Thanks to Catherine Blanche King for recommending the following paragraph re description vs explanation.
Seventhly. however, the questions that are answered by a pattern of internal relations are only questions that ask for explanatory system. But besides things-themselves and prior to them in our knowing, there are things-for-us, things as described. Moreover, the existents and occurrences, in which explanatory systems are verified, diverge non-systematically from the ideal frequencies that ideally would be deduced from the explanatory systems. Again, the activity of verifying involves the use of description as an intermediary between the system defined by internal relations, and, on the other hand, the presentations of sense that are the fulfilling conditions. Finally, it would be a mistake to suppose that explanation is the one true knowledge; not only does its verification rest on description but also the relations of thing to us are just as much objects of knowledge as are the relations of things among themselves. (CWL 3, 345)
We have often pointed out Lonergan’s intention to explain scientifically the dynamic economic process. The above paragraph clearly points out the existence and importance of description in human knowing. A frequent quote:
A distinction has been drawn between description and explanation. Description deals with things as related to us. Explanation deals with the same things as related among themselves. The two are not totally independent, for they deal with the same things and, as we have seen, description supplies, as it were, the tweezers by which we hold things while explanations are being discovered or verified, applied or revised. … [CWL 3, 291/316]