"Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."

(Psalm 19:2)

BERNARD JOSEPH F. LONERGAN, Insight - A Study of Human Understanding

(London: Longmans 1957, revised students' edition 1958; Darton, Longman & Todd 1972, paperback 1983;
posthumous critical edition: University of Toronto Press 1992.)

"What is most striking in Lonergan's account of [religious experience, and indeed of human consciousness in general,] is the way in which the notion of love predominates. Lonergan's is clearly a theology and spirituality of transforming love. Love, Lonergan says more than once, is 'the superior way'. 'The strongest and the best of the relationships between persons is love'. This is very far from an abstract gnosticism and from a mystique of being or of self-fulfilment. It is a topic about which Lonergan writes with eloquence and, let it be said, with feeling. For him the existence of love is the unassailable fact at the centre of religious experience. There is this 'charged field of love and meaning' which pervades the world like a room filled with music; but it is only through ourselves being loving persons that we will be able to perceive it." (quoted from Raymond Moloney, "Conversion and Spirituality - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)" in The Way, Vol. 43, No. 4, October 2004, pp. 123-34. Although Moloney correctly distances Lonergan's mature position from that of 14th-century and later Faculty Psychology what he says might easily incline incautious readers to tar Aquinas and the earlier Lonergan with the same brush. Insight signalled the latter's victorious emergence from the dark struggles that accompanied the birthing of his De Gratia and Verbum articles. Thereafter he was never himself a victim of la manualistica which had bedevilled so many generations of Catholic seminarians and their teachers. In later years, of course, he no longer felt such demons were the ones he needed primarily to exorcize.)

Lonergan in retrospect       "Of Supernatural Being"       Awareness & gratitude

"Philosophy is the flowering of the individual's rational consciousness in coming to know and take possessions of itself." (Insight, revised students' edition 1958, p. 429. Unless otherwise noted, all references are to this edition.)

"This procedure yields a metaphysics that brings to contemporary thought the wisdom of the Greeks and of the medieval Schoolmen, as reached by Aristotle and Aquinas, but purged of every trace of antiquated science, formulated to integrate not only the science of the present but also of the future, and elaborated in accord with a method that makes it possible to reduce every dispute in the field of metaphysical speculation to a question of concrete psychological fact." (Insight, p. 423.)

"The problem… is our existential situation. If its confusion is to be replaced by intelligible order and its violence by reasonable affirmation, then the nucleus from which this prcess can begin must include an acknowledgment of detached inquiry and disinterested reflection, a rigorous unfolding of the implications of that acknowledgment, an acceptance not only of the metaphysics that constitutes that unfolding but also of the method that guides it between the Charybdis of asserting too little and the Scylla of asserting too much." (Insight, p. 529.)

Notes, with some additions, taken from Colin James Hamer's personal copy of Bernard Lonergan's revised 1958 text -
(References include several to a probably nowadays otherwise unavailable study of mine in Toronto's international Lonergan Research Institute, for some clarification cfr. the various Lonergan-related studies mentioned in our Treasury of Books.)

PREFACE
p. ix. In his "Theology and Understanding" (Gregorianum, 35, 1954, 630-48, p. 632) Lonergan characterizes insight as "a heightening of clarity in the object, and a developed capacity to contemplate in the subject."
Also according to Lonergan [o.c., p. 11] (p.136): "In the measure that virtual and symbolic images fall short of representation, in the same measure they fail to provide the agent objects that cause insights."
In "A New Critique of Reason" (The Month, 20, 1958, 312-14, p. 312) J. Murray regards the act of understanding that is insight as "an operation of 'nous' rather than 'dianoia'."
Grisez [o.c., p. 747] writes (p.555): "Beginning with epistemology, Fr Lonergan develops the main positions of a scholastic cosmology, ontology, rational psychology, ethics, and natural theology. In epistemology, Lonergan treats the types and sources of knowledge and error, certitude and degrees of certitude, and the grounding of first principles. He refutes scepticism, relativism, empiricism and idealism. In cosmology, he treats change and its types and conditions, time and place, matter and form, causality in nature, contingency, and evolution. In ontology, he treats metaphysical composition, substance and accident, essence and existence, the transcendentals, the causes, analogy, distinctions, relations, and individuation. In rational psychology, he treats the cognitive and appetitive processes with special emphasis on the distinction between sense and intellect, the substantial unity of man, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, and freedom of choice. In ethics, he treats the main principles with respect to the end, the moral act, virtue, and law. He also makes interesting points concerning the common good and society. In natural theology, he treats the existence and attributes of God, divine knowledge and love, and creation. He also shows the possibility of miracles, revelation, a supernatural order, and the church… The book constitutes a well-integrated course in scholastic philosophy, including the philosophical portions of apologetics."

p. xi. Sebastian Moore writes in "Philosophical Insight" (The Month, XXII, August 1959, 102-07, p. 102): "A clearing of the mind [is] the true aim of philosophy [and] has three characteristics: as an original achievement, it demands a most rare intelligence, yet once achieved it can be communicated more extensively to lesser minds than can the results of the genius of science. Secondly, it is, in an important sense, the same in every age. Thirdly, it is the same in that it always goes to work on the mind of the age, so that is very sameness involves profound differences. Insight is an appeal of intelligence to intelligence for intelligence." p.104: "The overall harmony of intelligence, unless it is discovered anew, is not discovered at all." "All science presupposes that reality is intelligible. Metaphysics is the discovery that reality is inteligibility." Lonergan [o.c., p.14] p.26: "Philosophia se habet ad sapientiam, sicut methodus se habet ad scientiam."
J. Murray [o.c., p.ix] p.314: "To this meta-insight there corresponds meta-physics." Sertillanges [o.c., p.268] p.22: "Being thinks, is thought, and outside that there is nothing."

p. xiii. Lonergan [o.c., p.ix] p.636: "St. Thomas justified his Summa theologiæ on the ground that the ordinary run of books on the subject were loaded with useless questions and article, that they did not follow the ordo disciplinæ but the exigences of the text they were commenting or the opportunities that arose for debating, and finally that they kept treating the same issues over and over until students became weary and confused."

INTRODUCTION
p. xxvii. F. E. Crowe, "The Origin and Scope of Bernard Lonergan's Insight" (Sciences Ecclésiastiques, 9, 1957, 263-95, p.276): "If it is correct that the goal of studying St. Thomas is to reach his mind, then, although there is no doubt a way back to that mind from its metaphysical products, it is far more direct to study the very activity of that mind itself in its unfolding." S.T., II-II, 26, 7, c.: "Omnis actus oportet quod proportionetur et obiecto et agenti."

p. xxx. R.O. Lindsay and Henry Margenau.

PART ONE - INSIGHT AS ACTIVITY
p. 1. T.R. Miles in Mind (LXX, 1961, 113-14, p. 114): "Throughout the book 'knowing' is assumed to be the name of an 'activity' whose 'structure' we can examine by arm-chair methods. Further attention to the logic of words such as 'know', 'understand', and 'recognize' seems to me of crucial importance here. If the verb 'know', like e.g., the verb 'walk', stood for an activity, it would have a use in the present continuous tense. One would 'do' some knowing just as one does some walking; there would be 'knowers' just as there are walkers, and one could analyse what is involved in knowing just as one can analyse what is involved in walking. To me at least, however, 'I am doing some knowing' jars in the special manner characteristic of a philosopher's error, as also does Fr. Lonergan's query 'Am I a knower?' (p.328). If instead we ask 'Are sentences stating "I know …" ever true?', these 'activities of knowing' become redundant, and the question of what is their 'structure' does not arise."
This facile arm-chair criticism notes correctly that Lonergan has not chosen to follow the fashions of linguistic analysis, mistakenly assumes that his use of "activity" coincides with one that implies some similarity with "walking", wrongly imagines that by "structure" Lonergan means either a material or quasi-material arrangement of parts and, more generally, suggests that Miles has not read carefully even once the complete text of the work he has attempted to review.

Mackinnon [o.c., p. 270] p. 113: "Two insights into the nature of understanding seem to have been especially operative in determining the structure of Insight. First, understanding precedes conceptualization… secondly, formal truth is only in the judgment."

Chapter 1 - ELEMENTS
p.2. Crowe [o.c., p. 115] p. 182: "Is there, then, some sense in which the parts of a definition can be related to the parts of reality? There is the hint of a solution in the discussion of the commentary on the Metaphysics regarding the relation of matter to definitions (VII, lect. 9; VIII, lect. 3; etc. Cf. In II Phys., lect. 5; lect. 15). Definition signifies the nature of a thing; and the nature of things, St. Thomas keeps insisting against Plato, includes matter. Still, we do not give definitions of particular things, only of species (In VII Metaph., lect. 9, § 1468), so the matter included is not individuated, it is common matter. May we not say then that there is a potential or virtual set of parts in the definition that are not the logical parts but do correspond to the constituents of reality? The imperfect articulation of the parts is due to the abstract nature of defining thought which deserts the sensitive for the moment to return to it later. That is, as definition subjectively only virtually includes the two cognitive functions, so objectively it only virtually shows the parts of the thing defined…" p.183: "… But intellect may return to particularity to conceive this object (form and individual matter) by reflection on its own acts, for 'indirecte… et quasi per quamdam reflexionem' it comes to knowledge of the material singular (S.T., I, q. 86, a. 1 c; ibid., a. 3 c.)."

p. 4. Grisez [o.c., p.747] pp. 556-57: "Man's desire to know is taken to be unconditioned and unrestricted. The satisfaction of this desire is considered to be an absolute value. Thus the desire to know serves as a term to which all knowledge is related and thereby unified. This desire also serves as a norm for judging acts of knowledge motivated by other desires. The desire to know is the means of transcending experience. Further, using this principle the author can blend speculative and practical considerations throughout the book. This blending is not confusing the two but uniting them by their joint origin in intellectual appetite. Beginning in chapters six and seven on common-sense knowledge, the author leads the reader to view rationality as a practical norm. Fr. Lonergan can then treat error as malicious interference with the dominion of reason and cultural decline as the result of such viciousness. The starting point of apologetics is then the need for something to counteract the kingdom of darkness. The desire to know is the ultimate value-source of the adverse judgments which the author makes concerning other positions."

p. 7. Jonsen [o.c. on p. 415] p. 103*: "Lonergan incorporates mathematics and natural science into the very heart of his epistemology. This is a notable contrast to traditional scholastic epistemology for which the methods of science and mathematics are matter for extended footnotes. He develops a more penetrating and thorough theory of science and mathematics than any scholastic has yet offered."

