Critical Realism

David Brooks' Advice to Obama

2010-01-30T07:26:00.000-06:00

David Brooks a critical realist? - I think CRists are by nature "permanent outsiders":

"You need to detach yourself from Washington’s ping-pong match of ideological overreach — as each party interprets victory as a mandate to grab everything.

You made a good start in the State of the Union address, I would tell him. In that speech, you began to reclaim the mantle of the permanent outsider."

Mark 7:1-23 and the Eschatological Decentralization of Israel

2010-01-12T01:30:00.001-06:00

I recently had a paper proposal accepted for the Mark study group at this year's Stone-Campbell Journal conference (April 2010). There is no explicit CR argument involved in this paper, though CR certainly is assumed in the project. The paper will be the core of chapter of my dissertation through the London School of Theology. Here is the abstract:

Purity and the Eschatological Decentralization of Israel in Mark 7:1-23

This study employs a speech act theory based methodology to argue that the purity controversy of Mark 7:1-23 is best understood when viewed as contributing to Mark’s larger decentralizing project. The linguistic model foregrounds the role of language in the shaping of community and brings to light the way in which Mark’s gospel seeks to shape covenant communities within the ideological context of 1st Century apocalyptic Judaism, a context defined by its expectation of the imminent climax of Israel’s history. Mark’s Jesus is portrayed as ushering in that climax and as having authority to decentralize Israel by removing the status-function of several centralizing factors- namely Jerusalem, the Temple and a number of related persons and practices, such as those at stake in Mark 7:1-23 (ritual washing of hands, the practice of “Corban” and eating unclean foods). The passage has ramifications for the whole system of graded holiness centered on the Temple and seeks to shape how early Christian communities lived out the notion of holiness in light of God’s eschatological decentralization of Israel.

Reply to Adam's Reply to "Ideologues and Critical Realists"

2010-01-08T15:14:00.001-06:00

Thanks Adam for your reply. First I would like to just say a word about the main point of the post and then define what I mean by Critical Realism. The main point I was making was to distinguish Obama's decision making process from the previous administration. It's not of course that GW did not go through a critical decision making process, it's just that he tended to defer to ideology (at least in my opinion) much more readily and with less epistemological angst.

The decision to go to war in Iraq is what I'm thinking of mainly here.

As far as I can tell there are at least three schools in different disciplines that call themselves Critical Realists.

1. Aurthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne are scientists and interested in the question of religion. 2. Bernard Lonergan was a Catholic philosopher and theologian (he wrote Insight and Method in Theology). His work has had an impact (albeit limited) in biblical studies (Ben F. Meyer, N.T. Wright, and Rikk Watts specifically). and finally 3. Roy Bhaskar and friends which I believe focus on social science, politics, ethics...? (you should correct me here). I believe Alistair McGrath has explored the connections between some of these distinct schools.

Lonergan (along with Meyer, Wright and Watts as well) is the one who has influenced me (my own work is in biblical studies- pursuing a PhD in NT). I know very little about Roy Bhaskar.

The various forms of CR have family resemblances ("ontological realism, epistemological relativism and judgmental rationality" as you put it). Specifically, Lonergan has an understanding of human consciousness engaged in the drive to know as having four levels- From an earlier post on this blog:

The four levels of consciousness consist of relative operations each building on the previous, (1) experiencing leads to (2) inquiry and understanding by which intelligible answers are formed to questions arising from the first level. (3) Judging the veracity of the answers follows and finally (4) deciding a course of action in accord with what has been judged true is the final level of consciousness. The levels of consciousness are a dynamic unity, given as a whole.

Calling Obama a critical realist has more to do with seeing this process in action than anything else. What characterizes CR for me here is that one can have several construals or insights for the same set of data- answers for the questions that arise on the second level. With Obama and the war, these construals include "scenarios" - construals of the reality "on the ground" and projections of how things will play out given distinct courses of action. Ideology provides construals which may run rough shod over evidence, (e.g. U.S. style democracy will make people more free no matter where/how or at what cost it is implemented) but a critical realist is adamant about moving beyond to judgment (attention to cultural specificity socio-historical realities). There is a lot that is given- Obama did in fact inherit the war(s)- but now he has taken ownership of Afghanistan and has argued that there are times when war is justified- he's a moral realist but I think is aware of his position (a discussion of this is really not possible here). He's also a realist in the colloquial sense of the word.

What I appreciate about your comments (which to a certain extent are beyond me with respect to vocabulary and concepts) is that it points beyond the intellectual sphere of inquiry to that of normative ethics- something inherent in CR. Critical realism (in Lonergan's terminology) includes both the drive to know and the drive to the good- which are parallel and closely related (the step of deciding a course of action - level 4 is obviously inherently an ethical one). You say,

Critical theory *must* be willing to analyze the violence inherent in its own categories and scrutinize the effects of such categories. If Obama is a critical realist, how I ask, might he be reproducing, and not transforming (a key purpose of critical realism), oppressive structures of physical and cultural violence?

