Chris S Friel

Terrorists in their own voices? Israel ‫ישראל‬ on X: "Hamas terrorists in their own voices: Listen to the conversation between Hamas operatives as they discuss the failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on October 17, 2023.

This is now the eighth piece we have written looking at the chemical attacks in the Syrian Civil War. In all of the previous seven we have verified what we call "the general picture," and this is no exception. In fact, we discovered what was going on very quickly given our methodology. This involves looking at the contemporaneous reaction from key accounts that are quite familiar now.

East Ghouta suffered an enormous chemical weapons attack. We will explore the early reception on social media. While the "official position" is that the Syrian government was responsible, common sense raises a doubt. In 2012 President Obama had warned that any use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line," and in fact, OPCW inspectors were in Damascus on 18 August to investigate a prior attack in March that we have considered here. That fact alone suggests that only the rebels in the Syrian Civil War stood to gain. Similarly, with the March attack in Khan Al-Assal, that was launched on government positions, killed government troops, with an inquiry called for by the government (which had to be refocused after the 21 August attack), a doubt must be raised, especially as it was also heard that the same kind of Sarin was used in both attacks-suggesting that the same party committed both crimes. Our examination of the social media activity of the previous attack reinforced the sceptical position, and that conclusion will carry over into this study. As indicated, then, we will explore certain avenues that have become familiar to us from six studies now, and everything we have seen so far reinforces what we can call "the general picture" and which involved a significant British connection that gave us a "recipe" to follow. That general picture points to an extensive chain of communication.

East Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, was the scene of a chemical weapons attack on 21 March 2013. Responsibility is disputed, with the Syrian government blaming the rebels. Our aim is at least to begin what we have tackled in six essays now, the emergence of the narrative on social media. Given that around 1,000 people died, it is very difficult to get a full picture on what must be an enormous amount of tweets. Accordingly, this marks just a beginning. Even so, after working on the topic for less than one day we have already found grounds for suspicion. We have already written the following:

This study examines how an early chemical weapons incident in the Syrian Civil War emerged on social media, and how it was "spun" by agents who we have already studied in relation to subsequent incidents occurring a year later. We took a "closer look" at the alleged use of chlorine by the Syrian government at Talmenes, Kafr Zita, and Al Tamanah in April/May 2014 showing how dubious the allegations were (to say the least) and how deceptive the propaganda was, being associated with organisations such as the CBRN Task Force, very likely a front for MI6. Although that organisation had not yet been founded in March 2013, nevertheless, we find that the significant propagandists connected with it were already at work in the very early incident.

It was claimed that government helicopters had dropped barrel bombs of chlorine on the small town of Talmenes (21 April), Kafr Zita (11 April), and Al Tamanah on 18 April, and again on 22 May. We took a "closer look" at Talmenes in three parts, here, here, and here, and at Kaft Zita here, and this work completes the set. Although other incidents were reported, these four were significant in that they resulted in fatalities. The more thorough study of Talmenes almost supplied a recipe that we then applied to Kafr Zita, and that rationale guides this work. We looked at the OPCW reports, Twitter (both in Arabic and English), scrutinising the videos that we suspect of being staged, and the "victim dynamics" that indicated that internally displaced rebel captives were being murdered by Islamic extremists. We began the Kafr Zita study by summarising the Talmenes study and this can be consulted by way of an explanation for our method In this essay we will again dive into our results without always explaining the searches that led to our discoveries, but which arose by gaining some familiarity of what we might call the "usual suspects." After looking at the OPCW reports we will quickly move to the relevant videos, reflecting on the victims, both for the alleged attack on the 18th, and again on the 22nd. Once again, our analysis supports the sceptical conclusion for the wave of "chlorine" attacks in April/May 2014. In an appendix we tabulate all the playlists presented by Eliot Higgins, so diligent in reporting the attacks, along with the You-Tube users who uploaded the evidence. The OPCW Reports As with our study of Kafr Zita, we will briefly allude to the five reports from the OPCW that investigated the Al Tamanah attacks,

In Part One we looked at how the OPCW-UN irrationally claimed that a Syrian government helicopter had launched a chemical weapons attack in Talmenes, 2014, and in Part Two we conducted a survey of the immediate reaction on social media that further undermined the claims. That is, we have given ample reason to question the "official" version that at least a helicopter dropped one bomb that hit Location #2. It was said that a boy died as a result, but in many ways that narrative is bound up with the story that a barrel bomb exploded at Location #1 which, certainly from 2016, the OPCW knew was untenable. It would appear that the OPCW could or would not bring itself to conclude that a conspiracy could explain the "facts," one that in the first place would seem to implicate the Islamic Front who were the first to release the video of the staged scene at Location #1, and who were aware that some children and the elderly needed to be taken on a long drive to the border of Turkey to the hospital where they died. Moreover, in many ways that group seems to have gained the trust of what we might call a British network that amplified the claims, and did so, we must say, very successfully. Our impression is that the early narrative went unchallenged-though with hindsight we can see that even those friendly to Brown Moses such as Green Lemonnn smelt a rat and, despite a very consistent narrative, the OPCW were not quite sure that chlorine was the only toxin.

In Part One we looked at the way the OPCW rationalised their opinion that helicopters had dropped chemical weapons on Talmenes in 2014. We offered a complex and close reading of the texts, chiefly to show how obscure the OPCW was in presenting the evidence that they say backed up their case. Let us now look at the early reception of the incident on Twitter, at first in Arabic, and then in English. Very little probing is needed to identify a "British" network connected with Hamish de Bretton-Gordon who created the CBRN-TF. As we shall see, the Colonel's voice is amplified by the Telegraph journalist who worked with him, and the Doctor who quite early on depicted the kitchen scene for the OPCW, and who was also connected with the CBRN-TF from the beginning.

In this three part study we will revisit an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, specifically, the incident at Talmenes, 21 April 2014. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons with the United Nations agreed that an attack had indeed happened, and they blamed the government of Syria led by President Bashir Assad for dropping toxic chemicals by helicopter on the small town in the Idlib Province as part of the Syrian Civil War. Still, the OPCW realised that one aspect of the incident must have been staged by the rebel opposition and so their conclusions were surprising to say the least.

Bernard Lonergan touched upon the question of the infallibility of the intellect only incidentally in his Verbum articles. Nevertheless, his remarks, which actually pertain to the infallibility of insight, are located at a significant stage in his argument, and may warrant special attention. In treating of this question in his commentary on the De Anima, Aquinas alludes to the proper object of the human intellect, and it transpires, Lonergan’s treatment, brief as it is, is also located in this context. Of course, for Lonergan, the question of the proper object of the human intellect is absolutely central to what he calls ‘insight into phantasm,’ and so we see a short paragraph on infallibility at the culmination of his study after the cognitional elements have been completed in the first four articles, or at any rate, the elements are complete regarding the necessity of insight. Despite the complexity of the whole, I believe that certain main lines converge in these last two sections – entitled Apprehensive Abstraction and Sense and Understanding – and this suggests a way of getting to the heart of the matter.  My hope, then, is to offer a short, manageable note on infallibility, especially as I think Lonergan has been misunderstood.

Abstract. Bernard Lonergan related how Aquinas reconciled Aristotelian contingence with Christian Providence making use of a notion of instrumentality that drew on Plato. I show how Lonergan made an analogous transposition so as to acknowledge the science of statistics. I give a careful account of the technical terms in Lonergan’s incipient theory of probability, explaining how he adapted a frequentist theory of probability in virtue of his cognitional theory so that probabilities are conceived in terms of direct insights and randomness in terms of an inverse insight.  Thus, ‘happening for the most part,’ and ‘happening in the minority of cases’ are transposed into ‘probability’ and ‘chance.’ Aristotle’s analysis of the different kinds of questions is elegantly used in explaining different kinds of probability. The resulting world-view, emergent probability, is harmonious with the earlier, ‘vertical finality,’ an ‘effective thrust,’ so that Lonergan has a fitting response to the infinite spaces that Pascal so feared.

