Through Self-Discovery to Self-Transcendence: A Study of Cognitional Self-Appropriation in B. Lonergan

One of the most original thinkers of our time who has clearly grasped the foundational significance of the question of human knowledge is undoubtedly the Canadian Jesuit Bernard J. F. Lonergan. The very core of all the achievements of Lonergan is the exercise of self-appropriation. By a conscious self-possession of one’s dynamic interiority one is enabled to transcend one’s own subjectivity to the real world of human subjects for an authentic and meaningful human existence. This study outlines the process personally appropriating the cognitional dynamism of human consciousness, inquires into the foundational character of this exercise in Lonergan and draws out its important implications for contemporary thought and life.