PHIL 4602 Self & Community

This course invites students to discern their insights--that is, the ways that they come to knowledge--for the sake of building a good life and a good world. It is based on Bernard Lonergan's " heuristic method," a method of discovery of the inner structures of our understanding that shape our ability to make sense of the world. In the first part of the course, students will engage in exercises that help them in the process of what Lonergan calls " self-appropriation," taking hold of oneself and one's intelligence. In the second part, students will work together to use what they've learned for the sake of developing a project that aims at some social good. Guest lecturers from different disciplines and fields will help name the various ways that reflective intelligence can contribute to a community of growth, healing the world's ills and creating new avenues of progress.