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Lonergan on the Person and the Economy:
“reaching up to the mind of Aquinas,” in view
of responding to Pope Leo XIII, vetera novis
augere et perficere
Author(s) -
Schepers OP Maurice
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
new blackfriars
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1741-2005
pISSN - 0028-4289
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-2005.2011.01441.x
Subject(s) - intentionality , metaphysics , epistemology , order (exchange) , subject (documents) , meaning (existential) , philosophy , reputation , object (grammar) , sociology , social science , linguistics , economics , finance , library science , computer science
Given the reputation of Bernard Lonergan as a thinker, whose philosophical discourse is about intentionality and the seamless connection of cognitional theory, epistemology, and metaphysics, and whose self‐confessed role in theology is to generate a method that meets the exigencies of a world that is on the move and culturally diverse, the article tells the story of his contribution to economic theory, and how this effort occupied both the beginning and the end of his mind's journey. There occurs, of course, the question about how these interests are related, and the key to the answer is found in the motto of Leo XIII, where the vetera imply especially Aquinas’ clear vision of the meaning of being human, and the nova include responses to the two‐fold challenge emergent in both the object (to promote genuine development in the economic order) and the subject (to work out a coherent explanation of the structure of the human good).