A (Very) Short Introduction to Bernard Lonergan’s Precepts for Conscious and Authentic Subjects
By Jonathan Heaps, M.A.
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, Marquette University
Be attentive.
Be intelligent.
Be reasonable.
Be responsible.
Each of these short exhortations is, on its own, good advice. Think, after all, of their opposites. Can you imagine a good teacher telling her class, “And at the museum, don’t forget to be oblivious.” What if a tutor told you, without a hint of sarcasm, that the trick to passing your exam is to be stupid? Would it surprise you to find, “Good start, but not irrational enough,” written in the margins of a graded paper? Can you hear a parent or a coach praising you for how irresponsible you’ve been? Common sense tells us being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible is a fine thing and worth pursuing.
Now, common sense can tell us that these ways of being, or what we might call “postures of consciousness,” are good. What common sense won’t tell us is why they are good. Sure, common sense might tell us what they are good for, such as getting high scores on tests or making the varsity team. But what is it about being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible in itself that makes intentionally doing the opposite so foolish? Answering that question is a matter for philosophy.
Even worse, a good philosophical answer to our question can’t be found in any one of the four “postures” on its own. Why not? Attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility are parts, not wholes. You see, wholes have identities in themselves, like the number “1”. Parts, on the other hand, have their identity in relationship to a) the whole and b) the other parts of the whole. Think, in this case, of fractions. 3/4ths is a part of 1, but it is also related to the 1/4th needed to complete a whole “1”. Or, if that is too abstract, think of a stone arch. None of the stones by itself is an arch, but without any one of the stones, the arch can’t be whole. In fact, it can’t even be an arch.
So, when I say that being attentive or being intelligent, being reasonable or being responsible are all parts, the next natural question is, “What whole are they parts of?” There is a long and very technical answer to that question, but the shorter (and more important) answer is, “You (if you’re conscious).” Just like an arch without one of its stones isn’t really capable of being an arch, so you are not capable of really, fully being a conscious and authentic human subject without being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible. So, while common sense told us that taking all those “postures” was a good idea, philosophy starts to tell us that they are obligatory. If you’re going to be the kind of thing that you are, you need to make sure you are being in these four ways. In this way, what I called the four “postures” are really four precepts. They tell us what we ought to do and how we ought to be.
The Dynamic Structure of You, a Conscious Subject.
“But wait a minute,” you might be thinking, “you don’t get an arch by just collecting all the right stones. You have to build an arch in the right way. Otherwise you just have a pile of rocks!” Exactly. An arch isn’t just a whole. An arch is also a structure. In a structure, you need all of the parts for the whole, but they also have to be related to each other in the right way. If you build an arch, but you put the wrong stones in the wrong places, the whole thing comes tumbling down. Our precepts are also parts, not just of a whole, but of a structure. It wasn’t an accident that I listed the precepts in a particular order, from attentiveness to responsibility. In fact, it is that very specific order that will help us to understand, in a seriously philosophical way, what it means to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible.
Some structures are made of physical parts in spatial and temporal relationships, but other structures are made out of events or actions. I will call these dynamic structures. You might think of a dance, or a card trick, but I like baking as an example. In baking cookies, I have to collect and measure my ingredients. Once I’ve got my ingredients in the right amounts, I can mix them together: butter and sugar, then eggs, then flour, and so on. Now, I’ve got cookie dough and cookie dough is delicious. While I could just enjoy my cookie dough, I wouldn’t really be baking cookies. So, I’ve got to portion out my dough and put it in the oven at 350F. Ten to fifteen minutes later, I open the oven and see my results. Let’s assume I did it right. I open the oven and very likely pull out successful, golden-brown cookies.
So, when I say, “I baked cookies,” I am also implicitly saying that I successfully enacted (or “assembled”) a dynamic structure. Each of the actions I performed (whether measuring ingredients, or mixing them into dough, or cooking it in the oven) contributes to the whole structure. But each of the actions has to be performed in the right order and in the right way. If I don’t gather and measure ingredients, I won’t have anything to mix into dough, and putting unmixed butter, sugar, eggs, and flour into a hot oven won’t end in cookies, no matter how carefully I measured them before hand. Each part, even though it is an action and not an object, is integral to the whole structure and each action plays that role because of its specific relationship to the other parts.
