In this paper I argue that we need to analyze ‘religious violence’ in the ‘post-secular context’ in a twofold way: rather than simply viewing it in terms of mere irrationality, senselessness, atavism, or monstrosity – terms which, as we witness today on an immense scale, are strongly endorsed by the contemporary theater of cruelty committed in the name of religion – we also need to understand it in terms of an ‘originary supplement’ of ‘disengaged reason’. In order to confront its (...) specificity beyond traditional explanations of violence, I propose an integrated phenomenological account of religion that traces the phenomenality of religion in terms of a correlation between the originary givenness of transcendence and capable man’s creative capacities to respond to it. Following Ricœur, I discuss ‘religious violence’ in terms of a monopolizing appropriation of the originary source of givenness that conflates man’s freedom to poetically respond to the appeal of the foundational with the surreptitiously claimed sovereignty to make it happen in a practical transfiguration of the everyday. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show the relations between responsiveness and strangeness in the work of Bernhard Waldenfels. I will expose this relationship in six theses, so that they complement each other and show, in the most appropriate possible way, the relationship between responsiveness and the experience of the strange. These points are, 1. A brief clarification of terminology. Difference between the other and the strange. 2. The relationship between written and spoken speech. 3. The conception of order, (...) linked to mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. 4. The relationship between pathos and response, as focal points of responsive rationality. 5. The relationship between saying and what is said and the temporality that links and separates them. And finally, 6. I will deal with the problem of how to talk about the strange and the problem of indirect language. (shrink)

Traditionelle Personenbegriffe der abendländischen Philosophie rekurrieren oft auf rationale Fähigkeiten wie Vernunft- bzw. Moralfähigkeit oder reflexives Selbstbewusstsein als Grundlage von individuellem moralischem Status bzw. der korrelierenden moralischen Verpflichtung. Dem steht die Erfahrung besonderer moralischer Verpflichtungen etwa gegenüber Kindern, Menschen mit besonderen Bedürfnissen oder Tieren entgegen, die durch ratiozentristische Engführungen aus dem Blick zu geraten drohen. Die gegenwärtigen Diskurse um die Begriffe der Vulnerabilität und Anerkennung sind deshalb eine wichtige Ergänzung, um einerseits die Selektivität klassischer moralphilosophischer Konzeptionen zu mindern, indem sie (...) auf eine universal geteilte Bedürftigkeit statt auf Kompetenzen als Anker der Moralität hinweisen, sowie andererseits auch positive Fürsorgepflichten für angewiesene Wesen zu begründen. Allerdings bedarf diese Ergänzung, wie argumentiert wird, ihrerseits einer Erweiterung, weil sie erstens von der kontingenten Anerkennung der Vulnerabilität in einem jeweiligen Ethos abhängt, ohne selbst hinreichende normative Kriterien an die Hand zu geben, zweitens von geteilten, jedoch nicht singulären Ansprüchen und Bedürfnissen ausgeht und drittens den Motivationsgrund der Verpflichtung nicht klärt, weil sie von Allokationsstrukturen und nicht von konkreten Begegnungen ausgeht. Eine Korrektur von der Phänomenologie der Leiblichkeit her, deren Implikationen für moraltheoretische Fragestellungen in den folgenden Ausführungen skizziert werden, scheint daher angezeigt. (shrink)

Spiritlessness. Reflections on the topicality of Søren Kierkegaard’s construction of the self in the field of tension between immanence and transcendence: One of the most suggestive and provocative concepts developed by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is the concept of “spiritlessness”. Spiritlessness is conceived of as a state of mind which cuts out transcendent possibilities at the benefice of reduced immanent probabilities and thus hinders the individual to become a true Self. The present paper asks for the topicality of Kierkegaard’s (...) dialectics of “spirit” and “spiritlessness” for the constitution of the Self in the 21st cntury. (shrink)

