After reviewing the status of the concept of the phenomenon in Husserl’s phenomenology and the aim of successive attempts to reform, de-formalize, and to widen it, we show the difficulties of a method that, following the example of Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology, intends to connect the phenomenon directly to the revelation of an exteriority. We argue that, on the contrary, Marc Richir’s phenomenology, which strives to grasp the phenomenon as nothing-but-phenomenon, is more likely to capture the “meaning” of the phenomenological , (...) and hence to help us orient in the field of problems that phenomenology encounters without always knowing how to tackle them. Yet, this extension of the phenomenon’s domain does not thereby encompass everything: there may well be certain issues that require a phenomenology without phenomenon ; but the meaning of this cannot be determined before the complete reenvisioning of transcendental phenomenology. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct a Christian theology of “hospitality” through a critical reading of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as through an in-depth biblical and theological reflection on the ethics of hospitality. Out of this reconstructive investigation, I propose a new Christian ethics of hospitality as a radical kind. As a new paradigm, this radical hospitality is distinguished from other types in that it is no longer conceived on the model of “gift”. The new (...) Christian ethics of hospitality is rather reconstructed on the model of “forgiveness” by critically appropriating the concept of “invisible debt” that lies between the hosting citizens and the migrants in the senses of “you owe us your presence” and “I owe you my security and success.” While the hospitality of the gift defines the relationship between the hosting citizens and the migrants as givers and givees, the new paradigm of hospitality identifies this relationship as between creditors and debtors. In this regard, a new Christian hospitality called for unto citizens of the hosting society is a radical kind that challenges them to transcend the creditor-debtor consciousness. (shrink)

The primary focus of this project is the silent and subvocal speech-recognition interface unveiled in 2018 as an ambulatory device wearable on the neck that detects a myoelectrical signature by electrodes worn on the surface of the face, throat, and neck. These emerge from an alleged “intending to speak” by the wearer silently-saying-something-to-oneself. This inner voice is believed to occur while one reads in silence or mentally talks to oneself. The artifice does not require spoken sounds, opening the mouth, or (...) any explicit or external movement of the lips. The essay then considers such subvocal “speech” as a mode of writing or saying and the interior of the mouth or oral cavity as its writing surface. It briefly revisits discussions of telepathy to recontextualize Heidegger’s warning against enframing language exclusively within calculative technics and physiology, which he suggests is detrimental to Mundarten (mouth-modes of regional dialects). It closes in reconsideration of Husserl’s phenomenology of language and meaning in Ideas as it might apply to subvocal speech-recognition interfaces. It suggests ways by which the electrophysiology that the device detects and deciphers (as an alleged intention of a presumed natural language unspoken vocally or aloud) might supplement Husserl’s insinuation of the Leiblichkeit of language through a self-stamping extraction of an extension of meaning. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that it is possible to approach teaching from a fully affirmative perspective: as an educational practice that has its own internal logic and intrinsic value. By analysing a fragment from one of the Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts presented in this article as a teaching event, we show that when starting from an empirical example of teaching it is possible to distinguish principles and gestures that testify to an ontological dimension of teaching. This is possible, (...) however, only when a particular reading of this empirical material is applied. We call this an immanent reading, as opposed to a transcendent (in this case critical) reading. It should be clear that this kind of inquiry we briefly demonstrate here is exactly a post-critical attempt to re-establish our affirmative relation with one of the most devalued, repressed, and neglected educational practice, namely teaching. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the relationship between phenomenology and metaphysics by reassessing the relationship between phenomenological and metaphysical transcendence. More specifically, I examine the notion of phenomenological transcendence in Husserl and the early Heidegger: Husserl defines transcendence primarily as the mode of givenness of phenomena that do not appear all at once, but must be given in partial profiles; Heidegger defines transcendence primarily as Dasein’s capacity to go beyond entities toward being. I argue that these divergent understandings of phenomenological (...) transcendence have resulted in a significant difference in reception among French phenomenologists of religion. These thinkers assert that phenomenology, when properly conceived and utilized, can make room for the divine and its revelation, i.e., for a metaphysical transcendence. I further argue that these thinkers prefer Heidegger’s phenomenology to Husserl’s because they understand Heidegger’s transcendence as the subject’s openness to being, while they understand Husserl’s transcendence as a limit, as the inability to capture worldly objects. I take up Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness as a “case study” to illustrate this point. Finally, I argue that this preference for Heidegger over Husserl is misplaced and should be reversed. A close reading of Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religious Life shows that Dasein is confined to its own possibilities and cannot be open to a relationship with the divine. By contrast, Husserl’s phenomenology provides the radical openness necessary to welcome revelation. While Husserl cannot envision a “worldly God,” the structures of horizonality and temporality characterize a subject capable of an authentic openness to revelation. (shrink)

