehead who questioned the primacy of substance, working out, I think, alternative categories, and certainly an alternative metaphysics.

But my impression reading Panikkar is that his objections, his problems w.r.t. evil, for example, are too - flippant, can easily be answered. He has made a straw man, a paper man, and he proceeds happily to demolish it.

Panikkar and onto-theology

2011-04-11T04:10:00.000-07:00

I am surprised. Panikkar is smack into the middle of Heidegger ground: I think he is spinning out, in his own way, Heidegger's proscriptions of onto-theology. He does make reference to Heidegger from time to time.

There is also, interestingly, his first published effort on F.H. Jacobi. Jacobi also, if I understand rightly, made a disjunction between reason and faith: hence his leap of faith. According to De Smet, it was Jacobi's restriction of 'person' to the human being that led to the great translators of Sanskrit texts rendering nirguna as impersonal and saguna as personal.

So a nest of problems here: voluntarism; the disjunction between God, reason, Being; Duns Scotus; Heidegger (with his Scotist influences); Lonergan; Benedict XVI; Islam (with its tendency towards voluntarism); Hauerwas's proscriptions of Duns Scotus and postmodernism.

Sankara's Taittiriya Upanisad Bhasya

2011-04-09T02:45:00.000-07:00

Part 1: Siksavalli
TU 1 (Invocation)
SB: From which is born all this transient world...
Aum! sam no mitrah sam varunah....
1.2.1
1.3.1-4
1.4.1-3
1.5.1-3
1.6.1-2
1.7.1
1.8.1
1.9.1
1.10.1
1.11.1-4
1.12.1

Part 2: Brahmananda Valli
2.1.1-11
Aum saha nav avatu...
2.1.1: satyam jnanam anantam brahma / blue lotus
2.2.1
2.3.1
2.4.1
2.5.1
2.6.1
2.7.1
2.8.1-5
2.9.1

Part 3: Bhrguvalli
3.1.1
3.2.1
3.3.1
3.4.1
3.5.1
3.6.1
3.7.1
3.8.1
3.9.1
3.10.1-6

A possible paper: the authenticity of the Mandukya Up. Bh.

2011-04-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

More correctly: a paper using Lonergan's method to reflect on the authenticity of the Mand. Up. Bh. attributed to Sankara.

Reading Panikkar...

2011-04-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

I have begun reading Panikkar, beginning from The Silence of God. I can't help noting that I am bored.... Which was not the case years ago, when I first began reading Panikkar, during my theology days. At that time, it was an experience of excitement and light upon light. What is the difference? The reasons could be many. But one that rises to the surface of my mind is: now I have waded through Lonergan. And I find - or I come away with the impression - that Panikkar is brilliant, but often just that: brilliant. For one who has passed through Lonergan, too many questions arise upon reading Panikkar. And he is (too) clever by far...

Might this irritate some lover of Panikkar? Maybe. But: this is my experience. And: I have come to no firm conclusion so far. So: no offence indicated. Just process.

But I do not (as of now) exclude the possibility of coming to some conclusion.

I am particularly intrigued by Panikkar's constant calling into question, in this book, the equation between Being and Thinking. Have to penetrate this. An old old conundrum.

Som Raj Gupta's bhasya on the Sankara-bhasyas

2011-04-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Word Speaks to the Faustian Man - a series of volumes 'by' Som Raj Gupta, published by Motilal Banarsidass. Going by the title, no one would imagine that this is a major contemporary translation of most of Sankara's works. In fact, a bhasya on the bhasyas: Gupta provides the original texts (Upanisads, Gita or Brahma-sutras as the case may be), Sankara's commentaries, and then his own commentary. I came to know about this work only because of a brief notice by De Smet of vol. 1. Reading closely, I realized that there were several volumes to follow. Luckily MLBD had copies, so now Divyadaan library has vols. 1-5, with vol. 5 in two parts. Unfortunately one has to dig beyond the title page to find out just what the particular volume is dealing with. So this might be helpful:

1: Isa, Kena, Katha and Prasna Upanisads.
2: Mundaka and Mandukya Upanisads.
3: Taittiriya and Aitereya Upanisads.
4: Chandogya Upanisad
5-1: Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, chs. 1 and 2.
5-2: Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, chs. 3-6

Projected:
6: Bhagavadgita
7 (parts 1, 2, 3): Brahmasutras.

Of the above, De Smet would reject the authenticity only of the Mandukya Up. Bh. But it is certainly useful to have the text so readily available.

Is Gupta going to do also the Upadesasahasri?

Anvaya-vyatireka in Sankara

2011-04-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

Halbfass, Wilhelm. "Human Reason and Vedic Revelation in Advaita Vedanta." Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought. [Albany: SUNY, 1991.] Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992 162-182. In the Preface the author notes that this article, which is ch. 5 in the book, is an enlarged and thoroughly revised version of the third of the four Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. [vii-viii.]
Mayeda, Sengaku. “An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Śaṅkara.” Śaṅkara’s Upadeśasāhasrī. Vol. 2: Introduction and English Translation. Tr. and ed. Sengaku Mayeda. Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1973. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. 1-97, at 46-68. Cites De Smet 66n14, 66n17, 67n28,

The Mandukya Upanisad and the Gaudapada-Karika

2011-04-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

[Much of the matter here is from Mayeda 1967-68.]

GK: Gaudapadiyakarika.

GKBh: Sankara's Gaudapadiyabhasya.

MU: Mandukyopanisad.

MUBh: Sankara's Mandukyopanisadbhasya.

MU consists of only 12 prose sentences. [Mayeda 1967-68 73.]

In MS as well as printed editions, the MU is interspersed among the 29 stanzas of the first prakarana of the GK, which comprises 4 prakaranas explaining the MU. [Mayeda 1967-68 73.]

GK is also called Agamasastra, or Mandukyakarika. [Mayeda 1967-68 73-74.]

GKBh is also called Agamasastra-vivarana, Gaudapadiya-gamasastra-bhasya, and Gaudapadiya-gamasastra-vivarana. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n2.]

GKBh: oldest extant work before Sankara (AD 700-750), and stands in the line of Advaita philosophy. [Mayeda 1967-68 74.]

Tradition: that Sankara, commenting on both texts (MU and GK) wrote both the MUBh and GKBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74.]

It is generally taken for granted that the GKBh and the MUBh are commented by a single hand. Mayeda finds no evidence for questioning this. [Mayeda 1967-68 75n1.]

Bhattacharya, V. "Mandukya Upanisad and the Gaudapada Karika." Indian Historical Quarterly 1 (1925) 119-125, 295-302. [For latter pagination, see http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/xtxt2.htm as of 5 Apr 2011.]
Bhattacharya, V. The Agamasastra of Gaudapada. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1952. 46-52. Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh (xxxiii n3).
Karmarkar, R.D. Gaudapada-Karika. Poona: Government Oriental Series, Class B, No. 9, 1953) xxxi-xxxiii.
Nakamura, H. Vedanta Tetsugaku no Hatten (= The Development of the Vedanta Philosophy) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1955) 557-565. 527-534: Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh.
Jacobi, H. "On Mayavada." Journal of the American Oriental Society 33 (1913) 51-54. [For pagination, see http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/xtxt2.htm as of 5 Apr 2011.] 52, n. 2: suspicion of the identity of the commentator of the GK with the author of the BSBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74.]
Chintamani, T.R. "Sankara - The Commentator on the Mandukya Karikas." Proceedings of the Third Oriental Conference (Madras, 1924) 419-21: objects to Jacobi. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n3.] [Till Mayeda,] Chintamani was the only scholar so far to defend the tradition [of Sankara authorship of the MUBh and GKBh], but he could not show any strong positive evidence. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n4.]
Bhattacharya, V. "Sankara's Commentaries on the Upanisads." Sir Asutosh Mookerjee Silver Jubilee Volume, vol. 3, pt. 2 (Calcutta, 1925) 103-10: Questions the authenticity of the MUBh and the GKBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n4.] 104: From the fact that Sankara nowhere quotes the MU, even where it could have served his purpose, e.g. in commenting on the Chand. Up. 2, 23, 3, Bhattacharya infers that the MU itself was not written before or even in the time of Sankara. This theory is rejected by Nakamura, see Vedanta Tetsugaku... 536-539. [Mayeda 1967-68 81n2.]
Bhattacharya, V. "The Gaudapada-Karika on the Mandukya Upanisad." Proceedings of the Second Oriental Conference (1922) 439-462. [for pagination, see http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/xtxt2.htm as of 5 apr 2011] 441n1, 442, 444n4, 454n1: questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n4.]
Belvalkar, S.K. Shree Gopal Basu Mallik Lectures on Vedanta Philosophy, pt. 1 (Poona, 1929) 218: Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh.
Devaraja, N.K. An Introduction to Sankara's Theory of Knowledge (Varanasi, 1962) 38-42. Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh.
Venkatasubbiah, A. "The Mandukyopanisad and Gaudapada," Indian Antiquary 62 (1933) pt. DCCLXXII, 185-186: Sankara does not quote the MK at all nor even refer to it in the BSBh nd other works. [Mayeda 1967-68 81.]
Nikhilanananda. The Mandukyopanisad with Gaudapada's Karika and Sankara's Commentary. (Mysore: Sri Ramakrishna Asrama, 1955) 217-219 and 219n1. [Mayeda 1967-68 84n3.]
Mayeda, Sengaku. "On the Author of the Mandukyopanisad and the Gaudapadiya-Bhasya." The Adyar Library Bulletin 31-32 (1967-68) 73-94. 94: concludes that the GKBh including the MUBh is one of Sankara's genuine works.
Vetter, T. "Die Gaudapadiya-Karikas: Zur Entstehung und zur Bedeutung von (a)dvaita." Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens 22 (1978) 95-131. [Halbfass 1991/1992 186n41.]
Vetter, T. Studien zur Lehre und Entwicklung Sankaras. Vienna, 1979. [Halbfass 1991/1992 139.] Like Hacker, he sees the MUBh and GKBh as the earliest document of Sankara's transition [from Yoga] to Advaita Vedanta (Halbfass 1991/1992 139).
Vetter, T. "Erfahrung des Unerfahrbren bei Sankara." Transcendenzerfahrung, Vollzughorizont des Heils. Ed. G. Oberhammer. Vienna, 1978. 45-59. [Halbfass 1991/1992 139, 186n40.]

De Smet on person

2011-04-01T03:59:00.000-07:00

Michael Comans criticizes De Smet's suggestion that the para Brahman is equivalent to the personal God of Christianity. See The Early Method of Advaita Vedanta (Delhi: MLBD 2000) 225-231. Note that his maximum court of appeal w.r.t. an interpretation of Aquinas seems to be Copleston. Should be interesting to study this better. De Smet comes to Sankara trained by people like Scheuer (who De Smet himself calls "a prince among metaphysicians and a mystic", see "Surrounded by Excellence"), Marechal (in his mind the greatest of contemporary Thomists, again De Smet, see Understanding Sankara 132 tentative), and having taught a course in Metaphysics as well as Natural Theology for many years.
The bibliography lists: the dissertation, the article on Suresvara (1961), the Religious Hinduism article (1968, 1997), "Sankara and Aquinas on Creation" (1970), and the 1974 article "Towards an Indian View of the Person."

In general, see also:

Paul Hacker, [Essay on the Person in Indian Thought] Kleine Schriften, herausgegeben von Lambert Schmithausen. Glasenapp-Stiftung: Band 15 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978) 270-292. [De Smet is aware of this: see his review of Hacker.]
Paul Hacker, "The Idea of the Person in the Thinking of the Vedanta Philosophers." Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Ed. Wilhelm Halbfass. Albany: SUNY, 1995. 153-176. [Very likely a translation of the previous item.]

Important observations by De Smet in his review of Doctrine de la non-dualite, see Understanding Sankara 443 (tentative). The author has not assimilated Krempel's masterly study of relation especially in Aquinas. Like many contemporary Christian writers, he includes 'relation' within the very definition of person without wondering why Aquinas did not do that. He explains: specific definitions of the term, when applied e.g. to the Trinity, have to include it for special reasons. but relation is not a definiens of person in general, which only connotes 'capacity for interpersonal relationships.' (ibid.)

Halbfass and Hacker

2011-03-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

Halbfass, Wilhelm. Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. Reinbeck: Verlag fur Orientalistische Fachpublikationen, 1983.
Halbfass, Wilhelm. Tradition and Reflection; Explorations in Indian Thought. New York: SUNY, 1991. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992. [DD: 170 HAL.W 36126]
Halbfass, Wilhelm. "Introduction: An Uncommon Orientalist: Paul Hacker's Passage to India." Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Ed. Paul Halbfass. Albany: SUNY, 1995. See http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/53259.pdf as of 1 April 2011.
Franco, Eli and Karen Preizendanz, ed. Beyond Orientalism: The Work of Wilhelm Halbfass and Its Impact on Indian and Cross-Cultural Studies. Amsterdam / Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997.
Halbfass, Wilhelm, ed. Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Albany: SUNY, 1995.

Sankara as srutivadin

2011-03-31T22:38:00.000-07:00

Rambachan, Anantanand. "Sankara's rationale for sruti as the definite source of brahma-jnana: refutation of some contemporary views." Philosophy East and West 36 (1986) 25-40. [See Clooney, Theology After Vedanta (1993) 254.]
Halbfass, Wilhelm. Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. In his review, De Smet is happy to note that the second study here confirms his own thesis about Sankara as srutivadin. [Understanding Sankara 434 tentative.]
Halbfass, Wilhelm. "Human Reason and Vedic Revelation in Advaita Vedanta." Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought. [Albany: SUNY, 1991.] Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992 162-182. In the Preface the author notes that this article, which is ch. 5 in the book, is an enlarged and thoroughly revised version of the third of the four Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. [vii-viii.] There is no mention of De Smet in the notes or Index. In 204n208 Halbfass gives a list of studies that he found after completing the original version of this chapter (1982) dealing with reason and revelation in Sankara, but says they do not modify his thesis.

