This volume is the first of two that treat Bernard Lonergan’s courses on method at the Gregorian University in Rome between 1959 and 1963. An earlier volume (22), Early Works on Theological Method 1, contains a record of the institutes on method that Lonergan conducted in North America between 1962 and 1968. This volume is presented with the original Latin and an English translation on facing pages.
Among the documents featured in Volume 23 are two complete texts written or approved by Lonergan: “Understanding and Method” (1959) and “The Method of Theology” (1962). Also included are Lonergan’s own text of a portion of the 1959 course “System and Method,” as well as editorial reports on the remainder of that course and on the 1961 revised course on “Understanding and Method.” Finally, the book contains an appendix with short materials found in the Lonergan archives relevant to the 1962 course “The Method of Theology.”
Table of Contents:
General Editors’ Preface / Robert M. Doran
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
1 Understanding and Method: 1 The Notion of Question; 2 The Notion of Science; 3 Two Modes of Human Thought; 4 Method and Its Precepts
2 System and History: 1 Introducing the Question; 2 The Greek Mentality; 3 The Modern Mentality; 4 The Conception of History; 5 Historicism; 6 Historicism [bis]; 7 Art; 8 The Circle of Operations
3 Editorial Report on the Handwritten Notes for ‘De Systemate et Historia’; Operation and Meaning; Are Perspectives True?; Religion and Metaphysics; Phenomenology; Perception; Being; History and System; Modes of Apprehension; The Circle of Operations; More on Art; Historicism; Human Reality; More on Human Reality; Three Notions of Science; The Dynamics of System; Science and the Human Sciences; History A, B, and C; The Problem of a Critical Sacred History; Specialization
4 Report on Archival Notes Relevant to the Spring 1961 Course ‘De Intellectu et Methodo’; Inquiry Concerning the Ideal of Reason; The Naturally Endowed Ideal; More on the Ideal of Reason; Still More on the Ideal of Reason; The Method of Theology; Bibliography; Procedure To Be Followed
Chapter 1: On Method in General ; Theology and Method; Operations in General ; The Operating Subject in General; Objects Considered from a Methodological Viewpoint; Methodological Consideration Itself
Chapter 2: The First Problematic: The First and Second Problematics; Radical Antitheses; Further Reflection on These Various ‘Worlds’; The Theological Problematic Based upon the Antitheses (Worlds); Some General Answers to the Theological Problematic Rooted in the Antitheses
Appendix 1: Introduction to the Notion and the Problem of Method; The Question; The Serial Arrangement of Questions; Ordering the Answers; The Serial Arrangement of the Orderings; The Criterion of a New Ordering; The Problem of Foundation; The Problem of Historicity; The Problem of the Chasm; Towards a Solution to These Problems: A First Step; The Problem of the Chasm: A First Step; The Problem of Historicity: A First Step; The Unity of the Solution
Appendix 2: Items Related to ‘De Methodo Theologiae’: Expression; The Explicit and the Implicit; The Historical Explicit and Implicit; The Theological Problem; Theology; Theological Operations; The Order of Exposition; Hermeneutics Is the Art of Understanding a Text or a Document; The Genesis of Theological Categories; The Human Good; Meaning
LATIN TEXT
About the Author :
Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), a professor of theology, taught at Regis College, Harvard University, and Boston College. An established author known for his Insight and Method in Theology, Lonergan received numerous honorary doctorates, was a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1971 and was named as an original member of the International Theological Commission by Pope Paul VI.
Robert M. Doran is the Emmett Doerr Chair in Catholic Systematic Theology at Marquette University.
H. Daniel Monsour is an associate editor of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan and holds a PhD in theology from the University of Toronto.
Michael G. Shields is the librarian at the Lonergan Research Institute, Regis College, University of Toronto, and translator of several volumes in the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan.
