Comments for The Lonergan Institute

Comment on Form as a Cause of Knowing in Aquinas and Lonergan by Conrad DiDiodato

Conrad DiDiodato — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 15:50:08 +0000

I encountered this passage in the writings of a spiritual poet: "Theological poetry [Eternal Form is the highest form of poetry]…is to postulate the species in the Image". Can anyone give me a reference to Aquinas in which "the species in the Image" phrase appears in any sense approximating that of the spiritual poet?
Thank you!

Comment on Form as a Cause of Knowing in Aquinas and Lonergan by Beth Toft

Beth Toft — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:15:14 +0000

Fr. Robidoux,
I found this a very helpful analysis of Aristotle and Aquinas on form, and I would like to use it in my book on Aquinas. Have you published this piece anywhere else, or shall I quote from the online version?
Beth Toft (Fred Lawrence was my dissertation director — the book is a revision of the dissertation)

Comment on Foundations of Philosophy by Brian Cronin by J Aultman-Moore

J Aultman-Moore — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:37:54 +0000

This book by Professor Cronin has been so helpful to me! Thank you for putting it online. Cronin's book gives me some hope of teaching Lonergan to my own classes. It is very accessible and yet substantive. He explains the fundamentals of Lonergan's position very clearly. Thank you!

Comment on When does the human person begin to exist? Part 6: The human person as developing by admin

admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:18:50 +0000

Mr. Rafferty,

Not sure why you think the question is not answered. It was answered in stages, and definitively with the last blog of that series. As for your question, I would say that it would be good to transpose flesh and body into explanatory terms and relations (intelligible forms), and then identify the same for what is meant by soul and person. In light of that, and the realization that all levels of the universe come together within the human person, and that the human person fundamentally is one central unity, identity, whole…a start to the answer might look like this, beginning with the highest operations and then ending with the lowest. Notice as well, that each higher sublates each lower, and the higher are not reducible to the lower:

Will, decision (with moral habits)
Reason, Judgement (with attunement to reality, being, truth)
Intelligence, Understanding (with attunement to intelligibility, form)
Images, senses, experience
organic operations, especially neurological systems
Biochemical, molecular operations, forms
Sub-atomic particles, forms
sub-sub-atomic particles (quarks, etc.)

Every higher level adds an informing principle to the lower levels, with the highest being the form of the whole. So, the rational principles inform the body, and are not reducible to the body or the flesh. The human soul then, as the unity of the whole, being seated in the rational principles, is comprised of all these levels. However, there is another element of composition as well, and that is the capacity of the human person to develop, to move from potency into act. And this developmental capacity allows for the formation of perfections of understanding, judgment, and decision, and each perfection then perfects all the lower levels with it. So, when my mind has grown in understanding, my neurons and my body are more informed by that growth in understanding. When my will has reach higher perfections of acts of will, and more and better habits, then my entire body and flesh have become integrated into these higher forms.

This is one way for talking as St. Thomas does, about how the rational soul informs the body.

Comment on When does the human person begin to exist? Part 6: The human person as developing by philip rafferty

philip rafferty — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:12:48 +0000

what kind of nonsense is this : you pose a question, and then you don't even so much as begin an attempt to answer it?
here's a question for you: is the human person ( say you or me ) reducible to the composition or unity of his flesh or body and his particular human soul, or rather, is a human person something that possesses such a composition-but can no more be defined by such a composition than can he be difined by his hands, o by hisr legs, or his mind, etc.

Comment on Welcome by Shigekazu YANAGIMACHI

Shigekazu YANAGIMACHI — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:30:50 +0000

Dunstan, could you give me the programme of the Seoul Lonergan meetings?

Comment on Foundations of Philosophy by Brian Cronin by David Fleischacker

David Fleischacker — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:09:26 +0000

Just put them back up. I had worked on them about a week ago. Now they are up. David Fleischacker

Comment on Foundations of Philosophy by Brian Cronin by patrick sheedy

patrick sheedy — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:44:44 +0000

I'm wondering about Brian Cronin's book – Foundations of Philosophy. Will it ever be returned to its former online status?..Please respond

Pat Sheedy, JD, Ph.D
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

Comment on Welcome by josephpferraramd

josephpferraramd — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:58:17 +0000

One’s understanding of some objects may be conditioned by the empirical residue but in some sense it at times may not be. Take for example some spontaneous variation such as an acquired pigment. It at once is a spontaneous variation nothing more. But if it succeeds as a more permanent modification it at once is a modification and as that modification proceeds to participate in an environmental co-adaptation it is at once understood to be an adaptation. Hence there are three successive objectivizations of the very same ‘anatomical, molecular, histological configuration’, namely, the acquired pigment. But the terms variation, modification, and adaptation have different definitions, and since definition denotes the essence, an essential change has taken place despite no change in the ‘anatomical, molecular, histological configuration’ of the variation. So essence is in that sense disconnected from ‘collocations of atoms and molecules’. For what it’s worth.

Joe Ferrara, M.D.

Comment on Embryonic Stem Cells, Adult Stem Cells, and Medical Treatments by josephpferraramd

josephpferraramd — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:42:45 +0000

Dear Dave,

Natural selection hasn’t taken place on the embryonic stem cells yet. That must take the physiological equivalent of prolonged periods of geologic time. Adult stem cells on the other hand may be viewed as having been selected for the purpose of being adult stem cells. They perhaps have been, paradoxically enough, differentiated into stem cells. In other words the potentiation to perform a variety of tasks may have been programmed into it by means of natural selection and is actually of a much more highly complex nature than that of the embryonic stem cell. What if adult stem cells are not just embryonic stem cells hanging around with their hands in their pockets but actually have been produced from the more differentiated forms.You have really hit upon something.Thanks for the intriguing approach.

Joe Ferrara M.D.