Nature-grace and natural-supernatural

2011-03-04T19:47:00.000-08:00

Sean Doyle, in Synthesizing the Vedanta: The Theology of Pierre Johanns, S.J. (2006) speaks interchangeably of the nature-grace distinction and the natural-supernatural distinction.

This needs to be explored, but I think the two are not coincident. Grace may be operative in both natural and supernatural religions, for example. The natural-supernatural distinction is based on proportion: truths that are proportionate to human nature are called natural truths; truths that are beyond the proportion of human nature are called supernatural truths. This distinction was drawn by Thomas. And Thomas admitted clearly the possibility of God revealing not only supernatural but also natural truths.

Vatican II clearly admits the possibility of grace operative in non-Christian religions and even among atheists. But that hardly does away with the natural-supernatural distinction.

Still, a certain amount of confusion followed after Vatican II. Having accepted the operation of grace beyond the boundaries of the Church, theologians did away also with the natural-supernatural distinction. I am not sure that this follows. And I am not sure whether maintaining such a distinction is politically incorrect.

The self and the good

2011-03-03T18:55:00.000-08:00

In the opening chapter of Sources of the Self, Charles Taylor notes that it is not possible to get clear about the 'modern identity' - about the human agent, person, or self - "without some further understanding of how our pictures of the good have evolved. Selfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes." (Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996] 3)

But there is another obstacle to this task:

Much contemporary moral philosophy, particularly but not only in the English-speaking world, has given such a narrow focus to morality that some of the crucial connections I want to draw here are incomprehensible in its terms. This moral philosophy has tended to focus on what it is right to do rather than on what it is good to be, on defining the content of obligation rather than the nature of the good life; and it has no conceptual place left for a notion of the good as the object of our love and allegiance.... (3)

As I begin to teach Moral Theology to the FMA novices here in Nashik, relying on notes that I had made 20 years ago, I realize how very true this is: the whole approach of my notes - derived from theology classes at Kristu Jyoti College? - is a focus on the moral act rather than on the nature of the good life.... And that was the focus also of Azzopardi's Ethics in JDV...

So is Taylor making common cause with MacIntyre, at least on this point?

And what might be the position of Giuseppe Abba, a much neglected figure in contemporary virtue ethics, not even finding mention in the current article on the topic in the Wikipedia?

Hauerwas and MacIntyre

2011-02-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

Stanley Hauerwas seems to have learnt from MacIntyre on virtue ethics: see "Virtue Ethics," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics as of 1 March 2011.

A good author for an MPh dissertation - he happens to be a theologian, though.

Thomas' virtue ethics

2011-02-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

Thomas' virtue ethics: just a glimpse from Ashley's notes, but quite wonderful.

Morality begins in love, works through desire, and is completed in joy.

Interestingly, Thomas gives a central place to the passions and affections in his account of the moral life. Passions empower moral growth and transformation. Becoming good is a matter of learning to love the right things in the right way.

Thomas' ethic is an ethic not of duty, or of law, but of virtue. His primary concern is not just good decisions, but good persons. Virtues are moral skills that make both actions and persons good. They are transforming activities [are virtues activities? are they not rather habits?] that sculpt us into people capable of finding bliss in God.

But Thomas also holds that virtues make us good, but not good enough. What make us 'good enough' are the gifts of the Spirit. The moral life begins with a gift and ends with a gift: it begins with the gift of God's love poured into our hearts, and ends with God's love completing our virtue with a goodness that we could never achieve by ourselves, but only receive.

I found interesting Thomas' distinction between affective (concupiscible) emotions and spirited (irascible) emotions. The affective emotions are love, desire, joy. These are basic. The spirited emotions are hatred, aversion, sadness. They enable us to be resolute in our pursuit of the good when we face difficulty or are getting discouraged.

If the vibrant language is Ashley's, I think we have a very good article here...

Charles Taylor

2011-02-25T22:02:00.000-08:00

Among Taylor's influences: Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty. ["Charles Taylor (philosopher), Wikipedia, 26 Feb 2011.]

Taylor is part of the neo-Aristotelian revival, arising out of the perceived failure of ethical thought in the post-Enlightenment world. [He is therefore far from being 'modernist.'] His specific approach to neo-Aristotelianism is marked by a firm and constant rejection of what he calls 'naturalism' - 'that the nature of which he is a part is to be understood according to the canons which emerged in the seventeenth-century revolution in natural science' (Philosophy and the Human Sciences). [Dene Baker, "Philosopher of the Month: May 2003: Charles Taylor" at http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_may2003.htm, on 26 Feb 2011.]

In taking on naturalism, Taylor challenges 'the modern malaise' - an excessive centering on the self that flattens and narrows our lives, making them poorer in meaning and less concerned with others and with society (The Ethics of Authenticity). [His earliest writings seem to be leftist; his political affiliation was to a left-leaning, social democratic party.] [Baker]

He is associated - together with people like Alaisdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel, and Gad Barzilai - with a communitarian critique of liberal theory's understanding of the self. Communitarians emphasize the importance of social institutions in the development of individual meaning and identity. [Wikipedia.] In his 1991 Massey lecture, "The Malaise of Modernity," he argued that political theorists from Locke and Hobbes to Rawls and Dworkin have neglected the way in which individuals arises within contexts supplied by society.

The self is essentially defined by the framework of goods that define the good life in the Aristotelian sense. These moral frameworks are presided over by hypergoods - 'goods which not only are incomparably more important than others but provide the standpoint from which these must be weighed, judged, decided about'. (Sources of the Self) [Baker]

Taylor is described as a 'post-analytic' philosopher - someone who retains the clarity of the analytic tradition but goes beyond the analytic-continental divide. His efforts at 'philosophical archaeology' in Sources of the Self is a good witness to his desire to go beyond the ahistorical tendency of the analytic tradition (he studied in Oxford under Isaiah Berlin and G.E.M. Anscombe). [Baker]

While rejecting the tendency of certain forms of political liberalism to promote homogeneity, he upholds multiculturalism, but also argues that not all cultures are - or perhaps not everything in a culture is - intrinsically valuable, and that we must work towards a fusion of horizons. [Baker]

Sean Doyle's Synthesizing the Vedanta: The Theology of Pierre Johanns, S.J.

2011-02-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received for review from Peter Lang, Sean Doyle's Synthesizing the Vedanta: The Theology of Pierre Johanns, S.J. (2006).

This is a truly welcome book, because up to now Johanns has not received the attention he deserves - even though there have been a few small attempts here and there, as for example the two articles and one book by Mattam.

Johanns was one of the leading lights of the so-called 'Calcutta School' of Catholic, mostly Jesuit, Indologists. The School took its inspiration from Brahmabandhab Upadhyay. William Wallace, SJ, convert from Anglicanism, was impressed by Upadhyay's attempt to Indianize Christianity, and urged his Belgian Jesuit province to set aside gifted men for the study of the Hindu texts. Among the results of this vision were stalwarts like Johanns and Georges Dandoy, co-founders of the innovative monthly The Light of the East.

Johanns' articles on the Vedanta, originally published in The Light of the East, were published in book form by UTC, Bangalore, edited by Theo de Greef, under the inspiration and advice of the later Richard De Smet.

Doyle, who is himself a Protestant and has lived in the US and the UK, helpfully fills in Johanns' background, enabling the contemporary reader to understand just why Johanns was such a great pioneer in the field of the dialogue between Hinduism and Christianity. The one false note is when Doyle keeps calling Johanns a neo-Thomist - unaware that this term is reserved for the likes of Maritain and Gilson. Johanns is better classed as a Transcendental Thomist, or perhaps a Marechalian Thomist. He was certainly influenced by Pierre Scheuer, who De Smet has called a prince among metaphysicians.

In his opinion, Johanns' work has still to be surpassed, in the sense that no Christian has yet given as much attention to the three major strands of Vedanta - Sankara's advaita, Ramanuja's visistadvaita, and Vallabha's suddhadvaita - as Johanns has done. (Strangely, Johanns does not seem to have given as much attention to Madhva's dvaita, which people often assume to be the closest to Christianity.) In fact, according to J. Patmury whom Doyle quotes, Johanns work on Vallabha has still to be surpassed among Christian scholars.

We have to be grateful to Doyle for his path-breaking work on Johanns, marked by competence, thoroughness, openness and fairness. I think we should look forward now to similar work on the other members of the Calcutta School - beginning with Dandoy and De Smet. De Smet has produced a significant body of work on Sankara. Last year, 2010, Motilal Banarsidass brought out a collection of his essays on the personhood of Brahman (Brahman and Person: Essays by Richard De Smet, ed. Ivo Coelho). Currently I am working on a similar collection of his essays on Sankara. Since 2009, Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education has been serializing De Smet's cyclostyled notes for students, Guidelines in Indian Philosophy; hopefully these too will be made available in book form. Negotiations are on with George McLean, who holds the rights, for the publication of De Smet's doctoral thesis, The Theological Method of Samkara.

The happening of a work of art

2011-02-11T20:05:00.000-08:00

"It is precisely in great art - and only such art is under consideration here - that the artist remains inconsequential as compared with the work, almost like a passageway that destroys itself in the creative process for the work to emerge." (Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," Cooper 237)

See Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh / Osho in The Messiah commenting on something similar: some works simply emerge from the artist - like Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet (and, I would add, Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things which, she says, just rolled off her typewriter with hardly any corrections). Osho also says that usually this happens once - perhaps the first time. The subsequent works betray effort, and never measure up to the first. This happened in the case of Gibran as well as Roy.

Note also that Heidegger - like Hegel - refuses to have anything to do with aesthetics as concerned with beauty.

De Smet, one of India's great advaitins

2011-02-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

George McLean, in an email to me of 7 April 2010 (spellings corrected):

“What excited me about Fr. De Smet's original work was that it enabled the richness of Shankara and the Hindu tradition of the interior path to the divine to be re-related to the material world from which it has been separated.

Father De Smet pioneered this re-relation by opening the connection which the advaitin scholarship had severed in the interpretation of Shankara.

I see this as the key to the present need not to abandon the sacred but to show it to be the real foundation of the sense of the material life, and hence for us of the scientific world in which we now live.

I saw with my own eyes the excitement this caused at a meeting at the University of Madras when two key people jumped up at the end of his talk, which summarized the first part of his dissertation, to say that this was the way Hindu philosophy needed to be done and that he was one of the greatest advaitins in India, indeed in the whole world.”

Girard: metaphysics or phenomenology?

2011-01-26T19:18:00.000-08:00

A question about Girard: is he doing metaphysics or phenomenology? If he is doing metaphysics (people talks about Girard's 'anthropology', for example), is he placing violence and its roots in mimetic desire in the very nature of being human? And what might that mean?

When we do metaphysics, are we discussing 'pure human nature' or 'human beings as they actually are'? The latter would mean that the data would include grace and redemption, if these obtain.

Might it not Lonergan's method of approximation be useful here? First approximation: the pure line of progress ('human nature'); second approximation: distortion by sin, mimetic desire, violence; third approximation: human beings as they actually are - including the factor of redemption.

Even so: would Girard place mimetic desire in the first approximation or in the second? But perhaps this is a question that might not arise on his approach.

De Smet on Sankara's acosmism

2011-01-16T20:04:00.000-08:00

My impression is that, while De Smet in 1953 defended the thesis that Sankara was a srutivadin, and while he discovered in him a theory of analogy (laksana) that corresponded closely to the intrinsic analogy of Aquinas, he had not as yet come clearly to the affirmation that Sankara was not an acosmist. This needs to be confirmed by a reading of the text of his dissertation.

By 1964/68 (his article for Religious Hinduism) - and perhaps already in 1958 (the first edition of this article) - he is certainly maintaining that Sankara is not an acosmist. The notes (Guidelines in Indian Philosophy), which bear a 1968 date on the front page, also bear this out quite abundantly.

It might be another interesting study to find out the position of the Calcutta School of Catholic Indologists on the matter. What did Johanns and Dandoy think? Pessein? Etc.

Lonergan economics bibliography

2011-01-12T04:48:00.000-08:00

Paul Hoyt-O'Connor, Bernard Lonergan's Macroeconomic Dynamics. Edwin Mellen Press, 2004.

The 'pure' desire to know

2010-12-19T22:46:00.000-08:00

Shute gives a good clarification of Lonergan's often misunderstood term 'pure' desire to know: it is "intelligence unencumbered by the drag of the biases." (Shute, Lonergan's Discovery of the Science of Economics, Toronto 2010, 79 n 57) Thus he is not affirming that we have, at any time, a pure desire to know. It is rather the pure desire considered apart from the biases. It is a 'line of reference' or a first approximation, somewhat like the 'state of pure nature' in medieval theology.

Lonergan also talks of the pure theory of external human action ("Essay in Fundamental Sociology," LEER 17), of the 'pure cycle' and 'pure surplus income' in his economics, and of 'pure formulations' in his theory of interpretation (Insight CWL 3:602).

Rationalism

2010-12-19T20:48:00.000-08:00

I have been suspecting that an example of a religious counterposition (Lonergan) is rationalism, and in fact this does seem to be the case, not only if we look at the Epilogue of Insight, but also from the 'dialectic of thought' in his early writings, the Essay in Fundamental Sociology: see M. Shute, Lonergan's Discovery of the Science of Economics (Toronto 2010) 86. He mentions liberalism and Bolshevism as examples of such rationalism.

