| Basic Concept: Insight and Inverse
Logic
Insight is an instance of comprehension, the understanding of knowledge. According to Jesuit priest and American philosopher, Dr. Bernard Lonergan (1904 -1984), in Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, inverse logic--the comprehension of opposites--ranks as one of the highest, most abstract forms of insight. Inverse insight is the sense that if a concept is not one thing, it must be its opposite. The logic can be expressed in the following frame: . 1) A is the opposite of B (hence, B is the opposite of A). 2) If not A, then B. 2) Not B. 3) Then A. . or . 1) A is the opposite of B (hence, B is the opposite of B). 2) If not A, then B. 2) Not A. 3) Then B. . Online Connection For further discussion of insight and inverse logic, see the following review of Dr. Lonergan's concept of cognition. For a discussion of "inverse logic" and illustrations, see Jim Loy's page, "Converse, Inverse, and Contrapositive." . Our Course Connection Inverse insight is key to Plato's concept of the dual nature of the universe and the dichotomy between "creator" and "created." These concepts are implied in the project of opposites in religious writing, particularly the mysticism of Emerson ("Self Reliance"), Edwards ("Personal Narrative"), Franklin ("Letter to Ezra Stiles"), Paine ("Age of Reason"), Taylor (selected poems), and Whitman ("Song of Myself"). .  |