Bernard Lonergan

Bernard Lonergan, S.J. (1904 - 1984) was a Canadian Thomist philosopher, Jesuit theologian, and economist from Buckingham, Quebec who taught at Loyola College (Montreal), the University of Toronto, the Pontifical Gregorian University and Boston College. He is the author of Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957) and Method in Theology (1973), which established what he called Generalized Empirical Method (GEM).

Contents

1 Education 2 Works 3 Philosophy 4 Honours

Education

Entered the Society of Jesus, 1922 B.A. Philosophy, Heythrop College, University of London, 1929 Ordained a Roman Catholic Priest, 1933 Ph.D., Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University, 1940. Dissertation advised by Charles Boyer, S.J., and later published as Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Works

After his return from Rome, Lonergan wrote a series of four articles for Theological Studies on the inner word in Thomas Aquinas which became highly influential in the study of St. Thomas's accounts of knowledge and cognition.

While teaching theology at the University of Toronto, Lonergan wrote Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, inaugurating the generalized empirical method. It belongs to the movement of "transcendental Thomism" inaugurated by Joseph Maréchal, beginning with an analysis of human knowing as divided into three levels -- experience, understanding, and judgment -- and by stressing the objectivity of judgment more than Kant had done issues in a Thomistic vision of Being as the goal of the dynamic openness of the human spirit.

In 1973, Lonergan published Method in Theology, which divides the discipline into eight 'functional specialties'. Method is a phenomenon which applies across the board in all disciplines and realms of consciousness.

In later life while teaching at Boston College, Lonergan returned his attention to the economic interests of his younger days.

For more information, see a complete bibliography of his works or view those now in print.

Philosophy

Lonergan described GEM as critical realism. By realism, he affirmed that we make true judgments of fact and of value, and by critical, he based knowing and valuing in a critique of consciousness. GEM traces to their roots in consciousness the sources of all the meanings and values that make up personality, social orders, and historical developments. More information is available at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Honours

In 1970 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.