I wonder whether contemporary theology must not take a look once again at rationalism, or rather, the danger it runs of being rationalistic.

Marcel Mauss and others on 'gift'

2010-12-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

Stefano Curci, associate professor at the UPS, mentioned Benedict XVI's "economy of the gift" (economia del dono) during his talk at the Demaria Convegno. He mentioned several contemporary philosophers who have been discussing 'gift': Marcel Mauss, Levinas, Derrida and Ricoeur. He did not mention John Milbank. Matter for a good MPh paper here.

Questions for and about Lonergan

2010-11-20T00:23:00.000-08:00

I am just back from Thomas Chacko's defence of his thesis, Lonergan's Virtually Unconditioned: The Ground of Judgment, at Dharmaram Vidya Ksetram, Bangalore.

The defence was a rather vigorous affair, with four on the board including the chairperson / moderator, who was also the Dean of the Philosophy Department, and Director of the thesis, Saju Chackalackal. The others on the board were: Jose Nandhikkara, Wittgenstein specialist; Mathew Chandrankunnel, specialist in science and religion; and myself for the Lonergan angle. Saju is a Kant specialist.

The style of defence at Dharmaram is, as I have said, rather vigorous: a no holds barred attack. That, the professors told me, is how they interpret intellectual honesty and challenge.

Some of the questions for and about Lonergan were interesting: Does Lonergan have anything original to contribute, or is he simply repeating Aristotle, Aquinas and Newman? What is the difference between Lonergan and Kant? The only difference between Aquinas and Kant is that Kant was more honest about the limits of knowledge; otherwise, both are agreed that human knowledge is a product of sense intuition as well as the mind. Is Lonergan a critical realist? Then he cannot be an empiricist. Is he empirical? Then he cannot be critical. And so on.

The Kant thing particularly stunned me. Is there no difference between Kant and Aquinas, except in the direction of greater honesty or modesty? I think we have to reflect here on the basic assumptions: does Aquinas assume - as I presume Kant does - that there is a primordial split between subject and object, that we have privileged knowledge of the subject, and that the problem of epistemology is that we have to get from subject to object? Does he not, as Lonergan points out, make an option between Aristotle and Plato - Plato who thought of knowledge as confrontation, and was then faced with ultimate duality when thinking of the knowledge in the Ultimate, and Aristotle who thought of knowledge as perfection and identity, so that he had no problem of duality when thinking of divine knowledge?

The hermeneutic tradition and its transformation

2010-11-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

Ormiston and Schrift make a connection between Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer, Betti, Habermas and Ricoeur, and propose that Nietzsche challenges this tradition. (Gayle L. Ormiston and Schrift, "Editors' Introduction," Transforming the Hermeneutic Context: From Nietzsche to Nancy, ed. Gayle L. Ormiston and Alan D. Schrift [Albany: SUNY Press, 1990] 14.) This is an interesting reading! The book itself deals with the transformation of the hermeneutic context, meaning the transformation wrought by Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, and so on, of the tradition represented in the companion volume The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur (Albany: SUNY press, 1990).

Which means that my notes are more centred on the tradition; I still need to get familiar with its breakup or transformation.

A different interpretation of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics

2010-11-04T06:16:00.000-07:00

Jean Grondin challenges Gadamer's interpretation of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics. Today I discovered that Klemm agrees with Grondin, and in fact points out that Dilthey, Gadamer and Ricoeur have all contributed to the misunderstanding of Schleiermacher:

“Serious errors of understanding occur when one side or the other is given such arbitrary preferential treatment. I need only mention the names of Dilthey, Gadamer and Ricoeur to refer to some of these errors, which cannot be attributed to Schleiermacher. Recent scholarship, led by Manfred Frank, has seen through the one-sided interpretations of each of these otherwise great thinkers who have influenced generations of Schleiermacher interpreters.” (David E. Klemm, "Schleiermacher's Hermeneutic: The Sacred and the Profane," The Sacred and the Profane: Contemporary Demands on Hermeneutics, ed. Jeffrey F. Keuss [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003] 68.)

Interviews on hermeneutics

2010-10-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

Keith D'Souza, SJ, professor of philosophy at St Pius X Seminary, Goregaon, Mumbai, and I were interviewed twice at the IGNOU seminar on Philosophy and Distance Learning. The first was a video recording meant largely for undergraduate students; the anchor was Prof. Gracious Thomas, HoD Social Work, IGNOU. The second was a live telecast, with a live audience and Dr Babu Emmanuel, SVD, Spokesperson CBCI, as anchor.

I realize I have to brush up my Schleiermacher and Dilthey, and also Deconstructionism.

Dr Annie Kunnoth, recently returned from Paris with a PhD on Paul Ricoeur, and currently teaching at the Jamia Milia University, Delhi, pointed out that for the last 20 years or so, Schleiermacher is not considered as the 'father' of modern / universal hermeneutics. I guess she was pointing out to what people like Grondin (and Greisch, she said) are saying, that universal hermeneutics was proposed already in the previous century, by rationalists like Dannhauer, Chladenius and Meier. The plea fell on deaf ears; Ast and Schlegel know nothing about this attempt, and so Schleiermacher can make the claim to be the first to call for a universal hermeneutics.

Annie also 'objected' to or perhaps corrected my mention of friendship as a condition for attainment of truth. Not friendship, she said, but respect. Friendship is interpersonal, and cannot be expected in a collaborative search for truth; respect, instead, can and must be demanded. Whatever: but the group is an important element in the question of objectivity / truth in hermeneutics / interpretation. I think I remember Ricoeur saying that dialectic is the royal road to truth. Lonergan' functional specialty dialectic is designed to be done in group. That is one emphasis that he can surely bring to the hermeneutics debate.

What was a strange sensation was to find that 'objectivity' and 'truth' was not seen as much of a problem by Keith. In fact, coming to think of it, he never once mentioned historicism during all our discussions, and certainly not in the recorded / live interviews. Yet that was the great problem facing the historicists - especially Dilthey. And that was, according to many, Heidegger's great contribution: the demolition of the problem: don't try to get out of the hermeneutical circle of your historicity, just get into it properly. Which Gadamer put in his famous formulation, that prejudices, far from being hindrances to truth, are the only means we have to truth. Effective history as the only way to truth. And effective history as more being than consciousness - another thing that Keith did not seem to want to emphasize.

So what was the way to truth / objectivity for a Ricoeurian like Keith? Understanding (from Gadamer); explanation (from Ricoeur - basically, use of the 'lower blade' methods such as form and redaction criticism); application (a la Ricoeur - in the more traditional sense of 'application' to some problem, relevance, rather than the "If I cannot apply I do not understand" of Gadamer - if I don't have a question, if the text does not answer my question, there is no understanding at all).

Then again, from Habermas, four aspects: the statement must be understandable (logical criterion of meaningfulness); it must be true (objectivity - a matter of 'explanation'); it must be truthful (I should not want to deceive; I must tell the truth); it must be right (there must be respect; no manipulation).

All fine. I prefer to summarize these in terms of the proximate criterion in grasp of the virtually unconditioned - with the absence of further relevant questions, as well as evidence, as the key moments; and authenticity as the remote criterion, where authenticity is at least triple layered: intellectual / philosophical; moral; religious.

But probably both Keith and I were rather 'uncontroversial'. I wonder what would have happened if the postmodern / deconstructionist questions had really arisen. But then one has to take a stand. Does Derrida proscribe all talk of truth as will to power? One simple tack is to simply disagree.

ACPI Encyclopedia of Philosophy

2010-10-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

The ACPI Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2 vols), ed. Johnson J. Puthenpurackal, OFM Cap and George Panthanmackel, MSFS, was released on 23 October 2010 by H.E. Cardinal Telesphore P. Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi, at Father Agnel School Auditorium, Gautam Nagar, New Delhi, in the presence of a number of dignitaries, including Justice Sree Markandey Katju of the Supreme Court of India, Dr Cyriac Thomas, Member of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, Dr Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Islamic Scholar and Padma Bhushan Awardee, Mr John Dayal, Chairperson, Minority Commission of INdia, and Prof. Gracious Thomas, Coordinator, CBCI Chair, IGNOU.

The encyclopedia is the fruit of the very hard work of the two chief editors, assisted by a board of sectional editors who include Keith D'Souza, SJ, Augustine Thottakara, CMI, Kuruvilla Pandikattu, SJ, Stanislaus Swamikannu, SDB, Vincent Aind, Saju Chackalackal, CMI, and Ivo Coelho, SDB.

The two volume work contains 422 entries, more than 80% of which were contributed by members of the ACPI and staff of various Christian institutions all over the country. Very handsomely brought out by ATC Bangalore, the encyclopedia is a pleasure to the eye.

Among Indian Christian thinkers, the following are included: Swami Abhishiktananda, Robert De Nobili, Richard De Smet, (Mother Teresa), Raimon Panikkar, Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya. Missing: J. Putz, Pierre Johanns, J. Bayart, G. Dandoy, R. Antoine, P. Fallon... the whole 'Calcutta Jesuit School of Indology'. But that is largely my fault: I could not whip up an article in time for the publication, and perhaps the matter was difficult to come by. I am very glad that De Smet and Thomas Stephens (strangely listed under 'T') found their way in, though.

A milestone for the ACPI which was "conceived in 1975 and born in 1976 at Aluva (Kerala)" under the guidance and inspiration of the late Fr Richard De Smet, SJ, and the initiative of Dr Albert Nambiaparambil, CMI.

Our warmest congratulations to Johnson and George, and to the whole ACPI!

For a Divyadaan angle (besides the sectional editors), here is a breakdown:

Joachim [sic] D'Souza: Neo-Scholasticism
Jose Alapurackal: Bhagavad Gita
Nelson Falcao: Stephens, Thomas
Ashley Miranda: Conscience; Duty; Justice
Robert Pen: Communication; Media (in India); Rumour
Ivo Coelho: Analogy; Critical Realism; De Smet, Richard; Foundationalism

For a Salesian angle, besides the above, see:

John Alexander
Thomas Anchukandom
Edwin George
Sahayadas Fernando
Joy Kachapilly
Jose Kuruvachira
Jose Kuttianimattathil
Arnold Mahesh
Jose Maliekal
Joe Mannath
Joe Tony Previnth
Rinoy Joseph
Stanislaus Swamikannu
George Thadathil
Tomy Augustine
Dominic Veliath
Swami Vikrant
Wilson Jose

Violence and its Victims: ACPI vol. 11

2010-10-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

The 11th volume of the ACPI proceedings is finally out: Violence and its Victims: A Challenge to Philosophizing in the Indian Context, ed. Ivo Coelho (Bangalore: ATC, 2010). Rs 300.00.

The book was released together with the ACPI Encyclopedia of Philosophy at a function on 23 October 2010 at New Delhi.

Wonderful and memorable year for the ACPI.

Collected Works of Lonergan in Italian

2010-10-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Information about the Italian Collected Works. Lonergan, Bernard J. F.
Titolo	Opere di Bernard J. F. Lonergan
Pubblicazione	Roma : Città nuova
Descrizione fisica	v. ; 22 cm.
Titolo uniforme	Collected works of Bernard Lonergan.
Comprende	2: Conoscenza e interiorità 3: Insight 5: Comprendere e essere 10: Sull'educazione 12: Il metodo in teologia
Nomi	Lonergan, Bernard J. F. Polo SBN di Cosenza / Biblioteca Nazionale di Cosenza

Lonergan's economics and laissez-faire

2010-10-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

“Lonergan found seriously wanting, as universally valid advice, the policy of laissez-faire for government (conventionally linked with the names of Marshall and Walras, even though this may never have been the explicit intention of either) and thrift and enterprise for individuals. For Lonergan this policy was based on assumptions of equilibrium theory that did not integrate a grasp of diverse and highly contingent equilibria appropriate to different phases of an expanding economy. Thus, the presupposition of the automatic movement of the market toward equilibrium tended concretely to result in liberal capitalism’s exploitation and oppression of the workers that Marshall, too, wanted to resolve through economic intelligence. As Lonergan stressed repeatedly, thrift and enterprise are the correct behaviour when an economy is undergoing the vast widening and deepening of capital formation. As soon as capital formation levels off, and a new phase of widening and deepening the standard of living ought to begin, raising workers’ wages and extension of their credit balances, for instance, might be more responsible courses of action than thrift and enterprise.” [Frederick G. Lawrence, Patrick H. Byrne, Charles C. Helfing, Jr., “Editor’s Introduction,” Bernard Lonergan, Macroeconomic Dynamics: An Essay in Circulation Analysis, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan 15 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999) xlvii-xlviii.]

So: not blanket laissez-faire, but: the concrete players in the economy are the individuals; strategic advice is given by the practical economist; the government's role is to lay down the rules of the game, and to make sure they are obeyed.

The advice recommended: thrift and enterprise during a surplus expansion; benevolence during a basic expansion. An anti-egalitarian distribution of income during a surplus expansion to ensure that the savings rate increases; an egalitarian shift during a basic expansion to ensure that the expansion takes place or continues to take place.

Again: maximization of profit cannot be the ruling mantra. The anti-egalitarian distribution is valid only for the surplus expansion, and the pure surplus income of the rich is meant not for their own comfort and pleasure, but for reinvestment. This distribution has to come to an end, in favour of a more egalitarian distribution, otherwise the basic expansion will not take off or continue.

Lonergan on economics: For a New Political Economy

2010-10-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

After having gone through chapters 5-8 of Shute, I felt I had to get some matters clear, especially regarding the trade cycle, so I began dipping into Lonergan himself, For a New Political Economy. Delighted that I am able to more or less keep up with him, and he is certainly much clearer than his interpreters, at least, that is my first impression. But then having read the interpretations is already to be factored into the 'clarity' and 'ease' with which the original is opening up....