Lonergan's theory involves laying bare horizons- making explicit assumptions that become embedded in ideology and allows for, even seeks the transformation of horizon and conversion (intellectual and moral).

I'm not sure that Obama isn't to some extent transforming categories (his use of language in contrast to Bush era rhetoric) but ultimately I don't think any sitting U.S. president can truly be a critical realist.

Response to "Ideologues and Critical Realists"

2010-01-08T00:59:00.002-06:00

Adam from http://www.nothingfromnothing.net/
has some insightful comments about my previous note on Obama as Critical Realist. I quote his response in full and will make some clarifications and respond in a little bit of detail soon.

Dear Thomas,

I’m reluctant to agree with your assessment on how we might draw a direct line from Obama’s judgmental rationality underpinning his Afghanistan foreign policy to that of a distinctive critical realist position. I worry that your insinuation of the core features of critical realism allows you to draw a weak parallel between your Obama example and CR–a move that both effectively relativizes CR and voids it of it’s definitive ethico-political affinity with emancipation.

For instance, in your attribution of Obama as an embodied exemplar of critical realist discourse, you wrote:

“while critical realists approach each issue with a drive to know- a need for information and a laborious process of weighing options, construing insights and ultimately making judgments”

Apart from an emphasis on the obvious ontological realism, CR places emphasis on a) epistemic relativism and b) judgmental rationality. On the latter two, I am able to see and understand your attempt at reading Obama through critical realism, or vice versa. To fairly restate your point we might say that: Obama was sifting through various discourses (epistemic relativism) and ended up making a decision based on some sort of criteria (judgmental rationality).

However, could we not argue that Thomas Hobbes, for instance, would also be a critical realist based on this limited (or expansive?) criteria due to his emphasis on rational calculative decisions that were derived from book-keeping as the model for rationality in general? Or similarly, would my nephew be a critical realist because he opened the breakfast cupboard and when faced with the laborious process of weighing his options (flakes or krispies!?) he made a discrimination after considering the range of options available to him?

On this metric, wouldn’t *everyone* who engages in social action guided through modes of knowledge and calculative intent be considered a critical realist? In what sense was Obama’s realization or the other examples I’ve provided “critical” in any way, not least that it would reflect the defining features of critical realism?

I think this is the cornerstone of CR and our issue at hand. As I’m sure you are aware, CR relies on transcendental arguments and would analyze historical practices (including present history) in ways that facilitate emancipation. Critical realists, Bhaskar argues, have a moral obligation to change practices and relations that presuppose false theories and discourses. To this end, human flourishing is the bedrock of any generalized conception of emancipation. Other values that we could include in the CR move to emancipation based on truth-claims that come to mind include virtue, ecological care, species-being, becoming, democracy, good, and so on.

In any case, for CRists, truth-claims have to be in accordance with ontology–there has to be some reality to speak about. I’m not entirely sure how, when directing a policy of war, we can actually say that Obama is advancing a project of emancipation. Wouldn’t ontology matter? What is happening on the ground in Afghanistan, or Pakistan for that matter? Would not a critical theorist, bound by social ontology and an ethico-normative political commitment to emancipation resist violence and suffering?

Critical theory *must* be willing to analyze the violence inherent in its own categories and scrutinize the effects of such categories. If Obama is a critical realist, how I ask, might he be reproducing, and not transforming (a key purpose of critical realism), oppressive structures of physical and cultural violence? On these terms, we would see that Obama comes out looking something much more like Hobbes’ theory of the Leviathan than his resembling of a Critical Realist.

From one (sometimes) critical realist to another, I hope you might revisit the ethico-political and normative dimensions of the critical realist position—that which makes critical realism, critical realism, and not, as Bhaskar once said about the naturalizing and normalizing tendencies inherent in positivism, the house-philosophy of the bourgeoisie.

Ideologues vs. Critical Realists: Obama as Critical Realist in his Treatment of The War in Afghanistan

2009-12-20T01:26:00.006-06:00

Ideologues defer to ideology for some reason or another (intellectual laziness or political convenience?) while critical realists approach each issue with a drive to know- a need for information and a laborious process of weighing options, construing insights and ultimately making judgments.

Barack Obama is a critical realist (not his words but my assessment). I say this after observing his treatment of the war in Afghanistan. He was criticized for taking too much time in deciding what his approach to Afghanistan would be, though he defended himself by pointing out that his delaying a decision did not delay action on the ground.

As he laid out the plan for more troops in Afghanistan, he made public the process of his reasoning. This is something that he has done throughout his campaign and presidency- revealed his process of weighing options and ultimately deciding on a course of action. The New York Times describes his decision making process in the case of Afghanistan:

The three-month review that led to the escalate-then-exit strategy is a case study in decision making in the Obama White House — intense, methodical, rigorous, earnest and at times deeply frustrating for nearly all involved. It was a virtual seminar in Afghanistan and Pakistan, led by a president described by one participant as something “between a college professor and a gentle cross-examiner.”

