Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy)

Spectres of YHWH - Deuteronomy and hauntology

by Jaco Gericke

Science and Transcendence: Westphal, Derrida, and Responsibility

by Nathan Kowalsky

published in 'Zygon:  Journal of Religion and Science', March 2012.

A full copy of the paper is available from the author upon request.

On the naive reading, “radical social constructivism” would be the result of “deconstructing” science. Science would... more On the naive reading, “radical social constructivism” would be the result of “deconstructing” science. Science would simply be a contingent construction in accordance with social determinants. However, postmodernism does not necessarily abandon fidelity to the objects of thought. Merold Westphal's Derridean philosophy of religion emphasizes that even theology need not eliminate the transcendence of the divine other. By drawing an analogy between natural and supernatural transcendence, I argue that science is similarly called to responsibility in the encounter with that which lies outside its horizon of expectation. Science's rational autonomy is overcome by the heteronomy of realities that precede it. Understanding species as homeostatic property clusters is an example of nonessentialist, postmodern, and scientific realism. Science is still a vehicle for encountering natural alterity, thus decentering the relativism thought to characterize postmodernism. However, natural science must not attempt to place the whole of being at human disposal if it is to fulfill the potential of Westphal's philosophy of religion.

The Hebrew Bible in Nietzsche's philosophy of religion

by Jaco Gericke

My apologies. The previous upload was the wrong paper!

David Newheiser, "Time and the Responsibilities of Reading: Revisiting Derrida and Dionysius." Reading the Church Fathers. Eds. Scot Douglass and Morwenna Ludlow. London: T&T Clark, 2011.

by David Newheiser

David Newheiser, "Conceiving Transformation without Triumphalism: Joachim of Fiore against Gianni Vattimo," The Heythrop Journal

by David Newheiser

Eckhart, Derrida, and the Gift of Love

by David Newheiser

‘A Weariness of the Flesh’: Towards a Theology of Boredom and Fatigue

by K Jason Wardley

From: 'Intensities: Philosophy, Religion and the Affirmation of Life' (Ashgate, 2012)

This essay follows two impulses: Jean-Yves Lacoste’s suggestion that philosophy and theology should speak about... more This essay follows two impulses: Jean-Yves Lacoste’s suggestion that philosophy and theology should speak about boredom and about fatigue, just as they do about anguish or joy, and the Swiss theologian Karl Barth’s contention that theological anthropology and philosophy of religion are incoherent without them. Above all, it will try and offer a tentative answer to the question as to what it means to pray when one is tired or bored. To this end, I shall begin by examining some of the traditional theological and philosophical readings of fatigue and boredom (beginning with Jewish and Christian scripture), before turning specifically to Martin Heidegger and Giorgio Agamben, and finally to recent phenomenological accounts, drawing from them some suggestions for a possible theology of boredom and fatigue.

The Possibility of Authenticity: On Schönbaumsfeld's Wittgenstein

by Jonathan Beale

Published in Ratio, Volume 24, Issue 1, pp. 107–115, March 2011

Human Beings as a Part of the 'Flesh of the World': Phenomenological Foundations for the Dialogue between Liberal Protestantism and Animism

by Gorazd Andrejc

This paper is in Slovenian. It was published in an edited volume: Harmony Among Cultures - Ways to Intercultural Dialogue (Sozitje med kulturami - Poti do medkulturnega dialoga, edited by Maja Lamberger-Khatib, Maribor: Pivec, 2011. (http://www.zalozba-pivec.com/katalog/knjiga/sozitje-med-kulturami/)

The present essay is a reflection on philosophical and theological foundations for a neglected intercultural dialogue:... more The present essay is a reflection on philosophical and theological foundations for a neglected intercultural dialogue: that between liberal protestantism and animism/shamanism. David Abram in his book The Spell of the Sensous (1997) builds his ecologically-minded defense of animism on Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. He offers an ecologically relevant critique of Christianity: In his view, Christianity has robbed nature of her sacredness and spiritual relevancy and confined spirituality inside the social space of the Church and narrowly defined orthodox doctrine. Such spirituality entails a flight from our mortal, bodily nature which is intextricable from the rest of nature, claims Abram. He agrues that the Western destructivity is a consequence of the Christian fixation on the written word of its founding text, anthropocentric view of spirituality, and Platonistic 'reification' of ideas which are set in a vertical opposition to less valued material, sensual world. I argue that contemporary Christianity can't avoid acknowedging validity of the central points of this ecophenomenological critique. Yet, there are resources in Christian tradition which can accomodate this critique: one such is Friedrich Schleiermacher's theology of feeling, interpreted phenomenologically – in conversation with exactly Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. Schleiermacher claims that the common feature of 'religious feelings' is a fact that through them, human beings experience a communion with the universe – either social or natural environment. Healthy faith in God is related to such, albeit non-intentional states. Despite the great differences between them, this liberal-protestant understanding of Christianity shares a basic phenomenological wisdom with animism: ultimately, the relation of humans to the environment has to be based on the depths of experiential religiosity.