Metaphysics has no place in the science-religion discourses if understood as an a priori universal content of the nature and causes of all things. From an overview of the positive and negative dimensions and challenges of the contemporary science-religion discourses within each conversation partner itself and between the two, it is argued that metaphysical reflection represents a contextual-linguistic event that ‘takes place’ only after the contextual giveness is taken up within a very concrete historical-linguistic frame of reference for sense making. (...) In a metaphoric sense, it is conclusively compared with the movements of atoms of which we can only state afterwards where the atoms have been. In this sense, McGrath’s remark that ‘etaphysics is not the precondition of any engagement with the world, but its inferred consequence’ is supported. The ‘was’ of metaphysical thinking represents the emergent product of the concrete and specific lifeworlds in which they have ‘taken place’, that is, ‘eventuated’. The ‘was’ of metaphysical reflection is the most powerful event of credofication for human beings in living, making sense of and participating empathically in the question ‘why there is something rather than nothing?’. (shrink)

Care ethics emphasizes responsibility as a key element for caring practices. Responsibilities to care are taken by certain groups of people, making caring practices into moral and political practices in which responsibilities are assigned, assumed, or implicitly expected, as well as deflected. Despite this attention for social practices of distribution and its unequal result, making certain groups of people the recipient of more caring responsibilities than others, the passive aspect of a caring responsibility has been underexposed by care ethics. By (...) drawing upon the work of the French phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion, a care ethical conceptualization of responsibility can by enriched, by scrutinizing how responsibility is literally a response to something else. This paper starts with a vignette of an everyday situation of professional care. After that the current body of care ethical literature on responsibility is presented, followed by Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, using his analysis of Caravaggio’s painting The Calling of St. Matthew and resulting in his redefinition of responsibility. In the next section we present a table in which we juxtapose four distinct paradigms of responsibility, which we will describe briefly. The final section consists of an exploration of the paradigms by an analysis of the vignette and results in a conclusion concerning what Marion’s view has to offer to care ethics with regard to responsibility. (shrink)

Baudrillard interpreta el «nuevo terrorismo» como un intercambio simbólico de regalo y contra-regalo: la muerte del terrorista es un contra-regalo irrefutable que rompe el círculo coercitivo de las relaciones sociales «impuestas» por el sistema global. A su vez, la concepción de Derrida tiene dos dimensiones, explicativa y normativa: en primer lugar, Derrida considera el 11-S como un síntoma multifacético de una crisis autoinmune que tiene aspectos políticos, religiosos y tecno-capitalistas. En segundo lugar, Derrida arguye que existe un «momento» de terror, (...) violencia y sacrificio que es constitutivo en las decisiones y en la responsabilidad éticas. De forma crítica, argumentaré que la concepción de Baudrillard se basa en una noción extremada y partidista de un sistema que se interpreta como un inmenso mandato de un gobernante totalitario. Por su parte, Derrida convierte de forma innecesaria la observación de que las acciones humanas pueden tener consecuencias perversas en una ley de la autoinmumidad inspirada en la biología. Al considerar el terror como algo constitutivo incluso en las relaciones éticas más comunes, Derrida corre también el riesgo de convertir un fenómeno extremado en un concepto que lo abarca todo, y de perder contacto con la práctica ética corriente. Concluiré que las concepciones de Baudrillard y de Derrida sobre el terror y el terrorismo comparten un «gusto por lo extremado» que las hace en última instancia poco convincentes. (shrink)