p. 8. S.T., I, q.27, a.1: "Quicumque enim intelligit, ex hoc ipso quod intelligit, procedit aliquid intra ipsum, quod est conceptio rei intellectæ, ex vi intellectiva proveniens, et ex eius notitia procedens." Cf. Lonergan's Adnotationes De Ente Supernaturali (Rome, May 1960, p. 24): "Qui habet habitum scientiæ sed actu non intelligit, est in potentia passiva accidentali ad intelligere recipiendum in intellectu possibili, sed in potentia activa inquantum etiam habet intellectum agentem; qui vero actu intelligit, ratione huius intelligere, est in potentia activa ad producendum verbum interius. Unus et idem est actus qui et potentia activa producitur et in potentia passiva recipitur. Unus et idem est actus ad quem ordinatur potentia activa ad producendum et ad quem ordinatur potentia passiva ad recipiendum. Hic unus et idem actus inquantum est a potentia activa, est actio (actio huius ut ab hoc), et inquantum est in potentia passiva, est passio (actus huius ut in hoc). Quare actio est ab agente in passo."
J. D. Solomon in one of several related personal communications claimed: "Lonergan here respects the archetypal Greek error with his adverb 'exactly'. This error has to be accepted for the validation of any Aristotelian-type logic. St. Paul's 'I shall know as I am known' is a postulation of this kind of thing as an ethical-æsthetic 'ideal'." Solomon had overlooked Lonergan's accompanying and later very much developed emphasis on what he calls the empirical residue.

p.9. Lonergan [o.c., p. 11] p. 128, n. 10: "Strictly the formal cause is not equal radii qua equal but qua intelligible grounds of consequents… A soul is a natural form; equal radii refer to an intelligible form… Intelligible form stands to sensible matter as natural form stands to natural matter… Knowledge of intelligible form is prior to essential definition [p. 128, text: "The form is the propter quid that functions as middle term between common matter and essence. Why are these bones and this flesh a man?… Why is this symbolically imagined uniformly round plane curve a circle?] and judgment of possibility while knowledge of natural form is due to metaphysical analysis consequent to judgment affirming actuality."

p.11. Ibid., p. 131: "Euclid's fifth postulate is 'that if a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which the angles are less than two right angles'… The fifth postulate stands to the nominally defined plane surface as does formal cause to common matter… as the equality of radii stands to the circle, as the equality of right angles stands to the straight line." p. 132: "From nominal definitions there follow necessary, though only nominal consequents. From essential definitions there follows the demonstration of necessary and real properties. But the transition from the material and nominal to the formal and essential cannot be necessitated by the former, else the distinction between them would be illusory; and it cannot be necessitated by the latter, for the latter is not prior to the transition… We agree with those who consider the parallel postulate evident and we agree with those who do not consider it evidently necessary." p. 133: "The parallel postulate… resembles neither 'composite' nor 'mortal', for both of them are deducible from 'animal'… it must resemble either 'soul' or 'alive' since neither of them is deducible from 'body'. It follows that the nominally defined plane surface stands to the properties Euclid establishes concerning plane surfaces, not as essence to its properties, but as common matter to properties that accrue only when a form is added to the common matter to constitute the relevant essence." p. 128: "Essential definitions… presuppose nominal definitions of common matter at least symbolically represented in imagination."
From Lonergan's "A Note on Geometrical Possibility" (Modern Schoolman, 27, 1950, 124-38, p.126): "In essential definition the understood has the reality of what names name. In Aristotelian language one may say that essential definition expresses form in matter while nominal definition expresses the matter presupposed by the form… For essential definitions are of essences; and material essences are not pure forms but composites of form and common matter." "Nominal definitions involve no understanding of reality, but it does not follow that they involve no knowledge of reality; they do involve empirical knowledge of reality; and we have such empirical knowledge precisely because, besides strictly intelligible forms, there is also common matter to be known." p. 127: "Nominal definitions, then, suppose no understanding except the understanding of names; but they suppose empirical knowledge which is of things; in geometry this empirical knowledge is sensible, but it admits a generalization, as distinct from universalization, in virtue of the understanding involved in understanding names; finally, in metaphysical terms, the object of such generalized empirical knowledge is the common matter that is mere common matter and not an essence composed of form and other common matter."
Porphyry's three questions in his Isagoge: (1) Is the universal real or a mere verbal expression? (2) If real is it corporeal or incorporeal? (3) Does it exist separately from sensible things? And Abelard's further query: (4) If the individual ceases to exist does the universal remain?

p.14. From Lonergan's Reportatio De Intellectu et Methodo (Rome, PUG, May 1959, pp. 72) pp. 16-17: "In sensibilibus intelligentia perspicit aliquid intelligibile præconceptuale ex quo pariter habentur et termini et nexus. Coram 1, 2, 3, 4, … intellectus, unico intelligendi actu, cognoscit infinitatem potentialem seriei numerorum, qui actus est prævius et ad numerationem numerorum et ad ipsos numeros, et ad eorum nexum. Si non devenitur ad hanc perspicientiam intelligibilis in sensibili, tollitur nexus inter intelligentiam et concreta, nexus quidem non necessarius, attamen verus, ut v. gr., habetur in legibus empiricis scientiarum naturalium (ex. gr., de motu uniformiter accelerato). Intelligibilitas non necessaria, sed tamen vera, multo latius patet quam intelligibilitas stricte necessaria, ad quam ultimam si tantum attendatur, reici debet quæcumque scientia positiva, sicut facit theologia Scoti quæ, cum valere prætendat de omni mundo possibili et non tantum de hoc concrete existenti, fere omnia dependere facit a libera Dei voluntate." p. 18: "Omnis intelligibilitas historica est vera de facto (intelligibilitates necessariæ sunt abstractæ), sed conveniens." Cf p.23.

p. 19. Ibid., p.56: "Primo modo, intelligibile est omne id quod concipi potest. Sic nihil absolutum est intelligibile; concipitur enim ut id quod neque est neque esse potest. Alio modo, intelligibile est omne id quod positive intelligendo concipitur, ubi 'positive intelligere' est id quod in acuto frequentissime adest sed in stulto rarissime. Positiva vero intelligentia est multiplex: est univoca circa obiectum proportionatum intellectus, et sic natura rei materialis est nobis univoce intelligibilis, est autem analogica circa obiectum adæquatum sed non proportionatum intellectus, et sic his in terris intelligimus Deum directe intelligendo creaturas et indirecte et per proportionem quamdam ad Deum ascendendo. Iterum positiva intelligentia est vel tou intelligibilis in se vel tou intelligibilis in alio: in se intelliguntur forma et essentia; sed materia intelligitur non in se sed ex consideratione formæ; et existere contingens non intelligitur in se sed ex dependentia ab exsistere necessario et in se intelligibili…"

Chapter 2 - HEURISTIC STRUCTURES OF EMPIRICAL METHOD
p. 41. Albertson [o.c., p. 102] p. 241: "But, in fact, any given postulate of invariance is simply an expression of the hope for simplicity. And how niggardly has been the fulfillment of that hope is plain to see if one observes the complex relationships which have had to be postulated in the course of time btween space rotations and reflection, time reflection, charge conjugation, and parity conservation and non-conservation in strong and weak interactions."
In reference to Lonergan's "provided it involves no excursions…", ibid, p. 244: "He only wants to say that because the transformation equations of special relativity have factors of the form square-root(1 - (v/c)²) we must consequently have v smaller than c lest we get the square-root of negative numbers and hence imaginary lengths and times."

p. 44. Lonergan [o.c., p. iv] p. 645: "Method is simply reason's explicit consciousness of the norms of its own procedures."

p. 60. Albertson, [o.c., p. 102] p. 242, says that the transition from ½ + ¼ + 1/8 + … (½)ⁿ = 1 - (½)ⁿ to Sⁿ⁼°° [with underneath that and immediately after the preceding S _n=1] (½)ⁿ = 1 is "justified only by the carefully defined notion of limit and Cauchy sum." And a series such as S = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + … "requires the more advanced concepts of Cesàro and Abel sum."

Chapter 3 - THE CANONS OF EMPIRICAL METHOD
p. 70. E. F. O'Doherty in Studies (46, 1957, 494-96, p. 495): "This is as good a treatment of scientific methodology as one is likely to meet. Mill's 'Methods', long outmoded and never taken seriously by scientists, will appear even puerile by comparison."

p. 80. Newton's law of inverse squares: [f = k (mm'/d²)]

p. 88: abstraction as enriching. John Wren-Lewis [o.c., p. 102] p. 142: This is "the point in Professor Lonergan's argument where he unobtrusively turns into the road which thereafter leads inexorably to Rome… In his recent Bampton Lectures on Natural Science and Christian Theology… Dr. Mascall" made the same point but "was both more obvious and less cogent." pp. 142-43: "It is an aspect of the more general question which I tried to raise in my article on Bultmann in the June issue of The Modern Churchman. Do men know the world by active living in it… or by projecting into experience… the fantasy-patterns of their own minds?"
Eric L. Mascall in Theology (61, 1958, 82-83, p. 83): "The author's basic affirmation is that the human mind by its very nature is able to penetrate beneath the phenomenal level of its perceptual or imaginal objects and to grasp, obscurely but nevertheless genuinely, the underlying intelligible being."
J. Collins in Thought (32, 1957, 445-46, p. 446): "Any recognition of distinct things which does not stem from the critical theory of the primacy of the heuristic structure of the cognitive act, is classified as a piece of pragmatic extroversion, whereas the precise point at issue is the acceptance of this primacy of act."

p. 89: Lonergan [o.c., p. 14] p. 39: "Ubi abstractio ibi intelligendi actus; at non vice versa: non quotiescumque intelligimus, possumus abstrahere. In risu, v. gr., vel in aliqua symphonia attingit intellectus intelligibilitatem, quin hæc universaliter exprimi possit. Conceptus abstracti se habent ad sensibilia tamquam universalia ad particulare; at actus intelligendi non comparatur ad sensibilia tamquam universale ad particulare, quia perspicit intelligibilitatem in ipso concreto qua tali. Sic concretum fit qua tale intelligibile quatenus eius partes inter se intelligibiliter connectuntur: hoc perspicitur quando intelligitur aliqua machina vel organismus; ens sociale intelligitur per relationes quas habet ad alios; Ecclesia non intelligitur quatenus de ea habetur conceptus abstractus alicuius societatis perfectæ (per genus et speciem), sed quatenus perspicitur ut concreta multiplicitas spatio-temporalis, unde ad habendam completam theologiam de ea requiruntur purificatæ categoriæ historicæ." p. 29: "Toynbee quærit categorias suæ historicæ cogitationis ex literatura, ex tragœdiis græcis vel shakespearianis. Revera hic habentur profundæ categoriæ ad intelligentiam obtinendam vitæ humanæ, tamen non aptæ sunt quæ ex illis scientia historica ædificetur."