Abstract. I explore the significance of self-appropriation in Bernard Lonergan’s metaphysics, which he once conceived using the metaphor of horizon—a circle comprising of a central, questioning subject open to being, as the surrounding, infinite object. I pay particular attention to what Lonergan calls the “notion of being,” the reality at the center that he helped us appropriate in many ways. Drawing on Giovanni Sala I explain why, although this “notion of being” constitutes an a priori, there is no entailment of idealism. I provide some elementary puzzles that may illuminate, and bring to awareness, this a priori, and I suggest that critics of Lonergan such as John Knasas, presumably in their inability to appropriate Lonergan’s notion, tend to impute idealist consequences from Lonergan’s apriorism precisely for this reason

In this paper I attempt to clarify Bernard Lonergan’s interpretation of Aquinas on grace and the theories of motion upon which he drew. Lonergan believed that the ways in which Aquinas used several Aristotelian theories of motion in his treatment of sanctifying grace was a significant clue to the development of his thought. In the first part of the paper I indicate how Lonergan follows this up. In the second part I present the way Lonergan explains the meaning of an objection in the Summa and, without faulting the substance of what Lonergan teaches, I offer an alternative reading of what the objector meant that may help to dispel some confusion.

Lonergan once spoke of his evolutionary world view (articulated in the context of the metaphysical idea of finality) in terms of participation, but he seems never to have spoken of cognitional theory in the same terms. I argue that such language is, indeed, appropriate—the cognitional elements of experience, understanding, and judgement could be said to participate in the 'notion of being.' Using such terminology it is possible to defend Lonergan's methodology (which makes use of the isomorphism between knowing and being) from the charge that the relation between conception and judgement, as Lonergan understands it, does not illuminate the way that essence participates in the act of existence.

I examine four references to idealism in Lonergan’s early study of Aquinas on Word and Idea. I highlight Lonergan’s methodological concerns and his desire to clarify the way object is spoken of in many ways and suggest that far from worrying about scepticism, Lonergan finds merit in the idealists’ turn to the subject. I note that at first, Lonergan does not refer to his own realism as “critical,” possibly because he had in mind Maritain’s so-called critical realism which was associated with vitalism. I also suggest that Lonergan found the putatively Thomist cognitional theory wanting and thus attempted a clarification as to the way that Aquinas spoke of intelligible species. Nevertheless, I note that Lonergan does eventually appropriate the language of critical realism, in connection with his adoption of transcendental method.  I explain the claim that reason is to supply both the criterion and the meaning of reality, a claim that becomes clear with the wisdom that flows from intellectual conversion.

I draw out the significance of Lonergan's account of " primary relativity " in solving a problem in Trinitarian theology; although the Father is God, and the Son is God, the Father is not the Son. Aquinas had recourse to Aristotle's analysis of action and passion in terms of absolutes and relatives, and a careful examination of Lonergan's text on relations (its context, development, methodology, and dialectical ambitions) reveals a similar concern—though Lonergan has alternative resources upon which he draws.

In Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Bernard Lonergan executed his programme to " thoroughly understand what it is to understand. " i He did so by developing a theory of cognition with the act that he called " insight " at its core, outlining two main kinds, direct and reflective. Despite the elusive nature of insight, Lonergan covered the ground comprehensively. Nevertheless, it seems as though there are one or two insights about insight that still require elucidation. In particular, I suggest, we need to explain why the reflective insight is so-called, and, indeed, how the need for them arises from direct insights. In this article, then, I will try to extend Lonergan's cognitional theory by reexamining the two kinds of insight. I will show that even with direct insight we may legitimately use the metaphor of " reflection, " and that we may do so in two ways. For the act of insight is described by Lonergan using the related metaphor of " pivoting " (insight pivots between concrete and abstract ii) and again, when we understand, we understand that we understand. In both cases we can discern a duality; a prior knowledge or activity that is supposed by the reflection. I will try to get a better understanding of the " reflective " nature of direct insights by exploring some of the cases that Lonergan provides because, as we shall see, the paradigmatic case of a direct insight is merely a special case, and this fact has implications for our need to reflect. The reflective nature of direct understanding is not a point that Lonergan stresses, for direct insights occur in what Aquinas called the first operation of the mind, (or equivalently, on what Lonergan called the second level, intelligent consciousness), but reflective understanding is a feature of what Aquinas calls the second operation of the mind, (that is, on Lonergan's third level, rational consciousness). However, I will argue that by looking at the reflective nature of direct understanding, we might better understand reflective insights proper; for the duality of the one explains the duality of the other. In this way we may appreciate just why as human beings we do reflect in the way that we do. Insight as Pivotal: Thomist Roots Lonergan's cognitional theory emerged from his intellectualist reading of the Thomist equivalent. Intellectualism, here, refers to the position that the products of our minds, concepts and judgments, have their origin and ground in acts of understanding. iii Thus, in the " first operation of the mind " we form concepts because we first understand, and this act of understanding is to be seen in terms of what Lonergan calls " insight into phantasm. " In this act there is a duality, for in it we understand what we imagine. It is this duality that I shall explore in the next section as justifying, to some extent, the metaphor of the reflective nature of direct insights. Lonergan noted, actually, that in the Saint's affirmation of insight (which, with Aristotle, he made " as clearly and effectively as can be expected " iv) Thomas Aquinas had deployed a metaphor of the mirror, something we not only look in, but may look at, v and Lonergan also noted how Aquinas had recourse to the " reflective " metaphor of intellect " converting to phantasm " —which Lonergan reads as the native orientation of the mind as it attends to images. vi In these ways it could be said that insight is a pivot, or hinge, or mediator between sense and conception (as Lonergan explains in his independent writings vii). Lonergan does not, however, to refer to the " first operation " as reflective.

Word Counts: Abstract (198) + Article (4420) + Notes (1224) = (5842) I attempt to bring Bernard Lonergan's account of emergence into conversation with the modern debate regarding physicalism. Because Lonergan became an advocate for a suitably transposed Thomism, I draw attention to the early influence of scientific methodology mediated by H.W.B. Joseph, and some affinities with the British emergentists. In my exposition I indicate the basis for Lonergan's argument within cognitional theory, highlighting the abstract nature of classical laws and the need for mediating insights which, as non-systematic, permit an objective notion of randomness that grounds an account of emergence. I note Lonergan's reluctance to tackle the topic of causation fully, a central issue in the modern debates, and draw attention to his claim that the act of understanding is not intrinsically conditioned by matter. In addressing physicalism I draw on the work of Tim Crane who brings out the tension between the causal closure of the physical, and the downward causation needed for the emergentist. I suggest that Lonergan's refusal to reify matter, his recovery of formal and instrumental causality, and his use of insight as a prototype for emergence may avoid the problems of causal over-determination, shed light on supervenience, and offer a radical alternative to physicalism. LONERGAN AND PHYSICALISM The aim of this paper is to relate the thought of the Thomist theologian Bernard Lonergan S.J. to a debate within modern analytic philosophy of mind, namely, the set of issues regarding the efficacy of mental causation, the causal closure of the physical, and the over-determination of mental and physical causation—in a word, the problem of physicalism. The aim is ambitious for, although many of the complex issues that Lonergan tackled were highly relevant, (say to the question of emergence) they are expressed in an idiosyncratic manner which bypassed the terms of the modern debate—Lonergan appears to sets aside the key notion of causality, for example. From Lonergan's perspective, however, this unusual way of speaking would appear quite necessary insofar as the language of physicalism has a tendency to blur key distinctions. I hope that, by outlining this new perspective, indeed, Lonergan's novel methodology, we may obtain some sense of the new directions on physicalism to which Lonergan points us.

The barbarian is the bugbear of the classicist. Because they rejected Christendom they are like the fool Othello, the “base Indian who threw away the pearl.” Lonergan shares the concern with the Christian civilization, but what to do? On the publication of Quadragesimo anno he had written “what Plato longed for, the liberal threw away,” and, with more foresight than insight, perhaps, suggested that eventually the villain of the peace, the so-called sovereign state, would be “liquidated.” Strange then, that, save for one isolated citation of Tertullian, Lonergan’s corpus never mentions the sovereign state, not for forty years, not until the final chapter of Method in Theology.

