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What is personal encounter?

7/29/2013

3 Comments

 
Posted July 25, 2013

     The twentieth century Catholic Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan analyzes the various forms of human knowledge (natural sciences, social sciences, philosophy, theology, and common sense) in order to address the issue of the possibility of attaining objective knowledge.  
  
      Lonergan maintains that there is in all of us a “pure desire to know.”  The desire to know can be cast aside by other desires: rest, sleep, food, comfort, wealth, power.  But we all have moments in which these other desires are stilled, and our attention is focused on the desire to understand.  Some of us are called to a life of intellectual work, in which we develop a daily pattern of permitting the desire to know to come to the fore.  
      
      But as we seek to understand, can we manage to formulate concepts that in some form are independent of the social roots and social positions in which we necessarily, as human beings, are immersed?  If so, how can we do it?  
 
     For Lonergan, as we seek to understand, we proceed within a particular social context.  We all occupy different positions by virtue of the different societies and sub-societies to which we belong.  In each social position, we learn through social interaction a coherent set of values, facts, and assumptions concerning the world.  Lonergan seeks to stress that this worldview is rooted in a particular social place, and he thus invokes an analogy and calls it our “horizon.”  
 
      By enabling us to make sense of the world, horizon aids understanding.  The natural and social world in which humans live is complex, and we would be overwhelmed and bewildered were it not for a socially-based and commonly-accepted set of assumptions, facts, and values that enable us to meaningfully organize selected elements of the complex world in which we live.

      At the same time, horizon limits our understanding, in that it provides us with a view of the world that is shaped by the particular social positions that we occupy.  Horizon thus constitutes the fundamental basis for ethnocentrism.  As Lonergan wrote:
"As our field of vision, so too the scope of our knowledge, and the range of our interests are bounded.  As fields of vision vary with one’s standpoint, so too the scope of one’s knowledge and the range of one’s interests vary with the period in which one lives, one’s social background and milieu, one’s education and personal development.  So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon.  In this sense what lies beyond one’s horizon is simply outside the range of one’s knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares" (1973:236).

      Lonergan, however, maintains that we can overcome the limitations imposed on understanding by horizon through personal encounter with persons who possess social positions and horizons different from our own.  Personal encounter involves “meeting persons, appreciating the values they represent, criticizing their defects, and allowing one’s living to be challenged at its roots by their words and their deeds” (1973:247).  
 
       Thus, personal encounter is the key to transcending the limitations of culturally-rooted assumptions and moving toward an understanding that is universal.  In subsequent posts, we will explore the implications of Lonergan’s insight into human understanding for our understanding of the global crisis that humanity today confronts.

 
References
 
Lonergan, Bernard. 1958.  Insight.  New York: Philosophical
Library.
 
__________. 1973.  Method in Theology, 2nd edition.  New  York: Herder and Herder.

 
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, Lonergan, cognitional theory, epistemology, philosophy

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What is cross-horizon encounter?

7/26/2013

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      The significance of personal encounter (see “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013) is related to the characteristics of understanding.  The philosopher Bernard Lonergan views understanding as a process in which, having established for the moment the desire to know as paramount over other desires, we move through different levels: experience (sensual data and facts); understanding (and formulation); judgment (factual and moral); action based on understanding; and a cyclical return to experience.  As we move through the level of understanding and formulation, we respond to questions that are relevant to the issue at hand.

      Personal encounter is critical precisely at this moment of raising and responding to relevant questions.  As we seek to understand, we may not be aware of questions that are relevant to the issue, because such questions are beyond the scope of our horizon.  But through encounter with persons of other horizons, we become aware of relevant questions of which we were previously unaware.  If we are driven by the desire to know, we will address these newly discovered questions, which cannot have any other consequence than transforming our understanding, taking us beyond what was possible in the context of our horizon.  Encounter thus enables us to discover relevant questions and to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding.

