The SPIRIT of INQUIRY

The Spirit of Inquiry

Further, TM is a technical term for what we refer to as “the spirit of inquiry” and that is, in turn, the beginning of all knowledge. If so, then that spirit has a critical verification component that is most evident in the history of common understanding in all persons for as long as history has been around.

That is, first, when we are at our best at being critically minded about our concrete affairs, we commonly seek to distinguish mere belief, wishes, or feelings, from the “genuine article,” “the real thing,” and the “hard facts” of the matter. Regardless of our many common failures and mistakes, such a method is embedded in our commonsense procedures, so that we can speak and act accordingly as a matter of habitual wisdom.

And second, ever since the scientific revolution the centerpiece of the sciences has been a fundamental adherence to scientific method which, generally speaking, is nothing less than this same critical method raised to the level of defined tenets, theoretical meaning, and technically defined system. Here such a method systematically avoids knowledge pronouncements until all relevant questions have been settled, and until all the relevant evidence is in. And even then, scientists consider their knowledge general and waiting for factual verification, and still tenuous--they continue to reach for more revelations and insights about the data and for better technical definitions according to new discoveries, and at the behest of their recalcitrant drive to understand more and better.
But if the spirit of inquiry and its verification component is evident throughout history, then that component can and should be applied to itself in its most critical (scientific), discerning (comprehensively critical), and personal way, precisely because it is the scientist’s mind we are speaking of—that mind is de facto included in the data arena.

However, such an application will not be rooted in or take place in the natural or physical sciences, but rather in the field of theoretical philosophy—the field that takes human understanding, theory, and knowledge, etc., as its content. Even if a natural scientist takes up the project (and I heartily invite you to do so here), with the spirit of inquiry as content, that scientist, by that fact, leaves their own field and enters the field of philosophical inquiry, or the field of foundations for all of the sciences, and for philosophy as well.

Such an exploration and verification project is developed in the theoretical reference herein to transcendental method (and-or general empirical method); to a working theory of knowledge that takes common procedures and the sciences in human history as its grounding referent; and to the process of self-appropriation and self-affirmation of the person doing the very difficult work of critical-theoretical development combined with personal application, without losing either (Lonergan, 1972).

Such a process is afforded critical pedagogy in the present work. But again, why?

First, a study of transcendental method will reveal to you in clear and critical fashion how your own horizons develop (and have developed), how those horizons influence your regard for self-others, and how they expand and deepen through continued self-reflection, or fail to do so. In a more remote way, learning about TM and going through the self-appropriation-affirmation process itself tends to inspire in us enduring, thoughtful, and respectful practice. And so in a broader sense, the critical self-knowledge that the process affords can add a new dimension to what it means to have a full and good education. Thus, the process both emerges from the great wisdom (and educational) traditions and brings a new and critical element to those same traditions.

Second, TM is a verifiable theory, and the data for verification is your own mind in all of its personal intimacy. Verifying a theory against the presented evidence as we verify any theory, then, is a part of the verification process for TM. However, the study also affords us a clear awareness of the potential within us for biases, diversions, oversights, on the one hand, and normative, insightful, and self-transcendent veins of thought within of each of us, on the other. In this way, we are afforded an avenue towards conscious enhancement of our own self-corrective practices that are already a part of our minded processes--and most probably well-worn in you already. Such practices can manifest in our deepening sense of centering self-awareness, and even of self-love—a self-love that can easily spread to others through a fuller knowledge of what is common to all of us. I issue no guarantees; however, a deepening awareness of self has always correlated with a deepening awareness of others. And again, such awareness presents us with a new aspect of what it means to have a good education.

Third, TM-the-theory regards TM-the-spirit of creativity that is so evident in children, but that, however thwarted, continues to live in all of us. Facing the day is your own TM on the move. Though TM-the-spirit of creativity can be ignored, battered about, and hindered, getting to know it through TM-the-theory carries the potential of framing the actual structure and its dynamism, of bathing it in the light of self-awareness, and, in doing so, of healing and releasing its pent-up powers in us, to us, and for us.

