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Lonergan's Rock, Rhetoric's Love: Critical Thinking, Truth, and Communication(s) Ethics.pdf
(2019)
Abstract
This essay highlights the intersubjective dimension of ethics, aligning Lonergan’s cognitive pursuit of objective truth with a Platonic and Christian understanding of communication as interpersonal love. After an introduction to Lonergan’s epistemology, Plato’s description of rhetoric as love directs attention to how meaning and our fellow subjects help constitute our subjectivity. Critical thought advances toward truth via language and symbolism, and this mediation process ontologically grounds individual subjects within tradition and community. Just as there is an inherent ethic within knowing, so is there a self-justifying communication ethic uniting objective truth with community bonding. In St. Paul’s theological terms, the Word unites humanity when we are “speaking the truth in love.”
Keywords
- Bernard Lonergan,
- Communication Ethics,
- Rhetorical Ethics,
- Epistemology,
- Intersubjectivity,
- objective truth,
- media ontology,
- Pauline Theology,
- Platonic Love,
- Christian Love,
- social cognition
Disciplines
- Arts and Humanities,
- Classics,
- Other Classics,
- Film and Media Studies,
- Other Film and Media Studies,
- Other Arts and Humanities,
- Philosophy,
- Epistemology,
- Ethics and Political Philosophy,
- Other Philosophy,
- Philosophy of Language,
- Philosophy of Mind,
- Applied Ethics,
- Reading and Language,
- Religion,
- Catholic Studies,
- Ethics in Religion,
- Other Religion,
- Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion,
- Rhetoric and Composition,
- Other Rhetoric and Composition,
- Rhetoric,
- Education,
- Liberal Studies,
- Other Education,
- Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education,
- Language and Literacy Education,
- Social and Behavioral Sciences,
- Communication,
- Critical and Cultural Studies,
- Other Communication,
- Speech and Rhetorical Studies,
- Linguistics and
- Other Social and Behavioral Sciences
Publication Date
2019
Citation Information
Jon P. Radwan. "Lonergan's Rock, Rhetoric's Love: Critical Thinking, Truth, and Communication(s) Ethics.pdf" (2019) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jon_radwan/35/
Creative Commons license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY International License.