Being a conscious and authentic subject is, in a surprising way, a lot like baking. It is a structure of activities and each activity (or, more exactly, group of activities) plays a specific and integral role in the structure. There’s a group of activities that make up what it is to be attentive, and another that makes up what it is to be intelligent, and yet another for being reasonable and responsible, respectively. But here’s the tricky thing (and the reason for our precepts): these activities aren’t primarily physical activities (though your brain is up to something when you perform them), but conscious activities. You’re aware of them, but not exactly in the way you are aware of swinging a baseball bat or doing a dance. These activities are themselves what make you conscious. Consciousness, in other words, is a quality of the activities. But that’s another essay for another day.
Knowing What You’re (Already) Doing
In the mean time, let’s go back to baking and talk about recipes for a second. What if you picked up a recipe and you didn’t know what the word “measure” meant? Or if you didn’t know what “mixing” was? Well, then the instructions in the recipe wouldn’t do you very much good, would they? Moreover, if someone asked you what “baking” was, you might know that it produced cookies, but you wouldn’t know how it managed to do that. So too with being a conscious and authentic subject. You might understand that conscious and authentic subjects are supposed to know things and to choose ethical actions, but it isn’t immediately obvious how they go about coming to know things and picking the right thing to do. If a conscious and authentic subject is a dynamic structure that, what are the parts that make it whole?
Have you ever strained to hear a conversation across the room? Or stood back from a painting in a museum to take in the whole thing at once? Or stopped to notice that someone hurt your feelings? Or imagined what SCUBA diving is like? If yes, then you have been attentive. You have picked out some aspect(s) of the blooming, buzzing confusion that makes up being awake to the world and you have brought it out to the front of your consciousness. Part of this is passive, insofar as the world affects your senses, and part of it is active, insofar as you are patterning and selecting (quickly, and sub-consciously) what to attend to.
Now, have you ever wondered what makes a tire round? Or why water sloshes up the side of a swirling glass? Have you ever worked out and learned to play a guitar or piano line you heard on the radio? Figured out why the stupid computer keeps giving you that error message? If yes, then you’ve been intelligent. You have asked and answered questions, whether explicitly or implicitly. What is more, you are asking about the things you were attentive to, so that being intelligent depends in large part on you having already been attentive. If you try to be intelligent without also being attentive, you will probably ask the wrong questions and almost certainly come up with silly answers.
Have you ever checked your math? Or thought through all the moves and been sure that your chess opponent put you in checkmate? Have you ever worked out exactly the odds that the next card will be a queen of hearts? Or determined precisely how frequently your hamster drinks from its tiny water bottle? Then you’ve been reasonable, or ‘rational’. You’ve gathered all the relevant evidence, worked out all the conditions, and calculated the probabilities to make a judgment. And you are making judgments about the answers you came up with while being intelligent and attentive. Specifically, you are judging whether or not your answers are correct or not.
Lastly, have you ever seen someone fall down in public and decided to be the person who stops to help them up? Or had the chance to cheat or steal, and decided that you don’t want to be that kind of person? Have you ever committed yourself to standing by a friend or family member even when you knew it was going to be hard? If yes, then you’ve been responsible. You took stock of a situation and made a choice in light of what you knew to be true and good. You could have chosen differently, but you responded to what life threw your way by choosing what is best over what is convenient or merely pleasant. And, of course, part of being truly responsible is really understanding the situation you are in, which of course means having already been attentive, intelligent, and reasonable. If you don’t understand the circumstances, your decisions will at best be ethical by accident, and the odds aren’t in your favor.
The Short Version: Be Authentic!
If you recognize these activities in your own story, then you recognize the dynamic structure of your authentic, conscious subjectivity at work. Attentiveness provides the opportunity to be intelligent, and intelligence sets you up to be reasonable, and all of these are integral to deciding and acting responsibly. Like baking cookies, you need the right activities, in the right order, to get the desired result. Unlike baking cookies, however, someone else can’t really show you what it is to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible. You have to discover it happening in yourself.
The neat thing is that the structure is also the way that you discover the structure. I have been trying to help you be attentive to the structure, and you have been trying to understand what I’m talking about. Ultimately, you have to determine if a) you really understand what I’m talking about and b) if you think I’m right about it or not. But most importantly, if you think I’m right, then you also have to decide to take responsibility for your conscious and authentic subjectivity. Or, to say it another way, you have to take responsibility for yourself. What the precepts do is provide short reminders how to do that and. Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible. The product is, arguably, better than even the best chocolate chip cookies: you, authentically and to the fullest.
