Heidegger

>From: allen scult

>As for religion, like, philosophy, it’s imcomparable. Religion IS, and IS
>like nothing else is.The fact that it is, is what makes it so well suited
>to phenomenological investigation. As Heidegger said by way of properly
>orienting his students to the course, religion is as real as the train
>station in Freiburg. . .not just any train station, mind you, but that very
>train station. Go, touch it. Then come back and we’ll talk about
>religion.
>
>You’re confusing faith with science (about which Heidegger was right).
>Faith by its very nature is independent of contingencies, especially
>effects. It takes no object. It’s totally useless, to say nothing of
>baseless. I think Heidegger’s essay on theology and phenomenology makes
>the distinction between philosophy (of religion) and religion quite
>sharply, perhaps too sharply. I think philosophy and religion desire each
>other. They are separate and must remain so. The idea is to think them as
>close as possible one to the other, without either being absorbed into the
>other. Like some other games we’ve all enjoyed.

Philosophically, there is still a strong parallel with the Husserlian take
on equipmentality: the philosophical prioritization of the bare ISness of
religion apart from its particular embodiments, with his scientific
prioritization of the bare presence/thingness of equipment apart from its
particular use. So the parallel response (mine to you with Heidegger’s to
Husserl) would be: religion can be philosophically explicated in terms of
isness, but at the price of its *true* nature (i.e., at the cost of faith in
THIS particular embodiment rather than others), just as equipmentality can
be scientifically (objectively) explicated in terms of its thingness, but at
the price of its equipmentality. In that case, instead of treating religion
as showing itself philosophically, the priority could be reversed, and
philosophy could be treated as showing itself religiously - as deprived of
faithful absorption. Only from that deprived perspective does faith then
appear to not “know enough” to abstract from its particular embodiment, just
as from a (deprived) scientific point of view, concernful involvement
appears to not “know enough” to abstract from its being-alongside.
Philosophically, I don’t see an essential difference between the two moves -
by which I mean, I don’t see how one can consistently rule out one while
accepting the other.

Posted on Sunday, June 25th, 2006 at 5:30 am
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Tags: Husserl» religion»