From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: RE: Godt, Wahrheit und Amerika Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 16:01:51 +0000 Rene de Bakker wrote: > > I'm not coming through, apparently. > > You want to connect the above written with the name Heidegger and his > > understanding of phenomenology? > >Yes, not with what Heidegger himself thought about God, but rather his >consistent philosophical opposition to the decidedly non-phenomenological >procedure of presupposing that someone's testimony to the phenomena cannot >be taken at face value. Take the very being of the world, for example. What >did the enlightenment empiricists say about the common phenomenon of being >in the world? Not that it should be taken at face value, but rather that it >should be uniformly levelled into the same category as a dream or any other >hallucination. Similarly, what are you saying about the phenomenon of God >in >"the least of my brothers"? Not that it should be taken at face value, but >rather that it should be uniformly levelled into the same category as an >atheistic encounter with what you call the "non-existent godly". You are >following the specifically non-phenomenological reductive procedure of the >modern philosophers in doing this. > >Anthony Crifasi > > You're riding an oblique skate here, as we say, which makes you turn >round. > I just wrote about everybody using Heidegger against him in order to >save > themselves. And did Heidegger use Husserl against him in order to save himself? He did with the being of the world precisely what I am doing concerning God. Heidegger took the being of the world at face value, applied phenomenological analysis to the being of the world despite Husserl's own EXPLICIT protests, and thereby circumvented Husserl's levelling of the being of the world in the phenomenological reduction. So whatever Heidegger himself may or may not have explicitly said about such encounters with God, such phenomena can also be taken at face value instead of just levelling them in the same manner that Husserl levelled the being of the world. > No, phenomenology is not reasoning. There is no god in this world, look >around > you. And what do you do when someone "looks around" and says, there's God, not in some spectacular burning bush or a pillar of fire, but in the "least of my brothers" on the streets of Calcutta (for example) - when someone like Mother Theresa "looks around" and sees that, what do you do? Level it by uniformly categorizing it along with atheistic encounters with the "non-existent godly," or take it at face value as a phenomenologist? > And if he would appear, he would be imprisoned in Guantanamo, just like > in Dostojevski's tale. > And if there are situations, in which something strange seems to be >experienced, > then as a rule this is spoiled by the catching of it. I'm not talking about anything "strange" or "creepy" (as Michael Eldred put it), like some supposed vision or miraculous burning bush. I'm simply talking about (if you believe that this part of the gospels is historically accurate) what Jesus himself said: "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me." That is how Mother Theresa said she encountered God in Calcutta. A phenomenologist cannot just dogmatically assume that this type of encounter is not phenomenologically different from some atheistic encounter with a "non-existent godly." Nor should I even have to mention that a phenomenologist cannot characterize such encounters as some mere "subjective interpretation," since that is decidedly non-phenomenological analysis. > But Anthony Crifasi knows a way out? A way to escape nihilism? What >says Heidegger > about the will to escape nihilism? That it is fatal. This is not "a way out" of nihilism as Heidegger describes it. You are mistaking this for a traditional theology in which our essence is reduced to someTHING, such as a soul-substance or the like (thereby turning towards beings and away from the nothing). That is not how an encounter with God is analyzed phenomenologically, just as our encounter with Others is not phenomenologically explicated as two substances metaphysically meeting. To so analyze would be to try to escape nihilism in the sense Heidegger means - to turn away from the nothing by sinking into an interpretation of Dasein in terms of beings. A phenomenological interpretation of an encounter with God, however, would not have this problem. Anthony Crifasi _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive larger attachments with Hotmail Extra Storage. http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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