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A Worldview of Everything: A Contemporary First Philosophy
Philosophy has sometimes been described as the discipline in which you can never be wrong, as the reserve of absentminded professors, aloof academics and purveyors of obscure ideas or interesting opinions. Quite the contrary. Philosophy answers the hard Does everything happen by chance? Is there anything more than matter in the universe? Are humans in the same class as animals? Is there a God? Can we know the correct answer to these questions? The answers to these questions matter. We are all philosophers even though we are not aware of the fact. We each have a set of ultimate priorities and principles, answers to these questions, a big picture that determines our everyday thoughts, decisions, and actions. In this book Brian Cronin uses the ideas of Bernard Lonergan’s A Study of Human Understanding , to argue methodically towards a correct, critical, comprehensive worldview, an answer to those big questions which is the precise task of first philosophy. This book is an accessible and readable presentation of Lonergan’s metaphysics, a somewhat neglected topic. Science and philosophy are complementary. Scientists answer the concrete, detailed questions about everything around the parts. Philosophy integrates all these into a correct worldview of the of everything.
380 pages, Paperback
Published November 30, 2022
8 people want to read
About the author
Brian Cronin
25 books8 followersBrian Cronin is an internationally known illustrator whose work has appeared in the The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and many other publications. He won the Society of Illustrators’ Founders Award for his first book, The Lost House and a New York Times Best Illustrated Award for The Lost Picnic.
Brian lives with Doreen Cronin in Brooklyn, New York, and the two have previously collaborated on the picture book Lawrence & Sophia.
Brian lives with Doreen Cronin in Brooklyn, New York, and the two have previously collaborated on the picture book Lawrence & Sophia.
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January 3, 2023
A Common Sense Worldview
How does one crack the multiple problems of metaphysics? Roman Catholic philosopher Brian Cronin’s solution lies in this idea: that “data is undiffereniated, unquestioned, preconceptual, unnamed”. Then, cognitional acts introduce concepts to the data, and further reflection adds a basic structure to the concepts.
In other words, we have a world which is divided into data on the one hand, and concepts and their structure on the other. These are parallel worlds, and they fit together—an idea which Cronin calls “isomorphism”. But one should not miss the following: there are concepts of various kinds—ethical and religious included. With this in hand, one can now assemble a metaphysics with relative ease.
Generally speaking, we have here what one calls “critical realism”. This is, in the words of Cambridge philosopher Simon Blackburn: “Any doctrine reconciling the real, independent, objective nature of the world with a due appreciation of the mind-dependence of the sensory experiences whereby we know about it.”
Cronin’s work is based largely on the celebrated Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan. But it is not merely a restatement of Lonergan. Cronin seeks to appropriate and adjust Lonergan for himself—and to make him more accessible to an educated public. In spite of this work being based on Lonergan, we could surely call it a metaphysics in its own right.
I was surprised by Cronin’s theology. He plainly demotes authority and tradition, which are “trumped”, he writes, by personal experience. He further espouses conversion as “an intervention from above”. There is some affinity here with the Lutheran philosopher-theologian Rudolf Otto, who described the encounter with God as “different from every other feeling”.
An intriguing aspect of this book:
Every conceivable thing may be called a being. “Becoming is a being, properties are beings, ideas in the head are beings, mythological figures are beings, nightmares are beings, buttons are beings.” This is remarkably close to my own metaphysics: “Concepts are things, and things are concepts.” However, Cronin retains a dualism which I do not.
And a shortcoming:
As is often the case with critical realism, Cronin tends to reduce things to what they are in themselves, neglecting the relations in which they are involved. For example, “I am a knower, this is a computer”. But when one considers the relations in which this computer is involved, things begin to look very different. In this regard, Cronin is reminiscent of Bertrand Russell’s logical atomism.
How could one ever award a metaphysics five stars? Unless one has written one, they are all wrong—and this is not a metaphysics that I myself can espouse. But it was clear from the opening pages that this book would be a cut above the rest. Cronin has produced a masterpiece. Above all, it is a work of vast scope and thoughtful balance.
I ran a section on Consciousness through computer analysis. The computer put it at Grade 11. I ran a section on The Spiritual through computer analysis. It was Philosophy 101. I suppose the book would be best suited to those who have completed some courses in philosophy.
How does one crack the multiple problems of metaphysics? Roman Catholic philosopher Brian Cronin’s solution lies in this idea: that “data is undiffereniated, unquestioned, preconceptual, unnamed”. Then, cognitional acts introduce concepts to the data, and further reflection adds a basic structure to the concepts.
In other words, we have a world which is divided into data on the one hand, and concepts and their structure on the other. These are parallel worlds, and they fit together—an idea which Cronin calls “isomorphism”. But one should not miss the following: there are concepts of various kinds—ethical and religious included. With this in hand, one can now assemble a metaphysics with relative ease.
Generally speaking, we have here what one calls “critical realism”. This is, in the words of Cambridge philosopher Simon Blackburn: “Any doctrine reconciling the real, independent, objective nature of the world with a due appreciation of the mind-dependence of the sensory experiences whereby we know about it.”
Cronin’s work is based largely on the celebrated Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan. But it is not merely a restatement of Lonergan. Cronin seeks to appropriate and adjust Lonergan for himself—and to make him more accessible to an educated public. In spite of this work being based on Lonergan, we could surely call it a metaphysics in its own right.
I was surprised by Cronin’s theology. He plainly demotes authority and tradition, which are “trumped”, he writes, by personal experience. He further espouses conversion as “an intervention from above”. There is some affinity here with the Lutheran philosopher-theologian Rudolf Otto, who described the encounter with God as “different from every other feeling”.
An intriguing aspect of this book:
Every conceivable thing may be called a being. “Becoming is a being, properties are beings, ideas in the head are beings, mythological figures are beings, nightmares are beings, buttons are beings.” This is remarkably close to my own metaphysics: “Concepts are things, and things are concepts.” However, Cronin retains a dualism which I do not.
And a shortcoming:
As is often the case with critical realism, Cronin tends to reduce things to what they are in themselves, neglecting the relations in which they are involved. For example, “I am a knower, this is a computer”. But when one considers the relations in which this computer is involved, things begin to look very different. In this regard, Cronin is reminiscent of Bertrand Russell’s logical atomism.
How could one ever award a metaphysics five stars? Unless one has written one, they are all wrong—and this is not a metaphysics that I myself can espouse. But it was clear from the opening pages that this book would be a cut above the rest. Cronin has produced a masterpiece. Above all, it is a work of vast scope and thoughtful balance.
I ran a section on Consciousness through computer analysis. The computer put it at Grade 11. I ran a section on The Spiritual through computer analysis. It was Philosophy 101. I suppose the book would be best suited to those who have completed some courses in philosophy.
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