     An Englishman in colonial Kenya, for example, may not think to ask the question, what is the role of English conquest and colonial domination in promoting poverty in Kenya?  But a Kikuyu cannot possibly avoid considering the question, given that the English conquered the Kikuyu through force of arms and relocated them to “African reserves” in order to obtain land for coffee plantations.  An Englishman who encounters, in Lonergan’s sense of the term, the Kikuyu social movement will become aware of this relevant question.  If he is driven by the desire to know, rather than by a desire to protect English interests, his understanding will be transformed.  To the extent that he is driven by the desire to know, our Englishman can move toward understanding and scientific knowledge, moving beyond the ideologies that promote particular interests, if he engages in personal encounter with the Kikuyu.  

      Lonergan invokes the image of horizon to refer to the culturally bounded assumptions that shape human understandings, and he maintains that the limitations imposed on human understanding by horizon can be overcome through personal encounter with persons of different horizons (see “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013).  I have coined the term “cross-horizon encounter” to refer to this process.

     Cross-horizon encounter is integral to attaining an objective understanding, that is, a universal understanding that transcends cultural differences, and as such, can be affirmed as true by persons of different cultures.  Cross-horizon encounter enables us discover relevant questions, pushing us beyond an understanding rooted in our particular social positions.  Cross-horizon encounter enables us to develop understandings that take into account the experiences and understandings of persons of different social positions and horizons.  Anyone who desires to understand must be driven by the desire to know and must seek cross-horizon encounter.

     In future posts, we will continue to explore the implications of “cross-horizon encounter” for understanding the global crisis that humanity confronts and for understanding what collective action is required in order the safeguard the future of humanity.

Greetings from Havana, Cuba

July 26, 2013

Sixtieth anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks, an event that announced the armed struggle against the Batista dictatorship.

Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, Lonergan, cognitional theory, epistemology, philosophy

0 Comments

Overcoming the colonial denial

7/25/2013

0 Comments

 
Posted July 29, 2019

     What can we learn through cross-horizon encounter, that is, through personal encounter with the social movements formed by the peoples of the Third World?  (See “What is cross-horizon encounter?” July 26, 2013).

     Given the importance of colonialism and neocolonialism in Third World experience, we will discover such questions as:  What was the role of colonialism in establishing the world system and its structures of domination and inequality?  What changes were made in the world-system in response to the anti-colonial movements?  What is neocolonialism, and what are its characteristics?  What role do neocolonial structures play in the preservation of global inequalities?  How do the neocolonized peoples react to neocolonialism?  As we respond to these questions, we will arrive at an understanding of the structures of colonialism and neocolonialism, including their importance in the development and maintenance of the modern world system, and we will come to appreciate the significance of Third World anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements.

      Thus cross-horizon encounter enables us to overcome what I call the “colonial denial,” by which I mean the tendency to overlook the significance of colonialism and neocolonialism in shaping global inequalities and political conflicts.  The colonial denial pervades the cultures of the countries of the North. 

     We manage to accomplish the colonial denial in various ways.  The consumer societies of the North are characterized by lack of patience with intellectual work of any kind, including the study of history.  So we are not accustomed to thinking of the unfolding of current events in their historical context.  This tendency is reinforced by the news media, which presents conflicts in a superficial form, without sufficient effort to explain their historical development.

      According to structural-functional theories of society, serious study of social problems and issues should occur in higher education.  But in colleges and universities, the study of the social world is divided into the disciplines of sociology, political science, economics, international relations, anthropology, history, and philosophy.  This organization of higher education was designed to ensure that the people would come to understand very little.  It emerged in reaction to the threats posed by Marx’s analysis of the historical development of the political-economic systems of the world and by Lenin’s updating of Marx with his penetrating analysis of imperialism as a more advanced phase of capitalism.  The organization of knowledge of society in higher education retards the development of understanding, but it makes sense if the goal is to have an uninformed population that can be manipulated by elites.

      The peoples of the Third World have been in movement for 200 years, seeking to create a just and democratic world.  The Third World movements have developed an understanding of the dynamics of colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism.  Drawing upon what they can teach us, we will in subsequent posts engage in colonial analysis, which is the opposite of colonial denial.

Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, Lonergan, cognitional theory, epistemology, philosophy

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    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

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