In Ideen 1, Husserl distinguishes between the natural/ theoretical attitude and the

phenomenological attitude. The former is based upon a relation to the world, and the limit-
horizon thereof, and the latter suspends the presupposition of said world and horizon. The former
deals with matters of fact (Tatsachen) and the latter with phenomenological moments of validity
(Geltungseinheiten). With this said, if one were to attempt to read Husserl and Lonergan side by
side, how might we characterize the distinction between scientific judgments, which, Lonergan
notes, deal with relations between things – i.e., their logical coherence, the general – and
common sense, which Lonergan notes is situational and always related to how things relate to
subjects and vice-versa? It seems that Husserl and Lonergan are close in their descriptions of
theoretical or natural sciences that take the world as a whole as the basis for inquiry and truth.
But would common sense also fall under the natural attitude for Husserl? This seems correct to
me, and I think would mean that it would be possible to read Lonergan explicating nuances
within the natural attitude if read from the viewpoint of phenomenological methodology. Yet, the
situational and incomplete aspect of common-sense insights seems to be shared by
phenomenological insights.

Lonergan says that dreams are wish fulfillment but that this is not to say that the unconscious
wishes, because wishing is conscious. Is this true phenomenologically? It seems that
consciousness thought as unreflective, the “spontaneous” engaged consciousness that Husserl
writes about in Ideen, would lead to the possibility that at some level unreflective or the
“unconscious” consciousness would be linked to wish and desire precisely because it is the most
basic activity of being engaged with, of mapping a trajectory through the world.

Mathematical Logic and existentialism