By Jonathan Heaps, M.A.
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, Marquette University
Be attentive.
Be intelligent.
Be reasonable.
Be responsible.
Each of these short exhortations is, on its own, good advice. Think, after all, of their opposites. Can you imagine a good teacher telling her class, “And at the museum, don’t forget to be oblivious.” What if a tutor told you, without a hint of sarcasm, that the trick to passing your exam is to be stupid? Would it surprise you to find, “Good start, but not irrational enough,” written in the margins of a graded paper? Can you hear a parent or a coach praising you for how irresponsible you’ve been? Common sense tells us being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible is a fine thing and worth pursuing.
Now, common sense can tell us that these ways of being, or what we might call “postures of consciousness,” are good. What common sense won’t tell us is why they are good. Sure, common sense might tell us what they are good for, such as getting high scores on tests or making the varsity team. But what is it about being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible in itself that makes intentionally doing the opposite so foolish? Answering that question is a matter for philosophy.
Even worse, a good philosophical answer to our question can’t be found in any one of the four “postures” on its own. Why not? Attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility are parts, not wholes. You see, wholes have identities in themselves, like the number “1”. Parts, on the other hand, have their identity in relationship to a) the whole and b) the other parts of the whole. Think, in this case, of fractions. 3/4ths is a part of 1, but it is also related to the 1/4th needed to complete a whole “1”. Or, if that is too abstract, think of a stone arch. None of the stones by itself is an arch, but without any one of the stones, the arch can’t be whole. In fact, it can’t even be an arch.
So, when I say that being attentive or being intelligent, being reasonable or being responsible are all parts, the next natural question is, “What whole are they parts of?” There is a long and very technical answer to that question, but the shorter (and more important) answer is, “You (if you’re conscious).” Just like an arch without one of its stones isn’t really capable of being an arch, so you are not capable of really, fully being a conscious and authentic human subject without being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible. So, while common sense told us that taking all those “postures” was a good idea, philosophy starts to tell us that they are obligatory. If you’re going to be the kind of thing that you are, you need to make sure you are being in these four ways. In this way, what I called the four “postures” are really four precepts. They tell us what we ought to do and how we ought to be.
The Dynamic Structure of You, a Conscious Subject.
“But wait a minute,” you might be thinking, “you don’t get an arch by just collecting all the right stones. You have to build an arch in the right way. Otherwise you just have a pile of rocks!” Exactly. An arch isn’t just a whole. An arch is also a structure. In a structure, you need all of the parts for the whole, but they also have to be related to each other in the right way. If you build an arch, but you put the wrong stones in the wrong places, the whole thing comes tumbling down. Our precepts are also parts, not just of a whole, but of a structure. It wasn’t an accident that I listed the precepts in a particular order, from attentiveness to responsibility. In fact, it is that very specific order that will help us to understand, in a seriously philosophical way, what it means to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible.
Some structures are made of physical parts in spatial and temporal relationships, but other structures are made out of events or actions. I will call these dynamic structures. You might think of a dance, or a card trick, but I like baking as an example. In baking cookies, I have to collect and measure my ingredients. Once I’ve got my ingredients in the right amounts, I can mix them together: butter and sugar, then eggs, then flour, and so on. Now, I’ve got cookie dough and cookie dough is delicious. While I could just enjoy my cookie dough, I wouldn’t really be baking cookies. So, I’ve got to portion out my dough and put it in the oven at 350F. Ten to fifteen minutes later, I open the oven and see my results. Let’s assume I did it right. I open the oven and very likely pull out successful, golden-brown cookies.
So, when I say, “I baked cookies,” I am also implicitly saying that I successfully enacted (or “assembled”) a dynamic structure. Each of the actions I performed (whether measuring ingredients, or mixing them into dough, or cooking it in the oven) contributes to the whole structure. But each of the actions has to be performed in the right order and in the right way. If I don’t gather and measure ingredients, I won’t have anything to mix into dough, and putting unmixed butter, sugar, eggs, and flour into a hot oven won’t end in cookies, no matter how carefully I measured them before hand. Each part, even though it is an action and not an object, is integral to the whole structure and each action plays that role because of its specific relationship to the other parts.