Bourdieu and Derrida share a focus on the ambiguity of the practice of gift relationships already pointed out by Mauss. From Bourdieu’s perspective, the question of gratuity is epistemically futile, as it veils the objective truth of gift-giving, yet ethically and politically relevant, as it refers to a hypocrisy which can be instrumental to enhancing civic virtue and solidarity. Bourdieu’s “scientific humanism,” however, implausibly reduces this ambiguity to interest maximization, and aims to build a solidaristic democracy by means of the (...) generalization of the hypocrisy of gratuity. In turn, by interpreting gratuity as “unconditionality,” Derrida aims not at dissolving, but at dramatizing the ambiguity of gift relationships by turning it into “madness” and an “impossible possibility”. Whereas I agree with Derrida’s insistence on the salience of the requirement of gratuity, his approach can lead to counterintuitive and hubristic consequences. Instead, I suggest some elements of an alternative way of understanding gratuitous gifts as communicative acts irreducible to an economic calculation or circle. From this standpoint, a gratuitous gift can be constituted by certain forms of recognition, emotions, or convictions without for that becoming an “impossibility”. (shrink)

Philosophy, by and large, tends to dwell on what might be called the woeful nature of reality—finitude, suffering, loss, death, and the like. While these topics are no doubt worthy of philosophical concern, undue focus on them tends to obscure other facets of our experience and of reality, giving philosophy a temperament that could justifiably be called melancholic. Without besmirching the value of such inquiry, this paper suggests that philosophers have largely ignored the experience of joy and, consequently, missed its (...) distinctive contributions to our understanding of the meaningfulness of life and the goodness of being. Traditional accounts of the problem of evil are rooted in what John D. Caputo calls “strong theology,” which tends to construe evil as a problem to which God should supply the answer or solution. However, if we call into question traditional accounts of omnipotence, evil ceases to be a problem, and we become free to engage it as part of what Gabriel Marcel calls “the mystery of being.” Thus liberated, we are free to assess more clearly phenomena missed by melancholic accounts of being, among them the experience of joy, attested to in diverse forms of philosophy, literature, memoir, and elsewhere. (shrink)

In ethical reflections on new technologies, a specific type of argument often pops up, which criticizes scientists for “playing God” with these new technological possibilities. The first part of this article is an examination of how these arguments have been interpreted in the literature. Subsequently, this article aims to reinterpret these arguments as symbolic arguments: they are grounded not so much in a set of ontological or empirical claims, but concern symbolic classificatory schemes that ground our value judgments in the (...) first place. Invoking symbolic arguments thus refers to how certain new technologies risk undermining our fundamental symbolic distinctions by which we organize and evaluate our interactions with the world and in society. Such symbolic distinctions, moreover, tend to be resilient against logical argumentation, mainly because they themselves form the basis on which we argue in the cultural and ethical sphere in the first place. Therefore, effective strategies to evaluate and counter these arguments require another approach, showing that these technologies either do not challenge these classifications or, if they do, how they can be accompanied by the proper actions to integrate these technologies into our society. (shrink)

At the opening of the first volume of his Deconstruction of Christianity, Nancy argues that “The much discussed ‘return of the religious,’ which denotes a real phenomenon, deserves no more attention than any other ‘return’” (1). This statement may seem paradoxical in light of Nancy’s extensive study of the logic of the return – including, of the divine – in texts such as “Of Divine Places,” Noli me tangere, Dis-Enclosure and Adoration. Nancy does pay considerable attention to something that, according (...) to him, deserves none. In this paper, I examine Nancy’s critique of the “return of religion” in detail and argue that it would be a mistake to assume that Nancy’s understanding of the logic of the “return” is limited to the – largely uninteresting and even dangerous, indeed – return of the Same, just as it is a mistake to assume that the phenomenon known as the “return of religion” merely consists of the dialectical resurgence of a past religious fervour, a step backwards in history. According to Nancy, religion today returns in a way that radically breaks with the logic of the return of the Same and testifies to an eternal return of difference which, paraphrasing Nancy, opens religion to the limitlessness that constitutes its truth. It does, therefore, deserve our attention, yet only insofar as, paraphrasing Nancy, it opens religion to the limitlessness that constitutes its truth (Dis-Enclosure 1), thereby providing us with new resources to think religion in the singular-plural today. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we need to analyze ‘religious violence’ in the ‘post-secular context’ in a twofold way: rather than simply viewing it in terms of mere irrationality, senselessness, atavism, or monstrosity – terms which, as we witness today on an immense scale, are strongly endorsed by the contemporary theater of cruelty committed in the name of religion – we also need to understand it in terms of an ‘originary supplement’ of ‘disengaged reason’. In order to confront its (...) specificity beyond traditional explanations of violence, I propose an integrated phenomenological account of religion that traces the phenomenality of religion in terms of a correlation between the originary givenness of transcendence and capable man’s creative capacities to respond to it. Following Ricœur, I discuss ‘religious violence’ in terms of a monopolizing appropriation of the originary source of givenness that conflates man’s freedom to poetically respond to the appeal of the foundational with the surreptitiously claimed sovereignty to make it happen in a practical transfiguration of the everyday. (shrink)