Fourth, again, transcendental method-as-theory is a reflective articulation of what we commonly call the spirit of inquiry in all of its comprehensive aspects. As such, knowledge of and conscious identity with TM-the-reality is nothing more and nothing less than a conscious embrace of the human motivational activity that comes before all knowledge, before all knowledge fields, and before all expressions of knowledge—no questions, no knowledge. Knowledge of transcendental method, then, is knowledge of the foundations of all past, present, and future knowledge.

Fifth, reflective practice is central to the religious and wisdom traditions of many if not all cultures, and has been for all of history. In this sense, our text does not pit intelligence and knowledge--as some sort of desiccated abstraction from human living--against faith and-or religious insights. Rather, the study reveals their relationship in clear and precise terms and, thus, is amenable to, even complementary to, those traditions--but without taking a doctrinal stand on any.

Further, our text is complementary to these traditions in the sense that, through the reading, we locate and give explanation to the basic structure and developmental processes at work in reflective and self-reflective practice, as well as in fostering a development of those practices. And we locate in the same basic structure and process the broad outlines of the religious quest--as a quest for the Mysterious Other—in whatever form human beings have expressed that inquiry over all of history.

On the other hand, and though we can locate the religious quest, our present embrace of transcendental method is completely empirical and critical—and only that. Again, from this basic position, I make no claim to religious knowledge or to the truth or falsity of any religious doctrine. That is, TM-as-theory is a theory of the quest that, historically, includes ultimate concerns that human beings have had over all of human history. In this way, TM helps explain, but avoids identifying with, either side of the post-modern polemic between transcendence and immanence; between religious doctrine and scientific knowledge; between Nature and God; or between empirical claims and the living of religious faith.

In this way, and again, a study of TM is completely appropriate to both secular and religious education, where one identifies with empirical method, and the other includes the above in the theoretical fields, but also identifies with living within the horizons of a religious quest, and of our faith journey.

Further, a study of transcendental method and the occurrence of self-appropriation can foster the conditions for a complementary and insightful dialogue to occur between those beginning in empirical method and those beginning from a position of faith.

Also, the language of transcendental method recalls and recovers the language of transcendence for the field of education where the loss of symbols of transcendence have become “devitalized, stale, opaque,” and commercialized (Hughes, 2003). It does so, again, without requiring the reader to identify with, or fail to identify with, one-and-only-one set of religious doctrines.

Thus, again, I take no doctrinal stand on religious issues here; while at the same time I claim and will show that a discovery of TM is a discovery of the human quest towards the mysterious-beyond that all scientists and religious persons participate in, though in vastly different ways. As such, the discovery of transcendental method is both critical-empirical and a discovery of the empirical fount and foundations of all religious doctrine.

Sixth, TM is a qualified and verifiable theory—it does not call for belief, but for experimentation, verification, and self-verification. TM shows us the centerpiece of critical knowledge within ourselves as distinct from but intimately related to feelings, belief, dreams, and even faith. As such, TM can and should be brought to the table of all education, and for all to understand for themselves—for yourself—as first and foremost for and about you, and me, about each of our students and, by implication, about all of human culture and history.

At the very least, then, none of the above is detrimental to children or adults and, in fact, all will further our openness towards our continued and qualified understanding and human development. If so, then knowledge of transcendental method, and an ability to teach about it in educational institutions, can only enhance all educational reform towards what has come to be known as best practice.

And seventh, self-appropriation-affirmation, as both a critical-theoretical and quite personal experience, completes the scientific revolution in Western inquiry and thought that began several centuries ago. It can serve to enhance the creative dialogue between all sorts of thinkers and cultures by laying bare the architecture of the centerpiece of thought that we all share as human.
Thus and more, I argue, is “Why Transcendental Method.”