Cantowers

The Cantower series takes its name, in part, from Ezra Pound’s great poem. But it takes its inspiration from the method of structured collaboration pioneered by Bernard Lonergan, a method resolutely opposed to the ineffectual ivory tower in which much of the contemporary academic world remains trapped. The series made its debut on Easter Monday 2002, beginning with the question, from Eric Voegelin, “Where does the Beginning Begin?” Cantowers 27–31 parallel the first five chapters of Richard Feynman’s Lectures on Physics. See The Feynman Lectures on Physics, edited by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands (Boston: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1964; sixth printing 1977). Those Cantowers also place the first five chapters on empirical science in Lonergan’s magnum opus Insight: A Study of Human Understanding in a challenging, metatheoretic, non-commonsense context. Insight chapters 15-20 and the Epilogue are paralleled by Cantowers 15–20 and Cantower 21, “Epilodge.”

(Please note that in some of the essays there are hyperlinks to works hosted on an earlier version of this website. All of those essays are now available on this website and can be easily found using the search bar.)

Cantower I: Function and History

Cantower II: Sunflowers Speak to us of Growing

Cantower III: Round One Willing Gathering

Cantower IV: Molecules of Describing and Explaining

Cantower V: Metaphysics Then

Cantower VI: Gathering Round One

Cantower VII: Systematics and General Systems Theory

Cantower VIII: Slopes: An Encounter

Cantower IX: Position, Poisition, Protopossession

Cantower X: Foundations : A Place in the Sun

Cantower XI: Lonergan : Interpretation and History

Cantower XII: A Problem of Interpretation Arises

Cantower XIII: Functional Specialization and Chapters 17 and 18 of Insight

Cantower IV: Communications and Ever-ready Founders

Cantower XV: The Elements of Meaning

Cantower XVI: Hodics as Science II

Cantower XVII: Hodics as Science I

Cantower XVIII: The Possibility Of Cultural Ethics

Cantower XIX: Ultimates

Cantower XX: Intimates

Cantower XXI: Epilodge

Cantower XXII: Redoubt Lonergan : The Ministry of Mayhem

Cantower XXIII: Redoubt Describing

Cantower XXIV: Infesting History with Hodology

Cantower XXV: Redoubt page 250 of Method in Theology

Cantower XXVI: Refined Woman and Feynman

Cantower XXVII: Atoms in Motion

Cantower XXVIII: Basic Physics

Cantower XXIX: Physics and other Sciences

Cantower XXX: The Conservation of Energy

Cantower XXXI: Time and Distance: Feynman I, ch.5; Insight,ch.5

Cantower XXXII: The Empirical Residence

Cantower XXXIII: Lonergan and Axial Bridges

Cantower XXXIV: A Few Elementary Pointers Regarding Interpretation

Cantower XXXV: The Focus on Function

Cantower XXXVI: The Function of the Cantowers

Cantower XXXVII: Functional Interpretation

Cantower XXXVIII: Functional History

Cantower XXXIX: Functional Dialectics

Cantower XL: Functional Foundations

Cantower XLI: Functional Policy