Support in different modes, expressions and actions is at the core of the public welfare culture. In this paper, support is examined as an everyday interpersonal phenomenon with a variety of expressions in language and ways of relating, and its essential meaning is explored. The fulcrum for reflection is the lived experience shared by a young woman with mental health problems of her respective encounters with two professionals in mental health facilities. A phenomenological analysis of the contrasting accounts suggests that, (...) when the professional relationship includes openness and risk, a certain degree of freedom of action is possible for both parties involved in the inevitably asymmetrical relationship. Support as “given” eludes controllable and measurable objectives, but imposes itself on the lived experiences of both the giver and the receiver as subject to readiness for acceptance. By not making assumptions about what support is, we open ourselves to the possibility of reciprocally experiencing moments revealing the essential meaning of support as lived. (shrink)

Translation (French to English) of Jean-Luc Marion's "La donation en son herméneutique," originally published (in French) as chapter II of Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2016).

In this essay, I provide an introduction to the so-called 'theological turn' in recent French, 'new' phenomenology. I begin by articulating the stakes of excluding God from phenomenology (as advocated by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger) and then move on to a brief consideration of why Dominique Janicaud contends that, by inquiring into the 'inapparent', new phenomenology is no longer phenomenological. I then consider the general trajectories of this recent movement and argue that there are five main themes that unite (...) the work of such varied thinkers as Levinas, Derrida, Marion, Henry, Chrétien, Lacoste, and Ricœur. I conclude by outlining points of overlap between new phenomenology and contemporary analytic philosophy of religion and suggest that the two stand as important resources for each other. (shrink)

In a tribute to the work of Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff characterizes a form of the analytic tradition in philosophy of religion, which neither he nor Plantinga endorses, as a brand ofKant-rationality. What such rationality aims to achieve is, above all, auniversalityof rational agreement, or rather ‘a foundation that is acceptable to all rational reflective human-beings’, something that could be acknowledged by ‘all cognitively competent adult human beings’ who had access to the same relevant information or facts.

This article discusses the role of religion in the philosophy of Jacques Derrida. The author considers a specifically Christian, affirmative character of deconstruction that is found through the biblical references of Derrida, inspired by his forgotten master Gérard Granel. This line of argument opposes both the presence of Heideggerian death drive in Derrida’s subject and advances the possibility of a genuinely Christian rebellious subject as an answer to the question; who comes after the subject? Derrida’s thought informs us about the (...) affective and weak concept of subjectivity that might be fruitful for the development of new outlines for the social realm of subjectivity. (shrink)

In this paper phenomenological descriptions of the experiential structures of suicidality and of self-determined behaviour are given; an understanding of the possible scopes and forms of lived self-determination in suicidal mental life is offered. Two possible limits of lived self-determination are described: suicide is always experienced as minimally self-determined, because it is the last active and effective behaviour, even in blackest despair; suicide can never be experienced as fully self-determined, even if valued as the authentic thing to do, because no (...) retrospective re-evaluation from some future vantage is possible. The phenomenological descriptions of the possible scope of lived self-determination in suicidality, presented in this paper, should prove to be extremely helpful in three different fields of interest: (a) ethical debates regarding the pros and cons of autonomous or heteronomous suicide; (b) clinical day-to-day practice with respect to treating suicidal people; (c) people who suffered a suicidal crisis, attempted suicide or lost loved ones through suicides. (155 words). (shrink)

This article discusses the “event” in Merab Mamardashvili’s philosophy. The roots of the post-secular interpretation of the event are traced back to Sören Kierkegaard’s concept of “the moment”, which is posited within a non-classical understanding of temporality and historicity of cognition. The concept of the “event” is also explored in the broader context of non-classical and post-secular Western philosophy of the twentieth century, especially in the works of Martin Heidegger and Jean-Luc Marion, who both belong to the phenomenological tradition. The (...) concept of the event in Mamardashvili’s philosophy is explored as one relative to analogous conceptualizations of the event in a post-secular context. (shrink)

