End Of Metaphysics Research Articles

“We Know a New Happiness…” from Heidegger’s Happy Event to Nietzsche’s Hysterical Salvation

This article explores Heidegger’s Er-eignis and Nietzsche’s messianism to carve out an understanding of transcendence that allows a connection with happiness in an ontological sense. I will, however, need two more important ‘figures’ from Nietzsche’s work, namely ‘artist’ and ‘woman’—the latter as understood by Derrida. Using a ‘de-Freuding’ of the term ‘hysteria’ into a philosopheme, I can finally connect happiness with the end of metaphysics. First, I prepare for the most suitable philosophical approach. Then, I turn to Heidegger to look for a connection between freedom and authenticity that hides in the unthought. This opens the door to Nietzsche’s most surprising insertion of theological virtues into the core of philosophical reflection. Then, finally, I introduce the metaphors ‘artist’ and ‘woman’ to arrive at an articulation of hysteria as a philosophical name for a perspective on happiness.

What End of Thought? On the True and the False Problem of Philosophy

Abstract The end of metaphysics problematizes philosophy, for it implies the end of thought “itself.” Though this raises the question how to think after the end of metaphysics, the question can only be asked on the condition that the “problem of philosophy” is posed, presupposing an answer to the question what the end of thought is. This article critically compares two ways of posing that problem. It argues that one, here called active nihilism, poses the problem falsely: it implies an answer to the question what the end of thought is, even as it makes that question impossible to answer, rendering the very problem unsolvable. The true problem of philosophy, the article argues, is what is here called the entanglement of thought and experience. In order to demonstrate what active nihilism and entanglement actually come down to, the article then presents two cases. One involves a detailed analysis of Meillassoux’s refutation of correlationism, showing how the problem of philosophy is rendered unsolvable in actual fact. The other case concerns what is called catastrophal thought. An effective demonstration of the end of thought, this first answers the question what the end of thought really is.

The Beginning of the End

In this paper I address the relationship between Hegel and Heidegger from the perspective of the dialectic between end and beginning. After the introduction, in the second part of the paper I analyze Hegel’s position in the history of being as the beginning of the end of metaphysics. Afterwards I address Heidegger’s interpretation of the beginning of Hegel’s Logic, showing how the essential beginning is the end of the completed system. In the fourth part of the text, I discuss how Heidegger wants to position himself in relation to Hegel, mainly examining their different interpretation of negativity and initiality. I will argue that the key word for understanding their different positions is “event”. Whereas Hegel’s system leaves no room for any beginning as event, but every beginning is reabsorbed by the finished and concluded system, for Heidegger thought must time and time again make itself initial and evential.

What Is the Philosophy of Religion?: A Thomistic Account

The article seeks to address and answer two questions: “What is Religion?” and “What is the Philosophy of Religion”? It gives a definition of the first and defends it. It places its arguments on the second in relation to a number of current textbooks on the subject, indicating that its views accord with commonly-recognized concerns, but that these deserve to be ordered a certain way. Specifically, it argues that the whole subject should rightly be divided into two parts (each with proper sub-sections): “Natural Theology” (or God as the Fullness and First Cause of Being) and the “Philosophy of Religion” (or God as Final End and Blessedness). This latter part deals with questions such as the relation of morality and religion, the definition of religion, and religious diversity, and ends with the study of the credibility of religion. For, it argues, the end of metaphysics as classically presented itself requires going beyond it to ask whether there is any credible Way to the natural human goal of being entirely happy or perfected. By rights, then, philosophy ends in seeking whether there is a credible true faith (or several), although committing to any one takes one beyond philosophy’s proper limits.

Thomistic Existentialism and Cosmological Reasoning, John F. X.Knasas, The Catholic University of America Press, 2019 (ISBN 978‐0‐8132‐3185‐3), xiv + 330 pp., hb $65

Thomistic Existentialism and Cosmological Reasoning, John F. X.Knasas, The Catholic University of America Press, 2019 (ISBN 978‐0‐8132‐3185‐3), xiv + 330 pp., hb $65

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus by Johannes Zachhuber

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus by Johannes Zachhuber

The rise of Christian theology and the end of ancient metaphysics. Patristic philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus. By Johannes Zachhuber. Pp. xii + 357. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. £75. 978 0 19 885995 6

The rise of Christian theology and the end of ancient metaphysics. Patristic philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus. By Johannes Zachhuber. Pp. xii + 357. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. £75. 978 0 19 885995 6 - Volume 73 Issue 3

