Your Personal Expectations

Your Personal Expectations

Though our focus is writ-small and, thus, for one person, you and I should keep in mind that our own personal development is not without context, and that you and I are inseparable from that context. Indeed, whether we are aware of it or not, we are a part of its richness. And so as a prolonged exercise in philosophical self-reflection, we can never stray too far from our awareness of the writ-large import of our own philosophical inheritance, or our philosophical foundations.

We located the beginning of philosophy-proper with the pre-Christian Greeks, with Socrates calling for theoretical explanations from within the pages of Plato’s dialogues, and with Aristotle breaking with the dialogue form of expression to develop his formal theoretical treatises. Unlike in our time, however, in Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical climate there was no question that philosophy is a personal adventure of the first order. For them, the personal was comprehensive and not merely "subjective" and thus unconnected with reality, as many in our present philosophical clime assume.

Philosophy has taken many turns and twists over its long history, especially during the enlightenment years in the European West. Since that time, philosophical movements of mind, especially in the West that concern theory development, have often drifted away from, or even rejected, relating theory to the mind, or to the personal, or to the personal dimensions of knowledge. Thus, if you are reading this text, you probably inherited at least some of the post-modern Western frame of mind—a frame that is at least partially unauthentic, as our present work, in part, is about exploring with you.

Briefly, and in part, from this view theory is objective; and anything personal is subjective. Also, we know by looking; and so it follows that the mind, which cannot be “seen,” is also personal and subjective. And the two—object and subject--we assume, are not related, or at least not easily so, and remain unlinked. That is, we can talk about the mind, but we cannot really go at it in critical-objective fashion like we can, say, the planets or biology.

However, from this frame, and remembering the Greek philosophers, we are drawn to ask, first, whether a philosophy that claims to be scientific, theoretical, methodological, and critical must also claim to be wholly non- or impersonal; or, second, whether a philosophy that claims to identify with the personal, in fact, can also be objective-theoretical?

The answer is one or the other; OR the argument calls for some further distinctions and-or some inspection of the frame of mind from which the choices emerge. I suggest that the third—making some further distinctions, and inspecting the frame of mind (assumptions) that produced the choices--is most appropriate and may lead us to some major insights.

Whereas the philosophical Greeks would not have raised this question seriously, we must raise it systematically--precisely because of the many twists and turns that philosophy has taken over the centuries. Such twists and turns are grounded in the fundament of development. However, if such twists and turns occurred, they most probably arrived in our minds already on the wings of the common discourse we have been immersed in since the cradle.

In our earlier chapters here, we explore in broad outlines the trail that has led us to the separation--even divorce--of science from the personal as well as from the “unseen” mind, not to mention from the good. Briefly, however, and though it may be problematic for some readers at this point, I must ask you in this introduction: Can any object be known without that knowledge being rooted in a person-knower—a person who has raised a wealth of prior questions from within a huge complex and conditioning context of meaning, and whether that meaning is developed within a theoretical, common, artistic, or any other kind of venue?

If your answer to this question is yes, then I must ask you to consider how you define knowledge (remembering the chicken and the egg above) and, under that definition, how it might be the case that we can talk about objective knowledge without a person who is the knower of that knowledge?

On the other hand, if you answer this question no, then let me ask you this: Might either a philosophy, or any other science or knowledge field that claims to be completely impersonal, or that aims at such a state as a general tenet, also be hinting rather loudly at being philosophically out of tune--knowledge--without a person who knows? The implied claim, again, is that their knowledge field and science is only legitimate if non- or impersonal, presumably without scientists—or knowers who are knowing-subjects and who have a huge background of not only looking, but of meaning accumulation behind that knowledge--including a wealth of what goes by the name: value judgments?

It is not that such meaning accumulation must be biased, on principle, if admitted by the knower who is a person, or that knowledge cannot have both truly objective and subjective components to it. Rather, and as complexly problematic as this might seem to you at present, the personal meaning accumulated in ourselves as knowers—over a lifetime of experience--is also the only source of any kind of objectivity that a person-knower, or a knowledge field, might be able to claim in the first place.

On the other hand, it certainly does not follow that, by acknowledging the subject-knower-person, our biases disappear or are not problematic, or that we must ignore the possibility of bias, or that our accumulation of meaning may not have not gone awry, or that we may not lack some sort of development or other with regard to what we are claiming to know--or that whole fields might not be seriously off-kilter.

Rather, and as complexly problematic as this might seem to you at present, the acknowledgement of the intimacy between the subject-knower and the object-truly-known suggests this: That prior meaning accumulation and personal development need to be the target of our ongoing critical discernment in all knowledge fields. First, biases can be recognized, guarded against, and shed and, second, adequate development and meaning accumulation may be consciously fostered as the source of real objectivity in the whole complex of human meaning, not to mention in the development of wisdom in human affairs.

By raising these questions we open the door to the sticky question of what knowledge and truth are—in fact—which may already begin to smell like a logical tautology to some readers and-or a hopelessly subjective and ungrounded argument, on principle. However, we will develop our questions, our evidence, and our pedagogy for your own understanding in non-tautological fashion, and in earnest in our later chapters.

