Photo from the Sixth International Lonergan Conference, “Functional Collaboration in the Academy: Advancing Bernard Lonergan’s Central Achievement,” University of British Columbia, July 21-25, 2014

What is this website about?

My view is that Adam Smith got it right when he noted that pin-making could be made more efficient by dividing the work intelligently.

“The division of labour, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportional increase in the productive power of labour” (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations).

But what about the pen? Intellectual labour has been dividing and divided throughout the past five hundred years in a way that fosters isolated (and often irrelevant) specialization. Is there another way of moving forward in the search for relevant understanding, patterns of genuine progress?

That is what this website is about. It is about a revolution in the way those committed to intellectual labour collaborate.

But the revolution is a quiet revolution: it is about a revolving of ideas that would recycle the ideas that contribute to progress. Every area of inquiry is unwittingly struggling towards such a revolving. The website aims at bringing unity and efficiency and light into that struggle. It points towards a collaboration that would link our efforts together so that, instead of each zone and sub-zone of inquiry tunneling along alone, there would be a towering of significant meanings, a twister of truths, a vortex of growing understanding of human possibilities.

Philip McShane

With Éamonn de Valera, 1968​

This photo of McShane and de Valera was taken in 1968 while de Valera was still President of Ireland. He was the only leader of the 1916 Easter Revolution in Dublin not executed by the British.

With Bernard Lonergan, 1971

This photo of Bernard Lonergan and McShane was taken during the summer of 1971 in Dublin. At the time Lonergan was lecturing on Method in Theology at the Milltown Institute.

Mexico City, 1997

McShane gave morning lectures and conducted afternoon seminars on the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of science, and economics at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

Seoul, South Korea, 2007

Ten days of lectures and seminars on Ignatian, Franciscan, and Korean spirituality at Sogang University, and lectures on economics before the Korean Self-Governance Colloquium.

Sydney, Australia, 2007

As scholar-in-residence at Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview, McShane gave a series of classes and seminars on Ignatian pedagogy and spirituality and on two-circuit economics.

Nashik, India, 2010

McShane gave the keynote address and led discussions at a three-day conference on economic theory in Nashik, India. He used examples from his father’s bakery business to introduce the distinct basic and surplus circuits.

Los Angeles, 2011

West Coast Methods Institute, the 26th Annual Fallon Memorial Symposium honoring McShane and his contributions to Lonergan Studies, Loyola Marymount University.

Puebla, Mexico, 2011

McShane gave the keyote address “Arriving in Cosmopolis” at the First Latin American Lonergan Conference at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

Vancouver, Canada, 2014

The 6th International Lonergan Conference, “Functional Collaboration in the Academy: Advancing Bernard Lonergan’s Central Achievement,” University of British Columbia.