The main objective of this work is to achieve an understanding of Husserl's phenomenology as philosophical foundation for theology. It sustains, in the first place, that theology and philosophy do more than converge. It deepens, in second place, in the connection between phenomenology and theology, as well as in the Husserlian conception of God as entelechy and ἐνέργεια. This study concludes with a reflection, in third place, on the possibility of elaborating a theology from the phenomenological inspiration. The thesis that (...) is defended is that phenomenology means for theology, literally, an authentic Herausforderung, that is to say, a provocation that from outside interpellates a discourse, the theological one, that many judged already exhausted and at risk of extinction. In the conclusions are detailed the main contributions that the phenomenology makes to theology. El principal objetivo de este trabajo es lograr una comprensión de la la fenomenología de Husserl como fundamento filosófico para la teología. Sostiene, en primer lugar, la idea de que la teología y la filosofía hacen algo más que converger. Profundiza, en segundo lugar, en la conexión entre fenomenología y teología, así como en la concepción husserliana de Dios como entelequia y ἐνέργεια. Este estudio concluye con una reflexión, en tercer lugar, sobre la posibilidad de elaborar una teología de inspiración fenomenológica. La tesis que se defiende es que la fenomenología supone para la teología, literalmente, una auténtica Herausforderung, es decir, una provocación que desde fuera interpela a un discurso, el teológico, que muchos juzgaban ya agotado y en riesgo de extinción. En las conclusiones se detallan las principales aportaciones que la fenomenología hace a la teología. (shrink)

Artikkeli käy läpi Quentin Meillassoux’n Äärellisyyden jälkeen -teoksessa esittelemiä spekulatiivisen materialismin lähtökohtia: ajatuksen Kantin jälkeistä filosofiasta hallinneesta korrelationismista ja sen ”heikosta” ja ”vahvasta” muodosta sekä Meillassoux’n perusargumentin, jolla hän pyrkii osoittamaan vahvan korrelationismin pyrkimyksen absoluuttisista viitepiisteistä luopumiseen sisäisesti ristiriitaiseksi. Tarkastelun pääpaino on Meillassoux’n väitteessä, että ajattelun riisuminen kaikista absoluuttisista näkökohdista johtaa vahvan korrelationismin omaksumaan ”fideistisen”, uskon ja järjen erillisyyttä ja keskinäistä riippumattomuutta korostavan suhtautumisen uskonnolliseen uskoon. Tällainen fideismi voi Meillassoux’n mukaan suojella tai jopa palvella ”nykypäivän fanatismia”. Artikkeli esittää joukon kriittisiä (...) huomioita Meillassoux’n fideismin ja uskon, uskonnollisten absoluuttien sekä fanatismin käsitteistä. Hänen klassiseen valistusmoderniin nojaava fideismikritiikkinsä osoittautuu toistaiseksi puutteellisesti perustelluksi ja ongelmallisesti muotoilluksi. (shrink)

The paper analyzes Quentin Meillassoux’s conception of the fideistic approach to religious faith intrinsic to the “strong correlationism” that he considers pervasive in contemporary thought. Backman presents the basic elements of Meillassoux’s speculative materialism and especially the thesis according to which strong correlationism involves a “fideistic” approach to religiosity. In doing so, Backman critically examines Meillassoux’s notions of post-metaphysical faith, religious absolutes, and contemporary fanaticism, especially against the background of Heidegger’s philosophy. According to Backman, Meillassoux’s logical and conceptual critique of (...) strong correlationism is innovative, and it may remain legitimate if its presuppositions are accepted. And yet, Backman argues that Meillassoux’s allegations of fideism seem to rely on the questionable application of Enlightenment conceptions to the contemporary situation. (shrink)

