ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the remote orgins of Functional Collaboration in the work of Bernard Lonergan. The chapter explains Lonergan's search for a practical theory of history and his writings on functional specialisation. The emergence of Functional Collaboration can be discerned in disciplines as diverse as literature, deep ecology and comparative housing research. From these, authors have had no exposure to the discovery of Functional Collaboration but have spontaneously sought to structure their work around some of the functional specialties. Rene Wellek and Austin Warren then go on to describe these distinctions between theory, history and criticism as fairly obvious and rather widely accepted. In other disciplines such as feminist studies, language studies, economics, and the natural and formal sciences, authors illustrated the possibilities of structuring these disciplines in the light of this discovery. Alexandra Gillis-Drage notes the ferment within feminism as it seeks to come to terms with the shift from political action to reflective discourse.
