From intellection to the ways of acquiring knowledge through analog reasoning by the blind

Abstract

The desire to know reality characterizes humans. Acquiring knowledge demands acts of consciousness. In this paper, we seek to relate acts of consciousness in an approach that involves learning based on analogies with the ways of knowing. Intellection as activity and knowledge, as proposed by Bernard Lonergan, becomes the key to understanding cognitive processes. Reasoning by analogy, based on familiarity with objects or with process of abstraction, arises in its turn from intellection. Provisionally, we realize that the process of knowledge acquisition by the blind places learning with analogies in the field of intellection. This experience begins with the senses, which we call primary analogy, and subsequently develops into structural relationships leading to complex thinking. Knowing the world experienced by the blind defines the familiar domain of analogy guaranteeing, thus, the acquisition of new knowledge and allowing the process of intellection of the intellection.