In Insight, Bernard Lonergan rounds off his chapter on ‘Metaphysics as Science’ by a concise section on the ‘Unity of Man.’ In this paper I carefully examine this restatement of the traditional Thomist position on the human soul. Lonergan argues that because it is spiritual, it is possible that the soul can subsist and act even though separated from the body. The unity of man is not compromised, however, because the soul is also the form of the body. Lonergan’s distinctive contribution turns on his cognitional theory, in particular, the act he terms ‘insight, so that the rejection of that theory, I claim, most likely precludes the possibility of the separated soul’s action. I find corroboration for this claim in the work of Sir Anthony Kenny, who exemplifies the conceptualism that Lonergan targets.

Fake Fact Checking "Fake News" is a form of fraud policed by "fact checkers." Fact checkers can be genuine, but we can think of "fake fact checkers" who try to persuade us that genuine news is false or that fake news is genuine. Cf. the crooked detective who investigates a fraud that he himself has committed.

We shall carefully examine the chronology behind the sacking of Professor Miller to show how key players such as Harry's Place, the CST, and Jonathan Hoffman had long had the academic in their sights as a result of his research into lobbying and Islamophobia. Our aim is to prompt some curiosity as to what was going on, given that the agency involved lacks transparency and the whole affair is marked by an eclipse of rationality which we suggest is explained by the polarised nature of the Israel-Palestine debate. This update written in August 2023 revisits the predecessor written in 2021 shortly after Miller was sacked. Since that time part of the first and all of the second report by the QC has been released, Christian Wakeford has given misleading information about the initial investigation conducted by Bristol, the University has rejected Miller's appeal internally, and the students involved have gone on to better things. Miller's appeal will be heard in court in October, and his case will be based on his right to espouse anti-Zionism as a serious philosophical belief.

This paper will relate how the Community Security Trust reported on Professor David Miller in their "antisemitic discourse reports" including a report on "antisemitism on university campuses." Although the reports will predictably make the case for the prosecution, we will find that one "crime" seems to have been surprisingly dropped from the "charge sheet." We will introduce and run through the reports as they relate to Miller, and then offer a commentary. This will draw on a careful chronology we have assembled and that we append.

On 4 August 2022 Ben Bloch published two articles in the Jewish Chronicle focussing on Nina Freedman, the Head of Bristol JSoc who had complained about David Miller so that he would be sacked three years later. Bloch's slightly earlier piece referred to an interview with Freedman detailing her experience, while the second aired the opinion of four voices involved.

We have written a great deal on the saga, and although we noticed the articles when they first came out, and had not missed their disingenuity, we had not bothered to comment. On reflection, though, the articles do have this interesting feature, that they give some insight into the anti-Miller thinking. Our aim, then, will be to reconstruct the “narrative” that is being pushed.

Truth and Politics and Poisoned Pawns

At times drawing on the Western tradition of philosophy, we will argue that the Office for Students should fully support Professor David Miller. We will recall the facts of the case, and how some members of parliament behaved. We will explain some of the sensitivities, but draw on some remarks from Hannah Arendt on truth and politics to urge that Miller finds “refuge” in the university. After all, questioning conventional wisdom and expressing controversial opinions does sometimes reach the truth of things regardless of political inconvenience. That said, taking the longer view, supporting Miller may well prove expedient.

I shall contest the characterisation of David Miller presented by Sir Anthony Julius in his Willed Ignorance: Reflections on academic free speech, occasioned by the David Miller case. The professor was sacked from Bristol University after a lengthy campaign, and evidently Julius agrees with the decision, or at least he finds it “shameful” that many academics defended someone who he regards as an antisemitic conspiracist. The erudite paper seeks to show why, properly understood, censoring Miller is not contrary to the principles of academic freedom, and to do this he presents the “Liberal Doctrine” of free speech. By way of a corollary Julius can argue that while we must counter the threat of academic censorship to scholars such as Kathleen Stock, cancelling Miller is perfectly acceptable, indeed necessary.

Our concern is not to contest the Liberal Doctrine, or to argue that Julius has misapplied it (for example, that Miller’s statements in the political sphere should not adversely affect his academic rights) but merely as we have indicated, to argue that Julius has mischaracterized his political enemy. Julius paints a portrait of Miller from statements that Miller really did make, but our contention is that he has taken the statements out of context, and moreover, omitted important details, with the result that the combative Liberal has cancelled a straw man.

A very short summary of the QC's opinion on Professor David Miller Electronic Intifada reported on a lawyer that Bristol University asked to look into remarks made by David Miller after complaints were made against him. Selections of the first report are here, while the second report is available in full here (saving the identity of the "eminent" QC which is redacted). In both cases the lawyer rejected the claim that Miller had made antisemitic remarks.

I attempt to meet Professor Hamer's puzzle regarding the direction of forensic disadvantage when a complainant delays. Hamer argues that, while evidence surely deteriorates over time, there is no reason that it should favour one side rather than the other, and he applies this to the Pell case. I refute the thesis as applied to Pell, closely examining many of the conditions and consequences of the complainant's shifting story that may have escaped the Professor. In truth, Pell's team was able to reveal many of the contradictions-ironically because, like the lying altar boy in Philadelphia Billy Doe, the story involved stealing wine, and the wine was stored in a place that could be shown to be a hive of activity at the time the assault was alleged. A different concoction might well have proved an invincible disadvantage.

is an associate editor of Electronic Intifada, and has long been charting the workings of the UK Israel lobby well before Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015. This work tells in dramatic fashion the "Very Israeli Coup" (to adapt a phrase from Chris Mullins' novel in which the Establishment conspired to bring down a Socialist prime minister), drawing on hundreds of forensic articles he has written.

Asa Winstanley has been writing about Palestine and the Israel lobby since 2005 and extensively throughout the “antisemitism” crisis during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader of the Labour party as associate editor of Electronic Intifada. In the first part of this long review I will attempt a faithful summary of his 2023 book, condensing 300 pages into 30. The work contains nearly 700 references, around 160 pertaining to articles penned by the author and I have tried to capture a few of the latter via a hyperlink that is coloured dark green. Footnotes present clarifications or perhaps point to my own opinions. The second part makes a critical observation. Once again I compress the central burden of the book - now to just 3 pages - and draw attention to one omission in the story that in our view is significant.

