Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation

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PHENOMENOLOGY AND TRANSCENDENCE But this is precisely where we might locate the debate between Husserl and Heidegger, Marion suggests: for Heidegger, “the objective of phenomenology does not coincide with objectivity” (RD 8/2). Thus, what we find in Heidegger (particularly GA 20) is “a critique of the ideal of objectification pursued by Husserl.” For Heidegger, the return to the things themselves is not a return to their objectivity but to their Being; it is a reduction not to the transcendental I but rather to Dasein. 16 But did Heidegger retrieve the initial endeavor of phenomenology? Did Heidegger save the faith? In Heidegger, do we find a disclosure of things as they give themselves, a donation without condition or restriction? Not quite, Marion argues, since “Dasein still remains haunted by the I” (RD 9/2). 17 Further, the phenomenon of Being never shows itself and thus never gives itself; Being (in Heidegger) remains yet another condition, as objectivity in Husserl (ibid. 9/3). But if phenomenology is to survive as a philosophical discipline, it must “admit that its method . . . does not have to depend on the question of Being any more than it was previously able to limit itself to the objective of objectivity” (RD 9/3). And this is precisely Marion’s goal: to “free the phenomenological way of thinking [as expressed in the initial breakthrough] without confusing it with its successive, and, in a sense, provisional objectives [objectivity, Being]” (RD 9–10/3). Thus Marion seeks to go “beyond” phenomenology “as actualized” (in Husserl and Heidegger) in the name of a more originary phenomenology, remaining faithful to its original endeavor. Marion thus offers another heuristic for considering the poles of immanence and transcendence in phenomenology, a sketch of three “reductions” as found in Husserl, Heidegger, and Marion (and Levinas). 18 Since it is “the conditions of the reduction [which] fix the dimensions of givenness” (RD 303/203), an interrogation of these conditions (which, he is arguing, are variable) will raise the question of the possibility of a radical givenness – a donation without condition. The first reduction is “transcendental (‘Cartesian,’ ‘Kantian,’ ‘phenomenological,’ it matters little here)” (RD 304/204), and allows phenomena to appear only under the conditions of objectivity (i.e. as constituted by the ego). The second reduction is “existential” (that of Heidegger) and does “broaden” the conditions and thus opens the space for phenomena not glimpsed by Husserl (such as equipmentality and “the world”). But it still retains conditions in the continued “autarchy” of Dasein and the horizon of Being (RD 304/204). Thus, Marion argues, it is only the third reduction which locates a givenness without condition: “The originary absence of conditions and determinations of the claim [la revendication] allow it to appeal, without any limit, as much to what is not objectivated as to what is objectivated, as much to what does not have to be as to what must be” (RD 305/204–5). To reformulate this in terms of the poles of transcendence and immanence: the first and second reductions both privilege immanence (of the I ) as the condition for knowing or appearance. In other words, that which is transcendent, in order to appear, must show up within the horizon of immanence. As such, the transcendent is reduced to the immanent and cannot appear on its own terms, as it gives itself. The possibility of the latter, however, is seen in the third reduction, which discloses a call or appeal which proceeds from the other. 19 In this chapter, I will employ Marion’s 19
HORIZONS heuristic notion of three reductions in order to consider the way in which transcendence is approached in Husserl and Heidegger, and then critiqued by Levinas and Marion. I will then schematize this debate in the final section of the chapter and offer Derrida’s reading in “Violence and Metaphysics” as a mediator, which will also provide an opportunity for a first sketch of my constructive proposal for an incarnational phenomenology. First reduction: the possibility of transcendent knowledge in Husserl The question of the other: the challenge of phenomenology In the fifth of his Cartesian Meditations, Husserl finally raises the question that has haunted phenomenology since Ideen I: 20 if we have effected the transcendental reduction – the epoché – then what does phenomenology tell us about the “objective” world (CM 89–90)? Isn’t this just Kant, or Descartes, all over again? Is not the intentional object a kind of “appearance” or phenomenal object, which is distinguished from the thing-in-itself or noumenal object, from which we are barred access? When I, the meditating I, reduce myself to my absolute transcendental ego by phenomenological epoché do I not become solus ipse; and do I not remain that, as long as I carry on a consistent self-explication under the name phenomenology? Should not a phenomenology that proposed to solve the problems of Objective being, and to present itself actually as philosophy, be branded therefore as transcendental solipsism? (CM 89) Is Husserl’s phenomenology a simple repetition of Kantian idealism (CM 86)? Or is this Berkeley? Are appearances all we have? Does thing = perception? To address this problem, Husserl takes the other ego as a case 21 of transcendence par excellence. “But what about other egos,” he asks, “who surely are not a mere intending and intended in me, but, according to their sense, precisely [transcendent] others?” (CM 89, cf. 90). The issue is this: can we have “actually transcendent knowledge”(CM 90)? 22 Can we have knowledge of transcendence? “Above all,” he asks, can we know other egos, who are “not actually in me”? Does not the transcendental reduction preclude this? Have we not reduced our sphere of knowledge to the transcendental realm of the ego, thus denying the possibility of transcendent knowledge? As Quentin Lauer formulates it, “[t]he difficulty is that to be subject means to have experiences; to be experienced as subject is to be experienced as having experiences. Somehow, then, the experiences of others must form part of my intentional life, without at the same time being my experiences.” 23 Formally, then, the question is how that which is other (transcendent) can be known. Phenomenology happens precisely within the phenomenological reduction of the epoché, which is a reduction to the ego as a field of consciousness. 24 As such, it moves within the field of a transcendentally reduced ego; hence phenomenology is an 20
Page 2 and 3: SPEECH AND THEOLOGY God is Infinite
Page 4 and 5: SPEECH AND THEOLOGY Language and th
Page 6: For Mom, who now knows that of whic
Page 9 and 10: CONTENTS Taking Husserl at his word
Page 11 and 12: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and have become ch
Page 13 and 14: ABBREVIATIONS GA 59 GA 60 GA 63 JPW
Page 16: Part One HORIZONS In Part One we es
Page 19 and 20: HORIZONS theology, in order to open
Page 21 and 22: HORIZONS that which is “seen?”
