Synopses & Reviews
Although Martin Heidegger is nearly as notorious as Friedrich Nietzsche for embracing the death of God, the philosopher himself acknowledged that Christianity accompanied him at every stage of his career. In
Heidegger's Confessions, Ryan Coyne isolates a crucially important player in this story: Saint Augustine. Uncovering the significance of Saint Augustine in Heideggers philosophy, he details the complex and conflicted ways in which Heidegger paradoxically sought to define himself against the Christian tradition while at the same time making use of its resources.
Coyne first examines the role of Augustine in Heideggers early period and the development of his magnum opus, Being and Time. He then goes on to show that Heidegger owed an abiding debt to Augustine even following his own rise as a secular philosopher, tracing his early encounters with theological texts through to his late thoughts and writings. Bringing a fresh and unexpected perspective to bear on Heideggers profoundly influential critique of modern metaphysics, Coyne traces a larger lineage between religious and theological discourse and continental philosophy.
Review
"The confrontation of Heidegger with Nietzsche, the confrontation of Derrida with Heidegger, and now the confrontation of Marion with Augustine! In the Self's Place engages with Augustine's Confessions, one of the incomparable texts that open the intellectual and religious space we call 'the West.' Here Marion continues his critiques of the self and metaphysics, his analysis of praise, and his bold case for the univocity of love. Also he shows us something new: how his theory of the saturated phenomenon can be used to read a canonical narrative. A major achievement!"Kevin Hart, University of Virginia
Review
"In the Self's Place is astounding in its rigor both in terms of its use of the original Latin and in terms of its breadth of familiarity with the larger Augustinian corpus . . . In the Self's Place should be of particular interest to those readers who have strong interest in and familiarity with ongoing conversations in both theology and philosophy . . . [F]or all those who are stimulated by what contemporary philosophy and classical theology have to say to one another, this is, without doubt, an essential read."Rico G. Monge, Reviews in Religion and Theology
Review
"Jean-Luc Marion's new book is a feast that should be savored by anyone with an interest in either the thought of Saint Augustine or in Marion's phenomenological philosophy . . . I think it would be difficult to speak too highly of Marion's achievement in this book . . . In the Self's Place is a landmark, advancing every position which it touches."Andreas Nordlander, Anglican Theological Review
Review
“Heidegger’s Confessions traces the role of Augustine across Heidegger’s thinking—early, middle, and late—to convincingly show that Augustine is not only a constant companion but an inspiration for Heidegger’s own transformations throughout his career.”
Review
“Coyne’s careful reconstruction and analysis of Heidegger’s other ‘hidden debt’ provides us with much-needed background of the latter’s lifelong fascination with the author of the
Confessions, just as it offers suggestive hypotheses to assess its overall ‘counterintuitive’ meaning and current import. Even where the later Heidegger’s
Kehre turned further away from the religion of old, Coyne wisely suggests that Heidegger’s ulterior ‘deep inquiry’ into the existence and essence of man nonetheless redraws a ‘silhouette reflected darkly’ in Augustine’s most profound pages. Rare are the books that complete an emerging, complex picture in full philological and genealogical detail and also succeed in bringing systematic philosophical problems—here: that of the relationship between phenomenology and theology, existential or fundamental ontology and Christianity—into much clearer focus. Coyne has set the future debates concerning the legacy of Heidegger and all those he influenced in these matters on much firmer footing, while giving a truly original account of the decisive contribution that Christian tropes brought and continue to bring to bear on the critique of ancient and modern metaphysics.”
Review
“Heidegger’s Confessions explores major currents in Heidegger by taking his readings of Augustine as a guiding thread. Coyne shows that Heidegger’s occasional interpretations of Augustinian texts are not incidental to his thought, but are linked explicitly and implicitly to major questions in his philosophy—such as whether human beings can know themselves, possess themselves, and be whole. Heidegger’s engagement with Augustine also bears on broader questions about Being and its relation to God. Coyne’s approach goes well beyond a simple genealogical argument about how Heidegger was ‘influenced’ by Augustine, or a simple comparative study that tallies up agreements and disagreements between two thinkers. Instead, Coyne interrogates the very nature of influence, debt, and attestation, showing that Augustinian concerns are relevant not only to the relation between these two figures but to how philosophers cite their predecessors, how they relate to their own past thoughts, how philosophy tries to establish its own integrity, and how philosophy may remain beholden to theology at the same time that it combats it.”
Synopsis
In the Self's Place is a phenomenological reading of Augustine that engages with modern and postmodern analyses of Augustinian philosophy.
Synopsis
In the Self's Place is an original phenomenological reading of Augustine that considers his engagement with notions of identity in Confessions. Using the Augustinian experience of confessio, Jean-Luc Marion develops a model of selfhood that examines this experience in light of the whole of the Augustinian corpus. Towards this end, Marion engages with noteworthy modern and postmodern analyses of Augustine's most "experiential" work, including the critical commentaries of Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Marion ultimately concludes that Augustine has preceded postmodernity in exploring an excess of the self over and beyond itself, and in using this alterity of the self to itself, as a driving force for creative relations with God, the world, and others. This reading establishes striking connections between accounts of selfhood across the fields of contemporary philosophy, literary studies, and Augustine's early Christianity.
Synopsis
Heideggers Confessions is a sustained exploration of the influence of the figure of Saint Augustine on Heideggers thinking. Drawing from Heideggers early and later writings, it examines in-depth the use Heidegger made of Augustinian conceptswhat they contributed to his philosophical formation, the tensions they generated in his work, how they subtly resurfaced in his later works; the often unapparent ways in which Heidegger dealt with their recurrence; and finally, what these recurrences tell us about his critique of modern metaphysics. The often surprising ways in which Heidegger made subtle, yet sophisticated use of Augustine invites reflection on current ways of construing the relationship between philosophy and religion. Heideggers Confessions thus ends by offering a fresh perspective on the interdisciplinary character of the philosophy of religion in its contemporary continental context.
About the Author
Jean-Luc Marion is Greeley Professor of Catholic Studies and Professor of the Philosophy of Religions and Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Professor of Modern Philosophy and Metaphysics at the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne), and a member of the Académie Française. Among his books to have been translated into English are Being Given (Stanford, 2002) and The Crossing of the Visible (Stanford, 2004).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Heidegger’s Paul
Chapter 2: The Cogito Out-of-Reach
Chapter 3: The Remains of Christian Theology
Chapter 4: Testimony and the Irretrievable in Being and Time
Chapter 5: Temporality and Transformation, or Augustine through the Turn
Chapter 6: On Retraction
Conclusion: Difference and De-Theologization
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index