Welcome to The Open Door. This week we will be speaking about service and scholarship. We will discuss persistence and prayer. Ray Dennehy is Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at the University of San Francisco. He is also a raconteur extraordinaire, and he will be our welcome and special guest. Our questions will include the following. As always, feel free to add you own!
1. Ray, what went wrong–or right? How did you come to be a philosopher?
2. Tell us about your years of teaching at the University of San Francisco. What events stand out for you?
3. Good teaching depends on good scholarship. Can you tell us a bit about your research interests and what they have led to?
4. Philosophy involves dialectic, and dialectic can lead to public debate. You have an amazing track record of debate at the University of California at Berkeley. What did you debate, and with whom?
5. Is there such a thing as Catholic philosophy?
6. You are a past president of the American Maritain Society, a group that has been confused with both American Martians and martini drinkers. Can you set our listeners straight? Please identify Jacques and Raïssa Maritain and tell us why they were and are important.
7. You have just completed a manuscript on prayer. How did you come to write it? What questions do you explore in it?
8. There are rumors that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Could they turn out to be more than rumors?
9. Rumors or not, what can we do this very day to prevent the world from going to hell in a handbasket?
10. What is your next project, and who or what inspires it?