Phenomenology is a basic philosophical movement belonging to what is called “continental philosophy.” Recently, a new phenomenology has emerged in France. In the period from Levinas and Henry to Marion and Richir, it has become evident that the phenomenon as such cannot be reduced to a mere constitution by intentional consciousness; rather, it must be considered as an event of appearing that establishes itself by itself. This fundamental insight entails important consequences: on the one hand, a new concept of the (...) subject has been elaborated; on the other hand, a new approach to effective reality and objectivity has been developed. Idealism is overcome, transcendentalism is revised and reinterpreted. These changes will certainly have an impact on the destiny of continental philosophy. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl’s ultimate aim was to give an overall philosophical explanation of the totality of Being. In this endeavour, the term “absolute” was crucial for him. In this paper, I aim to clarify the most important ways in which Husserl used this notion. I attempt to show that, despite his rather divergent usages, eventually three fundamental meanings and coordinated levels of the “absolute” can be differentiated in his thought: the epistemological, the ontological, and the theological or metaphysical level. According to (...) Husserl, we can approach this ultimate level of the Absolute, through the method of phenomenological construction. A closer reading of Husserl’s texts shows that his conception of the absolute was astonishingly modern. The main features of the conception—on all three levels—were non-foundationalism, contextualism, openness, and circularity. Each level mutually founds and determines the others. It is a non-foundational Absolute, the moments of which constitute an organic and open totality which is essentially processual. In my interpretation, this theory opens a fruitful working area, which has enormous philosophical potential and is surprisingly up-to-date. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se interroga el fundamento de la hermenéutica del texto y lo que significa retomarla a la letra en filosofía y en teología. Una hermenéutica es fundamental si se afinca en un modo de existencia adecuado a su propósito, de modo que se diferencie mejor y sea identificada claramente. La hermenéutica protestante del sentido del texto y la hermenéutica judía del cuerpo de la letra serán sustituidas aquí por una hermenéutica católica del texto del cuerpo, en una tentativa al menos (...) programática. ABSTRACT The article inquires into the basis of textual hermeneutics and what it means to apply it literally in philosophy and theology. Hermeneutics is fundamental if it is grounded in a mode of existence that is adequate to its purpose, so that it is better differentiated and clearly identified. The Protestant hermeneutics of the meaning of the text and the Jewish hermeneutics of the body of the letter are here replaced by a Catholic hermeneutics of the text of the body, in an attempt that is at least programmatic. (shrink)

This article calls for a new theoretical synthesis that overcomes the fragmentation, specialization and professionalization within the social sciences. As an alternative to utilitarianism and the colonization of the social sciences by rational choice models, it proposes a new articulation of social theory, the Studies and moral, social and political philosophy. Based on a positive anthropology that finds its inspiration in Marcel Mauss’s classic essay on the gift, it recommends a return to classical social theory and explores articulations between theories (...) of reciprocity, care and recognition. (shrink)

This essay returns to the origins of the phenomenology of religion, offering an introduction to and a discussion of seminal contributions to the field. Three figures are examined: Max Scheler, Adolf Reinach and the early Martin Heidegger, who are presented as the ‘German Fathers’ of the phenomenology of religion. Each conducted a radical foray into the religious life-world, sometimes in accord with the project of their Master Edmund Husserl, sometimes opposing or radically revising his project, but typically developing new methods (...) and proposing radical insights. They attempted to define the proper attitude a phenomenologist – who might possibly also be a religious person – should adopt in the face of phenomena and lived experiences clearly beyond the ordinary. This enterprise led to heated debates and a rich analysis described here. (shrink)

It is now almost 20 years since Janicaud’s critique of the ‘theological turn in French phenomenology’ (Janicaud 1991, 2000), with its emphasis on phenomenology and theology as two and never one. Yet since that time there been an explosion of phenomenologies which are, if not overtly, implicitly religious and phenomenology. Thus, we have phenomenologies of prayer, or love, or hope, and the possibilities of further phenomenologies. The challenge of these emerging phenomenologies is that there seems to be no noematic correlate (...) to a noesis in intentionality. To the fore in the reconsideration of this phenomenological challenge is Jean-Luc Marion (although there are others such as Levinas, Jean-Louis Chrétien, and Michel Henry): all aspects of lived experience appear now to belong to the proper scope of phenomenology. Marion considers the relation in Husserl between intentions and intuitions which fulfil these intentions, and suggests a reversal. In Marion, although intentionality is not rejected, the phenomenological flow which the reduction brings to light is from the object as such as it gives itself in intuition, and then from intuition to intention. For Marion, phenomena are saturated—they give too much. Religion becomes a test-case for all phenomenology. This bearing, drawing mainly on The Visible and the Revealed, offers some of the key things in Marion’s phenomenology. (shrink)

El concepto de los fenómenos saturados y su posterior desarrollo y evolución en la obra de Marion han suscitado la discusión por el problema de la hermenéutica. En esta discusión surge la necesidad de un discernimiento hermenéutico de los fenómenos y la posibilidad de clarificar criterios para este, abriendo el debate a una ética de la fenomenalidad. Para esto proponemos revisar la obra de Marion para encontrar los elementos que nos puedan ayudar en este camino.

