DIALECTICAL TRADITIONALISM: A COLLABORATIVE, INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE
On February 24th-25th, the Lonergan Research Institute (LRI) in Toronto will serve as the site for an international conference dedicated to increasing Lonergan’s “not numerous center.” This conference will be co-hosted by The Lonergan Centre at St. Paul University (Ottawa), The Lonergan Center at Boston College, The Marquette Lonergan Project, and The Lonergan Research Institute (Toronto). We have sought to make explicit the methodological parameters of Lonergan’s “not numerous center” (CWL 4: 245) through the notion of Dialectical Traditionalism (a phrase coined by our friends at Marquette).
“Dialectical Traditionalism is a provisional name for a nascent mentality. It is ‘Traditional’ insofar as it acknowledges that we discover ourselves and our native situation(s) constituted in large part by a history of meanings and values. It is ‘Dialectical’ insofar as it exhorts us to give questions pride of place in our intellectual, moral, and political efforts. This questioning, however, is not merely a critical or even skeptical attitude towards the history in which we find ourselves. Rather, it is, yes, a willingness to call elements of the tradition or traditions that feed our moment into question, but it is also a dialectical openness to be called into question ourselves by these. Dialectical Traditionalism, in other words, is a mentality that calls for attention to one’s place in a history, intelligent appropriation of one’s tradition, reasonable judgments about its relative merits and liabilities, and responsible risk taking in thought and action. Dialectical Traditionalism asks us to refrain from valorizing the old simply because it is old or the new simply because it is new, but to instead carefully sift that to which should still say ‘yes’ from that to which we must, if we would retain our intellectual and moral integrity, say ‘no’” (Jonathan Heaps, Marquette University).
All of the papers will be presented at Regis College (100 Wellesley St. West, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2Z5). For a complete list of papers, please see the schedule.
We encourage all who are interested to attend! We welcome your participation. For more information, download our flyer.