Again, do you think any philosophy and-or human science can be legitimate in aiming-at or claiming-to-be non- or impersonal; or can we have science without a scientist, or philosophy without a philosopher? And again, if we find we must claim the personal in order to legitimately claim any objective knowledge at all, first, must we then introduce several forms of “subjective bias” as necessary components in any scientific or philosophical study and, thereby, a diminishment of truth and its fullness? And second, if our philosophical study is of the mind, must we lose our claim to any critical-objective knowledge before we even get started--because we cannot "see" the mind?

If you do not see the problem here, I will lay it out for you: If you already rest in the assumption and maintain that philosophy and philosophical study is a flight of fancy, and that the mind cannot really be studied in any truly critical or factual way, then this entire project, though you may find it interesting, will be a waste of time for you because the study is necessarily and hopelessly bias-infested and has no claim to reality, on principle. On the other hand, if you are willing to challenge your own assumptions in these matters, then you just may be surprised and even delighted by what you find—I suggest you will.

I will raise these questions again as our project unfolds. However, with our sticky problem of knowledge in mind, again, the present work brings forward the ancient mandate Know Thyself and the equally ancient maxim: An unexamined life is not worth living. We will need to reconsider these in the light of the history of philosophy since those earlier times. And since we have opened the question of the personal--that the Greeks assumed was a part of knowledge--we will need to be more definitive, declarative, and theoretical. We need to bring the personal back in line with the theoretical and the objective for you, for me, for the scientist, and for the philosopher in our time. For if human understanding, valuing, and knowing are all personal, but also can be fully objective and even scientific, then a human being who personally understands, values, and knows our own knowing processes is well-grounded indeed; and especially if that knowing has a critically appropriated and verified theoretical base.

Again, in writing the present work, I draw mainly from the philosopher Bernard Lonergan whose works I refer to often. I also draw on the work of my teacher, Emil Piscitelli [2] as well as that of others who continue to bring transcendental method to many audiences [3]. In all of these works, the writers recover, and bring into post-enlightenment relief, the basic insights of both the Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. They do so by assuming and charting out a view of the whole, with ourselves and the scientist in it; by calling out the potential reflective and self-reflective philosopher-person in all of us; and by understanding generally what we question, insight, and understand as having real comprehensive, metaphysical, ethical, and spiritual import. The assumption is that, though your study here may have profound subjective influence, it is not only the work of your subjective psychology. And the assumption is that knowledge can be and often is of more than some merely-sensed and person-less objectivity.

Further, such writers rise to the challenge that the question and problem of knowledge bring along with them (the epistemological call for grounded and critical clarity) with a working theory of knowledge and a complementary, self-verifiable, and attuned cognitional theory. Also, they and we call to our readers for nothing less than an empirical, critical, and personally verifiable appraisal and judgment by those who would question and understand it--you and I.

The ready availability of the data (your own mind) offers that the continually concrete verification and grounding of the theory can occur in anyone who takes up that challenge. So you should expect to use your own mind to become critically aware and knowledgeable of your own mind and, with the use of the theory, of minds in general.

Furthermore, philosophy includes our questions about the formal and theoretical dimensions of cognition, consciousness, metaphysics, logic, epistemology, ethics and ontology, etc. In this way, philosophy includes, but takes us far beyond the tenets of, contemporary psychological, sociological, cultural, historical, or anthropological exploration, though of course not beyond the actual foundations of those explorations. For all fields assume some view of all philosophical matters, i.e., notions about what a “fact” is, and about human understanding, knowledge, truth, the good, and being--all underpin all knowledge fields as the basic ground for all dialogue.

Also, know thyself is not only a Platonic mandate, but also is implied in the very meaning of philosophy--the love of wisdom--both as a formal field of study and as a personal development of the powers of human thought. That is, such a philosophical mandate to examine and to know thyself now must begin with knowing what we think knowledge is, rather than beginning with unspecified and perhaps uncritically inherited assumptions about such fundamental matters. So, because of philosophy’s comprehensive subject matter and place in history, philosophers must now always begin by knowing and being able to explain our own philosophical assumptions—assumptions which ordinarily remain hidden in other discourses in other knowledge fields, including in ordinary as well as theoretical discourse.

And so our present project may sound daring in expecting from you at least your openness towards exploring your own assumptions and towards forging a new relationship between the subjective, the personal, knowledge, facts, and the objective-theoretical, whichever order you put these into. However, the project also promises an explicit explanation and pedagogical method towards your understanding and critical verification of, and ultimately your sense of unification and wholeness of, what may seem, for the moment, quite daring. Many have become quite comfortable with this central and substantial aspect of self-knowing, and so can you.

Following the ancient philosophical call, throughout the work we will point you towards developing a new awareness of your personal-intimate life. We will set up the conditions for you to examine your assumptions as you discover your own intimate relationship to the theories explored here. And you will be guided as you employ your theoretical precision and critical-objective judgment in the verification process—a judgment that the present work thoroughly depends upon for its successful fruition. In this way, I expect you to begin distinguishing between a theory of insight, of mind, or of consciousness, on the one hand, and the actual light, dim or momentarily blinding, that illuminates your mind when you understand anything at all, on the other.