In this essay, I undertake a critical phenomenological exposition of the conditions of ethical community as they present themselves in the light of the Anthropocene. I begin by approaching the present human condition by following Arendt in her considerations of what more recently has been termed the Anthropocene. I will take her notion of the process character of action as a lodestar in a so-called anarcheological reading of Aristotle that opens for a thinking of unbounded possibility and unbounded affinity and (...) that shows how Aristotle’s ethics, like so many other ethical and moral theories, is really a project of metaphysical closure in the face of the poignantly sensed, but theoretically marginalized, anarchic apertures of communitary life. To prepare for an ethics capable of perpetually affirming, rather than closing off, these anarchic apertures of the human condition, I bring the insights won in the anarcheological reading of Aristotle into conversation with accounts of the ethical responses presented by the Native American nation of the Crow towards the end of the 19th century, when they – in a sense not-dissimilar to what we now experience in the Anthropocene – faced the end of the world. I conclude by extracting from this some elements for a thinking of ethics at the end of worlds that affirms the unbounded apertures of human community. (shrink)

This dissertation is an investigation of temporality and time in light of Bernhard Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology. Both intentionality, a classical concept in the phenomenolgy of Husserl, and responsivity, a concept developed by Waldenfels, are approaches to the riddle of time. Time is the main concern of metaphysical and religious discourse and must be taken into account in every consideraton of freedom. The dissertation consists of three main parts, which are divided into 49 chapters. In the First Part, “Otherness and Corporeality,” (...) I analyze Waldenfels’ specific approach to the rethinking of the self by highlighting the experience of the other/the alien. The experience of the other makes a conclusive self-identification impossible. Due to its response to the demand of the other in the broadest sense, a self is generated. The self and the other co-originate, which is always a process and brings to light the significance of the sentient or lived body of a self. The sentient body, in which intentional consciousness is situated and embodied, is the “primal memory” and is therefore intrinsically related to an ultimate revelation of intentionality as the basic working principle of consciousness; this leads to consciousness’ being enclosed in and a slave to its own intentional stucture. With this as background, I understand Waldenfels’ demonstration of and emphasis on responsivity as an insight into freedom despite the fundamental intentionality of consciousness. In Part Two, “Temporality and Responsivity,” I set forth the profundity of the concept of responsivity with regard to temporality. Responsivity implies a freedom that necessarily takes the basic temporality of existence into account. In my discussion I touch on the analyses of consciousness found in modern biological psychology and traditional Buddhism. I stress that both intentionality and responsivity are based on temporality, which is the source not only of enslavement, but also of freedom. With Part Three, “Temporality and Responsivity as Related to the Problem of Religious Dialog,” I approach the topic of the religious in the lifeworld. The religious is rooted in everyday life in the lifeworld. The basis for religious dialog is not the scriptures of world culture, which are necessarily characterized by specific intentional structures. Everyday life, thanks to its temporality, is full of inexhaustible possibilities. A responsive life is of itself religious because it is open to the creativity of reality. (shrink)

Resumen: En este trabajo me propongo exponer las relaciones entre racionalidad responsiva y extrañeza en la obra de Bernhard Waldenfels. Expondré esta relación a partir de seis tesis con el propósito de que ellas se complementen mutuamente y logren mostrar, de la manera más apropiada posible, la relación entre responsividad y la experiencia de lo extraño. Estos puntos son: 1. Una breve aclaración terminológica. Diferencia entre lo otro y lo extraño. 2. La relación entre discurso escrito y hablado. 3. La (...) concepción de orden, vinculada con mecanismos de inclusión y exclusión. 4. La relación entre pathos y respuesta, como los puntos focales de la racionalidad responsiva. 5. La relación entre el decir y lo dicho y la temporalidad que los vincula y separa. Y por último, 6. Me ocuparé del problema de cómo hablar sobre lo extraño y el problema del lenguaje indirecto.: The purpose of this paper is to show the relations between responsiveness and strangeness in the work of Bernhard Waldenfels. I will expose this relationship in six theses, so that they complement each other and show, in the most appropriate possible way, the relationship between responsiveness and the experience of the strange. These points are, 1. A brief clarification of terminology. Difference between the other and the strange. 2. The relationship between written and spoken speech. 3. The conception of order, linked to mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. 4. The relationship between pathos and response, as focal points of responsive rationality. 5. The relationship between saying and what is said and the temporality that links and separates them. And finally, 6. I will deal with the problem of how to talk about the strange and the problem of indirect language. (shrink)