Being a conscious and authentic subject is, in a surprising way, a lot like baking. It is a structure of activities and each activity (or, more exactly, group of activities) plays a specific and integral role in the structure. There’s a group of activities that make up what it is to be attentive, and another that makes up what it is to be intelligent, and yet another for being reasonable and responsible, respectively. But here’s the tricky thing (and the reason for our precepts): these activities aren’t primarily physical activities (though your brain is up to something when you perform them), but conscious activities. You’re aware of them, but not exactly in the way you are aware of swinging a baseball bat or doing a dance. These activities are themselves what make you conscious. Consciousness, in other words, is a quality of the activities. But that’s another essay for another day.
Knowing What You’re (Already) Doing
In the mean time, let’s go back to baking and talk about recipes for a second. What if you picked up a recipe and you didn’t know what the word “measure” meant? Or if you didn’t know what “mixing” was? Well, then the instructions in the recipe wouldn’t do you very much good, would they? Moreover, if someone asked you what “baking” was, you might know that it produced cookies, but you wouldn’t know how it managed to do that. So too with being a conscious and authentic subject. You might understand that conscious and authentic subjects are supposed to know things and to choose ethical actions, but it isn’t immediately obvious how they go about coming to know things and picking the right thing to do. If a conscious and authentic subject is a dynamic structure that, what are the parts that make it whole?
Have you ever strained to hear a conversation across the room? Or stood back from a painting in a museum to take in the whole thing at once? Or stopped to notice that someone hurt your feelings? Or imagined what SCUBA diving is like? If yes, then you have been attentive. You have picked out some aspect(s) of the blooming, buzzing confusion that makes up being awake to the world and you have brought it out to the front of your consciousness. Part of this is passive, insofar as the world affects your senses, and part of it is active, insofar as you are patterning and selecting (quickly, and sub-consciously) what to attend to.
Now, have you ever wondered what makes a tire round? Or why water sloshes up the side of a swirling glass? Have you ever worked out and learned to play a guitar or piano line you heard on the radio? Figured out why the stupid computer keeps giving you that error message? If yes, then you’ve been intelligent. You have asked and answered questions, whether explicitly or implicitly. What is more, you are asking about the things you were attentive to, so that being intelligent depends in large part on you having already been attentive. If you try to be intelligent without also being attentive, you will probably ask the wrong questions and almost certainly come up with silly answers.
Have you ever checked your math? Or thought through all the moves and been sure that your chess opponent put you in checkmate? Have you ever worked out exactly the odds that the next card will be a queen of hearts? Or determined precisely how frequently your hamster drinks from its tiny water bottle? Then you’ve been reasonable, or ‘rational’. You’ve gathered all the relevant evidence, worked out all the conditions, and calculated the probabilities to make a judgment. And you are making judgments about the answers you came up with while being intelligent and attentive. Specifically, you are judging whether or not your answers are correct or not.
Lastly, have you ever seen someone fall down in public and decided to be the person who stops to help them up? Or had the chance to cheat or steal, and decided that you don’t want to be that kind of person? Have you ever committed yourself to standing by a friend or family member even when you knew it was going to be hard? If yes, then you’ve been responsible. You took stock of a situation and made a choice in light of what you knew to be true and good. You could have chosen differently, but you responded to what life threw your way by choosing what is best over what is convenient or merely pleasant. And, of course, part of being truly responsible is really understanding the situation you are in, which of course means having already been attentive, intelligent, and reasonable. If you don’t understand the circumstances, your decisions will at best be ethical by accident, and the odds aren’t in your favor.
The Short Version: Be Authentic!
If you recognize these activities in your own story, then you recognize the dynamic structure of your authentic, conscious subjectivity at work. Attentiveness provides the opportunity to be intelligent, and intelligence sets you up to be reasonable, and all of these are integral to deciding and acting responsibly. Like baking cookies, you need the right activities, in the right order, to get the desired result. Unlike baking cookies, however, someone else can’t really show you what it is to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible. You have to discover it happening in yourself.
The neat thing is that the structure is also the way that you discover the structure. I have been trying to help you be attentive to the structure, and you have been trying to understand what I’m talking about. Ultimately, you have to determine if a) you really understand what I’m talking about and b) if you think I’m right about it or not. But most importantly, if you think I’m right, then you also have to decide to take responsibility for your conscious and authentic subjectivity. Or, to say it another way, you have to take responsibility for yourself. What the precepts do is provide short reminders how to do that and. Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible. The product is, arguably, better than even the best chocolate chip cookies: you, authentically and to the fullest.