Verification is Verification of the Real. The Real is the Verifiable.

The macroeconomic scientist must have a cognitional theory.  The real is not the ‘already out there now’; objectivity is not merely animal extroversion; verification is not merely ‘taking a look‘.  What science verifies is to be found in general affirmations.

… unlike his predecessors, (the contemporary scientist) has to think of knowledge, not as taking a look, but as experiencing, understanding and judging; he has to think of objectivity, not as mere extroversion, but as experiential, normative, and tending towards an absolute; he has to think of the real, not as a part of the ‘already out there now’, but as the verifiable.  Clearly, the imagined as imagined can be verified only by actually seeing, and so there is no verifiable image of the elements of the mechanism.  Moreover, what science does verify, does not lie in any particular affirmations, which are never more than approximate; what science verifies is to be found in general affirmations, on which ranges of ranges of particular affirmations converge with an accuracy that increases with the precision of measurements and with the elimination of probable errors. (CWL 3, 424-25/449-50)

… first we must establish that as a matter of fact we know and that as a matter of fact there is some reality proportionate to our knowing.  For only after the facts are known can we entertain any hope of reaching an explanation of the possibility of a correspondence between our inquiry and understanding, our reflection and judgment, and on the other hand the real as it really is. … As has been seen, our own unrestricted desire to know defines for us what we must mean when we speak of being; in the light of that notion we can settle by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation what in fact is and what in fact is not;  and while this procedure des not explain why every possible and actual reality must be intelligible, it does settle what in fact already is known to be true and, at the same time, it gives rise to the further question that asks for complete explanation and complete intelligibility. (CWL 3, 678-9/701)

… unlike the logical positivists, we are completely disillusioned of the notion that knowing the real is somehow looking at what is already out there now.  Unlike them, we have much to say about the unconditioned and, indeed, it is in the unconditioned that we place the whole meaning and force of verification. (CWL 3/672/694)

If we ask why scientific hypothesis needs verification and why Thomist definition needs judgment, we meet with similar answers.  The scientist will insist that it is a mistake to try and base science on a priori necessities, that the one fruitful procedure is to scrutinize things as in fact they are, to discern in them what possibly may be their laws, to formulate these possibilities as mere hypotheses, and to submit such hypotheses to every test before placing any great reliance on them. (Collection, 143)   [CWL 4] Lonergan, Bernard J. F. (1993 ) Collection, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert E. Doran, Toronto: University of Toronto Press [CWL 4]  and[Collection,  1967] Lonergan, Bernard J. F., Collection, ed. Frederick E. Crowe S.J., (1967, London, Darton, Longman & Todd LTD [Collection,  1967]

 

Leave a Reply