The last two decades have witnessed a rising interest from philosophers in the phenomenological, hermeneutic, and continental tradition in questions concerning religion, religious experience, and the relation between faith and reason. The essays in this volume, written by philosophers, theologians, and religious scholars engage in a dialogue concerning these new frontiers. They retrace the earliest roots of phenomenological reflection on religion in the work of Husserl, Heidegger, and Stein, and they address contemporary debates, not least the much discussed "theological turn" in phenomenology, in the work of Marion, Derrida, and Henry. Among the themes treated are transcendence and immanence, immensity, prayer, and the messianic. The essays trace new paths and open up questions of relevance for all those interested in what it means to think religion from a philosophical position today.
Jonna Bornemark holds a PhD in philosophy and is a lecturer and researcher at Södertörn University
Hans Ruin is professor in philosophy at Södertörn University
The distinction between the secular and the sacred or holy seems at first to constitute a definitive line, the establishment of which also defines Western modernity. Yet this apparently strict demarcation is today not only questioned, but also increasingly difficult to maintain. In order to understand and conceptualize what is happening in the intersection between religion, politics, and aesthetics, we need to rethink the very meaning of the sacred in its full ambiguity, to explore again in thinking the vicissitudes and possibilities of this complex phenomenon, and to learn to move more freely through the category itself.
The book contains contributions by researchers from many different fields, philosophers, theologians, political scientists, and literary historians, who also comment on each other. It establishes new connections and trajectories for mapping and understanding the nature and meaning of the sacred both as a social, an aesthetic, and a religious phenomenon.
How could we describe the situation and obligation of the humanities today, theoretically, historically, institutionally, and culturally? In a time of increased control over academic research, it is of special importance to reflect on the academic task. We need to explore new avenues for a relevant and creative humanistic culture. This bilingual volume contains contributions by Simon Critchley, Michał Paweł Markowski, Sven-Erik Liedman, Cecilia Sjöholm, Stefan Jonsson, Fredrik Svenaeus, Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback och Irina Sandomirskaja. They originate from a conference held at Södertörn University in December 2008.
I uppsatsen "Frågan om tekniken" från 1952 utvecklade Heidegger tanken om hur tekniken i moderniteten omstöpt hela vårt erfarenhets- och handlingsrum. Inom det mångförgrenade fältet teknikens filosofi har den kommit att spela en central och omstridd roll. Den fenomenologiska teknikanalysen har samtidigt kritiserats för att den inte beaktar teknikens samhälleliga funktion och för att den är oförmögen att tänka medialiseringens verklighet. I en serie nyskrivna uppsatser av ledande internationella och svenska forskare inom teknikens filosofi, diskuteras det fenomenologiska arvet, från Husserl över Heidegger till Derrida och Stiegler, med särskild tonvikt på Heidegger. Här upprättas nya linjer mellan kritisk teori, dekonstruktion, fenomenologi och medieteori, som sammantaget ger en unik ingång till samtida teknikfilosofi.
The topic and theme of memory has occupied an ambiguous position in phenomenological and hermeneutic thinking from the start, at once central and marginalized. Parallel to and partly following upon the general turn toward collective and cultural memory in the human and social sciences over the last decades, the importance of memory in and for phenomenological and hermeneutic theory has begun to emerge more clearly. The article seeks to untangle the reasons for the ambiguous position of this theme. It describes how and why the question of what memory is can provide a unique entrance to thinking the temporality and historicity of human existence, while at the same time it can also block the access to precisely these most fundamental levels of subjectivity. The text argues for a deeper mutual theoretical engagement between phenomenological–hermeneutical thinking and contemporary cultural memory studies, on the basis of an understanding of memory as finite and ec-static temporality, and as the enigma of so-called anamnetic subjectivity.
