Bernard Lonergan’s Puzzling Comment About the Vis Cogitativa
Authors
William Zanardi
St. Edward's University
Keywords:
vis cogitativa, superego, binding problem
Abstract
This essay is a demonstration of the first functional specialty, Research. As I understand it, the principle aim of the specialty is to assemble materials relevant to understanding some puzzling issue. The short text from Lonergan’s correspondence that I found puzzling associated the vis cogitativa with the Freudian superego. My task, therefore, is rather straightforward, namely, to gather in one place all the available relevant comments that Lonergan made on the vis cogitativa and the Freudian superego. However, I do include some supplementary materials that provide both background to Lonergan’s comments and an updating of how contemporary neurosciences speak about the traditional function of the vis cogitativa.
Author Biography
William Zanardi, St. Edward's University
After retiring from teaching for over forty years at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, William J. Zanardi is continuing to write articles and books about functional specialization. A six-volume co-authored series on the third and fourth specialties contains multiple experiments in testing their worth in diagnosing and evading contemporary intellectual impasses. The most recent volumes are The Education of Liberty: Fantasies about the Future, Comparing Philosophical Methods: A Way Forward (with R.G. Aaron Mundine and Clayton Shoppa) and Rescuing Ethics from Philosophers.