Page 23 and 24: HORIZONS which is transcendent, phe
Page 25 and 26: HORIZONS the concept, and of phenom
Page 27 and 28: HORIZONS to put into words that whi
Page 29 and 30: HORIZONS from Fordham University Pr
Page 31 and 32: 2 PHENOMENOLOGY AND TRANSCENDENCE G
Page 33: HORIZONS the ego but in fact consti
Page 37 and 38: HORIZONS characterized negatively a
Page 39 and 40: HORIZONS temporal) harmonious behav
Page 41 and 42: HORIZONS The analytic of Dasein thu
Page 43 and 44: HORIZONS comprehension” (GP 129).
Page 45 and 46: HORIZONS relation with the other to
Page 47 and 48: HORIZONS other term is not reduced
Page 49 and 50: HORIZONS appear has been establishe
Page 51 and 52: HORIZONS Husserl describes in the s
Page 53 and 54: HORIZONS adequately. For Husserl, i
Page 55 and 56: HORIZONS empty. There are two ways
Page 57 and 58: HORIZONS Incommensurability and tra
Page 59 and 60: HORIZONS any way to “say” that
Page 61 and 62: HORIZONS Concepts suppose an antici
Page 63 and 64: HORIZONS Husserl to show that visio
Page 65 and 66: HORIZONS giving. Appresentation is
Page 67 and 68: HORIZONS incommensurability!) betwe
Page 69 and 70: HORIZONS But is there a more rigoro
Page 71 and 72: HORIZONS and signaled by the body w
Page 73 and 74: HORIZONS 24 For a succinct expositi
Page 75 and 76: HORIZONS 44 Aquinas, ST, Ia.12.1. (
Page 77 and 78: HORIZONS not both also accept that
Page 80: Part Two RETRIEVAL Having provided
Page 83 and 84: RETRIEVAL For us, who are striving
Page 85 and 86:
RETRIEVAL The task of this chapter
Page 87 and 88:
RETRIEVAL In fact, the “meditatio
Page 89 and 90:
RETRIEVAL activity” (Ps 58/43). A
Page 91 and 92:
RETRIEVAL own field of research, [a
Page 93 and 94:
RETRIEVAL which are employed to def
Page 95 and 96:
RETRIEVAL primordial that which is
Page 97 and 98:
RETRIEVAL the horizon upon which on
Page 99 and 100:
RETRIEVAL use of concepts? Notice t
Page 101 and 102:
RETRIEVAL seized by the concept and
Page 103 and 104:
RETRIEVAL arises in the Postscript
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RETRIEVAL else from making up his m
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RETRIEVAL the secret which cannot b
Page 109 and 110:
RETRIEVAL points across this distan
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RETRIEVAL a distinct science of rel
Page 113 and 114:
RETRIEVAL Even as regards those tru
Page 115 and 116:
RETRIEVAL precisely the temptation
Page 117 and 118:
RETRIEVAL at the same time an openi
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RETRIEVAL do justice to the incomme
Page 121 and 122:
RETRIEVAL 15 John Scanlon also sugg
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RETRIEVAL 43 Heidegger is not calli
Page 125 and 126:
RETRIEVAL 73 Søren Kierkegaard, Ph
Page 127 and 128:
RETRIEVAL 105 See GWB, 152ff. In th
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4 PRAISE AND CONFESSION How (not) t
Page 131 and 132:
RETRIEVAL conceptualization is to o
Page 133 and 134:
RETRIEVAL signify something,” but
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RETRIEVAL From words, then, we lear
Page 137 and 138:
RETRIEVAL sake, as an end in itself
Page 139 and 140:
RETRIEVAL the predicator draws on a
Page 141 and 142:
RETRIEVAL It seems to me that this
Page 143 and 144:
RETRIEVAL devout confession of igno
Page 145 and 146:
RETRIEVAL Therefore, with respect t
Page 147 and 148:
RETRIEVAL constitute a determinatio
Page 149 and 150:
RETRIEVAL How (not) to tell a secre
Page 151 and 152:
RETRIEVAL consciousness Public abys
Page 153 and 154:
RETRIEVAL While not present in the
Page 155 and 156:
RETRIEVAL undo the singularity of t
Page 157 and 158:
RETRIEVAL language, viz. the interi
Page 159 and 160:
RETRIEVAL But when Derrida pens his
Page 161 and 162:
RETRIEVAL 23 Cf. the discussion of
Page 163 and 164:
RETRIEVAL 50 In God Without Being,
Page 165 and 166:
RETRIEVAL Augustine,” American Ca
Page 168 and 169:
5 INCARNATIONAL LOGIC On God’s re
Page 170 and 171:
ON GOD’S REFUSAL TO AVOID SPEAKIN
Page 172 and 173:
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Page 176 and 177:
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INDEX absence 123-5, 135, 136, 143,
Page 200 and 201:
INDEX language 9-12, 29-31, 43-4, 4
Page 202:
REVELATION
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Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation

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