Mr. Obama peppered advisers with questions and showed an insatiable demand for information, taxing analysts who prepared three dozen intelligence reports for him and Pentagon staff members who churned out thousands of pages of documents...

Aides...said the arduous review gave Mr. Obama comfort that he had found the best course he could. “The process was exhaustive, but any time you get the president of the United States to devote 25 hours, anytime you get that kind of commitment, you know it was serious business,” said Gen. James L. Jones, the president’s national security adviser. “From the very first meeting, everyone started with set opinions. And no opinion was the same by the end of the process.”

Read the full article here: How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan

Rikk Watts and Critical Realism: Reading Genesis 1

2009-12-07T12:06:00.004-06:00

Rikk Watts' article "Making Sense of Genesis 1" for the American Scientific Affliation is a great example of critical realist biblical interpretation in the strain following Bernard Lonergan. He gives a great summary of Michael Polanyi's notion of tacit knowledge (a notion closely related to Lonergan's horizon) and Bernard Lonergan's understanding of the process of coming to know (moving from questions to insight and finally to judgment). He says,

"Michael Polanyi reminded us that taking a great many things on trust is the essential first step to knowledge, even and perhaps especially in that highest and holiest of all modern callings, science. All of us, Christians and scientists together, simply have to take a great deal on trust, to assume much, if we are ever to get started on the path to knowing. The saying is sure, without assuming something no one shall know anything. But having said that, it is important regularly to reassess those assumptions in the light of our growing knowledge and in doing so to recognize that truth in this kind of historical and literary endeavour is much more a matter of coherence than of certainty. Bernard Lonergan rightly understood that the first step in knowing was to pay attention to all of the data, then to apply our intelligence in seeking to understand, and finally to use our reason to judge between hypotheses."

The article itself is a great example of that process in action. Check it out by following the link above.

Sotomayor and Interpretation: an Interesting Article

2009-07-16T15:10:00.002-05:00

Check out these interesting reflections on hermeneutics and the interpretation of the constitution (something I reflected on in my previous post).

The article is by Ernesto Tinajero for Sojourners.

Interpretation, Heremeneutics and Judge Sotomayor.

Originalism vs. the Living Constitution debate... (a case study for CR?)

2009-06-23T16:17:00.003-05:00

(Follow the link above for a story on constitutional interpretation)

I haven't developed these thoughts to any extent- but there is an interesting parallel between debates surrounding the interpretation of the U.S. constitution and those surrounding the issues of interpreting any text generally (including Scripture).

The view of originalism is that the constitution should be interpreted according to what it meant to the founders and is the typical conservative view of interpretation.

The "living constituion" view is less well defined and seems to want to account for the need for the constitution to have relevance in different historical/cultural realities than those in which it was written. There is a spectrum of course, but this view tends to be the progressive approach to the constitution.

It seems that Critical Realism (as I understand it following Lonergan, Meyer, Wright etc.) has something to offer in such a debate. Neither can the text's meaning within it's original horizon be neglected, nor can the fact that historical and social realitites are constantly in flux be disregarded in interpretation. If interpretation is truly a fusion of horizons (in Lonergan's understanding, not Gadamer's) then both the original meaning of the text and the needs of present historical reality need to be respected in the interpretive event.

A Brief Note: Philosophical Horizons and Late Western Interpreters

2009-06-04T00:24:00.002-05:00

This is a brief note- reflection on some of what I've drawn from Lonergan/Meyer (see previous posts) on making explicit philosophical horizons, which are implicitly passed on through interpretive practices and by the language used in interpretive contexts.

Philosophical categories often structure interpretation under the table- so to speak, without the awareness of interpreters/readers. These categories are embedded in the very language used in order to make clear or elucidate meaning.

Making philosophical horizons explicit will often show the true root of disagreement between groups that come to a debate with implicit assumptions that are incompatible. Dialectic, for Lonergan, is the process of laying bare those assumptions.

As a late-modern (or late western- i.e. neither modern nor post-modern) interpreter I've inherited certain categories that structure interpretation:

1. The individual as the primary category of human existence.

2. Newtonian causality (one object bumps another setting off a chain of events) - even though no longer dominant in physics, the underlying notion is tacitly held by many of us in our approach to everyday events of causality, including textual ones.

3. Spirit/body dualism (this is a classic Platonic distinction which held sway in various ways and times throughout interpretive history)

4. A parallel theological/material distinction which leaves things like economics and social reality out of interpretation in theological texts.

All of these things I would call tendencies- categorizations that I have inherited but which I can subvert as long as I make them explicit. It is not that all of these categorizations are wrong, bad or untrue- though at times I feel that they can be misleading (especially when interpreting biblical texts). The point is that if I am not at least aware of these tendencies in interpreting I will be far more likely to allow these assumptions to dominate.