While the theory points to that light as its object, the light continues to occur in you and me whether anyone develops a theory about it--or not. Thus, and though the theory is the product of someone's light, the theory is not that light; the object as potentially known is not merely an object, and will not be merely a known object; and it is through that light (the actual occurrence of insighting in you), and only through that light, that you will come to understand and identify with the theory, with the data of others’ minds, and consciously with your own processes that are both the object of the theory and the proximate source of that light. Hence, if you fully participate, you will partake in both the theoretical and the personal-intimate sides of the historical philosophical enterprise we find ourselves in at present.

To that end, and besides the chapter devoted entirely to verification exercises, the chapters in this work include Reflection and Dialogue Points that are set off from the narrative in relevant places in the text. Your participation in the writing and dialogue given in these Points constitutes your self-reflective foundational review in progress; and that participation will help you develop your thought in a way that will best prepare you to fully understand the later theory-to-self verification procedures.

Further, though differences abound, we begin by assuming what our fundaments (yours and mine) are and do. These are the thinking and acting processes you already do and are doing now while you read this text, i.e., looking, wondering, resourcing/resonating-with your past understanding, marshalling and weighing evidence, evaluating, etc. And we will assume that our philosophical assumptions (foundations—yours and mine) are already learned and established, inherited, life-long, and commonly go un-critiqued throughout our lives, at least in any thoroughgoing way (Lonergan, 1958, p. 402; & 2000, p. 426).

Hence, the problem of philosophical attunement or lack of it presses on our daily dialogue like hot air presses on the inside of a balloon--in our spontaneous orientation towards integration--and more so for those involved in philosophical explorations that fail to call for self-reflection, e.g., "modem" philosophy or other thought that has come down to us from the Enlightenment.

In order to expose those foundations in a critical way, again, you will need to go through the Dialogue and Reflections Points provided in each chapter. You will also need to go “out” to theory, and then to return to your interior life with the theory in hand, with a clear understanding of the role of theoretical excursions and of the difference between these and other kinds of excursions, and for incurring a clear and critical architectural analysis of-and-for that interior life. And so you will need to commit yourself to understanding the difference between your rich and common discourse, on the one hand, and the clarity and distinctions presented in theoretical discourse, on the other. The two discourses are not opposed, though many often think of them as so (1958 & 2000). An early chapter is devoted to developing the distinction between common and theoretical thought and discourse for and in you.

Carving out the distinction between commonsense thought and theory, and then philosophical theory, Lonergan writes about common-sense eclecticism that is an assumed but often problematic method of foundational discourse in many fields of study:


If it (commonsense thought) rarely is adopted by original thinkers, it remains the inertial centre of the philosophic process. From every excess and aberration men swing back to common sense and, perhaps no more than a minority of students and professors, of critics and historians, ever wander very far from a set of assumptions that are neither formulated nor scrutinized. (1958, p. 416; & 2000, p. 441)


As pedagogy, and as essential to this unique exercise, we want to return to the subjective-personal and to the field of common and sometimes-uncritical discourse. However, we do not want to lose the critical nature of theory along the way. Also, Lonergan is speaking of philosophical assumptions in people who consider themselves theoreticians and professionals in the various fields, as well as of persons of good and wise commonsense. Thus, a full participation in the present project will require your understanding of theory-as-such. Such participation is not from the point of view of presenting us with a logical tautology, on principle, but as an understood-for-yourself and personally self-verified theoretical philosophy, and from your development of theoretical consciousness as clearly distinct from a common mode of thought and discourse.

Further, performing a foundational review means: from the position of having a clear theory in hand, we begin to tease out these assumptions in our own thought by asking the critical questions that define our foundational-philosophical areas of activity and concern. In so teasing, however, a philosopher, a scientist, a historian, a professor, a student, and a person of good commonsense must, again, approach the project from an attitude of openness, and be willing to put your own heretofore un-inspected philosophical inheritance up for guided self-critique, and in the line of fire from your own and others’ questions about those foundations that so inform and influence your feelings, images, thought, analysis, speech and act.

Moreover, the point is not to persuade or force, but to take yourself and your philosophical inheritance with the seriousness both deserve, to pay close attention to your own interior activities, to discuss openly with others, and to encourage questions and insights within yourself and in others for the sake of everyone’s further understanding. A willingness to self-critique about your present personal foundations, then, or to get to know yourself, is an expectation of philosophy as a long-term historical concern, and of this project as a more proximate concern. Again, this is not merely a psychological adventure, but rather the project is unapologetically a full-fledged philosophical project. In part, the present project is about gathering in this difference for you.

And so, even though I may be remote in time and space from your reading of this text, as your teacher for the moment or, with our hats off to Plato, as a potential midwife for the occurrence of your insights, I expect you, and you should expect of yourself, to be open to such movements of thought throughout your reading of the present work.