I wrote something to Viplav Kambli about a piece on inflation that he sent me yesterday - advice on how to invest at a time when inflation cuts into fixed deposits. He wrote back briefly, and I wrote back trying to outline how Lonergan might understand inflation as not primarily an economic phenomenon, but as a phenomenon linked to the production process. I realized in the course of writing that there is much more that I have to become clear about.

I have to keep in mind, first of all, Lonergan's use of the method of approximation. The pure cycle, with its 3 or 4 phases (capitalist, materialist, cultural, stationary) is a first approximation. The trade cycle is the beginning of a second approximation: what happens when pure surplus income is misunderstood by capitalists, or by governments, or by labour and labour unions. In his economics manuscripts, Lonergan does not go into the third step of the approximation, the step of healing or redemption: that is reserved for his later work, and is necessarily theological in his perspective.

But it is a nice feeling when, going through FNPE, the famous baseball diamond diagram becomes clearer....

One of the questions that I have to tackle: why the theorem of continuity? I think Lonergan says that this theorem is valid, as elaborated in chapter 5, only in the static phase. In chapter 6 he generalizes it. But: what is the point of this theorem?

Another question: why the normative proportion? And what is the significance of the consequences drawn? “It follows that the profit motive is subject to decreasing returns.” [FNPE 54.]

At any rate, Lonergan clearly critiques the profit motive of capitalism: it works very well in the capitalist phase; it works less and less well in the materialist phase when surplus ratio is decreasing; it has no leverage at all in the static phase when S is zero; and it works less well in each successive stage of economic development. [FNPE 56.]

Arthos' The Inner Word in Gadamer's Hermeneutics

2010-10-07T03:28:00.000-07:00

Just received for review John Arthos' The Inner Word in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). Wonderfully brought out, a pleasure to see and feel. As Pradeep Sebastian says: "The book is a physical object. And I see it as a work of art, where binding, typography, edition matter." (The Groaning Shelf, Hachete, cited in Suresh Menon, "A Modest Miracle: The Groaning Shelf is a stylish, cultural landmark communicating one man's passion to a larger audience," The Hindu, Sunday, 3 October 2010, p. 2.)

To his credit, Arthos notes that De natura verbi intellectus is possibly spurious, even though Gadamer regarded it as a genuine work of Aquinas.

Again, interestingly Lonergan’s Verbum and The Way to Nicea are cited in the Bibliography, though not in the (very short) Index. Fred Lawrence is not, however.

Pickstock is mentioned in the book (p. ??), though neither in the Bibliography nor in the Index.

Postmodern theology: bibliography

2010-09-24T23:22:00.000-07:00

Diogenes Allen. Christian Belief in a Postmodern World: The Full Wealth of Conviction. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1989.

Claude Geffre. The Risk of Interpretation: On Being Faithful to the Christian Tradition in a Non-Christian Age. New York / Mahwah: Paulist, 1987.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [2003] 2009.

Wilfred's Beyond Settled Foundations

2010-09-23T22:58:00.000-07:00

From Felix Wilfred, Beyond Settled Foundations:

The Theological Heritage of Thomas Christians
The Colonial Times and Roberto de Nobili
A Turning Point: Brahmobandhav Upadhyaya
Widening of the Horizons: Fr P. Johanns and the Calcutta School; Theology in the Milieu of Ashrams; Swami Parama Arubi Anandam [Jules Monchanin]; Swami Abhishiktananda; Swami Dayananda [Bede Griffiths].
Theology in a New Socio-Political Context
Supports for Theologizing
Representatives of Religio-Cultural Orientation: Panikkar; Amalorpavadass; Chethimattam; Amaladoss.
Representatives of Socio-Political Orientation: Kappen; Rayan; Soares-Prabhu.
Theology, the Divine Mystery and the World
Christology and Ecclesiology
Evangelization and Liberation
Dialogue and Theology of Religions
Conclusion: Whither Indian Theology?

Lonergan on person

2010-09-22T03:28:00.000-07:00

"The Origins of Christian Realism," Second Collection 251-3.
'The Contemporary Notion of Person' in "Lecture 3: Philosophy of God and the Functional Specialty 'Systematics'," CWL 17:210-11.

Common names and properly explanatory terms

2010-09-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

One of Aristotle's defects, according to Lonergan is "a certain blurring" of the difference between common names and truly explanatory conjugates:

"Again, there is to his thinking a certain blurring of the difference between the common names developed by common sense and the technical terms elaborated by explanatory science." (Method in Theology 311.)

Lonergan, instead, distinguishes sharply between common names and explanatory conjugates. Common names involve 'linguistic' insights - insights into proper use of language, whereas explanatory conjugates are the fruit of science. So, properly speaking, the 'concepts' that we usually have are mostly common names; we have really very few concepts that are explanatory conjugates. When we see a tree and recognize it, we do not really obtain - 'by abstraction' - the concept of a tree in the properly explanatory sense. We are merely using the name 'tree' properly. Abstraction of the concept of tree is a matter for the botanical scientist - and even she does not come to the concept 'automatically', but only at the term of much hard work. We do not, in other words, obtain 'forms' by 'automatic abstraction' or by some sort of 'intellectual intuition' - we have to work to obtain them. Thus the nature of a free fall might descriptively be said to be a constant acceleration, but the pertinent conjugate form is given only in the relevant empirically verified law - s = gt²/2.

Embarassing doctrines

2010-09-22T02:21:00.000-07:00

Quotable Quotes from Lonergan"

"Doctrines that are embarrassing will not be mentioned in polite company." (Method in Theology 299.)

A "perhaps not numerous center"

2010-09-22T00:01:00.001-07:00

Quotable Quotes from Lonergan"

Neither the solid right nor the scattered left but a “perhaps not numerous center”. [see Lonergan, “Dimensions of Meaning,” Collection, CWL 4:245.]

New relation between philosophy and theology

2010-09-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

Quotable Quotes from Lonergan:

“Indeed, once philosophy becomes existential and historical, once it asks about man, not in the abstract, not as he would be in some state of pure nature, but as in fact he is here and now in all the concreteness of his living and dying, the very possibility of the old distinction between philosophy and theology vanishes.” ["Dimensions of Meaning," Collection, CWL 4:245.]

Postmodern theology: bibliography

2010-09-17T03:29:00.000-07:00

John D. Caputo, ed. The Religious. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. "Introduction: Who Comes After the God of Metaphysics?" Part I: Landmarks. [Selections from Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Irigaray.] Part II: Contemporary Essays. [By Marion, Dominique Janicaud, Kevin Hart, Richard Kearney, Mark I. Wallace, Ellen T. Armour, Grace M. Jantzen, Walter Lowe, Charles E. Winquist, Merold Westphal, John Milbank, "Darkness and Silence: Evil and the Western Legacy," 277-300, Sharon Welch.]

Postmodern theology and the tradition-innovation dialectic

2010-09-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

Postmodern theology: actually one more aspect of the tradition-innovation dialectic. But one that is quite different, insofar as one tendency in it tends to eschew the notion of truth taken for granted in earlier theology. This itself is qualified by the fact that Radical Orthodoxy, post-liberal theology, post-secular theology, and post-postliberal theology perhaps do retain the traditional notion of truth.

Hauerwas inspiration for Radical Orthodoxy

2010-09-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

Just learned that Hauerwas is actually a major inspiration for Radical Orthodoxy (see McMahon in Heythrop Journal). This does not, of course, mean that they are saying the same thing - I find myself more in sympathy with Hauerwas than with RO.

Secularism, the Scotist notion of being, and India

2010-09-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

Milbank's bete noire - as, interestingly, also Lonergan's - is Duns Scotus and his equivocal notion of being, applicable equally to both God and creatures. It is this notion of being that made possible an account of the world as apart from God, and provided the basis for the concepts of pure nature and the secular in Western modernity.

Certainly Sankara's understanding of Being / Sat is not equivocal: even the most extreme monist interpreters would admit that, to the point of actually regarding the world as maya understood as illusion.

So: where are we?

What do we need to do as Christian thinkers in India? What kind of reading of the Western and Indian tradition? Our complexity, which is largely unknown to the West except for people like Clooney, is the new post-inculturation opposition between Brahmanic Hinduism and the subaltern / Dalit sensibility. Yet perhaps we cannot simply jettison the past. I am for engagement with it - even the Brahmanic past.

Lonergan is not 'sexy'

2010-09-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

Extremely interesting remark by McMahon in his article on Radical Orthodoxy and Lonergan: "Lonergan's project is not 'sexy'." ["Theology and the Redemptive Mission of the Church: A Catholic Response to Milbank's Challenge." Heythrop Journal 51/5 (2010) 788.]

He goes on: "His writing is precise and seldom given over to rhetorical flourish or the playfulness found in much RO writing." [788.]

I think this remark is remarkable in the way it captures an essential difference between Lonergan and much other, extremely attractive, writing: Heidegger, for example (but not Gadamer), and now certainly Milbank, Pickstock and company.

In fact, what Milbank says about Aquinas in comparison to Heidegger might well be applied to Lonergan in comparison to Milbank and his companions: "Some thinkers, like Heidegger, appear on the surface to be obscure and deep, but on analysis are revealed as offering all too clear and readily statable positions. But as Rudi te Velde very well intimates, with Aquinas the opposite pertains. Only superficially is he clear, but on analysis one discovers that he does not a t all offer us a decently confined ‘Anglo-Saxon’ lucidity....” [John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 20.]

The varieties of postmodernism

2010-09-16T19:31:00.000-07:00

Certainly one of the gains of recent reading is the realization that there are more varieties of postmodernism that I have been given to understand.

Perhaps I - we - have been under the impression that postmodernism means only people like Derrida and Rorty, and Caputo following Derrida, and of course Lyotard, Foucault, Irigaray, Vattimo...

But there are some other, perhaps unwelcome, bedfellows: the recent discovery is of Radical Orthodoxy, with John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Graham Ward, Gerard Loughlin; the postliberalism of Lindbeck and Frei; the post-postliberalism of Stanley Hauerwas and Kevin Vanhoozer; Alasdair MacIntyre. Then also the willingness of the RO people to include Balthasar as one of their inspirations.

RO and the post-postliberals, for example - and here they have common cause with Caputo - mount a vicious attack on secularism. (I wonder whether Hauerwas' remarks on capitalism are echoes of Milbank.) But, where RO is anti-authoritarianism and anti-pope, including anti-John Paul II (I think), Hauerwas is clearly pro-John Paul II, and is even accused of being too Catholic. But he remains unfazed.

Radical Orthodoxy on faith and reason

2010-09-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

I was trying to find out how Radical Orthodoxy understands the relationship of faith and reason in Aquinas. They certainly do not deny that Aquinas has this distinction. However, they say that it is far more porous than usually thought.

So: in what way more porous? I quote my summary:

Milbank hopes to show that the distinguished approaches “can at the very most be thought of only as distinct phases within a single gnoseological extension exhibiting the same qualities throughout. Then we will further establish that even the phases are not clearly bounded in terms of what can or cannot be achieved.... Having established these points concerning Aquinas’s method, we shall then show how his ‘rational’ treatment of Creation is informed by faith, while his exposition of the revealed Trinity is in fact highly demonstrative. [So what’s new about this?] Throughout we hope to show how a ‘radically orthodox’ position (primarily characterized by a more persistent refusal of distinct ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ phases and a consequent assault upon an autonomous naturalism as ‘nihilistic’), can indeed be rendered as an attentive reading of Aquinas.” [21.]

So the rejection of the natural-supernatural distinction – see de Lubac – is fundamental to RO. Wonderful. Something to be chewed upon! See Guy Mansini, who calls this the fundamental theological point – a watershed – in the 20^th century. See also Michael Stebbins’ excellent reading of Lonergan on this point in his The Divine Initiative. See my notes on this topic somewhere – perhaps on this blog. I have also downloaded an article by Raymond Moloney, “De Lubac and Lonergan on the Supernatural.” But Stebbins is far superior on the point.

My feeling: what RO is trying to say might not be that different - or radically new - when compared to someone like Lonergan. In fact, my feeling is that Lonergan will be far superior on the proper understanding of the natural-supernatural distinction. From my cursory reading of Stebbins, I have the impression that Lonergan even corrects de Lubac, and certainly brings a far more sophisticated reading to the distinction.

Whatever: I must admit that Mansini - despite his snide remarks on Lonergan - seems right on when he identifies the distinction as a watershed in 20th century philosophy.

Metaphysics and the sciences

2010-09-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

I am reading ch. 14 of Insight, on the relation of metaphysics to the sciences and to common sense: metaphysics conceived as the integral heuristic structure of proportionate being takes the results of science and common sense, reverses their counterpositions, and integrates them.

A very precise relationship between metaphysics and science / common sense.

Also the - perhaps so far unique to Lonergan - idea that forms are obtained, not by (descriptive) common sense, but by (explanatory) science. That the insights of common sense, far from arriving - automatically, as it were - at the forms of things, are actually linguistic insights, and they give us the ability to deal with the world. But that the true understanding or explanations of things is to be obtained by the respective science. (And here, as far as common sense is concerned, plenty of echoes with postmoderns like Rorty.... My feeling that what Rorty says fits in very well with what Lonergan says about common sense.)

How, I wonder, would Radical Orthodoxy conceive of the relationship between metaphysics and science? Or perhaps there is no relationship? Not likely.