От одного чувственного к другому (к метафизическому значению чувственных восприятий). Часть II Ж. Бенуа

The second part of the talk, given by J. Benoist at the meeting of the Société philosophique française on 20.03.2021 (the translation of the previous part is published in No. 7), continues the theme of Plato’s metaphor, transferring from the visible to the invisible. Trying to get rid of the metaphors as such, modern philosophy seeks the non-metaphorical sense of the invisible. This, in particular, is the task set by Merleau-Ponty. The goal of “demetaphorization” is to free the sensible from the tutelage of the invisible. But in fact, it was Platonism that in­vented the sensible in opposition to the intelligible, the suprasensible. Plato’s metaphysics is a project of taming the sensible and at the same time a way of liv­ing with it. Furthermore, Plato’s thirst for the suprasensible made the sensible resonate, gave saturation to what is in this world beyond the truth. The rejection of metaphysics in the Platonic sense led to a loss of address of the sensible, an anesthesia characteristic of our era. The critique of the optical model, the at­tempts made to get out of the metaphysical construction of the sensible as the visible did not lead to the liberation of the other senses. For modern philoso­phers, the nature of perception is initially neither exclusively nor even essentially sensible. Heidegger’s hermeneutic conception of understanding questions the metaphorical constitution of metaphysics and destroys the partition between the sensible and the intelligible, in its own way it repeats the unification of the senses, abandoning synecdoche and thus not implementing the instrumentaliza­tion of the sensible. For Heidegger there is no proper sense of perception: seeing is always more than seeing, and hearing more than hearing. The result is a loss of receptivity to the distinction between the senses. The elimination of the supposed inner divisions of the sensible contributes to the erasure of the diversity of the senses in the proper sense of the word in favor of the truth of being, in relation to which the senses are mere means. This approach is opposed to the practice of po­etic intervention, which consists in playing with the multiplicity of modalities of the sensible. Benoist gives two answers to the question of what to do with the sensible after the end of metaphysics. The first is the rehabilitation of the metaphor in the sense of realizing it as an act of discourse, revealing the sensible in order to use it and in this use to go beyond the sensible to the intelligible. The second is the liberation of other possibilities for the use of the variety of the senses, the possibilities associated with metonymy. According to Benoist, to­day the Platonic excess in relation to the sensible, which has discovered and con­stituted the sensible itself, allows us to see that the “sensible” is not a given, and is subject to reconstruction.

Nihilismus zwischen traditioneller Metaphysik und Post‑Metaphysik. Kritische Untersuchung von Heideggers Nietzsche‑Interpretation

In his interpretation of Nietzsche, Heidegger on the one hand acknowledges the anti‑metaphysical orientation of Nietzsche’s nihilism, but on the other hand considers Nietzsche to be the ultimate metaphysician. This location is based firstly on Heidegger’s reflections on the relationship between metaphysics and nihilism. By revealing the origin and end of metaphysics, it is to be shown that nihilism and metaphysics are two aspects of the same thing. Moreover, Heidegger expands the meaning of metaphysics by ascribing to it the distinction between the sensuous and supersensuous worlds, between beings and beingness. Based on the critique of Nietzsche, he is able to develop a post‑metaphysical philosophical conception. Nietzsche himself, however, is not addicted to metaphysics, and in his overcoming of metaphysics and his vision of post‑metaphysical thinking he is rather a precursor of Heidegger.

Postmetaphysical Conundrums: The Problematic Return to Metaphysics in Horkheimer’s Critique of Instrumental Reason

Postmetaphysical Conundrums: The Problematic Return to Metaphysics in Horkheimer’s Critique of Instrumental Reason

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus. By Johannes Zachuber

<i>The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus</i>. By <scp>Johannes Zachuber</scp>

Scriptural Exegesis or Speculative Philosophy

Summary Dogmatic debates in early Christianity shaped philosophical discourse just as Greek philosophy offered the conceptual tools to engage and, accordingly to crystalize early Christian practice, into a formal system of belief. Thus, in the recently-published The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, Johannes Zachhuber notes that “Patristic thought as a whole can be identified as a Christian philosophy.” Following suit – though not without nuance – this paper suggests treating Patristic scriptural exegesis as an exercise of speculative philosophy, as evidenced in Augustine’s interpretation of the figure of the cross at Eph 3.18, where the cross progressively becomes a simple yet compelling paradigm of divine manifestation. This paradigm can be framed according to Augustine’s mature articulation of the ‘ontological principle’ of manifestation in s. 165: “From the depth which you cannot see rises everything that you can see.” By engaging in scriptural exegesis, within a gestalt where Wisdom, sacred and profane alike, merge in the incarnate God manifest in Christ, Augustine articulates unprecedented philosophical principles.