At the heart of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion one discovers a commitment to the diversity of religious expression. This commitment is grounded in his understanding of the linguistic and temporal conditions of religious phenomena. By exploring his contribution to the debate concerning the so-called ‘theological turn’ in French phenomenology in relation to his studies of translation, this essay explores Ricoeur’s understanding of religious phenomenality where meaning is experienced as the simultaneous advance and withdrawal of an originary event in (...) the traces of its interpretations. With such an understanding of religious phenomenality, the way is opened for philosophy of religion to advance a more robust consideration of religious diversity and, therefore, to reconsider notions of universality better suited to the things themselves. (shrink)

I develop a phenomenological critique to Husserl’s metaphysics, by showing that – contrary to what the majority of critical literature claims – metaphysical questions are alien to phenomenology. Husserl engages with the discussion of these topics only because of ideological-existential motives, and, when he deals with that problems, he does not use the phenomenological method, but the regressive and constructive procedure, which he himself elsewhere criticizes. Konsequent zu sein, ist die größte Obliegenheit eines Philosophen, und wird doch am seltensten angetroffen. (...) Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Die Vernunft ist immer beim Menschen die gehorsamste Dienerin des Herzens; was er wünscht, das stellt er sich als seiend vor und demonstriert er, wenn er einmal zu räsonieren anfängt, a priori aus der Vernunft als notwendig. Feuerbach, Die Unsterblichkeitsfrage vom Standpunkt der Anthropologie. It were better […] never to look beyond the present material world. By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that Divine Being, so much the better. Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

Abstract The idea of ?election? cannot be approached, it seems, through traditional or classical philosophical conceptuality. This idea requires another type of discourse. Not simply because this idea refers to an entirely other body of texts, that of the Biblical tradition, but more radically since it commands another modality of thought which must at once suspend and pursue philosophical concepts to the point where they express themselves otherwise than according to the rationality of their own deployment. In truth, the idea (...) of ?election? calls thus for a redefinition of the rapport between singularity and universality, one no longer structured and circumscribed by ?truth?, but rather inspired by a novel and irreducible modality of ?justice?. A ?justice? which opens to the possibility for an ?ethics?, not as ?communicative dialogue?, ?mutual recognition? or a series of established and rationally grounded laws, but a ?place? of incessant and irresolute, non-intentional and unconditional exposition to the Other. (shrink)

Resumen Numerosas derivas de la fenomenología contemporánea, especialmente francesa, tematizaron fenómenos con excedencia que desafían la estructura husserliana de correlación intencional e impronta epistémica del polo subjetivo. La filosofía heideggeriana se pregunta sobre la facticidad y sus fundamentos, arribando al terreno en que el fenómeno se sustrae y resulta, por ello, inaparente, pero a la vez fundante de todo el ámbito del aparecer. En el presente trabajo estudiaremos en primer lugar el marco en que la filosofía de Heidegger tematiza la (...) excedencia en el Seminario de Zähringen, consideraremos la tensión con la posición husserliana y analizaremos el planteo de la noción de “fenomenología de lo inaparente” para trazar algunas proyecciones de esta idea que habilitan la inclusión de las temáticas ligadas con la excedencia dentro de la economía propiamente fenomenológica.Many lines of contemporary phenomenology, especially in its French sides, have studied phenomena that exceed the limits and defy the original Husserlian structure and its commitment with intentional correlation and the epistemic aspects of the subjective pole. The direction of Heideggerian philosophy and its treatment about facticity and its foundations was a defining issue. In this context it is studied the phenomenon that subtracts itself and is, therefore, inapparent, but at the same time it is the founder of the whole field of appearance. The present work mil study the framework in which Heidegger's philosophy thematizes excess in the Seminar of Zähringen. It mil be considered the tension with the Husserlian position and the propos al of the notion of'phenomenology of the inapparent". On this basis it mil be possible to draw some projections of this idea that enable the inclusion of the issues linkedmth exceedance within the phenomenological sphere. (shrink)

