Koyré as a Historian of Religion and the New French Phenomenology

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the influence that Koyre’s early work on history of religion had on the development of French phenomenology, with focus on Emmanuel Levinas and Michel Henry. Although Koyre’s affiliation to the phenomenological movement is debatable, his thought owes much to Husserl’s phenomenological method. In his books on St. Anselm and Descartes, Koyre focuses on the idea of God and the idea of the infinite. I trace the influence of Koyre’s analysis of the infinite in its relation to the finite on the development of the idea of the infinite in Levinas. I also show that Levinassian approach to the idea of God as “the idea of the Infinite in me” goes back to Koyre’s interpretation of the ontological proof of St. Anselm. Next, I explore the influence of Koyre’s book on Bohme on the philosophy of Michel Henry. Koyre’s reading of Bohme makes Bohme essentially a precursor of German idealism describing the Absolute that wishes to manifest itself and distinguishing between the manifestation and what is made manifest in this manifestation. Henry applies this approach to phenomena in general, which leads him to a criticism of intentionality loss of a cosmological dimension. I would like to argue in favour of a more balanced phenomenology that wants to be not only prescriptive but also descriptive and sensitive to a certain scientific dimension.