Chapter 4 - THE COMPLEMENTARITY OF CLASSICAL AND STATISTICAL INVESTIGATIONS
p. 103. John Wren-Lewis in Modern Churchman (N.S. vol. I, n. 2, Oct. 1957, 139-43, pp. 140-41): "It suggests that the age-old contrast between philosophies of chance and flux and philosophies of order and purpose may be illusory. Quite apart from its ultimate philosophic significance, the notion of structure as a sort of self-sustaining eddy in a flux of chance - an eddy which is bound to occur somewhere, purely because the flux is random, and which, once created, has the ability to sustain itself over long periods and even a tendency to induce more complex eddies, purely as a result of the laws of chance - is a most suggestive one in relation to the fundamental 'theory of structures', which some modern philosophers of science (e.g. Mr. L. L. Whyte, or Mr. G. Summerhof) regard as the most important realm of future scientific study. The notion is also suggestive in relation to the psychologists' discovery of a tendency for human behaviour to get stuck in self-perpetuatig cycles (the 'repetition-compulsion' of Freud, or Karen Horney's 'cyclical causality principle')."
Reck [o.c., p. 458] pp. 100-01: "The classical and statistical methods are still not proved to be immutable characteristics of scientific inquiry."
J. Albertson in Modern Schoolman (35, March 1958, 236-44, p. 238) comments on "the absence of a distinction between those intelligibilities immanent in the objects and patterns of experience and those intelligibilities projected by the knower into objects and patterns of experience." Lonergan's later treatment of objects and objectivity brings to light why no such distinction is here required. Albertson adds, p. 239: "Regularity, separateness, and sequences are not necessity, unity, and relation; but it is the central and specifying methodological trait of contemporary physics that the first set can be converted into the second by constructing a mathematical theory of the event. Necessity is found in the logical structure of the implications of mathematical functions; unity is found in the absence of further interaction terms in the defining Hamiltonian; and relation is found in the assignment of contours of integration so that the response vanishes for times earlier than the beginning of the excitation. Through the medium of a mathematical theory, constructed by hypothesis and verified by comparison with experiment, necessity, unity, and relation are imposed upon experience." p. 240: "Father Lonergan's thing-body division of knowledge misses, it may be urged, the fundamental opposition and complementarity of projected and immanent intelligibility." Yet perhaps not…
A. S. Eddington, The Mathematical Theory of Relativity (Cambridge University Press, 1923, pp. 1-3): "To find out any physical quantity we perform certain practical operations followed by calculations; the operations are called experiments or observations according as the conditions are more or less closely under our control. The physical quantity so discovered is primarily the result of the operations and calculations; it is, so to speak, a manufactured article - manufactured by our operations… The connection of manufactured physical quantitites with the existent world-condition can be expressed by saying that the physical quantities are measure-numbers of the world-condition… A physical quantity is defined by the series of operations and calculations of which it is the result."
Lonergan [o.c., p. 14] p. 26: "Praxis autem scientifica celerius evolvitur quam cogitatio super illam."

p. 114. Albertson [o.c., p. 102] pp. 243-44 objects: "The only possibility of applying probability thoery, then, would be found in an analysis of an indefinitely large number of repetitions in time of the complete universal process." But is he confusing explanation with prediction?
Lonergan in Thought (22, 1947, 740-41, p. 741): "A single instance is sufficient to warrant general conclusions and… resort is had to plural observations only to diminish the danger of error in the observation of the single instance… Scientific induction is constructed on the assumption that the single instance is a sufficient warrant and that plural observations are a necessary safeguard."

p. 115. Grisez [o.c., p. 747] p. 557: "The isomorphism of the structure of knowledge with the structure of what is known, permits him to infer a metaphysics from one's self-affirmation, once that act has been explained so that it involves the acceptance of his theory of knowledge and objectivity."
Lonergan, "Isomorphism of Thomist and Scientific Thought" in Sapientia Aquinatis (I, 1955, 119-27, p. 119): "Isomorphism… supposes different sets of terms; it neither affirms nor denies similarity between the terms of one set and those of other sets; but it does assert that the network of relations in one set of terms is similar to the networks of relations in other sets." De Ver., q. 10, a.8, ad 1m (1a series): "Forma naturalis ita comparatur ad materiam naturalem sicut forma intelligibilis ad materiam sensibilem." In Bœth. de Trin., q.5, a. 3 c.: "Duplex est operatio intellectus: una… qua cognoscit de unoquoque quid est, alia vero, qua componit et dividit… Et hæ quidem duæ operationes duobus, quæ sunt in rebus, respondent. Prima quidem operatio respicit ipsam naturam rei… Secunda vero… ipsum esse rei." Cfr F. E. Crowe, "St. Thomas and the Isomorphism of Human Knowing and its Proper Object" in Sciences Ecclés. (XIII, 1961, 167-90).

p. 126, no. 4: "…can be assured"?

p. 130. S. Moore [o.c., p. xi] p. 105: "Galileo, in formulating his laws in accordance with new insights, made the easy mistake of thinking that the laws were properties of things part from the mind, instead of an answer to the mind's question about things, which is also a question about itself." p. 103: "Behind 'how does this work?' the question 'how am I working here?' and behind this the question 'how do I work?' " p. 105: "The 'reality', when I seek to formulate laws of motion, is in a sense 'in things', but it is 'what I want to know about' and what I call 'the nature of movement,' and this, being a question for knowledge, makes nonsense of the alternatives: in things or in the mind."
E. A. Sillem in The Tablet (20 July 1957, p.61): "Meyerson set himself to show what is going on in the mind of the scientist when he is explaining some problem about the material world, and what is going on in his mind when he eventually reaches the conclusion of some long investigation and says to himself 'now I understand the matter'. Father Lonergan is trying to do [this] on a larger scale."

Chapter 5 - SPACE AND TIME
p. 149. "Correct explanations are unique." SaP = PaS

p.150. Jonsen [o.c., p.415] p. 105*: "All geometry, ancient and modern, results from the radical insight… that the establishment of general laws for figure and dimension was possible only if he dealt with 'abstract quantity', with lines and points freed from the inaccuracy of actual extended nature."

p. 152. "… how scientists may correctly explain Space and Time" ?
p. 160. "… value of ds is correct" ?

Chapter 6 - COMMON SENSE AND ITS SUBJECT
p. 200. Wren-Lewis [o.c., p. 102] p. 141: "Holding that all neurosis can be attributed to a 'flight from insight'… would seem to lay altogether too much stress on the rational element involved in what is fundamentally an emotional process." ?

Chapter 7 - COMMON SENSE AS OBJECT
p. 212. "Primordial", yes; "primitive" ? And note reference to "radiating" influence.
p. 215-6. Note use of "resonate" and "resonance" vis-à-vis experience and sentiment.
p. 225. An infant is "omnino in potentia in genere intelligibilium" - De Malo, 16, 12, 4m; cf. S.T., I, 87, 1.

p. 226. "Every specialist runs the risk of turning his specialty into a bias…" Another danger is to regard understanding of words as an end in itself instead of heuristic towards an understanding of reality. Cfr Lonergan's "A Note on Geometric Possibility" in The Modern Schoolman (27, 1949-50, 124-38, pp. 125-29).
Crowe [o.c., p. xxvii] p. 292: "If Insight has any message at all, it is surely to let the questions occur and recur, to refuse to be satisfied with poetry, or devotion, or the thrill of intersubjective experience, or the satisfaction of a specialty mastered, but to allow ourselves to be drawn beyond them all by the detached, disinterested, unrestricted, pure desire to know."

Chapter 8 - THINGS
p. 245. Albertson, [o.c., p. 102] p.102, calls chapters 8 &l 15 "one of the most stimulating discussions in the history of the problem" of reconciling science and common sense. p. 104: "The scholastic ontology of form, potency and act, so effective an instrument for the analysis of objects of common sense, is stretched in a novel way to apply to the thing itself now construed as a quasi-Kantian thing-in-itself beyond the possibility of ordinary human experience and outside the reach even of science." p.107: "That the world is completely intelligible rests ultimately upon faith, and even then the intelligibility is not open to man in nature but to some supernatural standpoint."
J.D. Solomon comments: " 'Seeing red' as experienced is best expressed as '-ing (experiencing) visually-colourly-really.' Any attempt to generalize such a principle immediately demonstrates how far our normal methods of linguistic expression are from achieving this goal."
p. 247. He adds: "The 'subject' is a memory of a series of visually ostended 'that's which were gap-indifferent in certain respects generally adjudged to be important. In Aristotle's day, these probably included 'Deity'! Lonergan has never conceived of the possibility, let alone the actuality of annihilation and new creation at the extreme rapidity of 'mental tempo'. Our linguistic practices rule out the possibility of expressing the ontological primacy of 'change'! The self-identity of the 'thing' is taken for granted by language - but not in 'quantum theory', in which 'wave' and 'particle' descriptions are mutually exclusive!" Solomon never expressed a view in regard to Lonergan's own discussion of quantum theory.
p. 248. According to J.D. Solomon: "A 'thing' exists inasmuch as it is a series of gap-indifferent 'ex'-ings. 'Sistere' expresses a judgment of gap-indifference: it is this which constitutes the 'universality' of the 'universal'!"
p.249. He adds: "I am rather loath to find myself agreeing with Aristotle, but the changes of intensity which I postulate as the 'prime matter' of my Cosmic Carrier-Wave seem to resemble Aristotle's! We cannot 'hear' a patch of red colour, but we may be able to 'exhear' it!"
p.250. He notes: "What cannot be described can frequently be 'signalled'. This only presupposes quasi-simultaneous judgment of (æsthetic) importance on the part of the signaller and the recipient of the signal. Linguistic practice is based on the assumption of the 'thing-in-itself', but 'being' can be conceived without it - just as the 'carrier-wave' of T.V. can be conceived of as unmodulated."
p. 252: Solomon writes: "On the generally accepted view that the 'velocity of light' is finite, 'verification', in Lonergan's sense, is impossible, because our 'information' is always infinitesimally out-of-date. This justifies the contention that 'knowledge' (if it were possible) would require 'spatio-temporal' identity as a precondition." Clearly, Solomon has not taken into account Lonergan's distinction between the described and the explained.
p. 265. Re emergent probability he comments: "Surely this can fairly be described as 'æsthetic' process, using that word in the widest possible sense."

p. 268. Lonergan in Modern Schoolman (XXVII, 1950, p. 155): "The definition of truth is correspondence between judgment and reality. The criterion of truth is evidence. Now, to postulate intuitions is unquestionably simple and simplifying. At once the definition and the criterion of truth are made to coincide. At a stroke the critical problem is eliminated, for if evidence is evident intuition of reality, there is neither need nor possibility of proceeding rationally from the criterion to the definition of truth. Unfortunately the postulated intuitions do not seem to exist. In its first moment on each level, knowledge seems to be act, perfection, identity: such identity of itself is not a confrontation; confrontation does arise, but only in a second moment and by a distinct act, of perception as distinct from sensation, of conception as distinct from insight, of judgment as distinct from reflective understanding. On this showing confrontation is not primitive, but derived; and it is derived from what is not confrontation, not intuition, nor formal and explicity duality. Admittedly it is difficult to justify such derivation. Overtly to accept such difficulty is a basic and momentous philosophic option. Still it seems to me to be the way of honesty and truth."
Cfr. A. D. Sertillanges, Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy (London: Sands & Co., 1931, pp. 255), p. 16: "We are not concerned with the juxtaposition, like two doubles, of object and intellect, but with how the object affects the intellect, and how the intellect ideally becomes it." p. 36: "Intellectual intuition would be a living contact, just as abstraction is a dead one. De facto we have no such intuition, and in the Thomistic system, we derive our certitude of the composition of things, and of our own composition, from the principles of knowledge and its modes, at the same time as the certitude of the essential and universal identity of things."
p. 269. Solomon adds: "My solution of the 'raw material' of 'being' is not body but 'stuff'! Regarded as a 'pulsation of intensive quantity' at the 'Cosmic Tempo', it furnishes a conceivable source for 'mind' and 'matter'."