La fenomenología tiene una fuerte impronta asociada con el método, que dio lugar a numerosos desarrollos teóricos. Por esta vía más tarde recibió cuestionamientos profundos en relación con una supuesta falta de radicalidad, derivada de las limitaciones impuestas por su compromiso con la estructura intencional. Una revisión de esta esfera, atendiendo a la tematización de la excedencia, muestra la pertinencia de incorporar la fenomenología de lo inaparente a los estratos de estaticidad, geneticidad y generatividad; además, permite morigerar estos cuestionamientos sumándolos (...) como rendimientos de la disciplina. En este trabajo consideraremos algunos aspectos centrales sobre el método de la fenomenología, para establecer luego los rasgos de una dimensión orientada a la excedencia y sugerir, finalmente, como ejemplo de esta dirección teórica, que el contramétodo marioniano es compatible con la fisonomía que adopta la intencionalidad morigerada propia del plano de la fenomenología de lo inaparente. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca interrogar al fenómeno de la apelación. Para ello, se examinará el vínculo entre fenomenología y apelación preguntándonos qué es preciso entender por la máxima husserliana que conmina a un retorno a las cosas mismas; en segundo lugar, intentaremos dilucidar cómo la obediencia crítica a la consigna fenomenológica ha supuesto una recomprensión de fenómeno al punto de transformar la consigna husserliana en un verdadero “retorno de las cosas mismas”. Finalmente, nos proponemos interrogar la apelación del fenómeno, a (...) partir del diálogo entre Marion y Romano. No solo intentaremos dilucidar cuál es la especificidad de la apelación, sino qué relación estricta hay entre fenómeno, particularmente insigne o saturado y apelación. (shrink)

¿Cómo entender la contradicción de una filosofía que, a la vez que se autoproclama heredera legítima de la fenomenología, pretende liberarse de sus límites y abrir paso a la manifestación incondicionada? ¿Debemos sin más leer la obra de Jean-Luc Marion como una verdadera renovación de la fenomenología, tal como él y sus seguidores pretenden o, por el contrario, debemos leerla como pura teología independizada del movimiento fenomenológico? ¿Por qué sería la vía teológica la única salida posible de la crisis de (...) la metafísica contemporánea denunciada por Marion y, más aún, una vía necesaria? Para responder a estas y otras preguntas, el presente trabajo desarrolla algunas de las paradojas que surgen del giro teológico marioniano, distinguiendo dos maneras posibles de entender su _Kehre_: o bien como una _desviación_ que permite extender la fenomenología a nuevos campos, o bien como un regreso o vuelta atrás y abandono del proyecto fenomenológico. Por último, nos preguntamos si la ontología donadora gradual, propuesta por Marion, no permite pensar en una posible tercera vía, según la cual el pensamiento de Marion no sería ya una _fenomenología_, sino una _fansiología teológico gradualista_. (shrink)

This paper examines the origin of phenomenology, and delineates several of its significant developments and refractions, in order to arrive at a renewed conception of phenomenological theory and practice: a future phenomenology that can, it is argued, articulate productively with certain grounds opened up by psychoanalysis. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 8, Edition 1 May 2008.

Focusing on Joyce’s use of Aristotle’s De Anima, and on Aquinas’s response to Aristotle, this essay takes, as its starting point, the recourse to two areas of enquiry in recent work on modernism: animal studies and phenomenology. In this essay we examine the intersection within Ulysses of the concept of the soul in Aristotle and Aquinas, show how this relates to questions of animality, and open the way to asking what implication the theological reflection on the soul at the centre (...) of Ulysses might have for a process of uncovering theological contents in the concept of “life” in modernist studies more generally. (shrink)

En el presente artículo nos preguntaremos por la posibilidad de elaborar una filosofía de la religión a partir de los supuestos de la fenomenología de la vida de Michel Henry, y por los senderos que esta supondría. Esta tarea nos demanda explicitar los principios base de su propuesta fenomenológica, indagar por la fidelidad del autor a dichos principios en su tematización del cristianismo y, finalmente, enunciar los caminos que se originan de esta fenomenología para una comprensión filosófica de la experiencia (...) religiosa. Tal será, entonces, la estructura de nuestro texto, que pretende situarse en el ensamble del trabajo filosófico de Henry, definido por él mismo bajo un doble aspecto: “la elaboración de los presupuestos fundamentales que definen la duplicidad del aparecer, y la puesta en práctica de estos presupuestos en la compresión de diversos problemas o diversas filosofías”. (shrink)