Self-Appropriation as a Way of Life

As is well known to most of us, self-appropriation is an important notion in Lonergan’s thought, maybe the most important. Lonergan in various places, especially in the introduction toInsight, has testified as to its importance.Insight, he tells us, is an invitation to a decisive, personal act, the intellectual and volitional taking possession of myself. All other disciplines and sub-disciplines in philosophy are, inInsight, simply indications or manifestations or examples of self-appropriation.¹ In “Self-Appropriation: Lonergan’s Pearl of Great Price,” the first essay in this volume, I show how important that notion is in itself and for my own