Chapter 9 - THE NOTION OF JUDGMENT
p. 271. For Solomon: "A 'judgment' expresses a factor of 'likelihood' concerning a descriptive statement. It is never 'zero' if the statement 'makes sense', and it is rarely 'one', though there are many cases, especially when the action indicated is extremely urgent, when it can approximate to that."
E. M. Mackinnon, "Understanding according to Bernard J. F. Lonergan S.J." in Thomist (XXVIII, 19644, 97-132. 338-72), pp. 102-3: "The mind has two basic operations: seeking to know what something is ('quid sit') and to know whether something is ('an sit'). The first mental operation, seeking to know what a thing is, begins with sense perception and the consequent formation of a phantasm in the imagination, an operation guided by the cogitative power. The active intellect illumines this phantasm making the species which was potentially intelligible, actually intelligible, a process which may be called objective abstraction. This species, as impressed on the possible intellect, is called the 'species qua'. When the possible intellect receives this it is said to be in the first act of apprehensive abstraction. From the possible intellect in first act proceeds an act of understanding, a second act. The manner in which this second act proceeds from the first act is analogous to the manner in which an action proceeds from a principle of action, or to the relation of the act of existence to the form. What is understood by this second act is called the 'species quæ', the pre-conceptual object of understanding. To put this a bit more simply, objective abstraction, illumination of the phantasm, constitutes the imagined object as something to be understood with regard to its specific nature. Apprehensive abstraction, insight into phantasm, is the actual understanding of that which objective abstraction presents to be understood. What is understood, the 'species intelligibilis quæ', is identical with the quiddity of the material object known… Such an act of understanding cannot serve as the predicate of a judgment; it is incomplete as a form of knowledge. The intellect must express what it has understood, must produce a 'verbum', i.e., a concept or 'intentio intellecta'… Intelligible emanation, the production of an inner word, is called intelligible… because it is the activity of intelligence in act. The intellect, understanding a quiddity in a phantasm, pivots on itself to produce another object of thought, an inner word…" p. 104: "The act of understanding, the 'intelligere', considered as the ground for the production of the verbum is called a 'dicere'." p. 105: "The first mental operation leads not only to insight, but also to a coalescence of insights integrated in a hypothetical synthesis. Before the positing of a judgment, this hypothetical synthesis has no formal truth value. It provokes a question for investigation, rather than establishes a thesis. To answer the question implicit in any hypothesis and assent to the answer as true, the intellect must grasp the hypothetical synthesis, for the intellect cannot know the proportion of its act to an exterior thing unless it knows, in some way, the proportion of its active principle to exterior things. This requires a reflective act of understanding. Following a clear statement of St. Thomas [see note to p. 319 below], Lonergan insists that this is not simply the reflective character found in any act of judgment. Rather, it is a self-penetration which enables the person to know his own essence and innate capacity to know truth. This does not mean a metaphysician's knowledge of the soul's essence, which is a conceptualization and refinement of this awareness." p. 106: "Regarding the second operation Lonergan wrote: '… the intelligere from which the judgment proceeds is a reflective and critical act of understanding not unlike the act of Newman's 'illative sense'."

p.274. Re "Data. Perceptual Images" - Mackinnon [o.c., p. 270], p. 348: Experience as a constitutive part of full knowlege, as against "nude experience" of "bodies".

Chapter 10 - REFLECTIVE UNDERSTANDING
p. 280. Lonergan, "The Form of Interence" in Thought (18, 1943, 277-92, pp. 278-79): "Spontaneous thinking sees at once the conclusion, B, in apprehending the antecedents, A. Most frequently the expression of this inference will be simply the assertion of B. Only when questioned do men add that the 'reason for B' is A; and only when a debate ensues does there emerge a distinction between the two elements in the 'reason for B', namely, the antecedent fact or facts, A, and the implication of B in A (if A then B). Thus the transition from informal to formal inference is a process of analysis: it makes explicit, at once in consciousness and in language, the different elements of thought that were present from the first moment."
For "virtually unconditioned", cfr. S.T., I, q. 86, 3: "Nihil est adeo contingens quin in se aliquid necessarium habeat."
p. 286. Lonergan, "The Concept of Verbum in the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas" in Theological Studies (10, 1949, p. 389): "Only by a slow, repetitious, circular labour of going over and over the data, of catching here a little insight and there another, by following through false leads and profiting from many mistakes, by continuous adjustments and cumulative changes of one's initial assumptions and perspective and concepts, can one hope to attain such a development of one own understanding as to hope to understand what Aquinas understood and meant."

p. 306. Add to footnote: And cfr. Lonergan [o.c., p.14] pp. 17ss.

PART TWO - INSIGHT AS KNOWLEDGE
Chapter 11 - SELF-AFFIRMATION OF THE KNOWER
p. 319. Lonergan, "Metaphysics as Horizon" in Gregorianum (XLIV, 1963, 307-18, p. 307): "The first analogate in our analogous knowledge of being is human existence." This is a review of E. Coreth, Metaphysik: eine methodisch-systematische Grundlegung (Innsbrück-Wien-München, Tyrolia-Verlag, 1961, pp. 672).
To justify the validity of human knowing, Fr. Lonergan (1) maintains (p. 640) that judgments with transcendent pretensions do in fact exist; (2) makes (p. 332) his deepest foundation for knowledge pragmatic; (3) advances (p. 499) that the correspondence between knowlege and reality is the simplest hypothesis for explaining why knowledge has its peculiar structure; (4) defines being (p. 499) as the object of intelligence so as not to have to prove that it is its object. Cfr. C. R. Fay, "Fr. Lonergan & the Participation School" in New Scholasticism (XXXIV, 1960, pp. 461-87).
S.T., I, q. 88, a. 2 ad 3m: "Anima humana intelligit se ipsam per suum intelligere, quod est actus proprius eius, perfecte demonstrans virtutem eius et naturam." De Veritate, I, 9: "Veritas est in intellectu… sicut consequens actum intellectus, et sicut cognita per intellectum; consequitur namque intellectus operationem, secundum quod iudicium intellectus est de re secundum quod est; cognoscitur autem ab intellectu secundum quod intellectus reflectitur supra actum suum, non solum secundum quod cognoscit actum suum, sed secundum quod cognoscit proportionem ejus ad rem, quod quidem cognosci non potest nisi cognita natura ipsius actus; quæ cognosci non potest nisi cognoscatur natura principii activi, quod est ipse intellectus, in cujus natura est ut rebus conformetur; unde secundum hoc cognoscit veritatem intellectus quod supra se ipsum reflectitur." For comment on this passage, see e.g. Mgr. Noël in Rev. Phil. de Louvain (XXV, 1925, 185, n. 2; C. Boyer in Studies (VIII, 1947, 61). The question is: do I know things through knowing my capacity to judge, or do I know my capacity to judge through my knowledge of things. Study S.T., I, 16, 2 & 85, 2 - especially: "id quod intelligitur primo est res". Lonergan is opposed on this by Fay, de Vorges, Noël, Gilson, Maritain. On the other hand, Little, Geiger, Clarke, Donceel, Scheuer, Maréchal would side with him. Consult also G. Van Riet, L'Épistémologie Thomiste (Louvain, 1946).
Lonergan in Theological Studies (13, 1952, p. 124): "In us… the act of judgment is both caused by and because of the reflection that grasps the sufficiency of the evidence; the act of will is both caused by and because of the judgment of value."
F. E. Crowe [o.c., p. XXVII] p. 290: "The question, Who then can be saved? (Mt 19:25) is an implicit subscription to the principle of contradiction."
Lonergan in Gregorianum (36, 1955, p. 706): "The unity formulated in the principles of identity and non-contradiction… adds to ens only a negation and consequently derives as does ens from esse." [o.c., p.668] p. 79: "Truth is the medium in which being is known."

p. 324. Note "resonance."
p. 328. Jonsen [o.c., p.415] p. 107: "In this unique case what is being analysed is also the analyst." p. 108: "Lonergan's re-emphasis of the immediacy of cognitional acts and his consequent rehabilitation of the doctrine of concomitant reflection… make possible (1) the development of a philosophy of subjectivity incorporating the full range of human consciousness and its accomplishments; (2) the discovery of an immanent ground for… a metaphysics whose conclusions conform to Scholastic tradition and whose beginnings are acceptable to the contemporary mind." Compare J. De Finance, "Being and Subjectvity" in Cross Currents (VI, 2: Spring 1956, p.163); R. Johann, "Subjectivity" in Review of Metaphysics (12, December 1958, pp. 200-34); J. Croteau, "Ou bien… ou bien" in Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa (29, September 1959, pp. 100-12).

p. 330. Lonergan [o.c., p. 319] p. 308: "Presuppositionless metaphysics… begins from questioning… linking such performances with conditions of possibility… The condition of the possibility of any and all questions is an awareness that goes beyond the already known to an unknown to be known." pp. 314-5: "Literally, a horizon is a maximum field of vision from a determinate standpoint. In a generalized sense, a horizon is specified by two poles, one objective and the other subjective, with each pole conditioning the other. Hence, the objective pole is taken, not materially, but like the formal object sub ratione sub qua attingitur; similarly the subjective pole is considered, not materially, but in its relation to the objective pole. Thus, the horizon of Pure Reason is specified when one states that its objective pole is possible being as determined by relations of possibility and necessity obtaining between concepts, and that its subjective pole is logical thinking as determining what can be and what must be. Similarly, in the horizon of critical idealism, the objective pole is the world of experience as appearance, and the subjective pole is the set of a priori conditions of the possibility of such a world. Again, in the horizon of the expert, the objective pole is his restricted domain as attained by accepted scientific methods, and the subjective pole is the expert practising those methods; but in the horizon of the wise man, the philosopher of the Aristotelian tradition, the objective pole is an unrestricted domain, and the subjective pole is the philosopher practising transcendental method, namely, the method that determines the ultimate and so basic whole… A philosophy cannot be proved deductively… Every statement made by a realist denotes an object in a realist's world; every statement made by an idealist denotes an object in an idealist world; the two sets of objects are disparate; and neither of the two sets of statements can prove the horizon, within which each set has its meaning, simply because the statements can have their meaning only by presupposing their proper horizon… Problems and solutions are what they are only in virtue of the horizon in which they arise… If Fr. Coreth grants that statements have a meaning only within a horizon, how can he escape the dogmatism that Prof. Gilson believes inevitable? The answer is that he begins, not from a statement, but from a performance, a Vollzug, asking questions… No doubt that performance will be interpreted as overlooked in different manners when assumed within different horizons, but it is given to be interpreted or overlooked whether or not it is assumed. Nor can any doubt be entertained about the fact of the performance. To doubt questioning is to ask whether questions occur. The condition of the possibility of doubting is the occurence of questioning… For Prof. Gilson being [o.c., p. 225] or the concept of being [ibid., pp. 215, 226] is 'seen' in the data of sense. But for Fr. Coreth being is what is asked about with respect to the data of sense. So far from being seen in data, being, for Fr. Coreth, is what is intended by going beyond the data. For questioning goes beyond an already known to an unknown that is to be known: for Fr. Coreth the already known is the datum, and the unknown to be known is being."
Lonergan [o.c., p. 668] p. 81 note 21: "Cf. S.T., I, q. 54, a. 2 c: 'Actio enim est proprie actualitas virtutis; sicut esse est proprie actualitas substantiæ seu essentiæ.' Cf. Insight, pp. 83, 248, 437 on existence and occurence. While existence is prior quoad se, occurence is prior quoad nos. To cover both terms Insight uses the names, fact, factual. On fact, p. 331."
p. 331. Lonergan [o.c., p. 14] p. 38: "Multi fere numquam ad intelligendum perveniunt, quia nimis quærunt verum, atque a præoccupatione veritatis detinentur nimia. Si quis tantum verum quærit, nihil intelligit, quia ad verum pervenitur præcise in fine, tantum postquam intellexerimus. Requiritur series quasi completa actuum intelligendi ut ad unum iudicium verum perveniamus. Difficultates sæculi XIV in eo erant quod omnes nonnisi certitudinem quærebant, probationes, intelligentiam oblivioni mandantes. Sic devenerunt ad scepticismum. Intelligentia ex probabilibus pervenit ad certa."