This contribution to Lonergan Studies is a work of interpretation that explains Lonergan’s strategic option for value theory and reconsiders various interpretations of his claim that ‘values are apprehended in feelings.’ It argues that Lonergan’s account of the human good must be seen in the light of his apologetic concern to refashion the notion of philosophy as handmaid to theology. In particular, Lonergan’s ethics must be seen in the light of his Analysis of Faith. In general this is to be understood as an attempt to break from ‘extrinsicism’ (roughly, ‘forgetfulness of the subject’) and that the special contribution of the 1952 work involves appropriating Newman’s illative sense.
‘The apprehension of values in feelings’ is a term indicative of the later (post-1968) Lonergan: it has been the subject of debate in Lonergan scholarship. This study will re-examine sources for the later work including Scheler and Hildebrand. Lonergan uses these sources creatively. It will be argued that Lonergan is closer to Scheler in that there is no fourth level insight (or intellectual perception) in the apprehension of values, but that nevertheless Lonergan draws on Hildebrand for his account of motivation. The study traces the development of Lonergan’s thought on motivation and proposes what for short can be termed ‘the motivation theory’: In general, values are apprehended insofar as the felt experience of the subject is motivated by self-transcendence. Specifically, this involves two cases according as feelings respond to an object that is known or unknown. The next three paragraphs attempt to flesh these ideas out.
Feelings can be in response to objects that are known, and may include feelings that are self-transcending. Such feeling is revelatory—the objects in question are then revealed as values. In this way the ‘apprehension of values in feelings’ is intentional—that is, it is directed to/for the sake of an object. Nevertheless, as well as being intentional, it is conscious. Consciousness, or self-awareness, can be, as in the apprehension of values in feelings, a self-awareness of self-transcendence. That is, we are not merely aware (just as we are aware that we are about to sneeze) but we are also aware that we are moving into a fuller, deeper experience (as in moral or religious conversion). We are aware of a felt experience of self-transcendence. The object (which is first known) can be seen as a value. In a proper sense, this is what values are.
Now, although as a rule self-transcending feeling is intentional in that it involves a response to an object that is known, self-transcending feeling may not be in response to an object in any ordinary sense. For example, religious objects may also occasion a felt-experience of self-transcendence, yet these ‘objects’ are not, properly, known. For example, they may be represented symbolically, but we may have little idea of God as the final end. In such cases self-transcendence is both similar and different to that outlined in the previous paragraph. It is similar in that it also involves self-transcending motivation; it is different in that no object need be known. Lonergan’s position deliberately allows the possibility of an orientation to a mysterious value which can be felt, and thus experienced, even though the value is not known as an object—such experiencing being that of a self-transcending subject.
Thus, in speaking of ‘levels’ of consciousness, with the ‘apprehension of values in feelings’ on a fourth level, Lonergan ‘turns to the subject’ by moving away from the known object of intentionality and towards the conscious subject. Lonergan’s turn to the subject is motivated by the desire to highlight self-transcending feeling. It is a ‘turn to the vertical.’ In general such self-transcending feeling can emerge in relatively familiar situations. However, by way of exception there is also the special case of self-transcending that is the apprehension of religious value. Thus Lonergan speaks of faith as the ‘knowledge born of religious love.’ In many ways it is this special case that is in the foreground of Lonergan’s concerns. Thus Lonergan’s teaching on the apprehension of values, and more generally, his conceptual system fashioned in the later work is readily seen in the context of what he taught regarding general and special categories. That is to say, it provides an apologetic clarification of issues. He has set up a general context that allows him to speak about the gift of God’s love without presuming confessional commitment. Thus, although he was an orthodox, Catholic theologian, Lonergan has a method that facilitates dialogue in an age of pluralism. By explicitly refraining from talk of ends and objects he has not assumed prior metaphysical commitments.
Accordingly, the thesis presents an alternative perspective to much of the commentary that has evolved on Lonergan’s new notion of value and its tendency to intellectualism. Possibly this arises because sympathetic commentators are too inclined to turn to Lonergan for general positions in ethics without appreciating the narrower focus of Lonergan’s concerns. The thesis insists that Lonergan’s account of value must be seen in the light of his new notion of belief. A consideration of sources such as Rahner, Cantwell Smith, and Stewart reveals how this is now motivated by ecumenical considerations in an age of pluralism.
Although this appreciation of Lonergan’s new notion of value as just that, new, represents a hermeneutics of discontinuity, a term of art is fashioned (‘two types of deliberation’) that reveals the continuity in Lonergan’s thought as regards deliberation. Here, Lonergan’s abiding concern with conversion is highlighted. It will underline what might be called the ‘vertical’ as opposed to ‘horizontal’ concern that can be traced back to Lonergan’s essay on Finality, Love and Marriage in 1943, and indeed, in his doctoral work on Aquinas. As a matter of fact (and somewhat confusingly) the ‘notion of value’ is a technical term in Lonergan which will be elucidated by using the technical term fashioned here: Lonergan’s ‘notion of value’ corresponds to ‘vertical deliberation.’ With this term of art Lonergan stamps his mark on the new approach to value on display in Method. The notion of value, however, represents a development of the earlier notion of being.
Continuity is also traced in the development of the structure of the human good over thirty years (in four phases) always in the context of redemption. This can be seen as incorporating Lonergan’s idea of two vectors: the way up and the way down. Lonergan’s turn to the subject, then, can be viewed as moving away from extrinsicism to a softer form of apologetics.
Taken as a whole this thesis will shed light on why Lonergan regarded value theory a fruitful approach in ethics and how he could claim both that values rested on feelings, and that beliefs rested on values. That is to say, it studies the connection between value and credibility in the thought of Bernard Lonergan.

When John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council in Humanae salutis he began with a section on Painful Considerations before moving onto the next entitled Reasons for Confidence urging that we read the signs of the times. I shall consider some signs today that suggest a “crisis of liberalism,” with the hope of identifying theological resources that can provide us with reasons for confidence.

Looks at the idea that knowing is by identity, but suggests that this phrase does not (pace Kerr) mean the same thing in Lonergan as it might for analytical Thomists. I gave this talk at BC June 2016. A longer version "Knowing by Identity and Analytical Thomism" has footnotes.

S. J. often pointed to the revolutionary aspect of modern science, and here he has in mind the new physics associated with the mathematisation of nature, for example, in Galileo and Newton. Lonergan embraces these ideas, and the new concept of motion that is involved, but his eleven years of apprenticeship with St. Thomas, as he put it, leads him to attempt a transposition. That is, traditional ideas are recast in a modern context. He was especially interested in sharing what he had discovered as regards Thomist cognitional theory in an 800 page volume named Insight. Often Lonergan is cast as thinking through the problems set by Kant, who, of course, lived in the slip-stream of the new science. This is not altogether false, but here it might be worth calling to mind—as Lonergan seldom does—not the first but the third critique containing, so to speak, a philosophy of biology. Consider Kant's approach to teleology. This was the casualty of the new physics In the Aristotelian notion of physics motion is not simply a 'something' but a something that is going somewhere – the idea of an end is built into the concept. It is easy to see why. After spending 20 years in the Academy with Plato, Aristotle took a four year Sabbatical on the island of Lesbos where he studied the biology of the tide-pools. Many of the key notions of Aristotelian metaphysics beautifully fit the way that organisms, so to speak, solve the problem of living in an environment. The Aristotelian idea of what he called The Physics looks at what we call physics in the light of what we call biology. The whole of nature is seen as teleological, and Aristotle tends to think of the few remaining materialists that he encounters as dinosaurs that mostly went extinct aeons ago. But with seventeenth century physics, not to mention the Darwinian use of statistical explanation to provide an evolutionary account of biogeography, the boot is on the other foot. The spectre of reductionism re-emerges. Now, mechanism displaces teleology. Think of the way Kant sets things up. On the one hand the mind can't help thinking about nature as if mechanism applies but on the other hand, when we consider living things, the mind can't help thinking about nature as if teleology applies. But the two positions are incompatible. We cannot definitely say that one position or the other is objectively true. Kant opined that there never would be a Newton of the blade of grass. The upshot is that our mind must be seen as governed by a regulative ideal – both mechanism and teleology are helpful and useful so long as we don't think that the mind is able to get at things in themselves. The mind is not capable of arriving at the 'yes' of definitive judgement. Here the quip of J.B.S. Haldane comes to mind. Teleology is like a mistress. We can't live without her but we are embarrassed to be seen with her in public.

