The Development of Meaning

Human meanings develop in human collaboration and become an almost unnoticed common possession. We spontaneously use the language we have acquired but I suppose every word of it was deliberately formed at some stage.
As meaning develops so too does self understanding. It is thought that in primitive tribes the individual thinks of himself as a tribal member. As practical tasks develop though and personal skills are acquired the individual comes to have more of a personal identity vis a vis the people he comes from. In trade one engages with other people, practical skills have to be learned, farming entails a struggle with the land. The set of meanings belonging to the whole people begins to exceed what an individual can acquire over a lifetime. Belief in what others reliably report becomes essential for communal functioning. There are meanings and values which everyone knows and specialised areas belonging to experts.
Lonergan distinguishes different plateaus of meaning, different overarching horizons. These can be seen as describing different ages or different personal outlooks. He distinguishes a plateau which is dominantly practical, a plateau which is dominantly theoretical and a plateau which is focussed upon self appropriation and authentic self transcendence.
If one is talking of ages one can see the practical plateau dominating the stage when great city states grew up on the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates. One can see a tremendous practical drive about the Romans with their roads and aqueducts and marching armies. But with the city states you get a theoretical component with the priesthoods and the protecting deity and of course you get the occasional flash of genius as with the pharaoh who suddenly decreed monotheism.
One can identify the theoretical plateau with the Greeks, with pre Socratic cosmology, with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and of course with Sophists who spread the wise word in such a way s to make it interesting and acceptable to ordinary mortals.
The Sophists had an important task, of course, to transmit a level of wisdom which had been attained, but there is an ever present tendency to readuce that wisdom in the process and to transmit merely a highly eloquent common sense, so people do not have to engage their minds deeply. I suspect a weakness in the Church throughout history comes similarly of the preacher does not engage profoundly with such matters as the Incarnation and the Trinity. Perhaps the malaise in modern philosophy comes from a similar reluctance to face central yet demanding problems, such as the nature of consciousness.
The theoretical plateau shows itself again in the medieval scholastic movement which evolved a way of dealing with questions, so that, with the help of Aristotelian philosophy, a coherent set of answers came forth. This was a great collaborative effort going on for two and a half centuries and providing man with a set of ideas still quite central to our contemporary thinking and administration, for example the notion of free will or the importance of following ones conscience. Around 1220, Philip the Chancellor made a clear line between nature and the supernatural (intellect being the highest thing in nature). Natural things could be naturally known but supernatural things could only be known by analogy from natural things. The method of talking about supernatural things became clear in a systematic way. Theology became a sort of science, but through reliance on Aristotle’s ideal of logic working on fixed premises got itself somewhat trapped for a deeper insight expresses itself in a richer premise.
All sorts of practical changes followed on the scholastic achievement for Philip’s line allowed nature to be investigated in a natural way, and with Galileo, Newton and Clerk Maxwell the natural sciences took off using mathematical techniques to anticipate the result of experiments. In Germany in the nineteenth century in the realm of human sciences (the posh word is geisteswissenschaften) the aim of history shifted from a record of facts which might be put in an encyclopaedia to ‘the reconstruction of the constructions of the human spirit’. This of course has immense implications for theology for revelation is historically mediated. There was, as a result, the modernist crisis in the earlier twentieth century but one may hope that over time a richer theology will emerge from better use of historical sources.
The theoretical plateau is reverent about the achievement of others but innocent about the spark in the mind of man which leads to further advance. This naivety leads to problems, for without the spark the motivation which would lead to further advance is lost. To illustrate the problem there is a young lady who has just taken a first in biochemistry. She does not want to work in a lab or to be poor so she is shifting to study law. The wonder which lies at the heart of philosophy, the curiosity which lies at the heart of science has not been sparked. It has long been noticed it is a sign of decline when the best minds – St Thomas More for example – go into Law.
If human meaning develops in human collaboration then the great need today is not primarily a need for collaboration around Science or collaboration around History or collaboration around even Theology but rather collaboration around the Human Spirit, how it is that it works, how it is that it gets gripped by a question, how it is that it moves systematically to an answer, how it is that, discerning courses of action, deliberation leads to responsible action and the peace of a clear conscience. The spark needs to burn brightly for the sake of Science, History and Theology.
More importantly, the spark needs to burn brightly for the realm of common sense for that is where most people live out their lives drawing on Science, History, Theology and Philosophy as best they can. Average man, even exceptional ordinary man lives out his life in the total realm of meaning as mediated by communicators, the modern day sophists. This task of communication is of immense importance for common sense, beyond the question ‘does it work?’ does not have a criteria to work by and so is vulnerable to false philosophies and ideologies as history attests. Man, not living by bread alone, looks to the realm of meaning, so that personal life may be as meaningful as possible. I recall just after Pope John Paul II was elected someone asking for his baby to be baptised John Paul. ‘After the Pope?’ I asked. ‘No’, they said, ‘Jean Paul Sartre’. The story perhaps indicates the muddle common sense consciousness can get into, and therefore the great importance of good communicators.
More important than a new scientific discovery, a theory which enlightens us about some past epoch, or some philosophic point is religion, the living of a good life, which is a life of love reaching up to God in dedication; a life of joy for existence is appreciated as a gift; a life peace making in a violent world for God made man to be brotherly. Authentic religion helps common sense man to grow in ways of genuine goodness and compassion and to meet new and difficult situations with a creative response.
The task of a culture which is working well on the third plateau is not to make philosophers, scientists, historians or theologians out of ordinary people but to help them grow in the sense of the meaning of the world we live in and what it is to be human and out of such meanings to help individuals, groups, nation states and empires and mankind as a whole to grow in the sense of what is possible, worthwhile and achievable, so that problems are faced and great things done. Bringing about an order of unmistakeable value makes a personal life very worthwhile.