This essay links Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of fine art to his description of Christian love. It does so by carefully showing how Marion's overall project is closely related to Kant's well-known account of the relationship between aesthetics and morality. While Kant and Marion both believe that aesthetic experience can lay the groundwork for moral action, their contrasting views of morality lead them to very different articulations of such a relationship. While Kant sees encounters with fine art as preparing individuals for (...) the particular kinds of disinterested judgments characteristic of moral decision-making, Marion sees artwork as preparing the subject for the openness toward intuitive excess that is necessary for love. (shrink)

An important influence on Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology is the work of Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Marion is particularly interested in Balthasar’s ‘phenomenological’ approach to the content of Christian revelation, centered on the metaphor of the work of art. Balthasar suggests in his Theo-Logic that the early Marion ‘concede[s] too much to the critique of Heidegger,’ moving too far away from the ‘transcendental’ metaphysics of Aquinas and the classical tradition. Yet Balthasar’s criticism is premature. Rather, Marion’s work, particularly (...) his emphasis on the ‘saturated phenomenon,’ paves the way for a postmetaphysical theological aesthetics that might renew Balthasar’s project in a cultural situation ‘after’ the death of God, while simultaneously opening a space for Christian revelation apart from a certain hegemonic tradition of onto-theology. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the significance of Derrida's work for an understanding of the basic tenets of phenomenology. Specifically, via an analysis of his understanding of the subject's relation to the future, we will see that Derrida enhances the phenomenological understanding of temporality and intentionality, thereby moving the project of phenomenology forward in a unique way. This, in turn, suggests that future phenomenological research will have to account for an essential (rather than merely a secondary) role for both linguistic (...) mediation and cultural and political factors within the phenomenological subject itself. (shrink)

This article discusses the theoretical issues and findings of a recent trend in phenomenology of religion: the manifestation of the Trinity. Section one highlights the classical model of the Trinity as mystery. The Trinity is as an elusive phenomenon that can be grasped only as an article of faith. Section two outlines important features of manifestation and experience in Husserl's phenomenology, which lays the conceptual groundwork for the phenomenology of religion. Section three discusses two proposals of a phenomenology of the (...) Trinity, in which faith can be understood as an intentional stance may make possible the Trinity's manifestation as a subjective phenomenon. The conclusion locates the principal weakness of the phenomenology of the Trinity in the proponents' tendency to ignore doctrinal development and theological debate, especially of the fourth and fifth‐centuries, which gave shape to the Trinity as a doctrine as such. (shrink)

The fruit borne of the debate concerning the economy of the gift carried out between Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion in the 1990s continues to ripen into the present with publications like Anthony Steinbock’s lucid It’s not about the Gift: From Givenness to Loving. I challenge and qualify the fundamental argument of this book in dialogue with two principal French proponents of givenness, Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Marion, against whom Steinbock promotes his strategy of the gift. While Steinbock wishes to (...) displace our relation to the other from giving to loving, I suggest that the discourse of givenness remains the very movement of loving as such. Steinbock occupies a position reminiscent of, but not reducible to, gift-exchange theory, rooted in reciprocity between lover and beloved, whereas I am inclined to move near to the terrain of the unconditioned gift in which loving need not entail reciprocity. My position is not so much a counterclaim as it is a clarification of the inextricable unity between giving and loving. The final section contends that the I enlarge my horizon when I give myself because I do not grasp the other, nor do I expect or obligate the other’s givenness in return; rather in my growth beyond my own self-interest, I allow the other to be given just as the other likes to be given. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on a central phenomenological concept in Michel Henry’s work that has often been neglected: generation. Generation becomes an especially important conceptual key to understanding not only the relationship between God and human self but also Henry’s adoption of radical interiority and his critical standpoint with respect to much of the phenomenological tradition in which he is working. Thus in pursuing the theme of generation, I shall introduce many phenomenological-theological terms in Henry’s trilogy on Christianity as (...) well as how he understands the relationship between phenomenology and theology. In the final sections of the paper, I turn to positively defining Henry’s notion of divine generation and examine the theological implications of it in light of his confrontation and rejection of the doctrine of creation in the book of Genesis found in his book, Incarnation: une philosophie de la chair. Humans are not created but are eternally generated, a bold claim that brings Henry to the brink of a kind of interiorized pantheism or Gnostic dualism. Finally, I offer some critical comments specifically about Henry’s doctrine of generation in light of the tension between auto-affection and hetero-affection and thus how one might think after Henry in light of the basic Augustinian theological distinction between self and God and the intentionality of faith opened up by that distinction. (shrink)