Ghost's Can't Tell Stories: For Hull Immortality Conference 1 I draw a conclusion from Lonergan's argument for the possibility that the human soul is capable of existence and, indeed, operation despite being separated from its body. Although substantially in accord with Aquinas, Lonergan bases his argument on an intellectualist cognitional theory, the idea that there is a primacy of understanding over concepts: concepts proceed because of and from insights. I briefly narrate the main steps in concept formation—(1) the images which (2) occasion inquiry and which lead to (3) the formation of schematic images which (4) trigger insights and hence (5) find expression in the formation of concepts which are thus a compound of insight (merely extrinsically conditioned by matter) and schematic images (which are intrinsically conditioned by matter). Moreover, with Lonergan, I extend this analysis to common sense or historical inquiry, again to illustrate the primacy of insight (verstehen) over the narrative which expresses such understanding. My conclusion is that although a separated soul may be capable of understanding, it will not be able to form concepts (because images are not present) and will be incapable of constructing a narrative. In short, ghosts cannot tell stories. A ghost story is the product of human imagination constructed by those of us who have not died that tells a tale about those who have. However, in this paper, I wish to consider the possibility of the tables being turned. Might the dead tell tales about the living? Are there stories narrated by ghosts? I will argue that that this is impossible: ghosts can't tell stories even as angels can't ask questions and separated souls can't form concepts. In an attempt to indicate the philosophic basis for such a claim I will draw on the work of Bernard Lonergan. In his study of human understanding entitled Insight, Lonergan argued for the coherence of the idea that the human soul can exist apart from the body. i Lonergan's argument concurs with that of St. Thomas Aquinas. ii However, the distinguishing mark of Lonergan's argument is the role of cognitional theory, indeed, his intellectualist cognitional theory which is always signalled by the couplet 'insight and formulation.' Lonergan believes that he is recovering an authentic reading of Aquinas that has become distorted by what he calls conceptualism, as he argues in the study completed just prior to writing Insight, namely, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas. Conceptualism, briefly, is the theory that we understand because we conceive. Lonergan's couplet suggests on the contrary that it is because of and from the act of understanding that we can conceive (formulate, define).

I give an interpretation of Lonergan’s claim that values are apprehended in feelings. I situate his project within fundamental theology rather than in foundations for ethics arguing that Lonergan was concerned to give an ecumenically conceived apologetic in order to conceive the “leap” of faith. To this end I show how the later work was informed by the 1952 Analysis of Faith. I show how Lonergan drew creatively on his sources: on Scheler he takes up Pascal’s “the heart has its reasons” (now in the context of the value of believing) and on Hildebrand he takes up the self-transcendence of the value-response. I offer a new perspective on the emotional element of intentionality in Lonergan and suggest that fears of anti-intellectualism stem from a concern to situate his emotional phenomenology primarily within ethics.

Fear is an emotion inextricably prone to irrationality. For fear regards a future evil, and not only does the pressure of that evil restrict the calm workings of sweet reason, but insofar as that contingency is future it is unknown, and so impossible to reason about with clarity. Take for example, the question of pre-emptive war that arose with Saddam Hussain. It was never perfectly clear that Saddam possessed WMDs (Hans Blix wasn't clear), and more generally, the number of threats that we might face, being indefinite, was therefore Legion. But just how is one to respond to a multitude of demons? So it came about that a community was taken in, taken over by fear. More profoundly, I think, fears can be irrational because we are never quite sure exactly why we are afraid. Distinguishing the "reason" from the "real reason" is difficult, and provides the condition for fear as a tool for manipulation. The shakers and movers know the real reason while those shaken and moved only know the "reason." I believe that in 2018 the British Jewish Community were taken over by a fear promoted as a project. i Here I except those associated with JVL who early on protested against the hysteria. Sadly, I can't except those moderates whose voices we needed to hear-Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, Keith Kahn Harris, and Alex Sobel MP-for such people have avoided looking the uncomfortable facts in the face. For the facts of Project Fear were obvious enough, and articulated beyond reasonable doubt by those such as myself who was able to figure out what was happening despite no prior knowledge of the Jewish Community. ii Although the moderates were perfectly aware that I had claimed to get to the truth, they were unwilling to unpack the message and check. This was even true of an academic specialising on the Jewish Community who wrote a book on denial. He told me that my work was too forensic-forgetting, actually, the etymology of that word and its connections with the forum, the public square. The essence of self-deception, as Herbert Fingarette explained, is a failure to spell things out.

Perhaps it was that peripatetic history that gave birth to the Court’s current use of high technology, as those three geographically diverse seats of justice are still active even though the main structure now resides in Canberra. Because it is spread far and wide, the court has taken to using remote video for many of its preliminary hearings. This has caused a rethinking of technology in general, especially the audio and video aspects of the High Court’s infrastructure. The High Court realized it needed to bring its satellite courtrooms up to speed and thus ordered a revamp of 19A, the High Court room located in Sydney at the city’s Law Court facility. It would require state-of-the-art technology, especially tricky in the audio domain as it would require careful balancing of the sound reinforcement, video and teleconferencing, and court transcription. It was imperative that all elements be treated with equal importance. For sound reinforcement this meant multiple zones for speakers...

I take a close look at a text in Insight in which Lonergan argues that the fallacy of mechanistic determinism is down to faulty cognitional theory, in particular, that it relies on an “impoverished replica” notion of abstraction and that because the “frontiers of the abstract are not coterminous with that of the experienced” the remedy lies in a notion of abstraction that is enriching. I situate this text in the light of an intellectual conversion that recognises two concretes, and I offer a living illustration that may help to make Insight more readable. KEYWORDS: BERNARD LONERGAN, MECHANISTIC DETERMINISM, ABSTRACTION, GALILEO, RANDOMNESS

Lindbeck's difficulties with Lonergan's account of religion stem from his radical methodological option in which he draws on Wittgenstein. I revisit 'the dialectic of methods,' by examining children's mistakes. I use Lonergan's distinction between ordinary and originary meaningfulness to argue that in Wittgenstein's account of rule-following such mistakes highlight the publicity of norms in ordinary meaningfulness, but I show how alternatives can be cited in which originary meaningfulness is not obscured. I explain the core of Lonergan's foundational methodology and show how

Lindbeck uses Wittgenstein to fault Lonergan's method, and so I explore some remarks on the foundations of mathematics so as to examine whether Lonergan 1) appeals to the act of understanding as an occult quantity, 2) gives an over-general model of understanding, and 3) exaggerates the significance of the desire to understand. I examine the sources influencing Lonergan's discovery of mathematical insight and I find Lonergan's transcendental method to be significant as regards the development of understanding, and I draw out its value for theologians.

TV news is the main source of information for about 80 per cent of the population. Yet the quality of what they see and hear is so confused and partial that it is impossible to have a sensible public debate about the reasons for the conflict or how it might be resolved. This is the ...

Vivian Waller is the principal lawyer at Waller Legal, a Melbourne-based firm she set up in 2007 that specialises in winning compensation for historic cases of sexual abuse against the Catholic Church. In 2018 Waller represented the complainant in the case that led to the imprisonment of Cardinal George Pell.

I take a close look at a text in Insight in which Lonergan argues that the fallacy of mechanistic determinism is down to faulty cognitional theory, in particular, that it relies on an “impoverished replica” notion of abstraction and that because the “frontiers of the abstract are not coterminous with that of the experienced” the remedy lies in a notion of abstraction that is enriching. I situate this text in the light of an intellectual conversion that recognises two concretes, and I offer a living illustration that may help to make Insight more readable.
KEYWORDS:
BERNARD LONERGAN, MECHANISTIC DETERMINISM, ABSTRACTION, GALILEO, RANDOMNESS

The aim of this paper is to note the convergence between two critical realist philosophies of science, namely, that of Roy Bhaskar and Bernard Lonergan with regard to the intelligibility of experimental activity. Bhaskar very explicitly argues that 'differentiation implies stratification.' The idea is that because the situations produced in laboratories are special instances of closure (like the solar system in the open universe, they do not represent the general case) the significance of experimental activity is that it brings about regularities with a view to understanding scientific laws at a deeper level. That is to say, when experiment is properly understood, the weaknesses of empiricism are exposed. Although he is not so explicit, Lonergan also has recourse to this argument. The parallels between Bhaskar and Lonergan are not too surprising given the Aristotelian lineage of the two thinkers which is manifest in the common concern for a realist ontology. Nevertheless, some differences between the two emerge, for example, in Lonergan's concern with the development of statistical science, and as well, a firm commitment to substance (rather than powers, simply). Some attention to the significance of experimental activity for the debate surrounding realism is explored. It is suggested that Lonergan has something to offer in the subsequent conversation associated with Maxwell, van Fraassen, Hacking and Cartwright.

