Insight Course
Prof. Patrick Byrne of the Philosophy Department at Boston College offered a year-long course on Lonergan’s magnum opus, Insight during the 2009-2010 academic year. The course was entitled “Insight and Beyond.” It is intended to make both the fundamental and the more difficult parts of Insight accessible to a wide audience. During the second half of the Spring 2010 semester, the course was originally intended also to explore the developments in Lonergan’s post-Insight works on meaning, interpretation, history, ethics, values and religion. However, class discussion of the 20 chapters of Insight itself required nearly the entirety of the two semesters.
The course lectures, discussions and visual aids have been made available online for anyone interested in Lonergan’s thought, using the Echo 360 course-capture technology. Viewers will not need to purchase the Echo 360 application. Instructions for using the Echo 360 files, including technical requirements, are available at the link below.
Each class meeting has been broken up into two components for ease of viewing. An outline (or summary of highlights) of the topics treated each component has also been provided. These outlines include the times when the topics are treated in the Echo 360 recording. Viewers can scan the outlines for topics of interest, and move the cursor to the appropriate time, without needing to view the entire class. Links to the each of the Echo 360 recordings and corresponding outlines are provided in the lists for the two semesters.
Instructions for Viewing the Echo 360 Recordings
Insight and Beyond, Fall 2009
Insight and Beyond, Spring 2010
Media Downloads
Patrick Byrne welcomes questions about the class sessions in the Comments section below, and will do his best to respond in a timely fashion.
Hi Pat
Thanks for the audios of your lectures.
I noticed that InsightClass6_Oct14p1 and InsightClass7_Oct21p1 are identical. The audio file for one of these is missing, though I’m not sure which one it is.
A joyous Easter to you.
Kind regards, Pete Madden
Hi Peter,
Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention. We searched through our audio archives, and found the correct copy of the Oct. 21 pt. 1 audio (the Oct. 14 audio was correct).
Which online class do you recommend: Fall 2009 or Spring 2012? How different are the 2 classes?
Hi Andy,
The Fall and Spring class together cover the entirety of Insight. So we would recommend beginning with the Fall course. Spring 2010 starts up in Ch. 11 of Insight.
I have attended the first semester and am finishing class 18 of the second semester via the Lonergan Institute website. I’ve read the book Insight. There are two areas that I wish Lonergan had treated more fully:
1) how insights are translated into concepts or propositions. Language must be involved.
2) how the “already out there now” is finally integrated into “being.” He makes a comment that we obviously are also elements that must be related to everything else and, hence, can be known by his process. But he doesn’t seem to elaborate. He says that the common sense world as well as science must ultimately be incorporated by metaphysics, but how?
The class is very helpful and I thank you for making it available to the public. I am a retiree who has heard the name Lonergan for a number of years and finally decided to read Insight. It was certainly tough going. The class has clarified many things.
I think there is a problem with the powerpoint link for class 11/18/09. The others are working, so I don’t think it’s my computer, but maybe.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
We have updated this link, and have standardized the filenames for all our media files.
This way, we shouldn’t have the problem in the future.
Our apologies for the temporary error!
Is it possible to put the audio for this on a podcast so I can listen to it while walking to school?
Hi Paulie,
We are working on this and will have an update to the site soon.
Hi.
These videos are great! Thanks so much for making them available. I think, however, that I have found a glitch:
The first part of the recording from Class 9/23/09 [Part 1 (CH 1 §2) : “Definitions”] seems to be missing. There is a video there, but it’s identical to the first part of the recording from Class 9/16/09 [Part 1 : “Self-Appropriation”; “Preface” & “Introduction”].
The second part of that class seems correct, but the result for the viewer like me is that I am viewing the second part of a class (from 9/23/09) without seeing its first part.
Does the recording that corresponds to the first hour of 9/23 exist anywhere?
Thanks so much,
Nick DiSalvatore
Nick,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention!
We have updated the link, so you should now be able to view the correct lecture.
Thanks for letting me know about this website via your humorous postcard.
Pat is quite photogenic and his voice I find pleasant and melliflous.
I will certainly make time to listen to the whole course and I’m sure
I will learn quite a lot. Again, thanks.
Cheers,
NWG
There is no content for outlines for Class 2/17/10, part 1 and part 2. Help!
Hi Monika,
We have updated the outlines for the class. Thank you for alerting us, and thank you for your patience with us as we work out the bugs with the new site.