"Despoiling the Egyptians"

The first great inculturation of Christianity was into the Graeco-Roman world.
The basic transculturality of Christianity. A translation of the Koran, for example, is not the Koran. The Koran is the Koran only in the original language.
The call to a second great inculturation (by John Paul II in Fides et Ratio) - which is not to say that this begins with this call!
The caveats: the second inculturation will not and should not take place by abandoning the first great inculturation. The permanently valid achievements of the latter should be transposed into the new inculturation.
The great question is, how?
We find a model in Aquinas: wisdom and discernment, not without controversy (the Franciscan bishop wanted to condemn him posthumously).
Lonergan: objectivity as fruit of authentic subjectivity, where authentic subjectivity involves intellectual, moral and religious conversion.
The core problem here: judgment and truth. Is everything fine? will all things be okay? Can just any interpretation do? Or is there a limit, a boundary?
Gadamer has a spontaneous criterion of truth.
Perhaps also others like Ricoeur.
Lonergan offers an explicit, methodical criterion of truth, which, in Method in Theology, is found in the functional specialty dialectic.
In our Indian context: we cannot reject in principle the Brahminic contribution. See Newman's advice to Despoil the Egyptians. It is time to retrieve the great contributions of the past. (De Smet says somewhere that it is time. Search for the bibliography of Indian Christian Theology in an early issue of Indian Theological Studies, I think.)
Study the Calcutta School of Indology. It is the before of De Smet. Study also the after of De Smet.
See also my blog ICW.

Wittgenstein on certainty and Lonergan on beliefs

I am correcting Sathish Thiyagarajan's MPh paper, "Wittgenstein on Certainty: A Reading of On Certainty."

Naturally I keep asking myself: what would Lonergan have to say about this?

I think W is entirely right when he points out that there are propositions which have the form of empirical propositions but actually function in a different way. It makes no sense, for example, to doubt these propositions. They are what we take for granted in our activity of knowing and doubting. They are, he says, the framework of our language game, they are the rules of the game. These be calls certainties. He does not hesitate to say that many of these certainties are beliefs, taken over from our form of life, our culture, in the course of our upbringing. Since our upbringing includes also learning one or more languages, language skills are also part of what he regards as certainties - propositions which it makes no sense to doubt. It makes no sense to doubt, for example, that this is a tree, he says.

I am asking myself: in place of W's distinction between knowledge and certainty, could we use L's distinction between (immanently or personally generated) knowledge and belief (what we have taken over from others, our culture, etc.)? Perhaps the overlap is not perfect, unless under 'beliefs' we include also the learning of a language.

But much of what L has to say about beliefs would, I think, be perfectly acceptable to W: the symbiosis of knowledge and belief, for example: it is almost impossible to separate out the two in any given instance. The fact that judgment is always contextual, and that even the making of a single judgment presupposes a host of other judgments, so that there is a frightful circularity to all our knowing. How, L asks, do we get out of this circularity? All logical circles are broken ultimately by action, and L points out that when we do not have, we can always borrow. So we proceed by borrowing - where borrowing would include taking from those who know better (the 'masters', the 'wise people'), from our culture, and so on. And of course we do not always 'borrow' in this explicit fashion. All our knowing takes place within the context of our being part of a culture, a language group, a game, etc. The 'way up' can function only within the context of the 'way down', and it is the way down that is prior. "Im Anfang war die Tat," W says somewhere: "In the beginning was the Deed." Lisbert D'Souza liked to quote that to me.

Questions do come to an end. The spade touches rock bottom. L would say: not that we cannot question further; further questions are always possible; but does it make sense to continue questioning? So the inbuilt way we function is: when there is the absence of further relevant questions, we 'assume' that we have reached an 'invulnerable' insight. When relevant questions come to an end, we have, as it were, reached a stasis, of the type we are more familiar in the realm of the moral conscience. We then sometimes go on to another topic. Is this an automatic criterion of truth? By no means. But: that is how we function. How then can we be sure of our insights and judgments? No short cut, no recipe, for producing good judgments. Only factors to be kept in mind: allow further questions a chance to arise; set questions correctly; try to move to mastery of the situation; be aware of and balance your temperament....

The echoes between W and L become less surprising when we bring Newman into the picture. But the relationship between N and W remains to be better clarified. Sathish has found at least three studies, but I would have to see them myself.

In the meantime, it might be a very good idea for Sathish to now do a little study of N's Grammar of Assent, and why not, eventually also a study of L on knowing and believing. Not an easy job though!

Wittgenstein, Newman and Lonergan again

I have just been browsing through the Kienzler article. My impressions: Kienzler's interpretation of Newman might leave much to be desired... He calls Newman an empiricist, a rationalist, and so on. If Lonergan's reading of Newman is right, he is no such thing!

But this is a large question of interpretation - a fine example of one's basic philosophical commitments radically interfering with one's understanding of an author... and a great case for the practice of the Functional Specialty dialectic... put all interpretations in line, find out the radically conflicting points, and reduce them to their roots in basic philosophical positions.

Despite that, Kienzler has done a great job.

Some good work in store for a Lonergan/Wittgenstein enthusiast?

Newman and Wittgenstein (and Lonergan)

It does not seem to be very well known that, in the very first paragraph of his On Certainty, Wittgenstein mentions Newman: Dazu eine komische Bemerkung H. Newmans – On this a curious remark by H. Newman.

P.J. FitzPatrick has a small comment on this remark with the same title: “Dazu eine komische Bemerkung H. Newmans.” Wittgenstein and His Impact on Contemporary Thought: Proceedings of the Second International Wittgenstein Symposium, 29 August - 4 September 1977, Kirchberg / Wechsel, Austria, 2nd ed., Elizabeth Leinfellner and others, eds. (Holder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1989) 42-45.

The remark is curious. If, as FitzPatrick says, Wittgenstein’s position on certainty is similar to that of Newman, there arises the antecedent probability that it is also similar to that of Lonergan, who is supposed to have read the Grammar of Assent five or six times during his early philosophical studies, and who claimed to have transposed Newman from the commonsense to a more ‘systematic’ mode of writing and style of thought….

Curious indeed. Komisch, in fact. Matter for a little dissertation.

H. Danny Monsour of the Lonergan Research Institute, Toronto, passed on to me the following reference: Wolfgang Kienzler, "Wittgenstein and John Henry Newman on Certainty," Grazer Philosophische Studien 71 (2006) 117-38. The abstract reads:

Wittgenstein read and admired the work of John Henry Newman. Evidence suggests that from 1946 until 1951 Newman's Grammar of Assent was probably the single most important external stimulus for Wittgenstein's thought. In important respects Wittgenstein's reactions to G. E. Moore follow hints already given by Newman.

More and more komisch.