The chief purpose of this paper is to note the convergence between two critical realist philosophies of science, namely, that of Roy Bhaskar and Bernard Lonergan with regard to the intelligibility of experimental activity. Bhaskar very explicitly argues that 'differentiation implies stratification.' The idea is that because the situations produced in laboratories are special instances of closure (like the solar system in the open universe, they do not represent the general case) the significance of experimental activity is that it brings about regularities with a view to understanding scientific laws at a deeper level. That is to say, when experiment is properly

Lindbeck's difficulties with Lonergan's account of religion stem from his radical methodological option in which he draws on Wittgenstein. I revisit 'the dialectic of methods,' by examining children's mistakes. I use Lonergan's distinction between ordinary and originary meaningfulness to argue that in Wittgenstein's account of rule-following such mistakes highlight the publicity of norms in ordinary meaningfulness, but I show how alternatives can be cited in which originary meaningfulness is not obscured. I explain the core of Lonergan's foundational methodology and show how

This article explores the relative lack of attention to the sin of pride in Bernard Lonergan, a lack he shares with Aquinas, in contrast to the Augustinian tradition. In order to explain this lack the article considers the dialectical nature of pride leading in turns to suggest a slightly surprising detour into the origins of social structures which Lonergan explains in terms of 'challenge and response.' Most significant is the redemptive response to the challenge of sin, and it is here that we can discover Lonergan's delicate transposition of traditional teaching in his deployment of the concept of general bias.

I give an interpretation of Lonergan's claim that values are apprehended in feelings. I situate his project within fundamental theology rather than in foundations for ethics arguing that Lonergan was concerned to give an ecumenically conceived apologetic in order to conceive the " leap " of faith. To this end I show how the later work was informed by the 1952 Analysis of Faith. I show how Lonergan drew creatively on his sources: on Scheler he takes up Pascal's " the heart has its reasons " (now in the context of the value of believing) and on Hildebrand he takes up the self-transcendence of the value-response. I offer a new perspective on the emotional element of intentionality in Lonergan and suggest that fears of anti-intellectualism stem from a concern to situate his emotional phenomenology primarily within ethics.

Lindbeck uses Wittgenstein to fault Lonergan's method, and so I explore some remarks on the foundations of mathematics so as to examine whether Lonergan 1) appeals to the act of understanding as an occult quantity, 2) gives an over-general model of understanding, and 3) exaggerates the significance of the desire to understand. I examine the sources influencing Lonergan's discovery of mathematical insight and I find Lonergan's transcendental method to be significant as regards the development of understanding, and I draw out its value for theologians.

In Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Bernard Lonergan executed his programme to " thoroughly understand what it is to understand. " i He did so by developing a theory of cognition with the act that he called " insight " at its core, outlining two main kinds, direct and reflective. Despite the elusive nature of insight, Lonergan covered the ground comprehensively. Nevertheless, it seems as though there are one or two insights about insight that still require elucidation. In particular, I suggest, we need to explain why the reflective insight is so-called, and, indeed, how the need for them arises from direct insights. In this article, then, I will try to extend Lonergan's cognitional theory by reexamining the two kinds of insight. I will show that even with direct insight we may legitimately use the metaphor of " reflection, " and that we may do so in two ways. For the act of insight is described by Lonergan using the related metaphor of " pivoting " (insight pivots between concrete and abstract ii) and again, when we understand, we understand that we understand. In both cases we can discern a duality; a prior knowledge or activity that is supposed by the reflection. I will try to get a better understanding of the " reflective " nature of direct insights by exploring some of the cases that Lonergan provides because, as we shall see, the paradigmatic case of a direct insight is merely a special case, and this fact has implications for our need to reflect. The reflective nature of direct understanding is not a point that Lonergan stresses, for direct insights occur in what Aquinas called the first operation of the mind, (or equivalently, on what Lonergan called the second level, intelligent consciousness), but reflective understanding is a feature of what Aquinas calls the second operation of the mind, (that is, on Lonergan's third level, rational consciousness). However, I will argue that by looking at the reflective nature of direct understanding, we might better understand reflective insights proper; for the duality of the one explains the duality of the other. In this way we may appreciate just why as human beings we do reflect in the way that we do. Insight as Pivotal: Thomist Roots Lonergan's cognitional theory emerged from his intellectualist reading of the Thomist equivalent. Intellectualism, here, refers to the position that the products of our minds, concepts and judgments, have their origin and ground in acts of understanding. iii Thus, in the " first operation of the mind " we form concepts because we first understand, and this act of understanding is to be seen in terms of what Lonergan calls " insight into phantasm. " In this act there is a duality, for in it we understand what we imagine. It is this duality that I shall explore in the next section as justifying, to some extent, the metaphor of the reflective nature of direct insights. Lonergan noted, actually, that in the Saint's affirmation of insight (which, with Aristotle, he made " as clearly and effectively as can be expected " iv) Thomas Aquinas had deployed a metaphor of the mirror, something we not only look in, but may look at, v and Lonergan also noted how Aquinas had recourse to the " reflective " metaphor of intellect " converting to phantasm " —which Lonergan reads as the native orientation of the mind as it attends to images. vi In these ways it could be said that insight is a pivot, or hinge, or mediator between sense and conception (as Lonergan explains in his independent writings vii). Lonergan does not, however, to refer to the " first operation " as reflective.

At the end of the twentieth century the triumph of capitalism and liberal democracy seemed so complete that Hegel's spectre of the end of history was raised. However, the 2008 financial crisis and, more acutely, the threat of Islamism has shaken such complacency so that John Milbank and Adrian Pabst speak of liberalism in metacrisis. The solution to the problem (which is a composite of left wing social and right wing economic liberalism) is in line with the theological position of Radical Orthodoxy: a post-liberal politics of virtue. Liberalism is rooted in an anthropology that the authors believe is bound to self-destruct, whether this is through the Hobbesian idea that man is in a war of all against all or the Lockean anthropology of man as a self-owning animal. Although these doctrines are false, they are self-fulfilling and tend to bring about the triumph of vice over virtue. We must look, rather, to Aristotle's zoon politikon as expanded by Aquinas for a new " settlement " based on sharing risk, responsibilities, and resources. Noting that this may be deemed unrealistic the authors challenge the very idea of realism (as amoral pragmatism). Although they do not use the term their idea seems to be that the experiment of history vindicates true realism, the rejection of ethics being ultimately unsustainable. The structure of the book is clear enough. In five sections (on politics, economics, polity, culture, and international relations) the metacrisis is first diagnosed and then the post-liberal alternative prescribed. I shall focus on the ninth chapter diagnosing the international crisis. I found the argument difficult to follow at times, possibly because of the paradoxical situation that I take the authors to be addressing, namely, that on the one hand liberalism is a reality, one that is in crisis and that needs replacing, and on the other hand, post-liberalism is already upon us in many ways, often negative. What is clear is the conviction that medieval Christendom in some sense represents a positive and viable model for the way ahead. The chapter on " The Metacrisis of the Nations " opens with a section on the Battle against Barbarism focussing on the rise of ISIS. Whilst it is conceded that the Western carving up of the Ottoman Empire was partly responsible for the rise of Islamism, the authors point to the longevity of Sunni-Shiite hostilities, and obviously think that even if ISIS is defeated in the near future it is quite possible that a successor may arise soon after. The significance is broached in the next section on Liberal Hegemony: it seems to give the lie to democratic peace theory whereby the sovereign state automatically ushers in civilisation. The authors attribute this to a contradiction within liberalism itself: although officially anti-imperial, Woodrow Wilson's project extended what in effect is an American Empire. However, despite the crisis, this world order looks as though it will be around some time and so the authors moot the idea of " international society " formulated by the English school of IR. Still, Western power is on the wane, indeed, the liberal order is in metacrisis. This is attributed to internal contradictions that stem ultimately from atheism. The experiment of history, so to speak, vindicates prophets such as Fyodor Dostoevsky (" Without God, everything is permitted ") insofar as ethics is more and more reduced to power politics. Christopher Dawson, too, is invoked as pinpointing the internal contradictions. On the one hand, modernity inherently globalises and tends to release great energies, but on the other hand it tends to break down the bonds that draw humankind together. Unsurprisingly we see a lack of vision by Western leaders, and a paralysis in their foreign policy.

