Understanding and Being lecture 1:2

CD/mp3 132, second part of first Halifax lecture on Insight. Corresponds to CWL 5: 17-32. Sponsored by Mary Kierans, in the name of Hugh Kierans. We already have our ideals of what knowledge is, and we want to do self-appropriation according to the ideal already operative in us. Self-appropriation is also a matter of pulling out inadequate ideals. There is an existential element. If you acknowledge that intellect is intelligence, you have tremendous problems in epistemology. Lonergan proceeds to some illustrations of insight. In the problem in the Meno about doubling the square, the diagram is the key (missed by Plato, but seen by Aristotle). Next there is Euclid's first proposition involving the construction of an equilateral triangle on a given base in a given plane. One step not covered by Euclid's definitions, axioms, or postulates is grasped by insight. Again, there is Euclid's proof of the exterior angle being greater than the interior opposite. We don't imagine the must, but we can understand it. Aristotle divided questions into four types: What? Is it? Why is it so? Is it So? What do we mean by 'what?' Aristotle said 'what?' means 'why?' Kant's a priori is independent of experience. He does not think of the image as causing the insight. He thinks only of images and concepts, where the concept governs the image.

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Audio restoration by Greg Lauzon