p. 332. Re self-negation: A substantial self is denied by Phenomenalists, Associationists, Bergson, Idealists, William James, Monists (e.g., Spinoza), Existentialists - man cannot be a substance because not static… The substantiality of the self is proved by memory, sustained thought, responsibility…
Fr. Giulio Girardi (Ontologia, Turin: SEI, 1965, pp. xii-243, p. 115) shows the existence of a multiplicity of persons by pointing to the complex of phenomena which constitute colloquy, conversation or dialogue. As well as using oral and written words and gestures to express our thoughts, we notice words and gestures which are not ours but similar to ours: (1) We are not conscious of producing them; (2) They excite in us coherent thoughts; (3) We often answer such thoughts with our own expressions; (4) They produce quite new thoughts in us; (5) Very often they are opposed to our thoughts; (6) Very often they manifest a spirit quite alien to us; (7) They show moral habits different from ours; (8) They constantly express their own personality and independence; (9) Some of the complexes of phenomena possess a certain unity or tone which distinguishes it from any other complex - contradictory opinions regarding the same object, …, etc.

p. 335. Re notion of mass, etc. Cfr. Bruce Cathie's E = (C + square root (1/C))C²

p. 341. Lonergan [o.c., p. 319] pp. 310-12: "The operative moment in Fr. Coreth's use of transcendental method cannot occur in a Kantian context. For that operative moment lies in a contradiction not between content and content but between content and performance; but a Kantian context is a context of contents that does not envisage performance. Thus, there is no explicit contradiction in the content of the statement, We are under an illusion when we claim to know what really is. On the other hand, there is an explicit contradiction in the reflective statement: I am stating what really and truly is so when I state that we are under an illusion whenever we claim to know what really and truly is so. However, the content of the explicitly contradictory statement adds to the content of the first what is found implicitly in the first, not as content, but as performance. Now to bring to light such contradictions is the operative moment in Fr. Coreth's use of transcendental method. But such an operative moment cannot occur in a Kantian context for, while Kant envisages an Ich denke as a formal condition of the possibility of objective contents being thoughts, still he cannot find room for a concrete reality intelligently asking and rationally answering questions. In brief, phenomena appear, but they do not perform; and transcendental conditions of possibility within a transcendental logic do not transcend transcendental logic… Kant, then, acknowledges the need of the concept of noumenon as a Grenzbegriff: such a concept is of no use to him in knowledge of things, for he knows no noumenon; but the same concept is essential to him, if he is to state the limitations of our Anschauung, if he is to state that we perceive not noumena but phenomena (Kritik der reinen Vernunft B 310f). Now Fr. Coreth would not claim that this passage is contradictory, for a passage is just a sequence of concepts. He would claim that it is contradictory when the performance is added. For what the performer wants to assert is that really and truly our Anschauung is not of what really and truly is… For Kant, the judgment that seven and five are twelve is synthetic and a priori. Still it is only a posteriori, by an empirical Anschauung, that Kant knows five books in one pile on his desk, seven in another, and so necessarily twelve in all. Moreover this function of Anschauung is universal. Anschauung is the one means by which our cognitional operations are related immediately to objects (K. r. V., A19, B33). Judgment is only a mediate knowledge of objects, a representation of a representation (K. r. V., A68, B93). Reason is never related right up to objects but only to understanding and, through understanding, to the empirical use of reason itself (K. r. V., A643, B671). Of the pivotal importance of empirical Anschauung in his system, Kant was fully aware. It was his refutation of Pure Reason, for concepts and, along with them, principles can refer to objects and so can possess objective validity only through Anschauung. Of themselves, no matter how a priori they may be, they are the mere play of imagination and understanding (K. r. V., B301). But what condemns pure reason, by the same stroke condemns realism. For the only Anschauung we enjoy is sensitive; sense does not know noumena; and so our concepts and principles have no reference to noumena. Human cognitional activity is confined to phenomena… Prof. Gilson's… assertion is that over and above sensitive perceptions and intellectual abstractions there exists an intellectual vision of the concept of being in any sensible datum. Moreover, he adds, it is the concept of being, seen in this manner, that is predicated in perceptual judgments of existence [Réalisme thomiste et critique de la connaissance, Paris: 1939, p. 215. p. 225]… How does it come about that Prof. Gilson differs from Kant on a question of fact and not, as Fr. Coreth, on a question of principle?… Gilson does not advert to Fr. Coreth's principle… For Prof. Gilson idealism does not necessarily involve a contradiction [ibid., p. 160 note]… Once Berkeley's starting-point is admitted, one cannot find a contradiction from one end of his work to another [ibid., p. 195]… Gilson's realism is dogmatic; the course he advocates is '… la réaffirmation brute du réalisme dogmatique dont la valeur a été niée par la critique de Kant' [ibid., p. 163]… Realism cannot be proved deductively. But the opposite procedures of advancing inductively or constructively, if not demonstrably impossible, certainly bristle with difficulties. In any case, Prof. Gilson does not attempt them."

Chapter 12 - THE NOTION OF BEING
p. 348. Lonergan [o.c., p. 319] p. 309: "The condition of the possibility of questioning is always the same going beyond the already known to an unknown that is to be known; it follows that the questionable, of which questioning is aware, must be as much one as the awareness that constitutes questioning. Still, what is it that is questionable, unrestricted, one? It is being. Being is the questionable… We ask questions with respect to all realms, but the realm of being that is the condition of questioning is the one that must be presupposed for there to be the others. When one states that a statement is merely logical, one means that really and truly it is merely logical. It follows that one cannot suppose that all statements are merely logical, for then it would be merely logical that they are merely logical, and it would be impossible to say that any really and truly is merely logical. The same holds for the merely hypothetical, the merely phenomenal, and any other restricted or qualified realm. By the same stroke any and every form of idealism is excluded… Questioning not only is about being but also is itself being, being in its Gelichtetheit, being in its openness to being, being that is realizing itself through inquiry to knowing that, through knowing, it may come to loving. This being of the questioning questioner is the latent metaphysics from which explicit metaphysics is derived; and in explicit metaphysics it is the primary analogate through which other being as being is understood."
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, §21: "Every man remains to himself an unsolved puzzle, however obscurely he may perceive it. For on certain occasions no one can entirely escape the kind of self-questioning mentioned earlier, especially when life's major events take place. To this questioning only G-d fully and most certainly provides an answer."

p. 350. Mackinnon [o.c., p. 270] p. 343: "This second-order definition (of being) does not define the meaning of the term 'being', but rather shows how the meaning is to be assigned." p. 344 note 4: "The objectivity of a potency is the condition of the possibility of an act. The corresponding condition for the possibility of a potency is its intelligibility… Being is possible when it is intelligible… The concept of being is… a conceptualization of intelligibility as such, i.e., a realization of the intelligibility potential in objects and actualizable by the mind. It follows from this analysis that the denial of this concept… is implicitly a self-contradiction."

p. 366. Lonergan [o.c., p. 668] p. 78 says judgment is not synthesis but its position or rejection (pp. 271ff & 366), resting on a virtually unconditioned (chapter 10 & p. 653), so that not all analytic propositions are analytic principles (p. 306) - our knowledge of metaphysics is just factual (p. 393) with consequences in logic, mathematics, science (pp. 304-15) and philosophical theology (p. 670f).

p. 370. Lonergan [o.c., p. 14] p. 41: "Habetur ergo in homine intentio intendens, quæ non est nisi intellectus agens, cui correspondet categoria ENS, sensu exsistentiali intellecta; nam ens ad quod intellectus humanus tendit non est quid abstractum sed universus concretus (intellectus est quo omnia facere vel fieri, ubi omnia = ens; sicut 'omnia' minime dicit aliquid abstractum, sic est 'ens', in quo omnia omnino concreta includuntur; possibile autem, sive ex agente sive ex patiente, nihil addit supra potentiam activam vel passivam, et ideo continetur actu in ente). Hæc intentio intellectualis primo illuminat phantasma quando quis vult intelligere aliquid, et ideo habetur affectus in phantasma (sicut artifice ad artificiata). Phantasma, ope intellectus agentis, transit in speciem impressam et habetur actus intelligendi (= eureka). Si illa intelligentia quæ habita est exprimatur, habentur definitiones et conceptus. Deinde habetur aliqua verificatio utrum conceptus sint veri tantum de phantasmatibus an etiam de rebus sensibilibus ex quo proveniunt. Hæc verificatio habetur per aliquod inconditionatum virtuale, et est iudicium."
p. 371. For esse cfr. De Potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9m; De Veritate, q. 3, a.3, ad 8m.

p. 372. Luigi Bogliolo, SDB, "Valore unificante della nozione dell'essere - Il concetto tomistico dell'essere principio unitario della filosofia" in Filosofia e Vita (1, 1960, pp. 34-45) pp. 37-38: "Purtroppo i comuni manuali adottati dalle nostre scuole non si preoccupano molto di mettere in risalto la straordinaria potenza unificatrice del concetto dell'essere nella filosofia tomista. Oggi però, gli studi fatti da parecchi valenti studiosi, ci permettono, più che mai, di rivedere la nostra filosofia su questa base. L'essere tomista e, più precisamente, l'actus essendi di tutti gli esistenti (id quo exsistunt omnia quæ exsistunt), è actus omnium actuum, forma formarum, perfectio perfectionum. Tutta l'attualità, tutte le perfezioni di ogni singolo esistente e di tutti gli esistenti insieme, si risolvono nell'actus essendi fondamento primo e risoluzione ultima della filosofia perchè fondamento primo e risoluzione ultima della realtà.