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, written by Johannes Zachhuber

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, written by Johannes Zachhuber

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Classical Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus by JohannesZachhuber (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), xii + 384 pp.

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Classical Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus by JohannesZachhuber (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), xii + 384 pp.

Die Welt und ihr Unendliches. László Tengelyi über das Problem phänomenologischer Metaphysik. Transl. from German Elfir Sagetdinov

László Tengelyi has published in his last book &amp;quot;World and Infinity. On the problem of phenomenological metaphysics&amp;quot; a perspective is presented which is characterized by two main traits. On the one hand, he advocates the thesis that phenomenology enables a new type of metaphysics that does not connect with any ontotheology. He thus approaches a diagnosis of time formulated in the field of the more recent French metaphysical history, for example when Courtine speaks of the end of the &amp;quot;end of metaphysics. On the other hand, Tengelyi explicitly assigns his approach to what he calls a &amp;quot;Wuppertal tradition&amp;quot;: the tradition founded by Klaus Held, in which phenomenology as such is understood as a phenomenology of the world. However, Tengelyi deviates from a &amp;quot;hero’s principle&amp;quot;: while Held prioritizes a phenomenology of the finiteness of the world inspired by Heidegger, Tengelyi is concerned with the rehabilitation of Husserl’s idea of infinity. In Tengelyi’s work, these two main traits combine to form a phenomenology of the world and its infinite, which sees itself as a renewal of metaphysics with originally phenomenological means. Tengelyi finds the sources of her elaboration primarily in Husserl and Heidegger, in addition in the French phenomenology, with Sartre and Levinas, but also with Richir and Marion, and beyond the phenomenological tradition, he relies on Aristotle and Duns Scotus as well as on Kant, Schelling and Rickert.

СЛАБКА ДУМКА («IL PENSIERO DEBOLE») ТА «СЛАБКА ТЕОЛОГІЯ» ЯК СИМПТОМИ ПОСТМЕТАФІЗИЧНОГО МИСЛЕННЯ

The growing political influence of religious communities and beliefs, the growing presence of religious discourse in public sphere require a rethinking of the role of religion in modern society. A number of mutual accusations in a metaphysical way of thinking leads to the fact that the whole philosophy of the XX century turns out to be a philosophy thinking in a “post” situation. Formation of the “post“ states is entirely explained in the field of social philosophy, which tries to “keep pace with time”, but the intrigue lies in the fact that in the first place these transformations touched the most fundamental and “eternal” field of philosophy – ontology. After Heidegger's thesis on the ontoteological structure of metaphysics, the discourse at the end of metaphysics and post-metaphysical philosophical thinking not only inevitably affect the problem of theology, but connect the problems of updating philosophy and theology in the XX-XXI centuries as well.Along with the decline of metaphysics as a system philosophy that is able to propose a coherent, unified, well-grounded picture of immutable structures of existence, the very possibility of philosophical refutation of the existence of God is exhausted. It defends the possibility of religious experience. The pluralism of the post-metaphysical era eliminates the possibility of any theoretical distinction between metaphorical and non-metaphorical languages. On the other hand, the famous statement by F. Nietzsche about the death of God, which is inscribed in the context of the critique of metaphysics, symbolically means the final decay of the religious way of thinking and the flowering of secularization, which means the rejection of appeals to other levels of being, except in the focus of today and everyday life. The specificity of hermeneutics, which is practiced by Caputo and Vattimo, is directly related to the key moment in the constructs of both thinkers – the concept of weakening thinking. For Vattimo, a weak thought (pensiero debole) refers to the gradual weakening of being, which turned the modern philosophy from its "obsession" with the metaphysics of truth to the local rationality and awareness of the hermeneutic nature of any truth. There are two aspects of weakening opinion. The first process – the weakening of being – from the objective metaphysical structure to the interpretation (“events” in the Heideggerian sense). It is described in the Nietzschean language of nihilism, which means the historical process, within which objectivistic claims of metaphysics, absolute grounds have become false (or reduced to “nothing”), weakened, and replaced by “prospects” or interpretative schemes. The second process is the weakening of God in the world, described in the language of the apostle Paul in terms of subtlety – kenosis, which is a paradigmatic expression of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, birth and death of Jesus. Kenosis is not a one-time event that took place in the life and death of Jesus, but the continuing history or tradition initiated by this event. This process is called “secularization” by Vattimo, which doesn’t mean a rejection of God, but a kind of “transcription” of God in time and history (saeculum). Thus, nihilism and kenosis are parallel processes. Nihilism is the devastation of being in an interpretative structure; kenosis is the ascension to nothing of God as transcendental deity. Kenosis is understood as transcription, translation or transfer of God into the world, a means to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. This idea, the political correlation of which is non-authoritarian democracy, and the epistemological correlate, is a Gadamer's understanding of dialogue.On the positive side Vattimo’s “weak thinking” and the ontology, seek to be hermeneutical and nihilistic in the spirit of the Heideggerian ontology. Vattimo's philosophy seeks to save ontological discourse without making it metaphysical in the traditional sense. To speak more specifically, this philosophy recognizes the world of symbolic forms, the world of action, recognizes different practices, perceiving them as different languages of the mind. Describing postmodernity as a “more enlightened Enlightenment”, where there is no longer a dream about pure objectivity, Caputo emphasizes that the modern rebirth of religion returns its original meaning – faith, not less form of knowledge. Therefore, religious truth is characterized as truth without knowledge, and modern religiousness as “religion without religion”.By reducing the ontological and theological thought there is a convergence of theology and philosophy, which now do not contradict each other, but are found in some new space, which we call post-secular philosophy.