John Haldane commented recently on Lonergan's absence from the analytic conversation— not a single entry of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy mentions him. If this situation is to be remedied then Lonergan, Meaning and Method may prove a useful resource. With fine sensitivity to the historical roots of philosophical discussions, especially in the British context, this fourth book by Andrew Beards attempts to build bridges between isolated traditions by skilfully discerning latent connections and new developments. It touches on epistemology, science, art and semantics. Beards finds a measure of agreement with Timothy Williamson who espouses an " anti-luminosity " doctrine: self-knowledge is not always easy; the transition from conscious self-presence to genuine self-knowledge requires a subtle and diligent inquiry. On the other hand, in view of the post-Gettier preoccupations, Beards questions whether Williamson has the final word. Gettier's famous article had shaken up epistemologists by bringing to prominence cases in which true, justified belief is not knowledge as when we think we know the time by looking at a clock that has stopped at what unbeknown to us happens to be the right time. These have been taken to vindicate externalism over internalism, the idea that knowledge does not necessarily involve knowing that we know—sometimes we know without having luminous access to our inner states. We might think of children, the unsophisticated, or those successfully trained chicken-sexers who reliably make accurate judgements. Beards shows, however, that this cannot be the whole story. " If I claim (judge) that knowledge is not warranted assertion because the way things are in the world makes a statement true, and the warrant in certain cases does not guarantee this, then this itself is a case in which I am claiming to know what is true in the world (reality) because of the sufficiency of the rational warrant of my argument. " In exploring the certainty of self-knowledge, Beards opens up Insight's " little discussed " section on degrees of certainty. Beards stresses that he has only offered a sketch, and perhaps would agree with Dalibor Renić, whom he cites favourably, that there are also externalist elements in early Lonergan (influenced by Newman's Grammar). Or again, that the deepest foundation offered by Insight is a " pragmatic engagement. " Science is another fruitful domain for building bridges and, in the first essay, Beards is keen to note how late on Lonergan returned to characterize his approach as " generalized empirical method " rather than " transcendental method. " This has rhetorical advantages insofar as it underlines Lonergan's distinctiveness from transcendental Thomism. Beards continues to

The barbarians are the bugbear of the classicist. Because they rejected Christendom they are like the fool Othello, the “base Indian who threw away the pearl.” Lonergan shares the concern with the Christian civilization, but what to do? On the publication of Quadragesimo anno he had written “what Plato longed for, the liberal threw away,” and, with more foresight than insight, perhaps, suggested that eventually the villain of the peace, the so-called sovereign state, would be “liquidated.” Strange then, that, save for one isolated citation of Tertullian, Lonergan’s corpus never mentions the sovereign state, not for forty years, not until the final chapter of Method in Theology.

Jeremy W. Blackwood is to Robert M. Doran what Robert M. Doran was to Bernard Lonergan, a brilliant younger scholar who has read carefully and creatively his teacher’s work, and who has received fulsome praise as a consequence. His And Hope Does Not Disappoint: Love, Grace, and Subjectivity in the Work of Bernard J. F. Lonergan S.J. is the fruit of his doctoral study supervised by Doran on the meaning of Lonergan’s “fifth level” of consciousness.

Patrick Byrne is a philosophy professor at Boston College and a distinguished Lonergan scholar. His major work is the fruit of many years reflection on Lonergan's foundations of ethics focussing on that refined form of attention we call discernment, especially as concerned with self-transformation. The first chapter begins by noting antecedents in the tradition with Ignatius and Paul, and Byrne offers an interesting discussion of Aristotelian dialectic—prior to the rise of modern empirical science the pre-eminent method for philosophy—and euphuia, our disposition to the good. This provides the basis for Lonergan's method of self-appropriation. In fact, the first of the five parts of this book provides an excellent introduction to the project of Insight which may be summed up by answering the three questions: What are we doing when we are knowing? Why is doing that actually knowing? What is known when we know? For example, Byrne elucidates the role of further pertinent questions in our judgement of the correctness of insights and how this is made possible by the unrestricted nature of our desire to understand correctly. Byrne structures the next three parts of the book by extending Lonergan's questions: What are we doing when we are being ethical? Why is doing that being ethical? What is brought about by doing that? To the first question Byrne provides an answer consonant with the early Lonergan's intellectualism. Activities in ethical intentionality include experiencing, inquiring, understanding and judging what is going on in the situation, and what could be done, thus arriving at creative practical insights that entail reflecting on judgements of value, deciding and acting. However, the later Lonergan, in dialogue with phenomenologists such as Scheler and Hildebrand, recognised the significance of feelings, indeed, spiritual feelings, and spoke of a transcendental notion of value, unrestricted being in love, and (provocatively) of apprehending values in feelings. Such remarks have occasioned vexed discussion among Lonergan scholars and Byrne deploys considerable technical acumen in constructing a reading that shows how these developments fit with the earlier thought, again putting centre-stage the role of invulnerability (the absence of further pertinent questions) as fulfilling the conditions for unconditioned judgements of value. Still, Byrne spends three more chapters explicating the significance of feelings in this account. He explains that, while allowing that somatic feelings such as hunger are in a sense intentional (they take food as their object) we may speak, with Scheler and Hildebrand, of a kind of feeling that is an intentional response to value. Then, Byrne recurs to the very early studies of Word and Idea in Aquinas to recall the idea of multiple intentionality—'object' may be used in many ways, as referring to the thing outside the mind, or the illuminated image that triggers understanding, or the intelligibility that is proper to the act of understanding, or the product that the mind uses to express such understanding. Byrne transposes the idea into an axiological context by enumerating diverse triggers for affective responses, for example, a skilful move in athletics, the proper object of the intentional response (which is the value grasped through feeling), and the various ways we might express such evaluation, as indicated, say, by the different ways that people might smile. On the problem of objectivity, Byrne introduces the idea of a 'horizon of feelings' which he connects with our scale of values. In effect this dictates what further questions are pertinent for us as we reflect on the objectivity of values. As to the question dealt with in the third part, why doing that is being ethical, Byrne resumes his discussion of this thorny problem. One difficulty is that there seems to be no guarantee

Noting that the quest for authenticity emerged amongst the alienated New Left as a response the estrangement from social norms, Braman begins his exploration with Heidegger. Dasein is being in a world of human projects, and his structure is care. Sorge has three elements. We are thrown into a world not of our own choosing; in some sense we exist outside-of-ourselves, ahead of ourselves, with the potential for being a whole self; and we are fallen, everyday living is absorbed in the idle talk and curiosity of the They. This analysis opens up the question of mood which reveals to us our ontological disposition. For example, anxiety reveals the stark contingency of inevitable death, so an authentic encounter with our being-unto-death makes possible a serious and resolute response. The rupture calls to our innermost being. On the other hand, we may miss the mark, so guilt reveals that authenticity is never attained. Moreover, the dialectic is historical: authentic retrieval of a heritage as opposed to the tradition of the Anyone. Dasein's authenticity is bound up with a destiny that cannot be controlled. In a second chapter, Braman turns to Charles Taylor who retrieves the moral sources that shape our identity. Whereas for Heidegger authenticity is grounded in being-unto-death, in Taylor's engaged agency (his own hermeneutics of facticity), authenticity is constituted by the moral decisions we make, and is certainly removed from any notion of authenticity as narcissism. However, with Heidegger Taylor sees in language the possibility of a clearing: it makes possible a strong evaluation. In contrast with the weak evaluations simply concerned with objects (this or that type of ice-cream) strong evaluations touch the deeper motivations for our choices, and the standards by which we make our choices. Such criteria are in no way external, but are sensed as part of our lived engagement, and through such practical wisdom we are enabled to arrive at " best account " (we sense that in the transition from one good to another we have grown as a person). In other words, our actions are ordered to constitutive goods, for example, the love of God, a fundamental moral source. In a final section on " Epiphany as a Moral Source " Braman explores the way that Taylor sees in art the possibility of self-transcendence.