Indichiamo qui alcuni testi fra i più significativi e convincenti, tolti dall'opere di S. Tommaso, in ordine cronologico. Esse 'est actus entis sicut lucere est actus lucentis' (In III Sent. Dist. VI, q. 2, a. 2), 'Ipsum esse comparatur ad omnes substantias creatas sicut actus eorum' (C.G. II, 43); 'Ad ipsam etiam formam comparatur esse ut actus' (C.G. II, 53); 'Ipsum esse est perfectissimum omnium; comparatur enim ad omnia ut actus; nihil enim habet actualitatem nisi in quantum est; unde ipsum esse est actualitas omnium rerum et etiam ipsarum formarum' (S.T., I, 4, a.1, ad 3m); 'Esse est actualitas omnis naturæ vel formæ, non enim bonitas vel humanitas significatur in actu, nisi prout significamus eam esse. Oportet igitur quod ipsum esse comparetur ad essentiam, sicut actus ad potentiam' (S.T., I, 3, 4); 'Esse est nobilius quam vivere' (De Pot. 3, 9); 'Hoc quod dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum et propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionum' (De Pot. 7, 3); 'Illud quod est maxime formale omnium est ipsum esse' (S.T., I, 7, c.); 'Esse autem est maxime intimum cuilibet et quod profundius omnibus inest; cum sit formale respectu omnium quæ in re sunt' (S.T., I, 8, s.); 'Inter omnia esse est illud quod immediatius et intimius convenit rebus' (De Anima quæst. unica, a. 9); 'Primus autem effectus Dei in rebus est ipsum esse quod omnes alii effectus præsupponunt et supra quod fundantur' (Comp. Theol., cap. 68, ediz. Verardo, n. 116).
Cfr. la ricchissima documentazione in E. Braun, Peut-on parler d'existentialisme thomiste? Le problème de l'esse chez Saint Thomas, in 'Archive de Philosophie', Aprile-Giugno 1959, XXII, pp. 212-226.

Nel Commento al Peri Hermeneias di dieci anni almeno posteriore al De Veritate, affermerà chiaramente: 'Quia vero actualitas, quam principaliter significat hoc verbum EST, est communiter actualitas omnis formæ, vel actus substantialis, vel accidentalis, inde est quod cum volumus significare quamcumque formam vel actum actualiter inesse alicui subiecto, significamus illud per hoc verbum EST' (Peri Hermeneias, I, lect. 5, ediz. Spiazzi, n. 73.)

Chapter 13 - THE NOTION OF OBJECTIVITY
p. 375. Wren-Lewis [o.c., p. 102] p. 143: "Science does not provide the pattern of true knowledge, because it is not concerned with knowing the world at all, but only with working out how to use things… True objectivity comes through direct emotional encounter with what is other than ourselves… The road to Rome… is, I am sure, just one of a number of parallel roads back to the state of neurotic identification with nature from which mankind is only lately beginning to emerge." Wren-Lewis, who, as Longman's appointed reader, had originally strongly advised that Insight be accepted for publication, in later life ceased to be of the opinion here expressed. This issue is, he would still hold, of great importance.
Reck [o.c., p. 458] p. 105: "The argument from the nature of cognitional processes to the nature of the cosmos and of being fails." p. 125: "Mathematical symbols are the outer words that signify inner words of conception and judgment; and the inner words are the media in quibus being, the object as end of human intelligence, is known." And, hence, partly ignored - in this life anyhow. Cfr. P. McShane, "The Contemporary Thomism of Fr. Bernard Lonergan" in Philosophical Studies (XI, 1961, 63-80, p.64): "The assertion of completeness could only spring from the folly of considering man to be something other than potency in the realm of intelligence."
Mackinnon [o.c., p. 270] says pp. 108-11 that Lonergan, in the Verbum articles, distinguishes five separate objects of knowledge - (1) the Moving Object of Direct Understanding - "The phantasm, illuminated by the agent intellect, instrumentally produces the species qua and materially exhibits the species quæ, that which is to be understood"; (2) the Terminal Object of Direct Understanding - the essence expressed in a concept; (3) the Moving Object of Reflective Understanding - the aggegate of evidence on an issue assessed by wisdom: Verbum - II, 73: "We know by what we are; we know we know by knowing what we are; and since even the knowing in 'knowing what we are' is by what we are, rational reflection on ourselves is a duplication of ourselves"; (4) the Terminal Object of Reflective Understanding - the truth expressed in the form of a judgment; (5) the Transcendental Object: Reality - "Through the intellectual light by which it knows, the mind is potentially all being. In the reflective act of understanding, which grounds judgment, the proportion of understanding to the whole universe is grasped." (Cf. Verbum - V, 368).
Lonergan [o.c., p. 115] p. 124: "Though the object as mover is restricted to the intelligibility immanent in sensible presentations, none the less the object as end is being in its full sweep."

Chapter 14 - THE METHOD OF METAPHYSICS
p. 385. Grisez [o.c. p. 747] p. 555: "What must be granted if the principles are granted in order to maintain the principles solidly, consistently, and unambiguously? is the question which guides the construction." p. 556: "The principles he uses in developing the argument, not the ones he talks about, are three: the desire to know, the isomorphism of the structure of knowledge with the structure of what is known, and reflexivity."
Lonergan [o.c., p. 319] p. 308: "The main method in metaphysics is a mediation of the immediate. There exists a latent metaphysics, present and operative in all our knowing; it is the metaphysical Ureinsicht in its immediacy; but it has to be thematized and made explicit, to be brought out into the open in accurately defined concepts and certain judgment." Cf. Emerich Coreth, "The Problem and Method of Metaphysics" in International Philosophical Quarterly (3, 1963, pp. 403-17).

p. 393. "Metaphysics does not pretend…" - "Intelligere aliquid in comuni et non in speciali, est imperfecte aliquid cognoscere." (S.T., I, q. 14, a.6, c.; De Veritate, q. 8, a. 10, ad 1m, distinguishes well. Cfr. C.G., III, 38 end; S.T., q. 55, a.3, ad 2m; S.T., q. 14, a. 6, c.
p. 401. Crowe [o.c., p. xxvii] p. 278: "Only when we have groped our way down the dark corridor and found the light-switch can we look back and see how we should have come."
p. 403. Lonergan [o.c., p. 14] p. 53: "Secundum S. Thomam… Christus omnia actualia cognoscit et omnia quæ in potentia creaturæ sunt, not autem omnia quæ sunt in potentia creatoris, quia hoc præsupponet comprehensionem essentiæ divinæ (S.T., III, q. 10, a.2)… Theologus insanire videretur qui, quæ Christum hominem nescire diceret, ipse se scire arbitraretur."
p. 413. Cambridge Platonists: compare J. D. Solomon.
p. 415. A. R. Jonsen, in "Insight, Thomism, and Contemporary Philosophy" (Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa, XXX, 1960, pp. 102*-14*) speaks of Insight (p. 103*) as "a phenomenology of insight".
p. 419. Lonergan [o.c., p. 34] pp. 37-38: "Dicimus simpliciter 'intellige': ergo non 'quære actus intelligendi qui magnam habent significationem'. Huiusmodi actus non constituunt aliquam peculiarem speciem. Sunt enim sicut ceteri, atque eorum momentum pendet ex relatione quam habent cum aliis; actus inventionis claudit aliquam seriem actuum intelligendi præcedentium, et aperit novam seriem. Quod aliquis actus intelligendi sit magni momenti non pendet a singulo actu, sed potius ab eius loco in historia scientiæ."

Chapter 15 - ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS
p. 437. Mass-velocity. Ft = mv
p. 450. Detached and disinterested desire. Cf. Poverty, Chastity, Obedience.
p. 454. McShane [o.c., p. 374] p. 66: "The idea of development had entered European thought through Herder and Vico. It became dominant through the philosophy of history of Hegel and recurred in the theories of Marx, Darwin, Compte, Bergson, Croce and Chardin."
p.458. A. J. Reck, "Insight and the Eros of the Mind" in Review of Metaphysics (12, 1958-59, 97-107, p. 100): "The autonomy of the genetic method, with its presupposition of development and finality in the world, may be questioned by insistence on its inclusion within statistical method."

Chapter 16 - METAPHYSICS AS SCIENCE
p. 488. J. D. Solomon notes: "The fallacy in all 'deductive proof' is the assumption that every 'word' or WORD can have two 'identical' interpretants/significants. A 'verbal sign' only becomes a 'word' when hearing or seeing it activates a resonance in the 'receiving' mind which is judged to be 'gap-indifferent' with the mode of awareness which the utterer has used it to symbolize. There is no question of 'absolute identity'. All the logic-chopping in this part of the book seems to me to be of negligible value. Not 'If - then', but 'Unless - not' is the only 'certainty' - and this only applies to the conventions generally accepted in language - which are involved in all 'naming'."
p. 498. Crowe [o.c., p. XXVII] p. 282: "There has been discussion recently about the aptitude of youth for learning metaphysics and attention has been drawn to the necessity of long experience to give meaning to certain branches of philosophy… Words have a heuristic function in regard to ideas, and one must communicate words in the expectation that understanding will lag behind. Again, philosophical ideas are heuristic with regard to an understanding of the universe, and one must try to educate young philosophers even in the expectation that an understanding of the universe will only gradually follow as heuristic forms receive their content. Moreover, this philosophy will not be blind faith if it is based on the structure of human knowing; it will be an understanding, not of forms, but of cognitional activity, which will penetrate in due course the forms of physics, chemistry, biology, and the rest." Cfr. D. H. Salman, "L'enseignement de la philosophie aux jeunes d'après Aristote, saint Thomas et M. E. Gilson", Laval Théologique et Philosophique (11, 1955, 9-24); St. Thomas, In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis expositio, lib. I, lect. 1 a, ed. Maggiolo, Marietti, no. 4; Aristotle, Treatise on the Parts of Animals, I, 639a 23-30.

p. 500. Lonergan [o.c., p. 11] pp. 133-34: "Strictly and primarily the intelligible is the grasped unity… The unity is the unity of the unified. But the unified is the common matter, and so common matter is intelligible by information. Again, unity and unified together are the essence, and so the essence is intelligible by inclusion. Thirdly, unity and unified are universal, but the universal and the particular are correlative, so that individual matter is intelligible tangentially. Fourthly, the particular essence is the possibility of a contingent existence, so that contingent existence is intelligible again tangentially. Fifthly, since the primary intelligible as such is not necessarily the intelligibility of something else, since it does not necessarily presuppose matter, since it has no intrinsic opposition to particularity, there can be pure forms that are identical with particular essences. Finally, since not all existents can exist contingently, there must be, if anything exists, a simply intelligible existent and in it pure form and existence will coincide."
p. 501. Ciencia y Fe (15, 1959, 475-92, pp. 491-92): "Ayudaría… estudiar más detenidamente… el esse puramente intencional y su afirmación, como contrapuesta a la afirmación del esse extramental; dilucidar expresamente el id quod cognoscitur y el modus quo cognoscitur y sus implicaciones respectivas."
p. 510. Lonergan [o.c., p. 319] p. 307: "When being is the existent, when our knowledge of being is analogous, the object of the science of being has to be the set of existents, and the unity of the science can be only analogical."
p. 518. S.T., I-II, 29, 4, c.: "Homo maxime est mens hominis." S.T., II-II, 141, 1, 1m: "Homo inquantum huiusmodi est rationalis." S.T., I-II, 3, 5, c.: "Unusquisque videtur esse id quod est optimum in eo."
S.T., I, q. 76, art. 3, c.: "Nihil est enim simpliciter unum nisi per formam unam, per quam habet res esse; ab eodem enim habet res quod sit ens et quod sit una."

p. 525. "Like the poor of the Gospel…" 4th-century opposition to "consubstantialis", mediæval reaction to St. Thomas and St. Albert, contempt of Baius for theological distinctions; BUT excessive rationalism of Abelard, need for Alexander III's legislation against undisciplined questions in theology.
p. 528. Jonsen [o.c., p. 415] p. 105*: "because we are human, not Humean." Cfr. J. Collins, "Philosopher's Responsibility" in America (102, 7, 14 November 1959, p. 191): "The Catholic philosopher's respect for nature as well as man fits him for healing the split which has made strangers out of existentialists and the naturalists, the phenomenologists and the analysts. His critical integrity will prevent him from following the momentary fashion of pretending that these two groups are saying the same thing in different ways. The problem of bringing unity into our philosophical world is much too genuine and complex to tolerate such an illusion. But the Catholic philosopher can work deliberately and steadily to bring these two approaches within range for a mutual study of evidence that will benefit philosophy as a whole. This search for wholeness in the midst of a jagged world of natural events and interpersonal relations is the beacon of his professional labours."
Jonsen [o.c., p. 415] p. 113*: "After reading the book [Insight], a professor of philosophy, educated in the positivist tradition, remarked: 'I finally feel and see the possibility of unity amid the chaos of my ideas."
S. Moore [o.c., p. xi] pp. 106-07: "Science is not an 'exploration of reality'. It is an exploration of some part of the world in which we live, and 'reality' only figures when the scientist reflects on the particular act of intelligence on which he is engaged. Then indeed, with intelligence made conscious in one of its virtualities, 'reality' is partially touched on: and then appears the need for an overall theorem of intelligence, which is one in itself: whose apprehension as one is the work of philosophy."
C. De Koninck, "Les sciences expérimentales sont-elles distinctes de la philosophie de la nature?" in Culture (Québec, IV, 1941, 465-76). H. Margenau, "Thomas and the Physics of 1958 - a confrontation" (Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1958).