La méthode phénoménologique du jeune Heidegger

by François Doyon

Texte publié dans Philosophical Apprenticeships. Contemporary Continental Philosophy in Canada, édité par Jay Lampert et Jason Robinson, Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2009.

“Form and Figure: Paul Ricoeur and the Rehabilitation of Human Work”

by Todd Mei

The Journal of French Philosophy, 16:1 & 2 (Spring and Fall 2006), pp. 57-70

This article explores the relation between work and the word, or poiesis broadly construed. I draw a correlation... more This article explores the relation between work and the word, or poiesis broadly construed. I draw a correlation between the literal and symbolic levels of meaning in metaphor to the necessary and figurative levels of meaning in work, arguing according to Paul Ricoeur's theory of metaphor that the necessary is redeemed by figurative transformations of meaning that are possible only in and through work.

“Insurance in Between: A Critique of Liability Insurance and Its Principles”

by Todd Mei

Literature and Theology, 21:1 (March 2007), pp. 82-98

Is liability insurance simply a necessary evil in today’s climate of litigation? Or does it have greater implications... more Is liability insurance simply a necessary evil in today’s climate of litigation? Or does it have greater implications beyond its social and economic remit? In this article, I argue that when the insurance policy is viewed hermeneutically as a text, its negligence-based definition of action supplants the understanding of responsibility, therefore having theological and philosophical implications. Insurance, in this sense, comes ‘in between’ humanity and its relation to others and fundamental ontological questions concerning the meaning of uncertainty and suffering.

“Heidegger and Teilhard de Chardin: The Convergence of History and Future”

by Todd Mei

Modern Theology, 24:1 (January 2008), pp. 75-100

My motivation for looking at the philosophy of Martin Heidegger in relation to the theology of Pierre Teilhard de... more My motivation for looking at the philosophy of Martin Heidegger in relation to the theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is to further articulate the latent significance of each thinker’s thought that becomes more clearly perceptible when the two are dialectically juxtaposed. This opposition, as I will attempt to show, is not hostile but provocative insofar as the singular essence of one thinker draws out a tacit area in the other. The tension between the two can therefore be described as a hermeneutical dialectic, and the strategy of interpolating one with the other is not a manner of doing violence, but a means of gaining some perspective according to which the significance of each thinker can be appreciated in a new manner. In this article, I attempt to show, on the one hand, how Heidegger’s ontology is expressly teleological when juxtaposed with Teilhard’s concept of unity in differentiation, while on the other hand, how Teilhard’s future oriented cosmology necessarily requires historical understanding when juxtaposed with Heidegger’s treatment of historicity.

“Economy of the Gift: Rethinking the Role of Land Enclosure in Political Economy”

by Todd Mei

Modern Theology, 25:3 (July 2009), pp. 441-468

The theological revivification of the concept of gift and gift exchange in the last two decades has provoked questions... more The theological revivification of the concept of gift and gift exchange in the last two decades has provoked questions on how notions of divine superabundance can be translated into economics. In this article, I relate the thinking of Paul Ricoeur, John Milbank, Philip Goodchild and Albino Barrera to a specific economic reform that entails seeing land enclosure as inimical to the stability and fairness of an economy. I refer to the political economy of Henry George (1839-97) which takes land value taxation to be its centrally defining principle for a just economy.

Ricoeur and the Symbolism of Sainthood: From Imitation to Innovation

by Todd Mei

In Postmodern Saints, Colby Dickinson (ed.); Continuum/T&T Clark: forthcoming.