Critical realism is about a posture of humility towards the world and an honest assessment of one's capability to know along with a commitment to the drive to knowledge.

More to come.

Critical Realism... coming back soon

2009-06-01T00:16:00.002-05:00

Hello to all the scattered critical realists of the earth:

I am hoping to resurrect this blog, which really served in the past as a way of working through the issues that CR (in the stream following Lonergan) raised for my own approach to the New Testament. I am a PhD student at the London School of Theology (though living in Minneapolis, MN, USA) working in Mark's gospel with speech act theory in a CR framework.

My PhD thesis is entitled "Liberating Ecclesiology in Mark's Gospel" and will focus on Mark 11:1-13:2 and draws alot from the work of John R. Searle and Quentin Skinner and their work in speech act theory and adaptation of it for doing interpretation across historically distant contexts.

I plan on beginning to reflect on the issues related to CR that I come upon in my studies on this blog. In the meantime, there are several posts (a couple years old admittedly) that describe my own understanding on Critical Realism in the Lonergan, Meyer, Wright line of thought and its relation to biblical studies. You may or may not find them interesting (and even convincing?).... I'll leave that judgment up to you.

Peace.

Tom A.

Why I'm a Critically Real Christian Part II: the Salvation of the Individual

2006-09-06T19:05:00.000-05:00

Speaking about my own experience with my tradition in conflict with Scripture means looking both at how I have been formed and the world in which the Bible, (especially for Christians the New Testament), was written.

My Tradition: Salvation by Faith and the Individual

The Protestant tradition looks to the reformation, Luther etc. as a climactic moment in returning the the truth of Scripture as obscured by the Catholic tradition. The debate with the Catholic church over authority and certain practices (such as selling indulgences) formed Luther and Calvin's thought in a certain way. Salvation by faith was a key element of their teaching over and against the earning of salvation by purchasing indulgences and doing penance. This was a positive development, but what happened was that certain insights were hardened into dogmas that when removed from the original debate over specific practices and teachings lead to the opposite exremes. Salvation by faith becomes a rule or law which is hardened in the tradition and it obscures other important elements of what Jesus taught. I'll come back to that after another element of my own tradition.

For westerners (generally people living in Europe and U.S. and Canada) the individual has a heightened importance. The individual person is more important (in the way we think and act) than the family or community. There are lots of reasons for this from philosophy to industrialization, the point is, because of this, when we read the Bible we are naturally disposed to favor individualistic readings over ones concerning the community.

The New Testament

The New Testament, when read within my tradition, is often interpreted primarily with regards to the salvation (by faith) of the individual. The strength of the tradition, and the power that it has over interpretation ensures that other readings seem strange and are usually discarded without being given a chance. Readings that answer the question "how is the individual saved?" are given priority. The definition of "being saved" is usually, the guarantee that the spirit of the individual (as opposed to the body) will join God in heaven after death.

Although the subject matter of the New Testament does deal with the salvation of individuals, this happens within the context of the salvation and restoration of Israel. Often times, we ask questions of Scripture that the texts are not answering. Reading texts in light of salvation by faith make it difficult to understand New Testament texts calling for God's people to obediently work out their salvation. The book of James, for instance, with its demand that the people of God be obedient to the "perfect law that gives freedom", was useless to Luther in his polemic against Catholic practices, and has not been as important in my tradition as texts that speak of salvation as the free gift of God. When taken out of the context of polemical debate, the book of James as well as the letters of Paul can be seen as complementary, although different expressions of Christian faith seeking to answer different questions. That is why when interpreting we need to be disciplined about seeking which questions a text is asking.

Another example of our tradition harming interpretation is when texts are read only in light of the salvation of the individual. The prophetic tradition (Isaiah, Ezekiel and so forth) looked forward not just to a day when the individuals of the world would be saved. Rather, they thought in terms of the promises of the covenant God to Israel. They thought in terms of the fate of the nation, and God's purpose for Israel. Jesus and the New Testament stand firmly within that tradition, although through them the tradition is radically transformed. The point is that highly individual readings obscure the communal element of what the New Testament teaches.

An example of this is that texts such as Romans 9 which deals with the questions concerning Israel's fate in light of what happened in Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Paul claims that God's promises to Israel have not failed and that his purpose in electing Israel will continue through the redefined people of God in Christ. It is those very passages that are often used to discuss the election of specific individuals, some for heaven, others for hell. The problem, to me, is that the tradition obscures the meaning of the text by asking the question, "how is the individual saved?"

How do we, in response, improve interpretation? First of all we need to acknowledge that our tradition has had much to do in forming the way we read the Bible. There is nothing wrong with this fact, unless we allow premade theological answers to replace interpretation. If we do that, then we take away the ability of Scripture itself, hardening our hearts to ways that the Spirit may be seeking to transform us through it.