Certainly both Lonergan and RO meditate / take seriously the idea of theology as the queen of the sciences. The question is to pinpoint the differences, for differences there do seem to be. RO is aggressively anti-secular, and perhaps also anti-other-religions.

Radical Orthodoxy and Lonergan

2010-09-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

I was searching for someone engaging Radical Orthodoxy and Lonergan, and here is one such: Christopher McMahon, "Theology and the Redemptive Mission of the Church: A Catholic Response to Milbank's Challenge." Heythrop Journal 51/5 (2010) 781-94. I have just glanced through the article, but there does not, however, seem to be any reflection on the natural-supernatural distinction.

Radical Orthodoxy and Balthasar

2010-09-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

It would seem that Radical Orthodoxy is not averse to Balthasar. Several of the essays (see Loughlin and Bauerschmidt) in Radical Orthodoxy quote him, if not actually study him, with approval, though there is also the occasional disagreement and 'correction' of perspective.

Aidan Nichols and Radical Orthodoxy

2010-09-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

I have been dipping into the work of Aidan Nichols as well as Radical Orthodoxy, and just now came across an interesting interaction between the two in Nichols' Christendom Awake: On Re-energizing the Church in Culture (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999). In his introduction he says:

At the beginning of the decade a courageous and encouragingly influential study was dedicated by its author, Dr John Milbank of Peterhouse, Cambridge, to 'the remnants of Christendom'. (xii)

However, in the note Nichols makes note of his own caveats in his essay, "Non tali auxilio: John Milbank's Suasion to Orthodoxy," New Blackfriars 73/861 (1992) 326-32.

Nichols also quotes Gerard Loughlin, another proponent of Radical Orthodoxy, in the same introduction.

Objectivity, reality, the 'already-out-there-now-real'

2010-09-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

Phil and I talked all the way down to Mumbai yesterday, and then more during the day at Provincial House. One of the points he kept making was about the strangeness of reality: what you see is not really real; it is an illusion; try taking off your glasses. He cited Lonergan at the end of "Cognitional Structure", which I must really look up. But: I am uncomfortable with this way of speaking. I prefer to say: the data of seeing is just that - the given, the data. To say it is an illusion is already to have made a judgment! I prefer to say: we do not know the real by seeing - otherwise we would not say, "The stick in the jar of water seems bent, but it really is not." We know the real by judging.

The 'already-out-there-now-real', in my understanding is the real as a part of what is already out there now: one part is real, the other unreal; and real and unreal are fixed by relevance to biological satisfaction.

The given is valid in all its parts, but differently significant. If I am seeing, I am seeing; but I may realize, upon judging that I have been hallucinating, or, perhaps, dreaming. The given still remains valid; but it may be of interest to the psychologist or the psychiatrist rather than the physicist or chemist.

How Great Ye art

2010-09-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Phil has been speaking all day about the Trinitarian God and eschatology and things. He has been saying, for example, that the hymn "How Great Thou art" should really run "How Great Ye art". "Thou", according to him, indicates the "Hebrew God", whereas the "Ye" takes into account the Trinitarian God.

There is a sense in which the "I" is always a "We" as well: the three persons and my little I.

So when Lonergan writes "As we have been saying...", the "we", quite beyond his intention perhaps, indicates the action of the three. And this, I would think, fits in very well with human instrumentality; with the idea of understanding as a pati, as a passion rather than an action, and with the stumblings of Heidegger and the postmoderns towards the decentering of the isolated Cartesian subject so as to recognize the emergence of insight and action from sources far beyond this kind of isolated subject...

Lonergan and Thomas Aquinas

2010-09-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

I was surprised this evening at tea when one of our priest confreres, Lawrence D'Souza, revealed that he had been reading Lonergan on the web "in order to fight with you." He was surprised to learn that Lonergan had learnt from Thomas Aquinas, and that, in fact, he was one of the major interpreters of Thomas in the last century. He was, naturally, also surprised to learn that Lonergan had also written on economics. But the greatest surprise was on my part: that one of my confreres has been reading Lonergan. Cheers!

Economics slowly by slowly

2010-09-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

Phil McShane said he was trying out a new approach. In the past, he had tried to present the whole of Lonergan's economics, and he had failed to make any impression. Now he was trying to go step by step. The "Grade XII Class" was one such effort. The 8 articles in Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education was another effort in the same line, introducing the notions of basic and surplus circuits, promising, credit, money, and the goal of the economy with the help of examples of simple businesses.

My impression is that this new strategy is helpful. Though it is quite impossible to assume that I have really understood, still, it is a good start. I found that, against the background of my reading of the articles in Divyadaan, other reading began opening up: Michael Shute's Lonergan's Discovery of the Science of Economics; McShane's own Sane Economics and Fusionism; Anderson and McShane's Beyond Establishment Economics: No Thank You, Mankiw.

So "economics slowly by slowly" seems to be working... Though I think it is possible sometimes to go too slowly; then a little speed might help. A variation of approaches, then. McShane himself admits the need to break up elementary presentation with the long term view.

"Towards a New Economic Order": Day Three

2010-09-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

The third day of the McShane Workshop began with an attempt to image global economics along the lines of global hydrodynamics. In 1897 we had Howard Lace's 800 page book on hydrostatics, which remained in use for over half a century. In 1997 we had Lighthill's four volumes of a 1000 pages each on the history of hydrodynamics. Perhaps in 2097 we will have a book on global economics, Phil suggested.

The next two sessions were dedicated mostly to questions: about the mechanism of price rises when there is excess money and the quantity of consumer goods remains static; the 'idealism' of Lonergan's exclusion of centralist controls and expectations that the economy will one day be controlled by the good sense of people, given that there will be a culture in which his 'diagram' has become a molecular image, something that people carry in their bones; the role of politics (no role, Phil answered, just as today politicians would never dare to pontificate on hydrodynamics); the role of religion (great role in shaping the hope of a fair and just society); the role of the common man and woman (tree-hugging; making a noise; spreading the word; nudging economists or friends of economists).

In the concluding session, Ms Dakshayani, Denver D'Silva (a student) and I shared our impressions of the workshop, while Fr Savio D'Souza, the Rector, proposed a vote of thanks.

Ms Dakshayani, who is a graduate of Jawarharlal Nehru University Delhi, and has a research degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and is now a researcher at Shelter Don Bosco R&D, questioned the idea that the Indian economy was static; it was quite dynamic, she noted. (Perhaps this was not quite what Phil had been saying. What he said was that Lonergan was moving economics from being a static theory to a dynamic one.) She also asked how Lonergan's theory differed from the classical capitalist laissez-faire. Again, she asked for a fuller understanding of leisure; this was important, especially in a context where unemployment was a major problem. Finally, she said that the idea of promise presented during the talks was too individualistic. In the Indian context, one would have to talk about commitment, duty, responsibility, as, for example, in the joint family. Promise, she said, cannot be reduced to a business term. The cultural context must be taken into account.

I myself noted that this was the very first time that Divyadaan had taken up economics as a topic for discussion; it went very well with the suggestion of the 26th General Chapter of the Salesians that the vow of poverty included an educative dimension: enabling youth, especially those on the margins, to take their rightful place in society and in the transformation of society. Secondly, the connections that had been made with KTHM College, St Xavier's Mumbai, the local press, and Shelter Don Bosco R&D were precious. Thirdly, while Phil had given us a taste of a different type of economics, it was up to us - or some of us at least - to study further, and to make up our minds about it. At the very least, we could become members of SGEME. And then, since the majority of us were going to be teachers and educators, there was the task of being educators who enabled Minding, who allowed Whatting, rather than educators who suppressed Minding and Whatting. (And it had been great to see young students and novices asking excellent questions.) Finally, Lonergan's work is built on faith and hope: faith that understanding the economy correctly is vitally important for sane action, even if we have not quite arrived at that correct understanding; hope that a first step has been taken, and that we are moving in the right direction when we ask: What is happening in the economy?

"Towards a New Economic Order": Day Two

2010-09-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

Day Two of the McShane Workshop got off to a start at 0930 this morning, with a few particpants missing and a few new ones added - chiefly a couple of professors from the Department of Economics of KTHM College, and a parishioner with a background in business studies and management and his friend.

Phil began by talking about the new culture of the future. Just as we know when a person is driving badly, and we want to tell him that he should change gears, so in the future we will know when the economy is being driven badly, and there will be a widespread agreement about this, together with knowledge about what must be done.

The topics of the day were the Rhythms of Innovation, and Promises, Notes and Credit. The famous diagram which Phil began introducing yesterday moved to completion, with basic and surplus circuits, demand functions and supply functions on both levels, and the redistributive function in the middle.

Taking his example from the little barber shops that he had noticed along the Nashik streets, Phil introduced the idea of pure surplus income. An American comes in for a haircut. The usual cost of the haircut is Rs 25; but the American pays $ 5. The excess over Rs 25 is pure surplus income for the barber. Why pure? Because it is not needed for anything: for basic expenditures, or for surplus expenditures. The barber can do what he wants with it. He can donate it to a temple, or to a charitable organization, or use it for his family. In later years Lonergan called this pure surplus income also by the name social dividend, since it can be used for the benefit of humanity. If there is any money left after all the basic and surplus expenditures are met, it is pure surplus income. Pure surplus income is not necessary as long as the economy is stable.

What about the notion of profit, someone asked. Phil had been avoiding the word all through. He pointed out that profit tends to include both the surplus demand function (D'') and pure surplus income. That makes it a vague term. He also said that in traditional economics there was no criterion for determining pure surplus income and robbery (making profits by underpaying workers, or by over-pricing the goods).

Phil went on to introduce Innovation with the help of his famous Irish island and the invention of the horse-drawn plough: the banker giving credit to the inventor; the time taken for production of ploughs and the effects on the economy; the rise in wages on the surplus circuit; the problem created if these wages are immediately pumped into the basic circuit; the possibility of redistribution in terms of savings and re-investment; the eventual slowing down of the surplus surge; the need to allow then a basic surge; and so on.

The significance of the distinction between basic and surplus circuits became slowly clear, especially in comparison with diagrams from standard textbooks of economics which simply tend to lump together basic as well as surplus businesses.

Towards the end of the day, along with questions about innovations and technology displacing workers, Phil remarked that for Lonergan, the goal of the economy was, strangely, unemployment. This might be a difficult idea to digest, because we are surrounded by a mythology of work. But human beings really need to aim at a life in which there is place for leisure and contemplation. With adequate technology - including biomimicry and nanotechnology - we should be able to bring forth a sufficiency of consumer goods so as to permit leisure for all. The economy might thus slope up into a preparation for eternity!

But perhaps the most interesting part of the day was the awakening Whats: some students and SDB novices raising interesting and intelligent questions on the floor, little groups of questioners in between sessions, Dr Agnelo Menezes thinking of getting St Xavier's Mumbai to invite Phil for another Workshop. Something seems to be stirring. Seeds of hope!

Of footballers and coaches

2010-09-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

I have often used the example of footballers and coaches: to be a good coach, it is not enough to be a good footballer. You have to be able to talk about football. It is the difference between apprehensive and formative abstraction. The footballer, I think, grasps the universal in re; the coach grasps the universal in itself, so that the insight is no longer tied to the phantasm but the inner word has emerged and is free of the original phantasm and can be applied now to any number of other instances.

Phil made me aware yesterday, however, of another dimension: a good coach, he said, is someone who has a good memory, and is able to come to his task with a history of the game. He remembers different games, different tactics, different moves. He comes with a historical heuristic - but not merely with a heuristic, but a heuristic that is concretely filled with actual memories. He brings that dimension to his coaching.

So I guess Thomas is being updated by this kind of remark: the advertence to the historical aspect of the process of knowing / teaching.

Of course Phil also remarked several times that the goalkeeper awaiting the penalty shot, or the centre forward with the ball in his control, are WHATS. They are there with all of their memories - and good players have good memories - and they are completely alert, weighing all possible courses of action, and preparing to decide and to act.... Phil's point was that Whatting - questioning and thinking - is not something that happens only 2 inches behind one's eyes, but over the whole body. His great image was that of a child asking questions: the child tends to jump up and down. In contrast, people who have been "educated out of their minds" - which tends to include most of us sitting demurely and listening to Phil - either ask questions only with a hesitant show of hands, or not at all. But Navtej from Shelter R&D was a great exception: she just marched up to the mike and the board and asked her question.

Whatting with the whole what I am: not only a great image, but, I am beginning to see, a great truth. Every cell participates in my questioning and thinking. Every cell stores memories of the past - the Buddhist vipassana tradition recognizes this when it talks about the samskaras which are stored memories - evident when certain memories evoke a shudder or a thrill that passes through my length and breadth. And these stores of memories are completely involved in any questioning, any thinking. One way or the other. Either as completely collaborating with the process, or else as damaged by dramatic bias, individual bias, group bias, general bias....

"Towards a New Economic Order", Divyadaan, Nashik, Day One

2010-09-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

The Workshop by Philip McShane "Towards a New Economic Order" began this morning at Divyadaan, Nashik.

The inaugural session involved a prayer-song in Hindi, the lighting of the lamp, and then an introduction to and welcome to the chief resource person and some of those who would interact with him: Dr Agnelo Menezes of St Xavier's College, Mumbai; Dr D.R. Bachhav, Head of the Department of Economics, KTHM College, Nashik, and myself.

I introduced Phil as well as the workshop (see my earlier blog entry for the text of my speech), after which Dr Menezes and Dr Bachhav gave their expectations of the workshop.

Dr Menezes said that he begged to disagree with the widespread idea that the Indian economy was doing well; it was not, he said; there were a very large number of people - 95% - who were not benefitting from the liberalization and the so-called surge. He summarized the problems in terms of 3 'ins': insecurity, informality (the informal or unorganized sector), and inequality.