Despite the way we think of saints as belonging to a certain historical period and confronting specific historical... more Despite the way we think of saints as belonging to a certain historical period and confronting specific historical obstacles, we tend to see their acts as being universally meaningful, and therefore, that these acts are practices which should be imitated in some manner. However this understanding carries with it a significant difficulty: namely, there is a risk of interpreting the lives and actions of saints as providing rules of conduct to be followed, as if their enactment was an end in-itself. In other words, a simplistic notion of imitation can lead to the problem of voluntarism, where the intention to imitate an action is viewed to be sufficient or equal to actualizing goodness or piety. But there is a further, perhaps more significant problem with this understanding, and this involves how we tend to conflate the performance (or doing) of actions with their meaning. Does an action, especially that of a saint, have a meaning that is identical to its effect? Or, does the action itself produce a sense of meaning that outruns its effect? If the answer to this last question is affirmative, then the actions of a saint can be said to predicate an emergent meaning, that is, a meaning that has not yet been articulated, let alone realized. A saint would therefore be less a figure of convention and more a figure of innovation.

In this chapter, I employ Paul Ricoeur’s theory of symbol to show how, beyond the historical specificity of the lives of saints, their actions can be understood to offer new ways of understanding the possibility for being, which I will link to the Christian notion of “the New Being.” My discussion will first include a summary of Ricoeur’s theory of symbol, turning next to an application of this theory to saints and the contrasting context of the Prophet in the Hebrew Bible. The chapter will conclude with an elaboration of a symbolic understanding of action in relation to the New Being.

Have You Never a Hill Mizar to Remember? Some thoughts on agnosticism and meaning.

by Tamsin Spargo

International Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Society, Vol 1, Issue 1 (2011)

Exploration of agnosticism, understood as strong uncertainty, as alternative to return to fundamentalism and... more Exploration of agnosticism, understood as strong uncertainty, as alternative to return to fundamentalism and foreclosure of post-structuralist approaches to ontology encoded in contemporary evangelical atheism.

ARTICLE: Martin Buber's Epistemology

by Brendan Sweetman

© International Philosophical Quarterly Vol.XLI, No.2 (June 2001), pp.145-160.

Socrate Non è Elisa, Però--

by francesco tampoia

Religious Language as Poetry: Heidegger's Challenge

by Anna Strhan

published in The Heythrop Journal, Vol. 52, No.6, 2011

This paper examines how Heidegger’s view that language is poetry provides a way of conceptualising religious language.... more This paper examines how Heidegger’s view that language is poetry provides a way of conceptualising religious language. Poetry, according to Heidegger, is language in its purest form, in that it reveals Being, whilst also showing the difference between word and thing. In poetry, Heidegger suggests, we come closest to the essence of language itself and encounter its strangeness and impermeability. What would be the implications of viewing religious language in this way? Through examining Heidegger’s view that poetry is the purest form of language, I suggest that it would also be possible to view religious language as ‘poetry’ in this way, in that it also shows the transcendence of what cannot be brought to presence in language, except as concealed. Such a view of religious language leads to the view that it is not a special, unique or distinctive category of language, but rather a mode of language that, like poetry, can draw our attention to the inarticulable relationship between word and world that Heidegger argues pervades all forms of language.

And Who is My Neighbour? Levinas and the Commandment to Love Re-Examined

by Anna Strhan

published in Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2009

With the publication of 'A Common Word' in October 2007, both Christian and Muslim leaders have in recent years... more With the publication of 'A Common Word' in October 2007, both Christian and Muslim leaders have in recent years highlighted the contemporary significance of the commandment to love the neighbour as a starting point in working towards a meaningful peace between these religious traditions. In this paper, I propose that Emmanuel Levinas’s presentation of obligation towards the neighbour in a relation of proximity in Otherwise than Being provides a provocative reinterpretation of this commandment, extending its appeal by suggesting that the demand of responsibility towards the neighbour and the possibility of peaceful relations is a transcendental condition of subjectivity rather than understanding it as a commandment addressed to members of the Abrahamic religions. Levinas’s conceptions of illeity, vulnerability and proximity as preconditions for society and justice provide a challenge to how we think about relations with others in education, particularly for considering the nature of inter-faith and intra-faith dialogue. Levinas’s vision of loving the neighbour is not sentimentalised but admits of the potential violence found in the approach of the neighbour whilst at the same time presenting the obligation of responsibility to the neighbour as bringing the possibility of peace.