Functional Collaboration As The Implementation Of Lonergan’s Method, Part 1: For What Problem is Functional Collaboration the Solution?
Authors
Michael Shute
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Keywords:
specialization, progress, functional collaboration, Bernard Lonergan, philosophy of history
Abstract
The proliferation of specializations of subjects and fields in the contemporary academy has produced a problematic fragmentation of effort which undermines the university’s effectiveness in providing direction for the meeting of practical challenges. How are subjects and fields of study to be effectively integrated? For thirty years Bernard Lonergan worked on this problem in his own field of theology and arrived at a solution he named functional specialization that has broad implications for all subjects and fields. This essay examines the roots of Lonergan’s solution. The second part of the essay also in this volume presents the solution itself and how it might be implemented.
Author Biography
Michael Shute, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Michael Shute is Professor in the Religious Studies Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland. With Patrick Brown he is co-editor of the Journal of Macrodynamic Analysis. He writes on Lonergan’s economics and is the author of Lonergan’s Discovery of the Science of Economics.
