Co-Hosted by the Lonergan Centre at St. Paul University (Ottawa), The Lonergan Centre at Boston College, The Marquette Lonergan Project, and the Lonergan Research Institute (Toronto).

The Lonergan Research Institute (LRI) in Toronto will serve as the site for an international conference dedicated to increasing Lonergan’s “not numerous center.” This conference will be co-hosted by The Lonergan Centre at St. Paul University (Ottawa), The Lonergan Center at Boston College, The Marquette Lonergan Project, and The Lonergan Research Institute (Toronto). We have sought to make explicit the methodological parameters of Lonergan’s “not numerous center” (CWL 4: 245) through the notion of Dialectical Traditionalism (a phrase coined by our friends at Marquette).

Dialectical Traditionalism is a provisional name for a nascent mentality. It is ‘Traditional’ insofar as it acknowledges that we discover ourselves and our native situation(s) constituted in large part by a history of meanings and values. It is ‘Dialectical’ insofar as it exhorts us to give questions pride of place in our intellectual, moral, and political efforts. This questioning, however, is not merely a critical or even skeptical attitude towards the history in which we find ourselves. Rather, it is, yes, a willingness to call elements of the tradition or traditions that feed our moment into question, but it is also a dialectical openness to be called into question ourselves by these. Dialectical Traditionalism, in other words, is a mentality that calls for attention to one’s place in a history, intelligent appropriation of one’s tradition, reasonable judgments about its relative merits and liabilities, and responsible risk taking in thought and action. Dialectical Traditionalism asks us to refrain from valorizing the old simply because it is old or the new simply because it is new, but to instead carefully sift that to which should still say “yes” from that to which we must, if we would retain our intellectual and moral integrity, say “no.”

The conference will begin at 8:45 a.m. on Friday and conclude at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.  All papers will be presented in the Solarium of Regis College.

This event is free and open to the public, but if you are planning on joining us for the Saturday evening social (and we hope you will!), we ask that you make a contribution of $10.00.

To register or obtain a conference schedule, please send an email to Eric Mabry (eric.mabry@mail.utoronto.ca).  

If you are coming from out of town and are looking for a place to stay, we recommend the Holiday Inn on Bloor Street (280 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1V8).  This will situate you within easy walking distance of campus.