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