Questions and responses after lecture ‘Horizons
Sku: 47400A0E060
Archival Number: CD/mp3 474
Author: Lonergan, B.
Language(s): English
Decade: 1960
Description:
CD/mp3 474.Question and Answer session following the lecture on 'Horizons’ (47300A0E060).Sponsored by Prof. Norman Brown.
Why does Lonergan use the word ‘transcendence,’ as in ‘self-transcendence?’To confront the problem of relativism and immanentism, the belief that there is no such thing as arriving at what is beyond the subject.Transcendence is ‘intentional’ and ‘real’ (later ‘cognitional’ and ‘moral’).
What is the connection between authenticity and self-transcendence, if authenticity is being oneself?BL: the real self is going beyond yourself.
What about transcendence and the drug culture?BL: That’s a going beyond, but the cases where it can be defended are very special.The general meaning of ‘transcend’ is to go beyond, but there are different meanings.L is giving the philosophical meaning.
Can there really be objective truth in value judgments? Judgments of value are not infallible.They occur in a context, and the context may be more or less developed.One’s ethical judgments and possibilities depend on the people one is living with.Moral judgments are objective insofar as they proceed from a person who transcends himself or herself habitually.That leaves room for a great spectrum of moral judgments.The objective moral judgment comes only at the term of a complex process.
How is the question of the intentional response related to hope and despair?Hope and despair are responding to objects.The motivation is the goodness of what one is hoping for.There can be further components – why one can hope, optimism as temperamental, etc.But it’s one’s moral being that is at stake in such issues.
Other issues addressed include the presence of otherworldly love in everyday living, the relation between judgment of value and conscience, an assessment of modern culture from the standpoint of value, the relation of Lonergan’s meaning of faith to ecumenical dialogue, and the different ways in which moral systems can be thought out.