What is Lonergan Up to in Insight?

Many consider Bernard Lonergan the outstanding Catholic philosopher of the twentieth century, and his Insight: A Study in Human Understanding (1957) is a brilliant but difficult work that has challenged innumerable readers. What Is Lonergan Up to in Insight? is an accessible introduction to the leading ideas of Lonergan's massive and major achievement in which he focuses on the dynamics of scientific method.

Using Plato's Myth of the Cave as the guiding metaphor, Father Tekippe, who studied under Lonergan, introduces readers to the main ideas of Lonergan's magnum opus. He does not comment, summarize, nor substitute for Insight, but instead communicates faithfully Lonergan's own leading inspirations. Having studied Lonergan for thirty years, Father Tekippe brings the reader into the intricacies of the inner mind.

Chapters relate the more abstract theological questions: "Knowing and Morality," "Being: The Object of the Pure Desire to Know," "The Idea of God," "The Existence of God," "Reflective Insight," and "Question, Inquiry, and the Heuristic," as well as the practical, everyday inquiries: "Insight in Common Parlance," "Insight in Sports," "Insight and the Detective Story," "Insight in Jokes," and "Great Insights in Science."

Undergraduate and graduate students, those in catechetical and ministry schools, and all those interested in Lonergan's theology will appreciate this introduction to one of the most respected and influential works of our time.

Terry J. Tekippe is a priest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. He studied under Lonergan at the Gregorian University in Rome and has been a Lonergan Fellow at Boston College. He wrote a dissertation on Lonergan in theology (Fordham University) and in philosophy (Tulane University). He has edited the Lonergan Studies Newsletter and Papal Infallibility: An Application of Lonergan's Theological Method (1983). He published Lonergan and Thomas on the Will: An Essay in Interpretation (1993), and his Theology: Love's Question (1991) is an adaption of Lonergan's theological method for beginners.