The article provides an overview of the argument in Robert Scharff's pap= "Displacing epistemology: Being in the midst of technoscientific practic= (Scharff 2011), focusing on his central objective, to articulate a hidde= ground of the current controversies in the philosophy of science and tech= logy studies, between objectivism and constructivism, through a deeper co= rontation with Heidegger's legacy. The commentary addresses two aspects o= Scharffs argument that deserve to be developed further, namely how it bot= criticizes and cultivates itself an ideal of the meta-knower, and how the= dea of thinking from the perspective of life in Dilthey's sense can be cr= ically reflected through Heidegger's later criticism. By rehearsing Heide= er's understanding of truth as aletheia, and also his gradually increased= riticism of the very concept of life, the commentary tries to show how Sc= rff's intervention can in fact be strengthened against possible criticism.
The article seeks to challenge the standard accounts of how to view the difference between Husserl and Frege on the nature of ideal objects and meanings. It does so partly by using Derrida's deconstructive reading of Husserl to open up a critical space where the two approaches can be confronted in a new way. Frege's criticism of Husserl's philosophy of mathematics (that it was essentially psychologistic) was partly overcome by the program of transcendental phenomenology. But the original challenge to the prospect of a fulfilled intuition of idealities remained and was in fact encountered again from within the transcendental analysis by Husserl himself in his last writings on geometry and language. According to the two standard and conflicting accounts, Husserl either changed his earlier psychologistic program as a result of Frege's criticism, or he was in fact never challenged by it in the first place. The article shows instead how Husserl continued to struggle with the problem of the constitution of ideal objects, and how his quest led him to a point where his analyses anticipate a more dialectical and deconstructive conclusion, eventually made explicit by Derrida. It also shows not only how this development constitutes a philosophical continuity from the original dispute with Frege, but also how Frege's critique in a certain respect could be read as an anticipation of Derrida's deconstructive elaboration of Husserl's phenomenology.
The essay recapitulates the decisive steps in Heidegger's development of the problem of human freedom. According to some readers, Heidegger's thinking is a philosophy of freedom throughout; according to others his "turning" implies abandoning the idea of human freedom as a metaphysical remnant. The essay seeks an intermediate path, by following his explicit attempts to develop an ontology based on the concept of freedom in the earlier writings, showing how this is the central theme in his confrontation and also his final break with German idealism, with Kant and with Schelling in particular, and with the prospects for a system of freedom. However, this break does not terminate his preoccupation with the problem of freedom, which is then transformed into the idea of thinking as a practice of freedom, as a way of reaching into "the free".
Throughout his life Heidegger remained a devoted reader of Aristotle, who plays a particularly important role during the early twenties when the existential analytic is developed. This background is one important key to understanding the philosophical implications of Heidegger's analysis of Stimmung. In the end this theme also invites us to distinguish in very broad terms how the relation between passion and reason has been articulated in Greek and Christian thinking respectively. Against the background of such a general account, it is my purpose here to situate Heidegger's analysis of Stimmung in a context in which it can hopefully both be better appreciated and critically assessed.
The text explores the meaning and interrelatedness of two central notions in Heidegger's Augenblick and Ereignis. The former is associated not only with the analysis of temporality in Sein und Zeit, but also to the ideal of the kairological critique, as this is articulated in the earliest writings. The text tries to show how the central notion of Ereignis in the later writings evolves as a reworking of these previous themes.
The text develops a comparison between the philosophies of language of Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. The key question concerns the relation between language and reason, the two sides of logos. As a common link the romantic conception of language of J.G. Hamann is explored, the implicit and explicit repercussions of which can be traced in both Benjamin and Heidegger. In several respects Benjamin's early essays on language and translation anticipates Heidegger's later work, while Heidegger's more elaborated theory illucidates Benjamin's intentions.
Die philosophische Begegnung zwischen Leibniz und Martin Heidegger--von Heidegger während seines Denkwegs in verschiedenen Formen inszeniert--hat für die Definition der Philosophie und des philosophischen Denkens eine ausgezeichnete Bedeutung. Der bekannte Vorwurf Heideggers an Leibniz, Begründer einer kalkulierenden Vernunft zu sein, die die Moderne eingefangen hat, steht gegen den nicht weniger verbreiteten Verdacht, Heidegger selbst sei wiederum doch des Verrats am Ethos philosophischer Vernunft zu tadeln.