Secondly, we need to let the New Testament determine the questions it is answering. To do this we need to understand something of the historical context within which it was written, compare it to other writings of the time period, pay attention to matters of genre and be aware of how our own tradition might obscure the intention of the authors in question.

Why I'm a Critically Real Christian Part I

2006-09-06T18:58:00.000-05:00

If being a Christian meant to simply inherit the Christian faith of the people before me and to uncritically hold to it, then it is nothing more than just a cultural element passed on like language, food, customs etc. I think that most of the time, in American church, because of the way things are set up, the masses of people have no way of knowing why they believe the things they are being taught.

The very hope of Christian faith, to me, is that God's Word can address us- break in to the present and transform us. Our relationship to our tradition is so important because the tendency in any tradition is for beliefs to solidify and harden into repeatable phrases, dogmas that lose their power to transform when separated from the real presence of the Spirit and the hope and expectation that God himself might be addressing us.

The problem when the Bible's meaning is presented by one person in a pastor/congregation model, is that the people become disempowered in terms of coming to the Bible's texts and actually coming to a better understanding of its meaning.

We have a big problem because we are inheriting a tradition and we are not even aware that there is a whole history behind us that affects how we think, our way of living and how we perceive ourselves in the world. My own tradition as a Western Protestant Christian is one that goes back from Scripture to the Church fathers, has been profoundly influenced by philosophy (from Plato to Descartes and beyond), the reformation, Luther and Calvin, the Enlightenment etc. As a white American I've been formed by the history of America, from Deism to slavery, from racial inequality and white flight to American individualism and consumerism.

Being critically real means first of all to acknowledge the fact that we have a history and a tradition. All of these things have formed us and our thinking in ways we might not even be aware of.

Beyond all of that, as an American evangelical, the way I was taught to read Scripture was formed by a tradition and handed on to me. The problem I have had, though is that the way I was taught to read the Bible and the actual subject matter of what I was reading came into a sharp tension. The tension has been formulated into a question which drives forward for an answer- and that is why I'm a critical realist. If I wanted to hold on to the way I was given Scripture, I would have to dismiss the question; however, if I follow the question, I need a method to guide me.

The general shape of critical realism as a method for understanding ourselves and our world is as follows: things are never what they seem. Appearances are always related to reality but never fully reveal it. Because of that, we need to be critical in the way we seek to know the world as it is presented to us. When it comes down to it, on a certain level we are all critical realists- for example, when watching a movie we interact with it on two levels- 1. As a story- we put on our blinders so to speak and enjoy it through a kind of chosen naivete. 2. We recognize that the reality of the movie is not the pictures flashing across the screen or the story told, but the whole system and industry surrounding it, from production (actors, stunt men, special effects) to advertising, and consumption.

If we are not critical, the reality behind the appearances will stay hidden.

When it comes to Christian faith and Scripture, it is necessary on a certain level to come to God as children- with a simple faith. At the same time we need to be critical in the way we appropriate what the tradition has given us. Otherwise we might get stuck in ways of living, acting and thinking which obscure true Christian faith and have now way of moving beyond what we have been given, and being transformed.

Often, when a question arises, we default to pregiven answers handed down to us by the tradition. A critical realist can not do that because he or she is compelled to seek an answer, which is relevant to the question being formed. If you do not follow the drive to know to the point where the question you want answered, even the question itself will come out of the tradition instead of from the process of seeking knowledge. It is not bad that the tradition gives us questions and answer, It becomes a problem when you get stuck in a circle of questions and answers which never change, and the faith that has been passed on to us is unable to be challenged and transformed even by the Scriptures themselves.

None of this makes sense unless we move on to understand it through concrete examples.

to be continued...

Lonergan's Breakthrough and Ben Meyer's Aims of Jesus

2006-06-05T14:14:00.000-05:00

Ben F. Meyer: Critical Realism and the Aims of Jesus

Ben F. Meyer’s historical work on the life of Jesus came together in his book The Aims of Jesus. In addition much reflection concerning critical realism and New Testament studies (based mainly on Lonergan’s philosophy) has gone in to Meyer’s Critical Realism & the New Testament and Reality and Illusion in New Testament Scholarship. For Meyer, Lonergan’s work (following on Collingwood) established history as an autonomous field of knowledge free from intrusion by foreign ideologies (the perennial problem of historical Jesus research). Firm in this conviction, Meyer was free to reject “the Enlightenment conception of history as a closed continuum” as well as methodical skepticism. (Critical Realism and the New Testament 150). The gospel traditions were for him potential sources of rich historical data.

Lonergan’s work (as noted above) showed the myth underlying the conflicting epistemologies of naVve realism, empiricism and idealism. Namely, that they share the fallacy “that knowing is like seeing, that knowing the real is, or would be, akin to seeing it” (150). This allows for a critically real investigation into historical acts of meaning.

