Heidegger

Cologne 18-Jan-2008

allen scult schrieb Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:17:06 -0600:

> >allen scult wrote:
> >
> >> 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.
> >
> >AC: First and foremost, it seems, would be the strict dichotomy between
> >religion and the sight of scientific knowing. This has been acknowledged
> >equally both by scientists (to whom religion is deficient in evidence)
> >and by theologians (to whom the need for evidence would be a
> >deficiency). This parallels Heidegger’s distinction between concernful
> >circumspection (which science sees as deficient in thoughtful analysis -
> >”just” using “without” stopping to think) and knowing (which is
> >deficient in comparison to concernful circumspection due to a separation
> >from original meaningful context).
> >
>
> AS: Obviously, but I don’t think Heidegger would say (and even if he
> would, I wouldn’t) that religion, qua religion, is most essentially
> defined by its not being science. As a phenomenon, religion comes
> about not as a way of knowing, but as a dimension of dasein as
> being-in-the-world, or more precisely, as being-with-the-other.
> Religion answers to dasein’s need for an other that is not another
> being. This is Eckhart’s opposition to Aquinas. God is not being,
> rather being is God(”esse est deus” rather than “deus est suum esse”).
>

“Der Bezug der Griechen zu den Göttern ist überdies ein _Wissen_ und nicht
ein ‘Glauben’ im Sinne eines willentlichen Fürwährhaltens aufgrund
autoritativer Verkündigung. Wir ermessen es noch nicht, in welch anfänglicher
Weise die Griechen die Wissenden gewesen. Weil sie es gewesen, deshalb fanden
sie den Anfang des eigentlichen Denkens. Nicht etwa waren sie Wissende, weil
sie eine Philosophie besaßen.” (Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe Bd. 55 S.15
“Heraklit”)

“The relationship of the Greeks to the gods is moreover a _knowledge_ and not
a ‘faith’ in the sense of a deliberate holding-to-be-true on the basis of an
authoritative annunciation. We do not yet fathom in which incipient way the
Greeks were the knowing ones. Because they were, they found the beginning of
authentic thinking. They were not knowing just because they had a
philosophy.”

_-_-_-_-_-_-_- artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_- artefact at t-online.de _-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
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Posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 11:20 am
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