I would like to open this new topic by outlining very briefly my somewhat messy journey of coming to understand something of the significance of functional specialisation (or as I prefer to call it Functional Collaboration).
My starting point, many years ago, was one of profound ignorance. It was also a matter of belief, belief in Bernard Lonergan. I had little idea about the significance of FC but my contact with BL had convinced me that he was a man of integrity who had the courage to work through writings of others even though they were profoundly at odds to his starting point. Anything he wrote was very considered and profound.
The more I explored FC in Method in Theology, the more it fell apart as a presentation of FC. In my view, its primary goal was to address a range of issues that confronted theology in the 1960s and 1970s and in doing this it suggested some radical changes. Despite its title and the structure of the chapters, it did not develop FC much beyond what was presented in Chapter 5 (the original article from Gregorianum in 1969). So for all its profound insights, MiT was not much help in understanding FC, particularly for someone who is interested in its significance beyond theology.
With this discovery, what was I to do?
I’m a housing researcher immersed in that particular world of research and policy. So my primary strategy was to ask myself continually what was I doing as I was doing housing research, or more particularly, as I shifted from one method to another – quantitative, qualitative, theorising, developing analytical frameworks, history, socio-economic critiques, methodological critiques, evaluation studies, comparative studies, policy analysis and development, strategic planning and applying the recommendations of research findings. It was by shifting between (i) my expertise in these methods, asking myself what I doing and (ii) going back to Insight supplemented by the writings of other authors such as McShane, Melchin, Mathews, Sauer, Crowe, Shute, Drage etc. that I began to understand something of FC.
In the process I made some discoveries and eventually began to grasp the significance of FC. I would summarise these as follows:
(i) While Chapter 5 of MiT articulates the relevance of FC for the development of theology, it has relevance beyond this. Richard Moodey gives us a good lead into this broader significance (
http://www.lonerganforum.com/index.php?topic=40.msg136#msg136). (I would add here an aside regarding ‘doctrines’ - Phil McShane has noted previously, instead of ‘doctrines’ we could talk of ‘policies’ – both are guides or values that inform future directions.)
(ii) While MiT articulates the relevance of FC for the development of one research field, viz. theology, its wider context is within a practical theory of history, i.e. its relevance is not just to the development of theology (or housing research, sociology, social science, cultural studies, political studies etc.) but also to the development of religious living (or housing, society, culture, politics etc.).
(iii) I began to understand the eight functional specialties in terms of eight questions and the eight methods we use to answer those questions. These questions regard the process from the data of the current situation to the creation of new situation, or to put it another way from the current set of practices/activities to a new set of practices/activities.
(iv) In a common sense mode I describe these eight questions and relate them to the functional specialties as follows: Research as answering as an empirical question, Interpretation a theoretical question, History a historical question, Dialectic a critical/evaluative question, Foundations a transformative question, Doctrines/Policies a policy question, Systematics a strategic question and Communications a practical question. Though Lonergan clearly makes a stand on the importance of theory, MiT seems to unfold functional collaboration within a common sense framework. Currently the human sciences (including philosophy and theology), despite books on theory and discussions of theory, still remain locked in world of common sense. So I was left with three question: What is theory? If FC is understood in terms of eight questions, how are these questions to be understood in relation to one another? How would the various methods of the human sciences ‘look’ within the world of theory? To answer these questions I had to move into the world of the subject as subject (or interiority or self-appropriation). I had to develop a sense of each question, its orientation, its anticipated answer and how we go about answering this question (method) and how this differs between questions... (The transformation of these questions into this new world is struggle we face and beyond this short (!) post.)
(v) In an article many years ago (Explanation in the Social Sciences) Bill Mathews reflects on asking questions. Three things struck me about that article: without understanding, we are blocked, we are stuck, we cannot move forward; that we do not think enough about the questions we ask and what they anticipate; the differing meanings of a ‘why’ question.
As I began to appropriate the orientations of the eight questions and the differing way in which I answer them, I came to the view that these eight questions are a complete ordered set of questions. In other words, they are all the questions we can ask about something. They are ordered in that they regard the ‘stages’ in process from the current situation to creating a new situation.
(vi) As a complete ordered set of inter-related questions, I came to the conclusion that FC is a theory of science. Rather than describing science as knowledge, or in terms of precision or its empirical base, FC outlines the significant, relevant and essential questions that constitute or bring about science (just as experience, understanding and judging constitute knowing and are the elements in a theory of knowledge). This is an explanatory definition of science, one that incorporates not only knowledge but also incorporates implementation and the creation of something worthwhile.
(vii) Finally, as a completed ordered set of inter-related questions, I also came to the conclusion that FC is a theory of progress, it is what constitutes or brings about progress in any field of human endeavour. We cannot move forward in any area unless we answer each of these eight questions. So if we want to make progress in theology or philosophy or social science or religious living or society or culture or an economy, we need to answer all these eight questions. It is an understanding of progress not in terms of tangible outcomes but rather in terms of what brings about those tangible outcomes, in other words, method.
(viii) We can work as individuals and seek to answer each of these questions in turn. We can, however, be more effective if we collaborate, if we develop expertise in the different methods for answering different questions. These questions are often complex and difficult. Again Richard Moodey’s discussion of ecology, the power within ‘the boardrooms of the great corporations that dominate industrial production’, the blocks to structural change and the legal system that supports powerful interests highlights these complexities (
http://www.lonerganforum.com/index.php?topic=40.msg110#msg110). FC of itself cannot change these structures, for they are the results of a long history of decisions. However, it can improve the chances of success for its fruits lie in practical advice. FC forces us to confront all the questions we need to ask. As collaborative, it has within it the self-correcting process of many researchers. Moreover, Dialectic continually asks us to integrate differences and conflicts and, work towards what is the best of the past. FC brings together the best of methods linking them with efficiency of working together. FC provides the grounds upon which a researcher working on one question in any place in any culture in any time can draw on the work of others, relate their work to the work of others, and so make their contribution to the whole.