Dr Bachhav said that the policies and plans of the government were magnificent; the problem was implementation. The agricultural sector, for example, was suffering very much.

McShane said that this was a "magnificently gloomy picture" of the Indian economy, and a wonderful start to the workshop.

He spent the next session introducing the audience to their Whats, inviting them to be Whats. The other three sessions of the day were dedicated to analysing a small business - McShane's father's bakery business. The basic circuit of demand function and supply; the need to set aside money for repair, maintenance and replacement; the recognition of a surplus circuit with its own demand function and supply. Practically the whole day was spent on this diagram, and attempting to compare it with the standard diagrams found in elementary textbooks of economics, which tended to fuse the two circuits, talking only, for example, of households and businesses and the flows of labour and money.

Dr Menezes said that he was delighted to hear this kind of analysis, and said that his college was actually making students study the local economy and analyse it carefully.

I myself asked about the traditional diagrams: what was wrong with them? What consequences followed from their failure to distinguish basic and surplus circuits?

Many of the participants - the majority of them innocent of any economics - felt that what McShane was presenting was quite agreeable, and a matter of common sense. For a layperson in the field of economics, it is probably difficult to understand why such a fundamental distinction is not drawn by most economists.

One point that became clear to me was that the four elements of the diagram did not represent concrete households or businesses, but rather demand and supply functions.

Tomorrow's sessions will complete the diagram by introducing the topics of banking and innovation, though the topic of innovation had inevitably come up during the day.

McShane and the Workshop "Towards a New Economic Order", Divyadaan, Nashik

2010-09-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

PHILIP McSHANE: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Philip McShane is Professor Emeritus at Mount St Vincent University, Canada, and is one of the five or six most important scholars in the thought of Bernard Lonergan (1904-84), Canadian philosopher and theologian.

Born in Ireland, Phil has a master’s degree in mathematical science (University College, Dublin, 1952-56). He notes that his original training was in theoretical physics, which included working with Lochlainn O’Raifeartaigh who later occupied the Schrodinger position in the Dublin Institute of Theoretical Physics.

After taking a master’s degree in philosophy (St Stanislaus College, Tullamore, Ireland, 1956-59), and another master’s degree in theology (Heythrop College, Oxon., England, 1960-64), he went on to take a doctoral degree from Oxford (1965-68) for his thesis on “The concrete logic of discovery of statistical science, with special reference to problems of evolution theory,” later published under the title, Randomness, Statistics and Emergence.

Subsequently he was Lecturer in mathematics at the University College, Dublin (1959-60), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology (1968-73), Associate professor of Philosophy (1974-79) and then Professor of Philosophy (1980-94) at Mt St Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and First Visiting Fellow in Religious Studies, Lonergan College, Concordia University, Montreal (1979-80).

His interest in economics began with a request from Bernard Lonergan “to find [him] an economist” – to read one of his economics manuscripts.

His publications on economics include: Lonergan’s Challenge to the University and the Academy (1980); Wealth of Self and Wealth of Nations (1994); Economics for Everyone: Das Jus Kapital (1998); PastKeynes PastModern Economics: A Fresh Pragmatism (2002); with Bruce Anderson, Beyond Establishment Economics: No Thank You, Mankiw (2002); and the recent articles in Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education 21/1 and 21/2, including editing the latter issue with the title Do You Want a Sane Economy?

He has lectured on economics at universities in Mexico, Colombia, the United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

At present he is directing research projects on the relation between economic theory and law, education, environmental problems and world hunger.

Among his other publications are the following: The Shaping of the Foundations (1976); A Brief History of Tongue: From Big Bang to Coloured Wholes (1999). A more complete list may be obtained at www.philipmcshane.ca; several items are also available online.

Besides publications, there are a very large number of “online publications” with strange names: Bridgepoise, Cantowers, Sofdaware, Quodlibets, Joistings, Eldorede, Prehumous, Lonergan’s Model, Method in Theology: Revisions and Implementations, Humus, Field Nocturnes, SURF, Fusion. All these are also available at www.philipmcshane.ca.

His wide range of interests reach out from mathematics, physics, botany, economics and Lonergan to include music, poetry and literature. The music and the poetry are, in fact, continually invading all his writings, which are often characterized by a Joycean mangling of language.

At present, pushing 78, Phil lives in Vancouver with his wife Sally.

I think it would not be wrong to describe Phil as a brilliant man of volcanic energy and enthusiasm, with a passion for the implementation of Lonergan’s project.

We are privileged to have you with us, Phil. Welcome!

PURPOSE OF THE WORKSHOP

The purpose of the workshop is to propose the elements of a new economic order, or to move towards a massive restructuring of present economic praxis.

To speak of a new economic order, or a restructuring of present economic praxis, is to imply that present economic order and praxis are less than satisfactory.

Is that true?

The chief resource person of the present Workshop is convinced that it is.

In support of his stand he might quote from Schumpeter who spoke of the fundamental need for economic theory to ‘cross the Rubicon’: by ‘crossing the Rubicon Schumpeter meant replacing current static economic analysis “by a system of general economic dynamics into which statics would enter as a special case.” [J. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York: OUP, 1954) 1160. xxv.]

The elements of the proposed new order or massive restructuring are to be found in the work of Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan. This itself is a strange thing: the very tall claim that a rank ‘outsider’, a layperson in the field of economics, might have something so revolutionary to suggest. But let that pass.

I quote from the blurb of the volume of Lonergan’s Collected Works edited by McShane, For a New Political Economy: “Lonergan’s concept of economics differs radically from that of contemporary economists and represents a major paradigm shift. He takes a fresh look at fundamental variables and breaks from centralist theory and practice, offering a uniquely democratic perspective on surplus income and non-political control.” [Blurb, FNPE, CWL 21.]

“He takes a fresh look at fundamental variables.” That statement could be illustrated by turning once again to Schumpeter, and here I quote from McShane’s Introduction:

Both in his Theory of Economic Development and in his Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical, and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process, Schumpeter begins from the dynamics of a stable economy and moves to a consideration of the ‘destabilizing’ effect of entrepreneurial activity. Lonergan, however, focuses immediately on such activity, particularly in its occurrence on the massive scale associated with economic cycles, revolutions, surges. He approaches that focus armed with precise analytic distinctions between basic and surplus activities, outlays, incomes, etc., and it is extremely important to note that these distinctions are equally relevant also to the understanding and control of an economy without major surges. [FNPE xxv-xxvi.]

Lonergan, in other words, begins not from static analysis, but from dynamic analysis: an economy in which entrepreneurial activity is the normal thing.

He brings to this analysis precise distinctions between basic and surplus activities, outlays, incomes, etc.

Such a dynamic analysis is equally relevant “to the understanding and control of an economy without major surges”; in Schumpeter’s words, it is “a system of general economic dynamics into which statics would enter as a special case.”

So this Workshop is not going to enter immediately into practical problems of solidarity, justice, etc. The conviction behind this is that we have to first understand correctly the workings of the economy, before we can talk about What can be done, or What should be done. To put it more starkly, Lonergan and McShane are convinced that economics has not yet become a science. They are not alone in this: I have been quoting Schumpeter, but I could also quote Joan Robinson to that effect, and Robinson, I should note, was Amartya Sen’s doctoral guide.

But enough of that. Let me end with two points.

The first is that the approach of this Workshop will be largely to avoid global and total presentations of Lonergan’s view, and to take instead little steps towards that view. Thus McShane will begin by analyzing a small business, and then go on perhaps to introduce the ‘real economic variables’: the basic and surplus circuits, the corresponding flows of payments, the notion of credit, the idea of money, etc.

The second is the underlying conviction that the goal of the economy is not “making money”, but rather, improving the standard of living for all. And that, I am sure, this audience will agree is a worthwhile goal.

Thank you.

(Ivo Coelho)

Schumpeter: from statics to dynamics in economics

2010-09-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Schumpeter spoke of the fundamental need for economic theory to ‘cross the Rubicon’. ‘By “crossing the Rubicon,” I mean this: however important those occasional excursions into sequence analysis may have been, they left the main body of economic theory on the “static” bank of the river; the thing to do is not to supplement static theory by the booty brought back from these excursions but to replace it by a system of general economic dynamics into which statics would enter as a special case.’ [J. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York: OUP, 1954) 1160. P. McShane, Introduction, For a New Political Economy, CWL 21, xxv.]

McShane interacting with the SYBPh class

2010-09-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

Phil McShane came to my first class (Philosophy of Knowing) this morning and had an informal interaction with the students.

Someone asked him how he came to Lonergan. He said he had been given the text of Insight to read even before it was published. Later, Lonergan had come over to Dublin to give 5 lectures, and Phil had been in charge of seeing to his room and so on. That was when he first met Lonergan. He remembered that Lonergan had a book open on his desk: it was an Agatha Christie detective novel!

Lonergan, he said, loved jokes, and Phil and he would exchange a joke whenever they met. Phil told us the one about the Irish wake. After a little whisky, one of the mourners decided to go in and pray at the coffin. He went in, but the whisky had been strong, and he went quite past the coffin and landed at the harmonium (there was, it seems, usually a harmonium in the 'priests' room' which was also used to lay the body). Well, the man knelt down, prayed at the harmonium, and then went back to his friends. "What a lovely set of teeth the dead man had," he said. Lonergan loved to repeat this Irish joke later on.

Another student asked about the new book Phil was planning to write, on Physics, Economics and History. That gave Phil a chance to speak about how he came to Lonergan's economics.

He had his background in mathematics (Dublin) and philosophy (Oxford). At Heythrop he was able to meet Fr Louis Watts, the priest who had introduced Lonergan to economics during his Heythrop days. In 1968, Phil received a postcard from Lonergan: "Find me an economist who can read my manuscript." A day later he received another postcard saying much the same thing. Lonergan had written the essay in 1944. He had spent 10 years reflecting on the matter. He had given it to Eric Kierans, later minister for finance in the Trudeau cabinet in Canada; Kierans did not get round to reading it. Phil said he himself had spent 20 years trying to read the manuscript; finally it had begun making sense. But he was still on the lookout for an economist; he was hoping that the Nashik conference would inspire someone to either find one or become the one.

Economics today is in the position of Ptolemaic astronomy with its epicycles: they could make certain predictions with that kind of thing, but it would be impossible to send someone to the moon on that basis. But humankind changes very slowly. Ptolemaic astronomy reigned for a thousand years. Economics has been around for 200 years. Perhaps it will begin changing now. Lonergan's aim was to transform economics into a proper science.

Making judgments: practical exercises

2010-09-07T06:06:00.000-07:00

This morning I gave a test to my Second Year BPh class on 'reflective understanding.' We were trying later to clarify how it is that we make a judgment, and I said: judging, in very simple terms, is checking whether experiencing and understanding have been done properly. 'Experiencing properly' is a question of experiential objectivity: have I been attentive? Are the 'conditions' fulfilled in the data? 'Understanding correctly' is arriving at an invulnerable insight, making sure that the 'link between conditions and conditioned' is correct.

I forget exactly how, but we got on next to the difference between playing football well, and being able to coach; it is, I said, the difference between apprehensive abstraction and formative abstraction. It is freedom from the book. It is a question of understanding so well that I am able to 'say it in my own words', to change the examples.

That got us on to finding new examples of judgments. Someone suggested the prospective judgment, "Thomas is selfish." This then is the 'conditioned.' What might be the link between conditions and conditioned? In other words, what kind of If-then premise do I usually employ? We became aware that all of us employ such premises (though without formulating them), and, further, that each of us have different premises - depending on our personal histories. We also became aware that we were not all willing to share these premises: so generalized empirical method is a 'revealing' thing - a constant interaction between subject and object. But some did share: "If X usually takes three helpings of anything, then X is selfish." "If Y does not help me, then Y is selfish."

The next question: are these 'links' sound? Are they correct? Take the second example: is that correct? No, someone said, because it might be that Y does not have the time to help me just then. So there are questions arising here, and relevant ones; the insight is not invulnerable.

Lonergan on Basic and Surplus Goods & Services

2010-09-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

"The key to appreciating Bernard Lonergan's economic theory is to understand how he sharpens the orthodox distinctions between producer goods, consumer goods, and capital and then goes on to fully exploit the distinction he draws. [Orthodox economists also draw these distinctions, but their distinctions are not precise, and they are not basic to their analysis as they are for Lonergan.] The particular distinction Lonergan draws is one of the fundamental building blocks of his theory." [McShane and Anderson 23.]

"[O]rthodox economists think unclearly of producer goods as used in the production of consumer goods. An example is the use of sheet metal in automobiles. Sheet metal, for them, is a producer good that is used to make consumer goods, ie automobiles. For Lonergan, however, what determines whether a good is classified as basic or surplus is its use when it is sold as a finished product." Thus a table saw bought by a home handyman is a basic good; the same saw bought by a carpenter is a surplus good. [McShane and Anderson 25.]

Money is not the centre of an economy

2010-09-06T04:57:00.000-07:00

"Orthodox economists would have us believe that money makes the world go round. The more money you make the better. the higher a corporation's profits the better. The bigger a country's GDP per capita the better. The greater the NASDAQ Index the better. Lonergan, by contrast, holds a different view. In his opinion, money & finance should not be considered the centre-piece of an economy. Rather, money & finance should meet the needs of the production. Production should not be manipulated to meet the needs of finance." (McShane and Anderson, Beyond Establishment Economics: No Thank You Mankiw [Halifax: Axial Press, 2002] 28.)