Lonergan understood world-process as “emergent probability” over and against the cosmologies of both the classical and modern era. Tracing classical cosmologies to Aristotle and modern ones to Galileo, Meyer notes that Lonergan’s emergent probability accounts for the functioning of scientific laws, changing their status from necessity to verifiable probability. Meyer concludes that “Emergent probability thus spelled an end to the cult of necessity characteristic of modern as well as Greek cosmology” and sees the “closed universe” thesis as its last gasp (150). Thus Meyer was freed from the presupposition of naturalism so common in historical Jesus scholarship.

Finally Lonergan’s Insight provided an account of common sense knowledge of which historical knowledge is a specialization. Meyer refers to Insight as the basis and Method in Theology’s treatment of the functional specialty history as the fully developed account of history-as-knowledge. All of this together affirmed the autonomy of history as a distinct field, free from ideological a priori declarations of what may or may not be historical. Thus, for Meyer, the question of the historicity of Jesus’ miracles for instance are open, a controversial assertion to be sure.

Lonergan's Cognitional Theory and Historical Method

2006-03-17T15:26:00.001-06:00

Lonergan’s theory of history depends on an important distinction between the world of immediacy (the available sense world) and the world of meaning. The world of meaning is made up of the cultural matrix, the common held meanings of a group of people, and within that the meaning of individual speech and action. Lonergan says,

“Meaning, then, is a constitutive element in the conscious flow that is the normally controlling side of human action. It is this constitutive role of meaning in the controlling side of human action that grounds the peculiarity of the historical field of investigation” (178).

Lonergan shows that naive realism, empiricism and idealism share a basic supposition about knowledge: that knowing is like seeing. This myth of knowledge as seeing overlooks the distinction between the world of immediacy and that of meaning. The naive realist believes he knows the world of meaning in a way analogous to seeing (reading the meaning of a text straight off the page), while the empiricist limits knowledge to that which can be experienced by the senses. The idealist understands that knowledge is meaningful, but denies that it refers to reality (it is only ideal). Lonergan, over and against all, reveals the source of their disagreement: their shared myth of knowledge as seeing, and posits critical realism. The critical realist understands that the real world is that which is mediated by meaning. He says, “the reality known is not just looked at; it is given in experience, organized and extrapolated by understanding, posited by judgment and belief” [Please note the four levels of consciousness at work. Method 238.]

It is from this point that historical inquiry can begin, concerned with understanding human acts of meaning through a process in line with the operations of human knowing and proceeding through a process of hypothesis verification. Lonergan refers to British philosopher R.G. Collingwood’s well known work, The Idea of History. According to Collingwood the goal of historical inquiry was to come to understand the “inside of the event” in terms of the human intentionality of the actors involved. This accords with Lonergan’s epistemological breakthrough.

Lonergan's Cognitional Theory: The Structure of Human Inquiry

2006-03-05T17:48:00.000-06:00

Everything Bernard Lonergan does is based on and refers back to his cognitional theory. He argues that by attentiveness to the knowing subject (one's self), the structure of inquiry can be perceived, understood and then judged.

The drive to know and the structure it follows are common to all. All human knowing operates on four levels, all of which are conscious (aware) and intentional (having an outward object). They are the empirical, intellectual, rational and responsible levels of consciousness [The following discussion of the levels of consciousness can be found in Method in Theology, 9]. At the empirical level of consciousness the knowing subject is sensing, perceiving, imagining, feeling, speaking and moving. At the intellectual level it is inquiring, coming to understand, expressing the understanding and working out the presuppositions and implications of the expression formulated. At the rational level the knower is passing judgment on the truth or falsity of a statement after weighing the evidence and deciding if the conditions of its truth have been fulfilled. The final level is the responsible level in which the subject makes decisions concerning possible actions, evaluating and deciding the meaning of those actions in light of greater goals and aims.

The four levels of consciousness consist of relative operations each building on the previous, (1) experiencing leads to (2) inquiry and understanding by which intelligible answers are formed to questions arising from the first level. (3) Judging the veracity of the answers follows and finally (4) deciding a course of action in accord with what has been judged true is the final level of consciousness. The levels of consciousness are a dynamic unity, given as a whole.

Lonergan notes that “one and the same operation not only intends an object but also reveals an intending subject” (15). By attentiveness and awareness to one’s knowing, the knower can, in accordance with the very structure she is aware of, decide to “operate in accord with the norms immanent in the spontaneous relatedness of one’s experienced, understood, affirmed experiencing, understanding, judging, and deciding” (15).

This coming to acknowledge the structure of knowing, and then deciding to act in accordance with it is what Lonergan calls self-appropriation.

Critical Realism and Justice continued

2006-02-17T19:43:00.000-06:00

Follow the link to read some more on CR and Justice...

http://criticalrealism.blogspot.com/2006/02/critical-realism-and-justice.html

Tom

Bibliography for CR and the Bible

2006-02-10T17:18:00.000-06:00

When I talk about Critical Realism, I am referring to the work of Bernard Lonergan, Ben F. Meyer, and N.T. Wright. Here are some of their writings:

Lonergan, Bernard J. F. Method in Theology. Minneapolis : Seabury Pr, 1979.