Chapter 17 - METAPHYSICS AS DIALECTIC
p. 538. Does Lonergan's here mentioned hypothesis about how myth-building happened match the facts of the case?
p. 541. Who was this "primitive" he mentions?
p. 542. As Lonergan has more recently explicitly acknowledge, "myth" is nowadays widely used in a much less pejorative sense. Was he right in characterizing the gnostics and the magicians as a "failure"? Is what he says about insight into and mastery of linguistic usage a compliment paid indirectly to Linguistic Analysis?
p. 543. Lonergan [o.c., p. 619] p. 531: "It is only by judgment that there emerges a distinction between fact and fiction, logic and sophistry, philosophy and myth, history and legend, astronomy and astrology, chemistry and alchemy." But see his admission, p. 575 below: "For the sake of simplicity we have worked out our philosophic position in terms of simple contrasts."

p. 552. Lonergan {o.c., p. 14] p. 18: "Quando multa congeruntur ratiocinia et argumenta, logica quadam stricta possemus dicere: aut unum argumentum ex se vere probat, aut non. Si probat inutile est addere aliud argumentum; si non probat inutile est illud addere argumento sequenti. Tamen, de facto, ex multis argumentis sæpe efficitur aliquid unum, de quo iudicium aliquod mechanicum et automaticum nequit haberi."
p. 554. Resonance.

Chapter 18 - THE POSSIBILITY OF ETHICS
p. 599. Dz. 1797: "Nec verum vero unquam contradicere (potest)." But St. Bonaventure, In Hexæm., IV, 12, t. V, p. 351: "Minus est periculosum dicere, quod angelus sit compositus, etiamsi verum non sit, quam quod sit simplex, quia hoc ego attribuo angelo, nolens ei attribuere quod ad Deum solum æstimo pertinere, et hoc propter reverentiam."
p. 619. Lonergan, "Cognitional Structure" in Continuum (II, 1964, 530-42) - distinguishes wholes which are just conventional quantities or arbitrary collections from structures, which he distinguishes as static, materially dynamic, and formally dynamic.
p. 624. Aesthetic and ethical… cfr. J. D. Solomon's account.

Chapter 19 - GENERAL TRANSCENDENT KNOWLEDGE
p. 634. C.G., I, 30: "We do not know what G-d is, but only what He is not, and what relation everything else has with him." C.G., I, 4: "Fere totius philosophiæ consideratio ad Dei cognitionem ordinatur." De Ver., q. 22, a. 2, ad iv: "Omnia cognoscentia cognoscunt implicite Deum in quolibert cognito." De Ver., q. 14, 11 c.: "Implicitum proprie dicitur esse illud in quo quasi in uno multa continentur; esplicitum autem in quo unumquodque ipsorum in se consideratur."
This introductory chapter belongs in a Biblical and Existential context - the subject's personal and continual Conversion to G-d.
Section 1, The notion of transcendence, contrasts with claims of "religious experience", of immediate knowledge, and with the position of the empiricists.
p. 639. Section 3, The notion of transcendent knowledge - Lonergan's total strategy and his treatment of the counter-positions here invites comparison with the Summa theologiæ, with Insight pp. 369-71, and with normal scientific practice in regard to verified partial hypotheses, fuller hypotheses, etc.
Sections 4 and 5 belong together, so that section 6 comes 5th.
p. 649. Section 7 (6th), The secondary component in the idea of being. Cfr. S.T., I, q. 15.
7th: consider the Ontological Argument, pp. 670-72, and also p. 305 re analytic propositions.
8th: the Ontological Argument in relation to S.T., I, q. 2, a.1.
p. 651. Section 8 (9th), Causality. Cf. S.T., I, q. 2, aa. 2-3.
p. 653. W. N. Clarke in Theological Studies (18, 1957, 629-32, p.631): "Its most serious defect seems to me to be an inadequate explanation - or rather its enigmatic avoidance of any precise explanation - of how the judgment of concrete existence takes place and is 'critically verified' about objects distinct from the knowing self… Has the author possibly fallen into a 'systematic oversight' with respect to the central Thomist insight into the rôle of existence as the primary root of all intelligibility?"
p. 657. Section 9 (10th), the notion of G-d. Cf S.T., I, q. 3, prologue, etc.
In Bœth. de Trin., q. 6, a. 3 c.: "De nulla re potest sciri an est, nisi quoquo modo sciatur de ea quid est, vel cognitione perfecta vela saltem cognitione confusa." Remember the four stages above mentioned…
An objection, S.T., I, q. 5, a. 2 C.: "Primo in conceptione intellectus cadit ens." Reply, In IV Metaph., lect. 6, §605: "Cum duplex sit operatio intellectus: una, qua cognoscit quod quid est, quæ vocatur indivisibilium intelligentia: alia, qua componit et dividit: in utroque est aliquod primum: in prima quidem operatione est aliquod primum, quod cadit in conceptione intellectus, scilicet hoc quod dico ens; nec aliquid hac operatione potest mente concipi, nisi intelligatur ens. Et quia hoc principium, impossibile est esse et non esse simul, dependet ex intellectu entis, sicut hoc principium, omne totum est majus sua parte, ex intellectu totius et partis: ideo hoc etiam principium est naturaliter primum in secunda operatione intellectus, scilicet componentis et dividentis."
p. 658. 11th: "First, then…" Cf. S.T., I, q. 12, a. 1; q. 16, a. 5; q. 14, a. 4.
12th: "Fourthly…" Cf. S.T., I, q. 4; qq. 5-6; q. 19, a. 1; q. 20, a. 1.
13th: "Sixthly…" As well as the references noted for 11th, cf. S.T., I, qq. 54-56.
p. 659. Re "Tenthly" cf. S.T., I, q. 11, aa. 3-4.
14th: "In the eleventh place…" Cf. S.T., I, q. 3.
p. 660. 15th: "In the twelfth…" Cf. S.T., I, q. 10.
"In the thirteenth…" St. Augustine, De civitate Dei, Bk. V, cc. 9-11 (P.L., 41, 148-54); Bœthius, De consolatione Philosophiæ, Bk. V (P.L., 63, 829 seq.); St. Thomas, In I Peri Hermeneias, lect. 13-14.
16th: "In the fourteenth…" Refer back to 6th and 7th above, and cf. S.T., I, q. 15.
p. 661. 17th: "In the fifteenth…" See p. 679 below, and S.T., I, q. 15.
18th: "In the sixteenth…" Cf. S.T., I, q. 2, a. 2, 4th way, 65s. 1; 4 a. 2 ad 2m; 44, a. 3. "In the seventeenth…" Cf. S.T., I, q. 19, a. 3.
19th - 22nd: "In the eighteenth place": S.T., II, qq. 14-16; 19, aa. 2ff; 20, aa. 2ff; 21-24; 103-05.
"First corollary" - Sertillanges [o.c., p. 268] p. 173: "The agent, according to St. Thomas, is called agent only in virtue of an extrinsic denomination… it is the movement itself, in so far as it is related to the agent."
p. 663. 23rd: "In the nineteenth…" Cf. S.T., I, qq. 44-47.
24th: "In the twentieth": S.T., I, qq. 103-5, especially 104, aa. 1 & 2.
p. 664. 25th: "In the twenty-first": S.T., I, q. 105. Also Garrigou-Lagrange, G-d: His Existence and Nature, vol. 2, appendix 4 and epilogue.
26th: "In the twenty-second": S.T., I, q. 44, a. 4 - and see p. 668 below.
p. 666. 27th - 29th: "In the twenty-fifth…" See Chapter 20, and S.T., I, qq. 48-49.
p. 668. 26th (sic): "In the twenty-sixth": S.T., I, q. 26, 18. Cf. Lonergan, De Deo Trino - Pars Systematica, q. X.
p. 669. 30th - 31st: Section 10, The affirmation of G-d. Notice that it would appear circular to show G-d's existence via a dynamic structure and then call on Him to justify the latter's validity: this is an objection against Maréchal.
Lonergan, "Insight - Preface to a Discussion" in Proc. Amer. Cath. Phil. Assoc. (32, 1958, 71-78, p.74): "How is it that we have precisely such an intellectual notion of being that (1) we can conceive the ense per essentiam and (2) we can pronounce the only beings that we do know directly to be merely entia per participationem?" Re man's natural desire to see G-d, cf. S.T., I-II, q. 3, a. 8 c.; C.G., III, 25-63. Lonergan, loc. cit., p. 76: "Nor is there any need to postulate questions. They are facts."

