Interview with William Ryan, S.J.
Sku: 47500A0E060
Archival Number: CD/mp3 475
Author: Lonergan, B.
Language(s): English
Decade: 1960
Description:
CD/mp3 475. An interview conducted by William Ryan, S.J., who was writing his dissertation at the time on Lonergan and Husserl. Sponsored by Patrick Ryan.
A series of questions were drawn up by Fr. Ryan, to which Lonergan had prepared some answers. The questions had to do largely with Husserl, and with Lonergan's relation to and evaluation of Husserl's work. The discussion of Husserl on objectivity reveals that Lonergan found a similiarity with his own notion of reflective understanding, but Lonergan adds that the unconditional ground is found in his own work and not in Husserl's. Lonergan evinces sympathy with Husserl's Krisis, which is obvious also from a number of his lectures at the time. He correlates concern with necessity and certitude with conceptualism rather than with his emphasis on understanding. He emphasizes that the problem in philosophy is to find invariants that will remain invariant as advances occur. He raises some questions to Ryan about his own dissertation, and he explains his fairly new idea of functional specialization. Ryan confirms that parts of his dissertation were influenced by Lonergan's remarks in this interview. "In general, he likes Husserl's notion of intentionality and consciousness, and especially that Husserl 'tosses over' ... the myth of the already out there now real" (email correspondence from William Ryan to Robert Doran, October 15 2008). An extremely valuable source.