In Method in Theology Lonergan lays out his proposed method for constructive, collaborative theological work based on his cognitional theory and critical realist epistemology which is laid out in his earlier work Insight: A Study of Human Understanding.

Meyer, Ben F. Reality and Illusion in New Testament Scholarship: A Primer in Critical Realist Hermeneutics. Collegeville, Minn : Liturgical Pr, 1994.

Meyer utilizes the thought of Lonergan and applies it specifically to New Testament scholarship. This book is a good introduction to Lonergan's thought as well as a good study of its implications for biblical study. Many of the ideas in Critical Realism and the New Testament are brought together in this book.

Meyer, Ben F. Critical Realism and the New Testament. Allison Park, Pa : Pickwick Pubns, 1989.

This book is a collection of essays and articles written by Meyer especially concerned with applying Lonergan's thought to New Testament studies.

Meyer, Ben F. The Aims of Jesus. [S.l.] : SCM Pr, 1979.

Ben Meyer's study of the historical Jesus. Many of Lonergan's insights have specific applications for Meyer. Meyer lays out many of the significant philosophical issues and shows how critical realism lays bare many unfounded enlightenment biases which have had a profound impact on historical Jesus studies. Critical realism provides a philosophical framework for his study of Jesus, whose principal aim according to Meyer was to gather the eschatological people of God.

Wright, N. T. The New Testament and the People of God. Minneapolis : Augsburg Fortress, 1989.

Wright's first volume in his series, Christian Origins and the Question of God. This work is devoted to Wright's methodology. Wright is strongly influenced by Meyer (and in turn Lonergan) although his critical realism is highly original. Wright posits critical realism over and against positivistic and phenomenalist epistemologies. His method utilizes 'story' (and metanarrative) as a fundamental category of knowing and proceeds as a combination of historical, literary and theological study of the New Testament.

Another Critical Realist approach (not influenced by Lonergan):
Vanhoozer, Kevin. Is There a Meaning in This Text? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Evangelicals and Scripture

2006-02-09T17:41:00.000-06:00

The irony is this: a high regard for Scripture as the "Word of God" on the one hand and a low regard for Scripture when it comes to interpretation.

In avoiding the historical question of the Enlightenment (which was asked polemically in ways designed to undermine Scripture as the Word of God), the evangelical church has asserted the authority of Scripture (often in unhealthy ways) without doing the hard work in coming to understanding the historical and cultural context in which it was written.

Lack of serious reflection about how the Bible is Scripture and how it should be used in the life of the Church leaves many clergy without a way of doing satisfactory interpretation. (Tom Wright provides, I think a good way of answering the question "How can the Bible be authoritative?". See his article at http://www.sahs-info.org/articles.html)

This is to say nothing of the laity which is dependant on a poorly trained clergy which is ever tempted to choose which lexical meaning fits the theme of this week's sermon and interpretation turns into mere "projection." On the other hand, theological frameworks lurk beneath positivistic readings- reading the Bible in ways that only confirm what one was taught as if it was the most obvious reading of a text.

The fragmentary and highly subjective readings of Scripture each claim to be the most objective and obvious. The irony is embarassing for many of us remaining in the evangelical fold.

A Way Forward?
I think Critical Realism provides a way forward in asserting the truth of Scripture, first in its context, and only then for us in our context. To say Scripture is a disembodied a-historical truth for all times may seem to be a high statement of the worth of Scripture, but it does not help us interpret Scripture. Furthermore, it implicitly denies that Christianity (and Judaism as well) is a historical religion. The very idea that God is the author of history, creator and redeemer and was revealed in a cultural and historical figure, Jesus Christ, makes it possible that God is still at work within our present cultural and historical context. The importance of the New Testament for Christian faith cannot be underestimated and because of this, understanding its meaning within the context of First-Century Judaism is essential. This is a task almost all Evangelicals, clergy or laity are not trained for.

It is much harder, but is ultimately worth it.

Interpreting Texts (Reading Scripture)

2006-02-05T22:45:00.000-06:00

Most every day readers are either naive realists or phenomenalists. When it comes to the Bible, most evangelicals are a strange mix of the two. To say that the common church people do not know how to read Scripture is true, but it isn't their fault. To me, it comes down to a system that has disempowered people, fostered dependancy on the institutional church and catered to the consumer in the believer.

To say, "It's the word of God, I believe it, and that settles it" is a good example of navie realism- attempting to read straight off of the text. It's nice, but makes the Bible into something it is not. (It is the word of God, but first for its context)

Also, most evangelicals, when in their quiet time read a chapter of Paul for instance, are perfectly at home coming up with a very impressionistic understanding of its meaning, actually projecting a meaning onto the text. A sort of "what this means to me" style of reading.

