Heidegger

I thought some people might be interested in a realization I came to
while preparing the syllabus for a course entitled “Philosophy of
Religion.”

I was thinking anew about what a philosophy of religion might be. (I
learned this approach from Heidegger.)
What I came to is not as important as how I came to it. First I
decided what I would like the course to be about, perhaps what I
think it “should” be about philosophically; and then I figured out
how to make philosophy out of my concern, my preoccupation with
religion. My conclusion was that I needed to put it ( the idea I
wanted to investigate)into the form of the question, “What is
religion?” That is, what is the quality or characteristic that makes
religion religion( akin to Socrates’ question in the Euthyphro: What
is the characteristic that makes pious actions pious?

Questioning religion in this way assumes that religion is fundamental
to the being of Dasein, which seems to me the only way a philosopher
can study a phenomenon, that is in the light of dasein’s seeing. How
else could a philosopher investigate anything? It would be all up to
the psychologists, and we all realize how dull that is.

Regards,

Allen (wondering how long I can continue to do this without steroids).

Posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 2:20 am
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