p. 670. Doesn't Anselm rather say: "A G-d whose existence is disproved can't be the G-d Christians believe in, since they believe in He Who Is?"
p. 671. The proposition, The "word" "G-d" has a 'significant', is for me, says J. D. Solomon, likely enough to be possible, and some qualifying attributes are so unlikely that they can be ruled out of the 'meaning'. He adds, As a Pan-Entheist I am disposed to believe that this may apply to all 'attributes'!
p. 672. "Now being is completely…". Cf. J. Quin, "G-d and The Intelligibility of Being" in Philosophical Studies (XV, 1966, 199-225, p. 215): "Being is the answer to all intelligent questions. There are no intelligent questions to which there are no adequate ontological answers."
P. J. Dwyer, "Proving G-d" in Philosophical Studies (XIV, 1965, 7-29, p. 19): "(1) In so far as a thing can be identified with its own existence it has a meaning of its own. (2) The fact that the limits of our experience simultaneously affirm and deny such an identity implies that (a) we must accept that identity, and (b) as something not bound by those limits. (3) Therefore the objects of our experience which have a meaning of their own must be identified with existence and reference to something else, not bound by limits of any kind, where existence and meaning are identical."
p. 677. 32nd: Section 11, Comparisons and contrasts. Cf. pp. 369-71 above.
p. 678. 33rd - 35th: "Fourthly, the five ways…" Cf. S.T., I, q. 2, aa. 2-3; q. 4, a. 2, ad 2m; q. 44, aa. 1 & 3; q. 46, a. 2, ad 7m; q. 50, a. 5, ad 3m; q. 65, a. 1; q. 82, a. 1; q. 86, a. 1; q. 104, a. 1.
Lonergan [o.c., p. 14] p. 28: "Ex dicto 'ens contingens habet causam efficientem', quia aliunde hebetur transitus ad exsistentiam entium contingentium stabiliendam, potest concludi ad Dei exsistentiam. Sed ex dicto 'exsistens necessarium necessario exsistit' nequit fieri conclusio de necessitate exsistentia Dei, nisi iam hæc exsistentia præsupponatur."
36th: "Fifthly…"
p. 679. 37th: "Seventhly…"
p. 680. J. D. Solomon: "My 'G-d' is motivated by an æsthetic urge to 'self-improvement' - which is 'internal' and 'eternal'. Would this be heretical according to the Catholic Church? The Divine Discontent is not capable of being fully assuaged." Although Solomon's question, expressed here, was not rhetorical, on balance it seems likely that no such question need arise in this context.
p. 683. 38th: "Eighthly…" Cf. S.T., I, qq. 12-13.
p. 684. 39th: "Ninthly…"
p.686. 40th: S.T., I, q. 17; q. 85, a. 6; De Falsitate; p. 666 above: "Twenty-fourthly"; for Atheism: pp. 714 below and 407 above - and, more generally, all that follows.
41st: S.T., I, q. 12, and The Natural Desire to see G-d.
42nd: S.T., I, q. 13, especially a. 10.
43rd: S.T., I, q. 13, a. 11: "They Who Are" and we do not know "What They Are".

Texts for the Five Ways of Saint Thomas Aquinas:
Five: S.T., I, q. 2, a. 3; De Ver., q. 5, a. 2; De Pot., q. 1, a. 5; q. 3, a. 15; C.G., I, 13.
Four: S.T., I, q. 2, a. 3; q. 65, a. 1; a. 4, a. 2, ad 2m; q. 44, a. 1 et a. 3; C.G., I, 13; III, 97.
Three: S.T., I, q.2, a. 3; q. 82, a. 1; q. 86, a. 1; q. 50, a. 5, ad 3m; De Pot., q. 5, a. 3.
Two: S.T., I, q. 46, a. 2, ad 7m; q. 104, a. 1; q. 13, a. 5, ad 1m; q. 3, a. 1.
One: S.T., I, q. 2, a. 3; In Phys., a. VIII, lect. 9; Comp. Theol., ch. 3.

Chapter 20 - SPECIAL TRANSCENDENT KNOWLEDGE
p. 689. J. D. Solomon notes: "I avoid the word 'G-d' whenever possible on account of the connotations that it has acquired, e.g., the Old Testament 'Jehovah' made in the image of Stalin or, more likely, of Sargon I."
p. 695. Lonergan, "The Natural Desire to See G-d" in 11th Annual Convention Jes. Phil. Assoc. America (1949, 31-43, pp. 36-38): "What is a closed conceptualism?… Conclusions result from principles… Principles result from their component terms… had by an unconscious process of abstraction from sensible data… Alternative… is an open intellectualism. Again, conclusions result from principles, and principles from their component terms. But the terms are expressions of acts of understanding. The selection of certain terms as basic, the elucidation of their precise meaning and import, the validation of such choice and determination are all the work of wisdom. (S.T., I-II, q. 66, a. 5, ad 4m); and wisdom is the cumulative product of a long series of acts of understanding. Hence it is that the nexus between terms is not at all evident to a person who understands nothing, more or less evident to a person who has attained some greater or lesser degree of understanding, but perfectly evident only to a person who understands perfectly… One cannot as a philosopher escape paradox in the existing world-order; one may… by nature… demonstrate the precepts of the natural law, and one cannot affirm that without grace man can long observe the precepts of the natural moral law."
p. 696. Section 3. Mackinnon [o.c., p. 270] p. 359 note 22: "The arguments given are, to some extent, a modern statement of the considerations given by St. Thomas in Summa Contra Gentiles, I, cc. 3-9; S.T., I-II, q. 109.
p. 699. J. D. Solomon comments: "There is no final solution to the 'problem of evil', nor is one desirable. The overcoming or elimination of evil gives rise to the greatest experiences of intrinsic value; but this should not be envisaged as an attempt to attain any 'W-point'."
p. 718. Lonergan [o.c., p. 14] p. 66: "Quoad fidem, amplianda est notio veritatis, ita ut verum sit non tantum id quod nos intelligere possumus, sed id quod Deus intelligit… Unde analogia veri est acceptanda… In ceteris scientiis enim scientia incipit non ex vero sed ex dato empirico, seu ex materia intentionali circa quam fit inquisitio, cui accedet forma intelligibilis, quæ forma pedetentim evolvitur, et tantum in fine, quando omnia data sunt intellecta [indirectly as far as prime potency is concerned], potest haberi iudicium verum certum de obiecto scientiæ. Unde in ceteris scientiis data per intelligentiam promoventur ad verum."
p. 729. J. D. Solomon notes: "It appears that Lonergan does not agree with your sign = symbol and symbol = sign equations!" - a reference to conventions adopted in quite another context…

EPILOGUE
p. 731. intellectus quærens fidem - on the history of this cfr. J. Beumer, Theologie als Glaubensverstandnis (Würzburg, 1953).
Lonergan [o.c., p. IX] p. 646: "Human sciences are empirical inasmuch as they treat of man as in fact he is; man in the present order suffers from the effects of original sin and of personal sin, and only through supernatural grace does he escape the consequent darkening of his intellect and weakening of his will; it follows that the human issues of the present order cannot be satisfactorily subordinated to philosophy." This is the nub of Lonergan's attitude to such complaints as those made by John Wren-Lewis above. Hence his important footnote on this page.
p. 733. Lonergan [o.c. p. IX] pp. 647-48: "Behind the difference of opinion between Mandonnet, who regarded the De Natura Verbi Intellectus as doubtful or spurious, and Grabmann, who found no extrinsic evidence against its authenticity, there is the far deeper opposition that separates the constructive tendencies of intellectualism and the atomistic tendencies of conceptualism. Nor can one go to the root of that division without tackling the critical problem and, indeed, without conceiving the critical problem not as the easy question whether we know but as the real issue of what precisely occurs when we are knowing. Until that issue is settled in the luminous fashion that will make philosophy as methodical as science, there are bound to remain basic and unresolved problems of theological method."
p. 747. G. G. Grisez, in Thomist (21, 1958, 554-60, p. 554): Pope Leo XIII's "motto for reconstruction implies that he recognized philosophy as a dynamic process." Insight "is the first perfected philosophic product of the Leonine reconstruction. Insight might initiate a new era in scholastic philosophy."
p. 748. Crowe [o.c., p. xxvii] p. 285: "Thomist theology… is not the summit but a plateau on which we fall back after repeated failures, to begin repeatedly a new ascent."
Insight's original subtitle was "essay in aid of a personal appropriation of one's own rational self-consciousness.".
Grisez [o.c., p. 747] pp. 558-59: "Is it not the case that a philosophy is constituted of method and arguments, not merely of conclusions? Do not conclusions have their meaning from the philosophic means used to reach them? Is not the use of insight as a reference-point for unifying what is understood and the use of the desire to know as a universal reference-point a method diverse from that which Aquinas employed? Can isomorphism be reconciled with Aquinas' principle that the mode of understanding is not the mode of being? Aquinas constantly used this principle against Plato. Does the relationship which Fr. Lonergan posits between possibility, probability, and actuality accord with Aquinas's doctrine of being? Does Fr. Lonergan's doctrine of abstraction as an addition to the data accord with Aquinas' distinction between the potentially and the actually intelligible? If not, the doctrine of conception, definition, categories, form, and essence is also diverse. Does Fr. Lonergan's doctrine of judgment as the reflective grasp of the fulfillment of the conditions sufficient for fact accord with Aquinas' distinction between categorical and hypothetical propositions? If not, the doctrine of reflection, verification, modes of predication and analogy, and existence and action is also diverse. Does Fr. Lonergan's doctrine of science as the understanding and affirmation of correlations of data accord with Aquinas' distinction between understanding and reason? If not, the doctrine of inquiry and proof, the nature and division of sciences, intellectual principles and methods, and causal determination and order is also diverse. Do not the priority of intelligence to existence, the priority of self-affirmation to knowledge of the other, and the priority of dialectic to demonstration which Fr. Lonergan posits constitute a complete reversal of Aquinas's philosophy?"
R. Thomson, in Philosophy (34, 1959, p. 373): "There is no systematic analysis of what is meant by the term 'insight' in various contexts of actual use. The need for such an inquiry is outstanding since the examples which Lonergan gives do not make clear the direction in which the inquiry is moving. After reading the book it is not clear what processes are involved in behaviour which is classified as 'insightful', nor is it clear what is the analysis of such concepts as 'understand', 'grasp', 'intuit', or other got it words." Contrast F. C. Copleston, in Journal of Theol. Studies (N.S. IX, 1958, 202-04, p. 203): "Rather does he study the family likeness between types of insight."

INDEX
p. 750. Angels, 312, 677, 681.

J. D. Solomon has commented on pp. 8, 245, 248-50, 265, 269, 271, 671, 680, 689, 729. In February 1990, when he made those comments, he also wrote: "You seek to destroy your own 'individuality' in the attainment of 'unity' with G-d. I apologize for being rude, but I find this attitude very similar to that of the man with one talent in the parable! I am quite happy to have my 'A-frequency' [a reference to his application of Todeschini's and my account of character-types] structures 'rubbished', but hope that such 'alpha-frequency' ones that I have experienced will have attained some quasi-permanence on the cosmic 'video'. This is why I repudiate Macbeth's complete rejection of life, and accept in sæcula sæculorum. Amen - always with the acceptance of the circumstance that I may lose hope, and with it, faith. Only in such a case would I be content to be devoured by the 'Eagle' [a reference to the teachings of Carlos Castaneda], or digested by 'Anubis'."
His letter from 33 The Towers, Lower Mortlake Rd, Richmond, Surrey TW9 2JR, dated 18 February 1990, reads:
"Dear Colin,
I can't claim really to have read Lonergan; his neo-scholastic style and vocabulary was a bit too much for me. Also, his physics is still 'classical' inasmuch as it is 'pre-Chaotic'; so is his mathematics, by my criteria.
Surely all words are 'symbols', in so far as they are 'names'? Their utterer 'throws them together' with their 'significants', in the hope and belief that they will generate a 'morphic resonance' - probably at superluminal 'frequencies' in their hearer or reader.
A WORD, or 'verbal sign', symbolizes a vocal utterance, which in turn may or may not (as in the case of VORPAL) be a symbol. In Hieroglyphic and Chinese, it looks rather as if the intermediate vocal step plays little or no part in the process!
On p. 729 of Insight Lonergan appears to 'rubbish' your sign-symbol equation - unless he is 'cocking a snook' at the 'principle of parsimony'.
Best wishes,
J. D."

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