What is Comparison?
Robert
Henman
In
the last 6 months I have been reading and rereading section 3 of chapter 17 of Insight and have learned that interpretation,
a series of operations central to and within comparison, is a very complex set
of different operations. I shall make an effort here to express what little I
do understand about comparison.
In the first place when
I am comparing two documents on a similar subject; Doc A and Doc B, I first function
on a descriptive level of linguistic style, length, date, etc.. When I shift to
discerning the meaning of the two documents the descriptive elements are with
me as one level of context, but a whole new level of context now comes into
play. The shift to grasp the meaning of what an author is attempting to convey
depends on my present understanding
of the language, the topic, the author’s purpose, the author’s audience, my
understanding of understanding, my horizon and my ability to grasp the horizon
of the author or authors.
When I finally get to
the actual comparing, I am comparing two different acts of my own understanding.
I shall name those two acts MUX and MUY. Even if I have judged My Understanding
of X and Y to be the same as the authors’ expressed understanding, it is My
Understanding of X with which I am comparing to My Understanding of Y. Only if
all relevant questions have been asked and correctly answered do I have
potential access to the authors’ intended understanding and more than that I am
seeking the differences, affinities and relationship between my two acts of
understanding. It is a theoretical operation. That has been the fundamental
insight into comparison that I have grasped over the past 6 months.
I will not repeat here
Lonergan’s outline of the relational aspects of the operations that occur when
one is attempting to express, interpret, or communicate understanding. One can read for oneself,
first on page 579 of Insight, what
Lonergan describes as the operations of communication. On page 585 and 586
Lonergan describes and distinguishes between expression, simple interpretation,
and reflective interpretation. The challenge is to read those paragraphs with
an interior presence and it is a challenge to hold it all theoretically “in
one’s mind”, at least I found it so. Much of it is in play here now as I write
even though much may not be acknowledged or fully understood. I am not
referring to presuppositions here, although they are very relevant, but to the
components of adequate interpretation and communication. Am I functioning,
expressing myself, with an understanding of the universal viewpoint in mind? Am
I thinking of and do I have an understanding of the possible audience of this
brief expression? Have I an adequate understanding of the various canons of
hermeneutics? What understanding am I attempting to express? This final
question is worth exploring. I am attempting to express my understanding of
comparison and I have found over the last 6 months that interpretation is a
central factor in that process and that interpretation is a theoretical set of
operations and contexts.
Over the past year I
carried out a survey of articles that appeared in the Method and Lonergan Workshop
journals. I found that comparison made up a significant percentage of those
articles. The question that carried me along was in the nature of the value of such comparison. Later on the
question was reformed for me as the value of the form of such comparison. The form of comparison did not operate
functionally. In other words, it did not initiate dialectical discourse. Why
not I wondered? That question led me into trying to understand the nature of
comparison and interpretation that Lonergan outlined in Insight. Now this history may appear to be outside McShane’s seminar
request to offer a brief expression of my understanding of comparison. Yet I
think it relevant in that a process led me to ask certain questions that when
answered helped me better understand the follow up to Lonergan’s achievements
as well as some understanding of comparison. I think an example of how different
horizons can and do obfuscate results will help express my present
understanding of interpretation and comparison. This example is also one of the
few that initiated discourse within Lonergan scholarship.
At the 1999 Lonergan
Workshop Michael Vertin presented a paper titled “Is There a Constitutional
Right to Privacy”. It would later appear in the Lonergan Workshop Journal. In the year 2000, Bruce Anderson
published a response to Vertin’s article in Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies, volume 18, # 1 pages 49-66, titled
“Pointing Discussions of Interpretation Toward Dialectics”. In the Fall
issue(Volume 18, # 2, pages 161-177) of the same journal Vertin replied to
Anderson’s critique in an article titled; “Interpreting the Constitution: A
Response to Bruce Anderson”.
Why did Vertin’s
article initiate a response from Anderson when so many articles in a particular
form of comparison over the past 4 decades within Lonergan scholarship did not?
Are the two writers functioning in different horizons? Anderson refers to a
limitation of the common sense horizon.
Vertin confirms his own common sense horizon in his statement when he says; “I
am intelligently understanding meanings
in the words.” I
am not going to repeat Lonergan’s lengthy paragraph on page 605 on objectivity.
It is explicit on the origins of meaning and one has to ask why an acknowledged
Lonergan scholar would make such a pronouncement.
Anderson and Vertin are in two different horizons. I suggest that this
particular case of common sense interpreting and comparing combined with the
many cases of comparison in Lonergan scholarship over the past 4 decades to
have frustrated an adequate functioning of dialectic.
So, I suggest that Anderson responded because he functions in the theoretic
zone and combined with his understanding of law and the philosophy of law,
noted the level of Vertin’s horizon.
Now, what does this all
have to do with my attempt to express my understanding of comparison? I am
merely stating that the proper functioning of comparison operates on the level
of theory. If comparison occurred within the theoretic horizon the
functionality of collaborative specialization would have a greater probability
of occurring and help to eradicate common sense opinions. This form of
comparison would also provide a foundation that would initiate adequate
dialectical discourse towards establishing positions and reversing
counterpositions.
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