To say that the book of Romans is God's word through Paul to the Church of Rome, for a specific purpose in the First Century does not diminish its role as Scripture. It does mean that if we want to learn from it, we need to let it be what it is. Only then, can it be a source of inspiration and teaching.

Lonergan on Interpretation

2006-02-04T00:38:00.000-06:00

For naive realists, reading of texts proceeds as if the meaning of the text is to be read straight off of the page without the need for interpretation. This leads to a tremendously impressionistic and naïve readings of texts.

The extreme which characterizes much postmodern thought sees reading a text as pure projection of the reader's horizon onto the text. Over and against this disparity (between naive realism and phenomenalism) Lonergan suggests that the meaning of a text is the intent of the author, in so far as the author successfully expresses it in the text. Gaining access to this is not like seeing (limited to the world of immediacy) but is achieved through a process. The interpreter begins with her own concerns, yet as she interacts with a text, and rereads it, holding off judgment, she can eventually arrive at a grasp of the reader's successfully embodied intent. For Lonergan, being an interpreter is an intensely difficult task which includes not only understanding the words or object of thought, "but of understanding the author himself, his nation, language, time, culture, way of life, and cast of mind" (Method in Theology 160).

Bernard Lonergan's Critical Realism

2006-02-04T00:10:00.000-06:00

Lonergan’s epistemology gives us the resources to understand the shifting horizons of late-modern culture. He gives an account of the history of philosophy that is based on his cognitional theory. Many of our present conflicts have roots in philosophical conflicts that many know little about. Joseph Kroger compares Lonergan and Michael Polanyi showing that both see a basic shift in the notion of reason between classical and modern models and both offer a third notion of reason. For Lonergan this is transcendental method and is based on cognitional theory. His task is reconstructive in light of current philosophical trends. He does not despair in the face of postmodernism, but offers a way forward. He understands the notions of reason at work in classical and modern thought and offers an explanatory account while positing a better notion of reason.

We see Lonergan's approach in his treatment of theories of knowing. Lonergan shows that idealism and empiricism, though they are never able to speak meaningfully to one another, share an underlying notion of reality: that knowing reality is analogous to seeing. This idea of knowledge claims that “objectivity is seeing what is there to be seen and not seeing what is not there, and that the real is what is out there now to be looked at” (Method in Theology 238). In the case of idealism, what is contained in the mind is meaningful, it just in no way refers to the real. Lonergan claims that this overlooks the distinction between the world of immediate sense experience and the world as mediated by meaning (which is the real world). Lonergan's critical realism acknowledges this distinction and seeks to know the world mediated by meaning.

Critical Realism and Justice

2006-02-02T00:03:00.000-06:00

Isaiah, (the critical realist?), describing the righteous judge-

"He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth." (Isaiah 11:3-4).

There seems to me to be an inherent connection between the insight, that knowing is not like seeing, and the prophetic call for justice. Things, in society, are not as they appear- structures that are not seen, are not only real, they are meaningful, determinative and often unjust. There is no way to discern from the surface of things what is really happening, what forces are at work. To really work for justice then, requires an active engagement of the knower with reality.

Naive realism tends to construe issues of justice and poverty as merely matters of personal responsibility. The surface shows available opportunity (of some sort) and personal lack of initiative while not revealing underlying factors such as the lack of competitive education from an early age for certain sectors of society. This is what Isaiah calls to "judge by what [one] sees..."

The cynic despairs, justice is an impossibility- and really has no ultimate ground.

The critical realist recognizes that the drive to know (common to all) has an existential counterpart, the drive to the good. Despite the immense difficulty involved, to deny the drive to the good (justice) is to deny something that is essentially human. Critical realism is by far, the harder road. The naive realist and cynic are equally at home with their ability to maneuver out of responsibility. Neither, however, are satisfied, having suppressed something of what it means to be truly human.

All human longing is tied up with these drives, and to deny them is dangerous.

Things Are Not As They Appear/ Seeing is Not Believing

2006-02-01T23:40:00.000-06:00

"Seeing is believing" does not describe either our seeing or our believing. Seeing (or sensing of any kind) is really the beginning, the call to knowing- we see and we are drawn, called into the unknown. Our drive to know seeks to make the unknown known and make sense of the world- not as available to the senses, but as it is mediated by meaning.

What is Critical Realism?

2006-01-31T22:07:00.000-06:00

Critical Realism is a philosophical position (with many forms within different disciplines) which affirms that reality can be known, but only through a critical process. It gives way neither to thoroughgoing skepticism or naive realism, but affirms the real and our capability to come to a grasp of it.

Skepticism (phenomenalism) denies that what is known refers in some way to reality.

Naive realism claims that knowing is something like seeing, that the real is what is out there now, immediately accessible to the senses.

Critical realism over and against both, understands knowledge to be the result of a process. Reality is neither completely shrouded nor easily accessible. The world we live in is a world mediated by meaning, and knowing it requires an active engagement with it, an attentiveness and a drive to know.