Lonergan and Critical ThomismA Tract Book EssayByAnthony J. Fejfar, J.D., Esq., Coif © Copyright 2007 by Anthony J. Fejfar Bernard Lonergan’s philosophical work has been described in various ways. Somecall Lonergan a Critical Realist, some call him a Transcendental Thomist. In my work dealing with Critical Thomist philosophy, I build upon Lonergan’s work in a number of respects.First, Lonergan argued that we know much of reality through what he called a“probable judgment of fact.” In his book, Insight, Lonergan spends a great deal of timediscussing statistical probability. The beauty of Lonergan is that his epistemology isfallible. If one finds that one’s understanding or judgment was incorrect, one simplyrevises one’ judgment.Lonergan point out that one begins with experience, moves to understanding, and judges or reflect that some thing is or is not probably true. If one is so sure that one’s probable judgment of fact is correct, then this becomes a “”virtually unconditioned judgment of fact.” Here one finds the de facto real. Such a judgment, however, is onlyvirtually real, it is not actually real. One might say then that if one builds up enoughvirtually unconditioned judgments of fact, one might in a sense create a world of “virtualreality.”While Lonergan was obviously sympathetic to Plato, Aristotle, and ThomasAquinas, Lonergan did not reconcile his notion of statistical probability with the classical