Quentin Meillassoux’s 2006 After Finitude offered a sharp critique of the phenomenological project, charging that phenomenology was one of the “two principal media” of correlationism—ultimately reducible to an “extreme idealism.” Meillassoux grounds this accusation in an account of givenness that presupposes that “every variety of givenness” finds its genesis within the positing of the subject. However, this critique fails to hit its mark precisely because it presupposes an account of intuitive givenness that is entirely foreign to the phenomenological project. Quite (...) against Meillassoux’s conflation of givenness, the world-for-us, and the positing subject—the very centre of the phenomenological project is the recognition that intuitive givenness cannot be reduced to the constructive activity of the subject. Givenness is marked by a heterogeneity; givenness refers to what is given to us, not to what emerges from us. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida’s ‘Faith and Knowledge’ presents an account of the complex relationship between religion and technoscience that disrupts their traditional boundaries by uncovering both an irreducible faith at the heart of science and an irreducible mechanicity at the heart of religion. In this paper, I focus on the latter, arguing that emphases in Derrida’s text on both the ‘sources’ of religion and its interaction with modern technologies underemphasize the ways in which a general ‘mechanicity’ is present throughout religion. There is (...) no faith, I contend, that is not in some way materially constituted according to a mechanicity operative not only at its origin but continuously and in ever-changing forms, and not only in its interactions with other fields and institutions but within its own structure and daily life. By closely examining ‘Faith and Knowledge’—along with examples from his essay ‘A Silkworm of One’s Own’ and Michael Naas’s Miracle and Machine—I argue that more attention should be paid to the mechanisms, both human and non-human, that populate and perform religion in its factical life. Mechanical bodies and practices are enlisted by religious traditions in order that these traditions continue to exist by continually reconstituting themselves in, for example, the repetitive use of religious objects or the vocal recitation of creeds. Such mechanical acts of religion are not ultimately opposed to the faithful experience that is often taken to be the wellspring of religious life; on the contrary, they are the conditions for the possibility of this experience. (shrink)

One of the ways in which Heidegger characterised his philosophical project was as ‘overcoming metaphysics.’ This was a way of expressing the task of destruction—or, in Derrida’s version, deconstruction—of the tradition of western philosophy. One of the consequences of Heidegger’s critique of traditional western metaphysics is that, in the decades since, there has been a reluctance to engage in anything that might be called ‘metaphysics’. This is somewhat ironic, given that one of the branches of metaphysics is ontology, and that (...) Heidegger explicitly describes his own work as phenomenological ontology. This essay sketches some ontological implications of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion, then outlines some of the ways in which that ontology might be modified in light of hermeneutic critiques of Levinas and Marion, and concludes by suggesting that an ontology informed by these hermeneutic insights can be traced in the thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

The rise of learning analytics, the application of complex metrics developed to exploit the proliferation of ‘Big Data’ in educational work, raises important moral questions about the nature of what is measurable in education. Teachers, schools and nations are increasingly held to account based on metrics, exacerbating the tendency for fine-grained measurement of learning experiences. In this article, the origins of learning analytics ontology are explored, drawing upon core ideas in the philosophy of computing, such as the general definition of (...) information and the information-theoretic account of knowledge. Drawing upon a reading of Descartes Meditatio II, which extends the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion into a pedagogy of intentionality, the article identifies a fundamental incompatibility between the subjective experience of learning and the information-theoretic account of knowledge. Human subjects experience and value their own information incommensurably with the ways in which computers measure and quantify information. The consequences of this finding for the design of online learning environments, and the necessary limitations of learning analytics and measurement are explored. (shrink)