New book by McShane: physics, economics, history

2010-09-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

Just went through - went through is the right word, I went through it without really pausing, slowing down, attempting to digest - McShane's proposal for a new book, with the title Bernard Lonergan's View of Physics, Economics and History: A Heuristic Gauging Structure for Human Ecological Survival. McShane received a rather encouraging reply from his prospective publishers just as he was setting out for the airport to come to India, and so forwarded the mail to me, with a request for a printout, and an invitation to read on if I could. I did. Impressive.

Impressive first of all because, while there is much Philtalk, there is much less of it than is usual. On the whole the proposal reads beautifully, and does communicate without too much unexpected (Joycean) jargon.

What is Phil trying to do? "To break through to a heuristic of history" by drawing on and then expanding Lonergan's writings. The expanding will involve creative integration from the two sciences that were Lonergan's greatest interest: physics and economics, the one a natural science and the other a human science.

More specifically, the project intends to follow Lonergan's advice to select "the conspicuously successful science of our time" - which is physics, and to use it to lift up the conspicuously unsuccessful science - which Phil identifies with economics. And all this, in the service of working out "an integral heuristic of history." Thus: "The writings of O'Raifeartaigh are key here: can I lift O'Raifeartaigh's work, both in physics and in the heuristics of dialectic, to a level where I can identify, heuristically and effectively, a future dynamics of both physics and economics that I discern in the history of macro-hydrodynamics[,] a history which powerfully nudges us to conceive of a beginning of ecologically-responsible economic dynamics?"

Economics as a non-science is, I think, one of the claims made by Lonergan and pushed by McShane in many of his works, including the recent issue of Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education 21/2: Do You Want a Sane Economy? edited by him.

He wants to do for economics (and for history), I think, what Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh did for gauge theory in physics, with his The Dawing of Gauge Theory and other works.

What is impressive are Phil's credentials: his original training was in theoretical physics; he went on to take a D.Phil. in Oxford; his interest in economics began in 1968 when Lonergan requested him to "find [him] an economist"; and his publication record is "excellent" in the words of the two editors of the current proposal.

But, but: what on earth is a heuristic of history? This is related to Lonergan's search for an integral heuristic structure, "a symbolic indication of the total range of possible experience". The sought after heuristic of history is "a key sub-structure of that search". In Lonergan's words, the problem of general history "is the real catch". The problem is fundamentally solved "by a functional specialist theoretic of the merging - through sloping up from isolated research - horizons of disciplines." "The core of the present project is the tackling empirically of that issue of sloping, in both history as lived and as written, in the disciplines of physics and economics and their ecological technologies."

And: why search for a heuristic of history? Hints: liberation from "contemporary myths of maturity of humanity or of science or industrialization"; reaching "a coherent and humble heuristic that is remote from contemporary disorientations regarding physics, economics and ecology"; a meshing of economic and ecological concerns in Lonergan's writings on history and economics that "anticipate elements of the openness of present leading ecologists, reaching out to a post-industrial culture of leisure, self-attention, and creative post-industrial and nano-innovation of such dimensions as would warrant the global implementation of Lonergan's pragmatics of long-term cyclic economic innovations"; "a beginning of ecologically-responsible economic dynamics".

Milbank and Pickstock on Lonergan

2010-09-04T03:48:00.001-07:00

From John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock's Truth in Aquinas, some comments on Lonergan.

Concerning those essences it cannot be deceived, in such a way that here it partakes infallibly of the divine power of intuitive recognition. (John Jenkins has recently refuted Lonergan's denial of this aspect of intellectual vision in Aquinas.) [Note 9: John I. Jenkins, Knoweldge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge: CUP, 1997) 107-11.]

See also ibid. 22, 45-6, 52.

See also John Milbank, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999) 13 and 93.

Wittgenstein - and Lonergan

2010-09-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

This is another old draft blog entry for what it is worth. (I still intending having the paper mentioned published in Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Religion):

Yesterday I digitalized an old paper of mine on Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. his is a paper prepared in November 1980 during the second year of the Master’s degree course in Philosophy at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune, under the guidance of Dr Lisbert D’Souza, SJ. I publish it here without significant changes - quite conscious of the fact that Wittgenstein scholarship has probably made large strides in the intervening space of 29 years – because I find it still provides a rather nuanced interpretation of Wittgenstein, and in the hope that it might be a small step towards dialectic and dialogue between Wittgenstein and Lonergan. Scholars will know that Lonergan dedicates a section of his chapter on Dialectic in his Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990, 253-257) to Wittgenstein (section 7: The Dialectic of Methods: Part One), insisting rather strongly on mental acts and on the essentially private character of language in its origins. Lonergan, however, was no Wittgenstein scholar; he was reacting, as is evident also from the text itself, to questions posed him by Edward MacKinnon during one of his institutes on method in theology (see Transcendental Philosophy and the Study of Religion, Boston, 1968); so, despite the strong language he uses, the relationship between Wittgenstein and Lonergan still remains, to my mind, an open question.

God?

2010-09-04T03:43:00.000-07:00

I found this unpublished draft blog entry:

We use the word 'God' so freely across religious traditions - but does it really mean the same thing? What would be the proper equivalent of the Christian word 'God' in India?

In the light of my recent reading of Caputo's On Religion, it might be interesting to pursue this line of thinking further.

Kerr on Lonergan's Grace and Freedom

2010-09-04T03:41:00.000-07:00

In Lonergan's early work, published in English in 1971 as Grace and Freedom, Kerr finds "an as yet unsurpassed analysis of Aquinas' theory of divine transcendence and human liberty" (115).

A thousand gardens

2010-09-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

Wonderful and intriguing sentence from Lonergan, with special echoes for a land in which Gandhi dreamed of a village republic:

“Nor is it impossible that further developments in science should make small units self-sufficient on an ultramodern standard of living to eliminate commerce and industry, to transform agriculture into a superchemistry, to clear away finance and even money, to make economic solidarity a memory, and power over nature the only difference between high civilization and primitive gardening.” (For a New Political Economy, CWL 21:20)

Introducing the Economics Workshop

2010-09-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

Gave a brief presentation of "Do You Want a Sane Economy" (Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education 21/2 [2010]) to the Divyadaan students last evening, as an introduction to the forthcoming Workshop "Towards a New Economic Order" by Philip McShane (9-11 September 2010).

As I write, Phil must have boarded his flight for Mumbai... He arrives early morning, 5 September. Should be here 6 September. A press conference is being planned for 1630 hrs, 7 September. Mr Deokar, Editor of Sakala, has taken a great interest in the matter, together with Mr Francis Waghmare.

The leading ideas:

1. Distinguish basic and surplus circuits: the basic circuit concerns consumer goods; the surplus circuit concerns producer or capital goods.

2. What is fundamental in the economy is production, not money. Money, while essential, has a redistributive function.

3. The aim of the economy is not therefore "making money." It is an improved standard of living for all.

4. Money is a promise, a note. The betrayal of this promise seems to be at the bottom of the current economic crisis.

5. The failure to understand the workings of the economy - and therefore the crisis - is the true fault. Economics has not yet become a genuine science. Most economists and textbooks concentrate on money. They should recognize that production is basic. They have to identify the real variable. Then economics would become a science.

The 8 articles in Divyadaan attempt to introduce the real variables of economics in a very simple way, often appealing to simple businesses that do not involve money, somewhat in the manner that Wittgenstein's language-games at the beginning of his Philosophical Investigations. Thus McShane introduces the notion of credit; Brown the related idea of keeping promises; Shute the economic variables; O'Leary brings in money, and talks about what happens when the basic and surplus circuits are not balanced; and Zanardi the goal of the economy as making sense rather than making money. McShane rounds up with the call for genuine understanding, true theory.

Kung Fu Panda and the notion of being

2010-09-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Had fun yesterday and the day before in my philosophy of knowing class - I must say classes, because I had 3 each per day. The topic was uninviting: The Notion of Being. But it turned out well. What did I do? Not even sure I can remember. But I remember it flowed. The two poles: constantly appealing to experience - inviting the students to identify their experience, of curiosity, of the desire to know, of the eros of the mind - and to stories.

The stories were interesting: what came to mind was Kung Fu Panda. Why KFP? I was trying to explain how the notion of being is the fundamental heuristic notion. I remembered also how Thomas and Lonergan call it an inchoate wisdom. So: particular wisdoms - knowing 'everything' about carpentry, or electricity - and just wisdom: knowing 'everything about everything' - or at least a strategic knowledge of everything about everything. But of course in a commonsense way we regard wise those who are masters of commonsense, or or 'life' as we call it. That's where KFP came in: the obviously wise Master Oogway. And our students, though they might not have seen KFP, are sensitive to this kind of talk: "There are no accidents in life." "Unless you believe you will never change him." "Your anxiety to avoid problems will itself cause problems." And so on.

The Notion of Objectivity: I decided that the problem had to be raised. So the reading of Descartes came in handy. What was the problem left us by Descartes? And how might we attempt to get out of it? - Only by rejecting that manner of posing the problem. Thus Heidegger: not that I know myself, and then have to know the world; but always already I am being-in-the-world. And Lonergan: the pseudo-problem of transcendence, becasue we are always heading for being, within which we learn to make distinctions between subject and objects, and some objects which are also subjects.

And the loud reading was interesting: slowing down the pace, so as to attend, give a chance to attend to the phantasm. And writing out, for the same reason. The importance then of attending to the data. And then: asking questions. "We have earlier considered..." Where? "We have earlier considered the problem of method in knowing." What is the problem of method in knowing? Und so weiter....

Rewarding to see the sparkle in the eyes...

ACPI 2009 papers

2010-08-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

Managed to send the text of the ACPI 2009 papers to Johnson Puthenpurackal and George Panthanmackel at Bangalore. The last of the bio notes came in this morning. I really should have asked for them earlier, but did not think it was necessary.

Johnson says to put in also the ACPI Statement. I could not find it.

Hard work editing the papers, but it is done, and it is a satisfying feeling.

Development of doctrine, hermeneutics, postmodernism

2010-08-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

For the best history of the problem of doctrinal development, we have Aidan Nichols, From Newman to Congar. Nichols brings us up to the Council, and, in his conclusion, adds a note on the post-conciliar situation. The work of Newman, Blondel, Congar, Schillebeeckx and Rahner comes to fruition in the Council, but begins rapidly dissolving after the Council thanks to certain developments which Nichols sums up in the words pluralism, hermeneutics and reception.

Nichols conclusion is something like a teaser: he opens up a new problematic, but does not really get into it. Further, writing in 1990, he has no mention at all of postmodernism.

Dan Stiver, in his introduction to Theology after Ricoeur, takes up postmodernism as well as pluralism. His attitude to postmodernism is sympathetic; it is revealing, however, that he includes Gadamer and Ricoeur among the proponents of postmodernism.

Stanley Hauerwas begins with a scathing attack on postmodernism, but does know how to draw out the best in it (it has to be taken seriously, he says), while still insisting on the cognitive component of doctrines.

On hermeneutics, we need to see Claude Geffre.

The post-conciliar Schillebeeckx also begins with hermeneutics, abandons the cognitive meaning of doctrines, and proposes a political and a narrative theology. Caputo, despite drawing from the postmodern Derrida, does not seem to have much more to offer than a narrative theology that sidesteps the question of cognitive meaning to concentrate solely on the constitutive and performative meaning. Felix Wilfred too seems to be largely an Indian reading of Schillebeeckx: the same attention to hermeneutics and the privileging of the hermeneutical position of the oppressed, political and narrative theology, and the sidestepping of cognitive meaning.

Hauerwas calls postmodernism the bastard child of modernity. From what he says, it might not perhaps be too much off the mark to call both modernity and postmodernity bastard children of Christianity, a Christianity that has 'lost its story'. Strikingly attractive bastards, as often happens.

We should probably not find great difficulty in accepting the emphases brought by Schillebeeckx, Caputo, Wilfred and the like. The key question is: do we need to jettison cognitive meaning in order to incorporate constitutive and performative meaning? And: can we really jettison cognitive meaning, and yet remain faithful to the Gospel? So the key question is truth: how are we to understand this?

Shute's new book, Lonergan's Discovery of the Science of Economics

2010-08-19T23:21:00.000-07:00

The University of Toronto Press has sent me Michael Shute's Lonergan's Discovery of the Science of Economics (2010) for review. It could not have come at a better time, when we are preparing for McShane's Workshop on Economics here at Divyadaan.

Shute divides up his potential audience into economists, all other academics, and Lonergan scholars. He writes primarily for Lonergan scholars with the hope of interesting them in Lonergan’s economics. [17-19] He succeeds admirably in his task. I want to say without mincing words: this is the best introduction to Lonergan’s economics that I have ever found - though that 'I' has to be qualified by presumed inclusion in Shute's third group.

But that again must be modified somewhat, because I happen to come to Shute’s book after a more than cursory reading of DJPE 21/2, and perhaps that reading has its own contribution to the fact that I find Shute’s book so readily intelligible. In fact, Shute himself remarks acutely: attempted introductions to Lonergan’s economics are simply far too complex. Their problem is that they follow too closely Lonergan’s own dense presentations and ordering of topics. What is needed is to explain one business at a time. [16.] But that is precisely what DJPE 21/2 does; and, I must add, Shute’s essay in that volume stands out as a model of approachability.

Work and leisure

2010-08-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

A very interesting remark: the goal of economic development is leisure, not full employment.

"For Lonergan an increased rate of leisure, not full employment, was a more desired outcome for economic development." Lonergan got this view from Christopher Dawson. For Dawson, in the ideal case, technological innovation accelerated the rate of production of material goods; this led to increase in division of labour; and this eventually allowed for more leisure, initially for some social classes, but eventually for all. More leisure leads to cultural advances.