Pages: 168 (includes notes, bibliography, index); xiv (preface) acknowledgements) Creator God, Evolving World by Cynthia Crysdale and Neil Ormerod is a short, accessible book aimed at a broad audience. It aims to give a worldview that is consistent with Christian beliefs and modern science drawing on the Thomist tradition, especially Bernard Lonergan's Insight. To this end it expounds Lonergan's 'emergent probability,' the idea that arises from taking into account both classical (or causal) and statistical explanations. The result is an evolutionary account of the universe in which purpose is to be found in what Lonergan called finality, an upwardly directed dynamism characterised by increasing systematisation and liberation. This involves the conditioned series of schemes of recurrence well illustrated by, say, fusion cycles in stars to the Krebs cycle in the life of an organism. The authors bring Lonergan's ideas up to date by discussing complexity theory, evo devo and convergent evolution. They tackle problems of human freedom and God's providence, rejecting the idea of freedom as arbitrary choice, and pointing to God's solution to the problem of evil in the emergence of the theological virtues—redemption, in fact, is illustrated by the active resistance of Gandhi in exposing the moral bankruptcy of the British Empire. Implications for human living are found in what is termed an ethics of risk (as distinct from an ethics of control). Our moral agency must accept the uncertainty of probable outcomes lest it fall into hubris. The idea is from Sharon Welch, who illustrates the point with a well-meaning, but flawed intervention of a philanthropist who makes a meal for some hungry children by cooking eggs meant for sale at the market (we are not to assume that simple, direct solutions will automatically help) and a teacher of black children in the Depression departing from the history text book to teach the truth about slavery, an authentic choice for which she loses her job. The authors defend classical theism arguing that a transcendent God can nevertheless be personal, a God who enters into human history and answers prayers. By the questions that they raise they suggest that a changing God might be unable to deal with the problem of evil, and love unconditionally. If God were not unchanging, perhaps God's love would not be constant. If God were surprised at his creation, could we be assured that it is very good. Although drawing on sophisticated resources Creator God, Evolving World is lucid and simple, taking time out to explain concepts such as teleology and metaphysics, and setting the

Tracy Isaacs began writing this book after the Rwandan genocide. Her aim is to defend the concept of collective moral responsibility as an essential level of responsibility that exists alongside rather than instead of the level of individual responsibility. She does this not only to understand the idea of collective responsibility, but to promote it where it is needed. Her work is readable and covers much ground briskly. I will discuss the fundamental principles of the work in the early chapters. We can praise and blame organisations, but moral responsibility is the praiseworthiness and blameworthiness of moral agents, so it seems that organisations are moral agents. To understand this, the idea of intentionality is invoked. Isaacs assumes (without a detailed analysis) that an individual's actions flow from their intentionality. The idea of collective intentionality, then, is developed so as to explain collective responsibility. The intentional structure of two types of collectives is considered. As well as the more tightly bound organisations such as the Canadian Red Cross (who failed to adequately screen blood supply in the 1980s) Isaacs considers collective intention in 'goal-orientated' collectives, for example, an informal group whose members each contribute a dish to a Vegetarian Indian Potluck meal. She shows how the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Antonio González draws on social theorists from the Marxist tradition for a diagnosis of modern globalization but offers a bold remedy that is unashamedly biblical. Speaking from the Mennonite tradition he recommends a radical, non-violent alternative emerging from the grassroots and based on the communities portrayed in the Acts of the Apostles. Social theory is necessary to highlight problems and give diagnosis. The globalized empire now presents us with crises of tax-avoidance, debt, poverty, inequality, prostitution, migration, ecological disaster, criminality and an absence of global democracy. G. notes how the exercise of power requires violence: the hidden hand of capitalism is enforced by a hidden fist. Drawing on Mandel, the Marxist theory of value is assumed: capitalists do not have to pay the workers the full value of their labour so that the system (and not simply the greed of politicians or bankers) exploits and impoverishes. Keynesian and socialist solutions are rejected: 'we must turn, perhaps to the surprise of some, to the testimony of the Bible.' Beginning with Genesis, the roots of evil extend further and deeper than Marxian exploitation. G. refers to the 'Adamic logic.' In essence this involves self-justification. We seek to 'eat the fruit,' that is, appropriate the consequences of our actions. As a result we are fearful: humankind has never been as afraid of God as we are today. This is despite atheism – in fact, atheism is a symptom of such fear. Like Cain we have more guilt than we can bear. Adamic logic leads to the logic of Babylon. The victim is to blame, and in many ways there is a profoundly unhappy state of domination that all empires bring. Genesis too, sees the call of Abraham, and a new history is created in the midst of human history, but G. will refute the notion that only the Old Testament has social relevance. There

Hans-Georg Gadamer said that he was finally forced to write Truth and Method after so many years because whenever his students had spoken proudly of having been formed by him they were met by the puzzled question, “Who?” To Lonergan scholars Professor Lawrence will need no introduction, notably because since the 1970s he has hosted an international Lonergan conference at Boston College (where both Lonergan and Gadamer, the subjects of his doctoral dissertation, came to teach). But to those unacquainted with this leading theologian, The Fragility of Consciousness will make an excellent introduction, especially since only now have these twelve inter-disciplinary essays seen publication in a single volume.

University of Notre Dame Press Yale philosophy emeritus Michael H. McCarthy has been reading Lonergan since the 1960s, and is convinced of the enduring value of a critical, Christian humanist, one of the " great unheralded thinkers of the twentieth century. " He seeks to build a bridge to those who wish to think things through, and despite the complexity of Lonergan's thought, achieves his aim magnificently. This is a superb introduction to Lonergan's enduring insights, and their relevance for our day. The book takes the form of four long essays. In the first, McCarthy carefully explains how Lonergan (invoking the motto of Pope Leo XIII) perfects and augments the old with the new, untying the tangled knots therein. Briefly, the vetera include aspects of the classical tradition from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas. To take just one example, the Trinitarian theology of Aquinas synthesised Aristotle's discovery that nous grasps forms in (illuminated) phantasms with Augustine's teaching on the production of the inner word in a manner that Lonergan demonstrated accords well with our experience of coming to understand. As for the nova, Lonergan transposed such achievements in the light of: modern empirical science (no longer the true and certain knowledge of causal necessity but an ongoing collaboration of probably verified theory); modern historical studies (with its attention to the multiple functions of meaning); modern philosophy (beginning not from metaphysics but the turn to the subject and, later, the hermeneutic turn); the modern political reality of liberal democracy; and our pluralistic ecumenical situation in religion. McCarthy explains comprehensively and concisely how Lonergan responded to the complex cultural challenges he faced. These are preceded with extremely helpful, sweeping historical analyses that provide an overview of all the major trends in modern and postmodern thought. A second chapter, " Objective knowing and Authentic Living " explains what Lonergan meant in claiming that the " polymorphism of human consciousness is the one and only key to philosophy. " The problem is that our inauthentic subjectivity (resulting from the complexities of our history, our modes of inquiry, our patterns of experience and our biases and ideologies) requires the self-transcendence of epistemic, moral and religious conversion. To take just the former, Lonergan broadens and deepens the horizon of the intentional subject to go beyond the restricted horizons of sense and imagination (picture thinking): McCarthy carefully explains what this means, and argues that Lonergan's greatest metaphilosophical contribution was his " brilliantly conceived dialectical strategy " of dividing philosophical statements into positions and counterpositions insofar as they are rooted in intellectual conversion. A third chapter draws on Charles Taylor's work, particularly, A Secular Age, and finds commonalities with Lonergan, for example, between the above mentioned performative contradiction on which Lonergan bases his dialectical strategy, and the tension Taylor identifies between our concord as regards moral advocacy despite radical disagreement with regards to moral ontology. It is this troubling gap that lies at the heart of the instability of our