Rev. Joseph Flanagan, S.J, Founder of PULSE Program, dies at 84
May 19, 2010
Courtesy of the Office of News and Public Affairs
By Michael Caprio
News Editor
Rev. Joseph Flanagan, S.J., professor in the philosophy department, died Friday in the Jesuit residences at St. Mary’s Hall. He was 84.
Flanagan co-founded the PULSE Program in 1969. He also secured grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to establish the Perspectives Program.
While at Boston College, Flanagan founded and directed the Lonergan Institute, which explores the work of the Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan.
“I don’t know anyone who embodied the spirit of wonder that is at the heart of philosophy as did Joe Flanagan,” said Patrick Byrne, chair of the philosophy department, who while a student worked with Flanagan to develop the Pulse program. “Fr. Flanagan always thought that philosophy was about transforming the ways we live our lives. He recognized that our encounters with people who had suffered or were in difficult circumstances gave students the greatest opportunity to understand what philosophy had to do with living a full life in a meaningful way.”
Born in West Roxbury, Mass. on the Fourth of July in 1925, Flanagan attended BC High School before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was sent by the Navy to Brown University and then to Washington University Dental School where he earned a doctorate in oral surgery.
He entered the Society of Jesus in 1948 at Shadowbrook Novitiate in Lenox, Mass., and later earned a master’s degree from Boston College, an S.T.L from Weston College and a Ph.D from Fordham University.
Flanagan joined the University faculty in 1963, and served as chair of the philosophy department from 1965-1993 before being named full professor in 1998. He served as director of the Lonergan Institute from 1993 to the present and is the author of the book The Quest of Self-Knowledge: An essay in Understanding Bernard Lonergan’s Philosophy, and dozens of scholarly articles and publications on subjects ranging from epistemology to aesthetics.