This paper draws attention to the tendency of a range of technologies to reduce pedagogical interactions to a series of datafied transactions of information. This is problematic because such transactions are always by definition reducible to finite possibilities. As the ability to gather and analyse data becomes increasingly fine-grained, the threat that these datafied approaches over-determine the pedagogical space increases. Drawing on the work of Hegel, as interpreted by twentieth century French radical philosopher Alexandre Kojève, this paper develops a model (...) of relational pedagogy which highlights three points of incompatibility with a datafied learning environment reduced to finite measures. Firstly: Kojève’s accont of authority in Hegel posits two aspects to the mimetic relation between teacher and student: recognition and realisation, which belong to the ipseity or about-self-ness of the subject, and are incompatible with a general definition of data. Secondly, the Hegelian approach to human historical time, in particular the assertion that time and desire are begun in the future, not the past, renders it incompatible with mathematical time as used in data processing. Finally, from these it is possible to derive a distinctive notion of the work of pedagogy, grounded in Kojève’s realist reading of Hegel, irreducible to information processing. In consequence of this threefold irreducibility, the paper draws attention to a need for relations of human pedagogical work to be inherent in the design of educational technologies and highlights the dangers of presuming a machine intelligence model in the design of learning environments. (shrink)

This article offers a comparative reading of the ontologies of David Bentley Hart and Jean-Paul Sartre as well as their respective appeals to phenomenology as a philosophical method. While it may seem odd to compare one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated atheists with one of contemporary Christianity’s most highly-acclaimed critics of atheism, this article shows that there are many surprising parallels between the ontological outlooks of Hart and Sartre, namely their conceptions of God as the unity of being and (...) consciousness and their accounts of human consciousness as a desire to ‘become God’. By examining the similarities and differences between Sartre’s and Hart’s philosophical and theological works, this article seeks to highlight the phenomenological aspects of Hart’s theological outlook and consider how Hart’s appeal to the phenomenological analysis of intentional consciousness in his theological work can illuminate our understanding of the ongoing engagements between theology and phenomenology. (shrink)

This paper seeks to bring together the notions of human dignity and gift exchange in a mutually enriching relation. Two interpretations of the gift and of gift exchange are investigated, and in each case brought to bear on the understanding of human dignity. To start, dignity understood as the gift of uniqueness in relation is considered, followed by a consideration of dignity as the gift of absolute responsibility. The conclusion reached at the end of the paper is that an understanding (...) of human dignity in terms of gift exchange will allow for the irreducibly social aspects inherent in the notion to be appreciated complementary to the more objective, factual and individual elements usually associated with human rights. The paper argues for a plurivocal interpretation of dignity as gift that allows for both the relational and the absolute elements gathered together in this conception to be appreciated. (shrink)

This paper is a systematic comparison between two well–known and theologically relevant concepts – the sublime as developed in Kant’s third Critique, and Marion’s saturated phenomenon. Although it discusses the significant and apparent similarities between them, it also criticizes Marion’s identification of the sublime as a possible example of a saturated phenomenon. This is primarily because of the different origins and philosophical presuppositions guiding the elaboration of these two ideas. Kant’s aim is to confine the reception of the phenomenon to (...) the conditions of experience, so that both in the case of judg-ments of beauty and judg-ments of the sublime, the subject achieves pleasure through self-centred appreciation of its rational capacities. Marion’s saturated phenomenon, on the other hand, aims at dispensing with the ‘metaphysical’ horizon of either the object, or the transcendental subject, in favour of passive appropriation of givenness. Although both are meant to describe what happens when the limits of understanding are breached, in the sublime this breach only serves to reinforce the capacity of the rational subject, whereas in the saturated phenomenon it points to the possibility of apprehension of the totally Other as purely given. (shrink)

Much of the contemporary discussion of religion seems to do away with the very possibility of revelation. In this article, I use Lacoste’s phenomenology of la parole to rethink a theology of revelation in terms of God’s personal self-giving in experience. After examining Lacoste’s views of the relationship between philosophy and theology, his liturgical reduction and what this means for an understanding of experience and knowledge, and his thought of la parole more broadly, I give critical consideration to how he (...) thinks the possibility of God’s address to humanity. Lacoste maintains that God’s presence in experience may be known through affection, and, indeed, that the word may so move us that we are able to recognise that presence. He uses the notion of self-evidence rather than the usual phenomenological category of evidence to evince the reasonableness of this response. I argue that while Lacoste accords due deference to a traditional understanding of revelation as the repetition or unfolding of a word addressed to us in the past, his thought also allows us to think revelation as a contemporary event, the hermeneutics of which allow us to know God in ways that are new. (shrink)