Hannah Arendt y Jean-Luc Marion. El acontecimiento y los márgenes de la metafísica

El “acontecimiento” aparece, en la filosofía contemporánea, como el sendero que manifiesta la posibilidad de superar el fin de la metafísica, puesto que rompe tanto con las condiciones metafísicas del aparecer como con las del conocer. Gracias a un análisis comparativo de las obras de Arendt y de Marion, el presente artículo muestra que, aunque el acontecimiento aparezca en tanto que destrucción del concepto moderno de historia en los textos de la primera, y en tanto que modalidad de la saturación de los fenómenos en la fenomenología de la donación de Marion, el uso del acontecimiento nos permite reevaluar la relación que ambos autores mantienen con la metafísica. Después de haber señalado una diferencia fundamental en el uso del acontecimiento que hacen estos dos autores, nos es factible evaluar su posición frente a la posibilidad de seguir pensando después del fin de la metafísica.

Cristianismo pós-moderno: midrash do tempo messiânico segundo a teologia de Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

Partindo do pensamento de Carlos Mendoza Álvarez, descreve-se os traços constitutivos do cristianismo pós-moderno como um autêntico midrash da temporalidade messiânica. Pretendese responder a crucial pergunta: Como viver a esperança messiânica em meio à crescente espiral de violência que caracteriza os tempos pós-modernos? Trata-se de pensar a experiência cristã de Deus sob o signo irreversível da subjetividade autônoma e o fim da metafísica clássica, para pôr em relevo a pertinência e a significação do cristianismo no contexto da pós-modernidade. A questão da esperança enlaça-se à pergunta pelas “representações do divino” e da “vida teologal” credíveis sob a cultura do fragmento.

What Need, What Metaphysics?

In this article, Italian philosopher and politician Gianni Vattimo (born 1936) problematizes the concept of “the end of metaphysics,” which was announced in the 20th century. In Vattimo’s opinion, the early 21st century sees a return of metaphysics. This points to a certain human need. Starting from two classic narratives – Friedrich Nietzsche’s postulation of the death of God, and Martin Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics – Vattimo proposes two alternatives: a «metaphysics of the authorized» and the «metaphysics of the downtrodden». Although the former has discredited itself, the latter hasn’t. It may be this latter metaphysics that answers the profound human need without offering totalitarian forms of control, oppression, or certainty in the existence of a single truth for all.

Praying in the Breach: Worshiping through the End of Metaphysics

In recent years, discussion has raged within theologies inspired by Continental philosophy of religion regarding the supposed “overcoming” of ontotheology. In this article, I will consider the theological methodology of Louis-Marie Chauvet, a sacramental theologian whose work has been highly influenced by these discussions. For Chauvet, it is the liturgy that provides human beings with the necessary means, not for overcoming ontotheology, but for learning to livewithit in a healthy way. Through the liturgy, we learn towork throughontotheology, and thus to hear the call of Being to appropriation and thankful response. This is, however, quite a bit to ask of our liturgies, and I suggest that the only way that Chauvet's method can function is if it is placed in a framework of dialogue. I adopt this framework from Chauvet and expand upon it, which results in an innovativerelectureof Chauvet's theology.