Autor: Melchin, R. Kenneth

Buch: History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Titel: History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Stichwort: Praktische Intelligenz - Geschichte; Lonergan - Marx

Kurzinhalt: The constitutive elements of societies, in Lonergan's analysis, are 'the pattern of relations of a social order.

Textausschnitt: 7.3 The Practical Intelligence as Historical

20/7 In the twenty pages on 'Group Bias' and 'General Bias,' Lonergan's emergent probability becomes a foundation for a theory of historical dynamics. In these pages the sketch of the structure of historical change which so far has remained heuristic and suggestive takes on some flesh. After discussing the two biases and their corresponding cycles of historical decline, Lonergan briefly sets his account in opposition to that of Marx. (216; Fs)

To ignore the fact of decline was the error of the old liberal views of automatic progress. The far more confusing error of Marx was to lump together both progress and the two principles of decline under the impressive name of dialectical materialism, to grasp that the minor principle of decline would correct itself more rapidly through class war, and then to leap gaily to the sweeping conclusion that class war would accelerate progress. What, in fact, was accelerated was major decline which in Russia and Germany leaped to fairly thorough brands of totalitarianism.1

21/7 This presentation is, without a doubt, not what one could call a sensitive analysis of Marx's thought. But in spite of its scathing dismissal of Marx's proposed solution for the reversal of historical decline, this passage betrays a profound concern for a solution to the problem to which Karl Marx was passionately dedicated. (216; Fs)

22/7 Like Marx, Lonergan understands clearly the integral relationship between an account of human nature and a theory of social and historical process. It is certainly true that Lonergan conceives the performance of acts of intelligence and responsibility to be the constitutive elements of human nature as human. But there is evidence in Insight that Lonergan shares with Marx the view that the broad range of human life involves not so much the theoretical operation of intelligence in the intellectual pattern of experience but the practical application of common sense intelligence to the transformation of 'material' conditions of society, culture and economy. (216; Fs)

Common sense is practical. It seeks knowledge, not for the sake of the pleasure of contemplation, but to use knowledge in making and doing. Moreover, this making and doing involve a transformation of man and his environment, so that the common sense of a primitive culture is not the common sense of an urban civilization, nor the common sense of one civilization the common sense of another. However elaborate the experiments of the pure scientist, his goal is always to come closer to natural objects and natural relationships. But the practicality of common sense engenders and maintains enormous structures of technology, economics, politics, and culture, that not only separate man from nature but also add a series of new levels or dimensions in the network of human relationships.2

23/7 Man's most primitive as well as his most developed activities consist of the recurrent practice of applying human ingenuity and effort to the available materials of life and converting these materials to the satisfaction of physical needs and of culturally and economically created desires, appetites and values. Such activity not only transforms the conditions of life. It also creates such conditions so that in time the environment in which men and women live and work is constituted predominantly by the fruits of previous acts of intelligent 'production.'3 Thus, Lonergan conceives the practical operation of intelligence in its 'labour' or 'production' to be the motive power of history has human.4 (217; Fs) (notabene)

24/7 Lonergan also recognizes that what is most significant for a proper study of human nature and history is the concrete, historical performance of the acts of practical intelligence by human subjects. Ideas are not begotten by ideas, but by human subjects developing and executing cognitional and cognitially-mediated skills in concrete contexts of historical materials and conditions. Lonergan has sought to understand the structure of the schemes of acts wherein such ideas and such practical activities are born. Marx, on the other hand, has focussed most predominantly upon the historical and economic conditions surrounding the performance of specific classes of such acts. And, as will be discussed in greater detail below, this difference in orientation is a significant element in the differences between Marx's and Lonergan's accounts of history and the human prospects. But the two thinkers share a profound appreciation for the concrete genesis of acts of practical intelligence. (217; Fs)

25/7 The constitutive elements of societies, in Lonergan's analysis, are 'the pattern of relations of a social order.'5 The operative distinctions between modes or forms of labour, the fields of skills corresponding to such forms, the functional distinctions between productive sectors of an economy, the current classifications of income groups and the distinctions between functioning contributions to political process all constitute the terms and relations which define implicitly the operative routines of schemes of a society. And while such operative terms and relations are themselves the products of countless instances of the practical application of intelligence, the context of such conditions into which all of us are born and raised has the overwhelming effect of shaping and adapting human spontaneity in accordance with its own needs and exigences. (217f; Fs)
In a school, a regiment, a factory, a trade, a profession, a prison, there develops an ethos that at once subtly and flexibly provides concrete premises and norms for practical decisions. For in human affairs the decisive factor is what one can expect of the other fellow. Such expectations rest on recognized codes of behaviour; they appeal to past performance, acquired habit, reputation; they attain a maximum of precision and reliability among those frequently brought together, engaged in similar work, guided by similar motives, sharing the same prosperity or adversity.6

26/7 As was discussed earlier, Lonergan's notion of intersubjectivity and his account of society and history as constituted by human acts of intelligence by no means implies that all insights are the genesis of novelty or that the pattern of insights constituting a social order is the product of one subject.7 For the most part, the course of a person's development consists of his or her grasping the dominant meanings of the culture and actuating the currently accepted practical forms of labour and social comportment. And while every form of activity represents the fruit of some intelligent adaptation to the conditions of life or some ingenious solution to a practical problem, the complete set of practical insights and the consequent patterns of interactions among such operative insights is seldom, if ever, understood by any one person. Consequently the operative set of practical relations and routines which constitutes any society and any economy will remain, for the most part, operative implicitly, hidden from the understanding of its citizens, and a powerful determinant in shaping the ideas emerging in that milieu. In a very significant sense, then, Lonergan recognizes that the relations which structure a society and an economy operate to shape and adapt the sensitive spontaneity and the practical intelligence of that society in accordance with the smooth attainment of its own social and economic ends.8 (218; Fs)

27/7 The course of society and history, in Lonergan's analysis, proceeds as practical activity[eg:,] gives rise to new sets of conditions and problems and then seeks subsequently to adapt to these conditions and solve their problems. As was noted above, the possibility for social order rests in the fact that individuals will perform practical operations which link up with those of others to form flexible schemes yielding goods which otherwise could not have been achieved.9 And it should be clear now that such schemes operate to condition the emergence of further insights and practices which perpetuate their smooth functioning. But the actuation of such events and schemes changes environmental conditions, and eventually there occurs a sufficiently great set of changes as to require an adaptation of the events and routines of the society and economy. At this point the tendency of the social whole to adapt new insights and practices in accordance with its sustenance and its perpetuation begins to operate as an obstacle to its own survival. For the sufficiently changed conditions no longer call for minor adaptations in the routines of the society. They call for major changes in its constitutive terms and relations. (218f; Fs)