While one of the arguments against religious belief relates to its apparent irrationality, it can be shown phenomenologically that there is a different kind of rationality at work in religious knowledge, undermining the sharp distinction between sacred and secular that enables theology to be marginalised as irrational. Approaching Christianity through the category of revelation, that is, as a way of living and believing that draws not only on founding narratives of revelation but on the ongoing ‘experience’ of transcendence in unveiling (...) truth, I seek to examine how the possibility of truth itself can inspire hatred and so open onto violence. ‘Religious’ violence typically emerges from a hatred directed at otherness. Hatred of what truth reveals is a powerful motivation for violence, but it cannot be shown that this is specifically religious. Nevertheless, otherness is characterised by an excess that resists objectification and may be revelatory of truth. Violence may be religious precisely to the extent that it is directed against the otherness before which each person stands accused. (shrink)

This essay responds to the Nancean account of presentation, evoked in the opening citation, in order to trace out in Nancy's enquiries a disruption of Husserlian presentation, and a re-thinking of materiality on the edge of classical phenomenology. It stages a non-encounter between the writings of Jean-Luc Nancy and of Jacques Derrida in relation to a third term, the Lacanian conception of the ‘real’. Thereby it can be shown how these writings touch on each other, in response to phenomenology and (...) to psychoanalytical theory, but do not engage. All the same, the claim to be made is that the writings of Nancy and Derrida converge in forming a third option, alongside the secularised phenomenologies of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty and the Christian phenomenologies of Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry, by marking up the event of Lacan's reformulation of Freud's psychoanalytical theorising. (shrink)

Three forms of leadership are frequently identified as prerequisites to the re-humanization of the healthcare system: ‘authentic leadership’, ‘mindful leadership’ and ‘ethical leadership’. In different ways and to varying extents, these approaches all focus on person- or human-centred caring. In a phenomenological action research project at a Danish hospital, the nurses experienced and then described how developing a conscious sense of wonder enhanced their ability to hear, to get in resonance with the existential in their meetings with patients and relatives, (...) and to respond ethically. This ability was fostered through so-called Wonder Labs in which the notion of ‘phenomenon-led care’ evolved, which called for ‘slow thinking’ and ‘slow wondrous listening’. For the 10 nurses involved, it proved challenging to find the necessary serenity and space for this slow and wonder-based practice. This article critiques and examines, from a theoretical perspective, the kind of leadership that is needed to encourage this wonder-based approach to nursing, and it suggests a new type of leadership that is itself inspired by wonder and is guided by 10 tangible elements. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 3-16, January 2022.

This article is part II of a consideration of phenomenology of religion focusing in this part on the conversation in contemporary French phenomenology. It begins with a brief comment about Heidegger's phenomenology of religious life and then engages most heavily those thinkers who discuss the phenomenon of religion in the Francophone context: Jean Héring, Emmanuel Lévinas, Jean‐Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean‐Yves Lacoste, Jean‐Louis Chrétien, and Emmanuel Falque. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the contemporary Anglophone conversation and the (...) ways in which these French thinkers are appropriated in the current discussion about the phenomenality of religion. (shrink)

During the last few decades, many thinkers have advocated for the importance of the phenomenological approach in developing the understanding of the lived experience of illness. In their attempts, they have referred to ideas found in the history of phenomenology, most notably, in the works of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre. The aim of this paper is to sketch out an interpretation of illness based on a yet unexplored conceptual framework of the phenomenology of French thinker (...) Jean-Luc Marion. Focusing on concepts of the saturated phenomenon and flesh, the paper develops an interpretation of illness as the saturated phenomenon, which highlights a variety of dimensions of illness already elaborated within the phenomenology of medicine, such as the affective dimension of illness, the disruptive dimension of illness, the transformed perception of the self in illness, mineness of flesh in illness and the inexpressible and hermeneutical dimension of illness. In addition to that, the paper explores some of the consequences the proposed interpretation of illness offers regarding the nature of illness and health. It is argued that illness in its essence is very similar to the experience of other saturated phenomena, suggesting that the difference between them does not lie within the character of the affective givenness, but rather within the dynamic relationship between the affective givenness and its conceptualization. It is also shown that the experience of health is compatible with the experience of saturation and thus is not limited to the tacit and harmonious background state. (shrink)