http://lonergan.org/blog For conversations that ascend to the intelligible, the true, and the good. Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:21:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en by Dr. David Fleischacker  Since it is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Humanae Vitae this year, I thought it might be worthwhile to explore one of the key issues linked to this encyclical, that of contraception.  However, before such an issue is addressed, I thought it might be worthwhile ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/07/12/40-years-since-humanae-vitae-lonergan-conception-and-contraception-part-1/ The following thought falls under metaphysical musings.  About 14 years ago, I had written a paper for the late Fr. Stephen Happell dealing with the landscape of consciousness and the different regions and mountains where insights, judgments, and decisions take place within science and the imagination. At least that was the metaphor ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/06/28/mediated-and-immediate-sublations/ I had been visiting the Lonergan workshop in Boston this last week, well really only about 1.5 days of it.  I had to return home for family reasons, however I enjoyed my short visit and the talks I was able to attend. In one of the talks, Karl Rahner's notion of ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/06/23/the-anonymous-christian/ by David Fleischacker In this entry, I will end up repeating some of the same conclusions as in the last two blogs, however, with a slightly different focus, and a basis from which to answer the challenge in the last blog. I would like to refer the reader to chapter 8 in ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/06/14/when-does-the-human-person-begin-to-exist-part-9-the-conclusion/ by David Fleischacker I am hoping now to return to this line of thought again, after a bit of a delay because of a busy semester and a paper and a trip to South Korea. In the last blog, the argument lead up to a possibility. Simply possessing a potentiality for phantasm ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/06/02/when-does-the-human-person-begin-to-exist-part-8-a-challenge-to-the-last-blog/ By David Fleischacker   In the last blog, I had mentioned the final steps in reaching a conclusion.  Ignore that, at least in part.   In this current installment, I have chosen to examine the relationship between the body and the mind in the matured human person. Most of us would hardly argue whether ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/03/02/when-does-the-human-person-begin-to-exist-part-7-the-human-person-as-body-and-mind/ In the former 5 parts of our inquiry, we had explored the meaning of the Thomistic definition of person as a "distinct subsistent in an intellectual nature." A person needs to be distinct from mother or father or brother or sister or friend or enemy. A person is a subsistent, ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/02/23/when-does-the-human-person-begin-to-exist-part-6-the-human-person-as-developing/ By David Fleischacker "In an Intellectual Nature" As we move toward the final installment that will complete the current inquiry that began over a month ago, we now turn to the last terms in the Thomistic definition of person: "In an intellectual/rational nature." St. Thomas identifies three types beings that are intellectual: God, ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/02/10/when-does-the-human-person-begin-to-exist-part-5-in-an-intellectual-nature/ by David Fleischacker In the last installment on January 11th, a question was posed at the end.  "The question then becomes more precisely what is required to grasp intelligently and affirm reasonably the unity of a concrete unity, a subsistent being? Since all insight requires an adequate image or phantasm, what kind ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/01/28/when-does-the-human-person-begin-to-exist-part-4/ By David Fleischacker In part 2, I began to examine the notion of the "subsistent" and noted that one key element in a subsistent is the unity of the reality -- it needs to be a "that" or a "this" not a "those" nor a "these." However, both a relational metaphysics ... http://lonergan.org/blog/2008/01/11/when-does-the-human-person-begin-to-exist-part-3-the-reality-of-the-concrete-unity-identity-whole/