An unfinished goal of Lonergan's essay For a New Political Economy was to understand how economic rhythms provided a base for the advance of culture.

(See M. Shute, Lonergan's Discovery of the Science of Economics, 2010, 49.)

Pluralism, hermeneutics, reception, postmodernism

2010-08-12T05:11:00.001-07:00

This is an attempt to meet Venny's request. Very offhand, please note.

Pluralism: the theory that there are not only different but incommensurable universes of discourse, such that communication between universes is impossible. Thus I say X and you say X, but we mean quite different things. I say this is a theory, because we could question whether pluralism is so radical as to prevent any possibility of communication. Wittgenstein himself said: if a lion could talk, we would not be able to understand it. I read this as saying: between human beings, however different we are, we can communicate, because there is something shared, a form of life, a common humanity, at least operatively if not in thought content.

Hermeneutics: earlier this was understood as the art of interpretation. After Heidegger and Gadamer, it is understood not merely as an art of interpretation, but as the very way we are. We are hermeneutical beings, beings that live as interpreters. Now within such a hermeneutical philosophy, one can opt for a radical pluralism of the sort described above, or else for a not so radical pluralism that still makes space for the common ground of a common humanity...

Reception: the idea that meaning is created in the receiving. Thus, for example, there would be no abstract 'meaning' of a work of art; rather, meaning emerges in the reception of that work. And so there would be a multiplicity of meanings. Is this multiplicity radical, so that there is no connection at all between different meanings? There would be different opinions here. A radical postmodern position would probably talk about the 'text' (or work of art) as absorbing the 'world' or 'reality', rather than 'referring' to a world or reality.

Postmodernism: still an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of positions, chiefly those of Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault, Rorty, Vattimo. An ongoing contemporary realization of the shortcomings of modernity beginning from Descartes. E.g. there is no 'enclosed subjectivity' but always being-in-the-world. Reason is not supreme; it has to become aware of its fragile, fractured state. There is no such thing as pure reason; reason is always 'engaged', situated, committed, situated, historical, conditioned, traditioned... There are no meta-narratives or grand narratives, or if there are, they should be recognized as 'constructs'; there are only little narratives. Centres are centres only because of power equations; the margins must be respected, looked at, focussed upon, recognized, given their due. Superficiality and play rather than profundity. No common ground, therefore, but a play of a thousand forces and aspects and dimensions. No 'foundations' for truth. Not even 'truth' in the classical sense of correspondence to reality, but existential truth, truth in the living out, pragmatic truth.

Tradition and Innovation

2010-08-06T04:33:00.000-07:00

The best book I have found so far on doctrinal development is that of Nichols, From Newman to Congar (1990). Unfortunately, Nichols ends where the problem begins: with the unravelling of the synthesis achieved in Vatican II, precisely in the work of the very theologians who contributed to that synthesis: Rahner, Schillebeeckx, and Congar. The three key words here are: pluralism, hermeneutics, and reception.

Writing (way back now!) in 1990 (a full 20 years ago) he misses out on postmodernism.

I would think that, between pluralism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, the very problem of doctrinal development has been swept out of court. With the banning of propositional truth, the problem simply fails to arise.

But: I need to find more stuff on these developments.

Whitehead, Lonergan and relations

2010-08-06T04:06:00.000-07:00

In the concluding chapter of his little book, What are they saying about Dogma (New York: Paulist, 1978), William E. Reiser, SJ, suddenly appeals to Whitehead's process philosophy. He informs us that the key concept in Aristotelian philosophy was substance; Whitehead would substitute that with relation. Then, a very revealing sentence:

When one thing changes, everything else is somehow affected, however minimally. (58)

If reality is a texture of pure relations, then we probably have a situation like that of Hegel, where there is no place for the truly contingent. See Lonergan, Insight, ch. 11, section 11:

Now, if one supposes that the whole universe is a pattern of internal relations, clearly it follows that no part and no aspect of the universe can be known in isolation from any other part or aspect; for every item is related internally to every other; and to prescind from such relations is to prescind from things as they are and to substitute in their plae other, imaginary objects that simply are not.... (CWL 3:367)

This section must be read in conjunction with ch. 16, section 2, where relations are conceived of as having two components, primary and secondary, which distinction serves to separate the systematic and the nonsystematic. (CWL 3:515) Despite the fact that the shift from description to explanation involves a shift from external to internal relations, in a fully explanatory account of the universe external relations also survive. (CWL 3:518)

These are deep waters; but no doubt they have to be traversed if we are to get to the bottom of the matter.

Money and the univocity of being

2010-08-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

“Money, in modernity, is the institutionalization of univocity of being that Scotus thought necessary to ensure the unmediated knowledge of God.” [S. Hauerwas, "The Christian Difference" 149.] See the whole brilliant article for an explanation of this. Who would have thought that metaphysics might have such historical consequences?

What a claim! Did this perspective find representation in the ACPI meeting on money?

Hauerwas and Blond on Scotus

2010-08-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

Stanley Hauerwas is one more who, with Philip Blond, identifies Scotus as responsible for modernity and, eventually, postmodernity, with his insistence on the univocity of being, and his exaltation of being over and above God. (See his "The Christian Difference, or Surviving Postmodernism," The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Graham Ward [Oxford: Blackwell, 2001] 147-8.) (Earlier I found Caputo doing a similar thing... See his Philosophy and Theology, and my paper at Yercaud.)

Strangely, it is the Franciscan Sidney Mascarenhas who is now insisting on the pluriverse, accusing Thomas of uni-versity.

Jesuit contribution to Indology

2010-08-02T06:01:00.000-07:00

Some biographical information might be found in the following:

God's Word Among Men: Papers in Honour of Fr Joseph Putz, SJ, Frs J. Bayart, SJ, J. Volckaert, SJ, and P. de Letter, SJ. Ed. G. Gispert-Sauch. Delhi: Vidyajyoti Institute of Religious Studies, 1973.

"Father Joseph Putz, SJ." A Tribute by J. Bayart, SJ. ix-xiv.
"Father Julian Bayart, SJ." A Tribute by J. D'Souza, SJ. xv-xviii.
"Father Jules Volckaert, SJ." A Tribute by M. Dullard, SJ. xix-xxii.
"Father Prudent de Letter, SJ." A Tribute by Archbishop L.T. Picachy, SJ. xxiii-xxvi.

In the same volume see also:
R. Panikkar, "Vac in the Sruti." 3-24.
R. De Smet. "Highlights in the Life of Faith (Sraddha) in India." 39-58.
K. Rahner. "Christ in Non-Christian Religions." 95-104.
S. Grant. "Reflections on the Mystery of Christ suggested by a Study of Sankara's Concept of Relation." 105-16.
J. Dupuis. "The Cosmic Influence of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel Mesage." 117-38.
G. Gispert-Sauch. "Grace and the Christian Call." 167-180.
J. Mattam. "Abbe Jules Monchanin and India, 'The Land of the Trinity'." 195-230.
E. Hambye. "Robert de Nobili and Hinduism." 325-34.

Felix Wilfred Festschrift

2010-08-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

Patrick Gnanapragasam and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ed. Negotiating Borders: Theological Explorations in the Global Era: Essays in Honor of Prof. Felix Wilfred. Delhi: ISPCK, 2008.

Francis X. Clooney. "Reengaging the Classical Traditions in the LIght of Popular and Subaltern Hinduism - Extending Felix Wilfred's Reconsideration of Hindu-Christian Relations." 415-427.

Georg Evers. "Developments in Indian Catholic Theological Reflections." 589-607.

Rosino Gibellini. "Passion for the Reign - The Paths of Theology of the 20th Century." 608-621.

Theological trivia

2010-08-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

Rahner, Lonergan, Congar: all born in 1904. Rahner and Lonergan both died in 1984. Balthasar was born in 1905, and died in 1988. Congar died in 1995.

Balthasar and Heidegger

2010-08-01T23:42:00.000-07:00

Balthasar seems to be influenced by Heidegger. Rahner clearly is. Both are influenced by de Lubac. But their tendencies are opposed. How? What? Why?

It would seem that Balthasar both welcomes and unwelcome Heidegger. See: “O’Regan delivered a magnificent analysis of the complex relationship between Balthasar and Heidegger, citing both a ‘welcoming’ and an ‘unwelcoming’ of the latter in Balthasar’s theology. It was the unwelcoming which O’Regan was especially interested in, citing evocatively Balthasar’s conception of a ‘gigantic misremembering’ on Heidegger’s part which distorted the relationship between Heidegger and Christian thought.” Jones Irwin, “A Contemporary Platonic-Christianity? – On Radical Orthodoxy.” http://www.mic.ul.ie/stephen/vol12/Review.htm as of 2 August 2010.

Nichols' From Newman to Congar

2010-08-01T23:21:00.000-07:00

Aidan Nichols' book, From Newman to Congar (1990), is a real find. I came to it through the Conclusion that I found on the net: eminently readable, and provocative, speaking about the stasis on doctrinal development reached both in the thoughts of Rahner, Schillebeeckx and Congar and in the Council, and then about the coming apart of this stasis or synthesis in all three major theologians in the post-conciliar period, summarized in the three notions of pluralism (Rahner), hermeneutics (Schillebeeckx), and reception (Congar).

The lovely thing was to find Nichols' book in our library. I am reading this just now. Nichols is very readable, and Englishly lucid. So I don't struggle. But: his Conclusion really sets the case, and opens up the can of worms. But it is disappointing, because it says nothing more. Does he say this in the next promised book, which also, providentially, I happened to find in our library - The Shape of Catholic Theology? To be seen. At any rate, I think the problem is being set.

Where would Lonergan fit in, in all this? Nichols has a brief something to say on Lonergan, who he couples with Tracy; but I think his treatment is far from complete or satisfactory.

How does Lonergan hold up against pluralism, hermeneutics and reception? That is the interesting question.

Anyway, one thing is becoming clear, also from Nichols himself: the key issue regards propositional truth (From Newman 16). Nichols says there is no Catholic Christianity without this. Surprising, because Guy Mansini ("The Abiding Theological Significance of Henri de Lubac's Surnaturel," The Thomist 73/4 [2009] 593-620) seems to be saying that de Lubac and Balthasar are involved in a Platonizing of theology... and Nichols is a Balthasar scholar.

But: checking out Mansini in a blog entry below, I found this: the distinction between Lonergan and the Communio theologians (de Lubac and Balthasar included) is that the latter want to abandon the scientific character of theology.

The Catholic Heideggerian School

2010-08-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

E. Przywara includes in the 'Catholic Heideggerian School': Rahner, J.B. Lotz, G. Siewerth, M. Muller, and B. Welte. (See A. Nicholas, From Newman to Congar, 1990, 214-5)

Need for an agent intellect

2010-07-29T06:16:00.000-07:00

Aquinas on the need for agent intellect:

Aristotle chose a middle course. For with Plato he agreed that intellect and sense are different. But he held that the sense has not its proper operation without the cooperation of the body; so that to sense is not an act of the soul alone, but of the composite. ... But Aristotle held that the intellect has an operation in which the body does not share. Now nothing corporeal can make an impression on the incorporeal. And therefore, in order to cause the intellectual operation, according to Aristotle, the impression caused by sensible bodies does not suffice, but something more noble is required, for the agent is more noble than the patient, as he says. Not, be it observed, in the sense that the intellectual operation is effected in us by the mere impression of some superior beings, as Plato held; but that the higher and more noble agent which he calls the agent intellect, of which we have spoken above, causes the phantasms received from the senses to be actually intelligible, by a process of abstraction. (STh I.84.6 c. Pegis.)

Aquinas on Plato

2010-07-29T05:27:00.000-07:00

Aquinas rejecting the principle that like is known by like (see De Smet):

Now it seems that Plato strayed from the truth because, having observed that all knowledge takes places through some kind of similitude, he thought that the form of the thing known must of necessity be in the knower in the same manner as in the thing known itself. But it was his opinion that the form of the thing understood is in the intellect under conditions of universality, immateriality, and immobility; which is apparent from the very operation of the intellect, whose act of understanding is universal, and characterized by a certain necessity; for the mode of action corresponds to the mode of the agent's form. Therefore he concluded that the things which we understand must subsist in themselves under the same conditions of immateriality and immobility.

But there is no necessity for this. ... the sensible form is in one way in the thing whcih is external to the soul, and in another way in the senses, which receive the forms of sensible things without receiving matter.... So, too, the intellect, according to its own mode, receives under conditions of immateriality and immobility the species of material and movable bodies; for the received is in the receiver according to the mode of the receiver. We must conclude, therefore, that the soul knows bodies through the intellect by a knowledge which is immaterial, universal and necessary. (STh I.84.1 c. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Vol. I. Ed. Anton C. Pegis. New York: Random House, 1945.)

See also STh I.84.2 c for more on why the principle that like is known by like is to be rejected. Here Aquinas concludes that the soul does not understand corporeal things by its essence; only God does.

God's knowledge of everything

2010-07-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

Aquinas on how God knows everything by knowing himself:

Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind, as things understood by it; as can be proved thus. Inasmuch as He knows His own essence perfectly, He knows it according to every mode in which it can be known. (STh I.15.2 c. The "Summa Theologica" of St. Thomas Aquinas. Part I. QQ. I-XXVI. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 2nd rev. ed. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1920)

Aquinas on knowledge of sensible things

2010-07-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

Augustine held that there is no communication from body to soul, but only from soul to body. Thomas Aquinas instead, in the De Veritate, has the following questions:
Does the mind know material things? (q. 10, a. 4)
Can our mind know material things in their singularity? (q. 10, a. 5)
Does the human mind receive knowledge from sensible things? (q. 10, a. 6)