SOPHIA (2008) 47:261263 DOI 10.

1007/s11841-008-0075-2

The Implicit and Presupposed Theological Turn in Phenomenology

Jack Reynolds

Published online: 19 August 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

In recent times, continental philosophers and philosophers of religion have heard a lot about the theological turn in phenomenology, whose most well-known partisan is probably Jean-Luc Marion. This collection of essays addresses, however, a rather different problem, that being the allegation, developed to greater and lesser extents in the work of some of the most significant post-structuralist philosophers, that the phenomenological project itself, tout court, tacitly presupposes a religious or theological element. Understanding this claim is no easy matter, since the relationship that obtains among phenomenological and post-structuralist philosophers is more difficult to grasp than is usually assumed. This is partly because the terms themselves cover a vast array of internal differences, but there is more at stake than the problematic generalities that such labels can involve. While many of us have tended to understand post-structuralism as virtually synonymous with postphenomenology, what should be apparent, even in this too simple formulation, is that what is involved in this relationship is not a simple opposition. The post, as with postmodernism, cannot plausibly be understood without intimate relation to that which it is purportedly beyond, in this case the phenomenological. More substantively, it also needs to be noted that Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, two philosophers canonically associated with post-structuralism, have both also been said to be phenomenologists and included in generic overviews of the subject. Likewise, Gilles Deleuze has called for a more radical phenomenology that would take Jean-Paul Sartres (and Maurice Merleau-Pontys) discovery of an impersonal transcendental field very seriously. Even Michel Foucaults work claimed by Deleuze in the 1970s to be starkly opposed to phenomenology admits of a less oppositional reading, as Stphane Legrands essay in this volume admirably brings out. Moreover, it is not clearly the case that post-structuralism is itself atheistic, so it remains to be seen in precisely what sense the claim that phenomenology remains implicitly religious is a criticism. Indeed, these thinkers are in a difficult position visJ. Reynolds (*) Philosophy Department, La Trobe University, Bundoora Campus, Victoria, Australia, 3086 e-mail: jack.reynolds@latrobe.edu.au

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-vis the pejorative ascription of theological tendencies to phenomenology, given that many of them (especially Nancy and Derrida) occupy what might be called an undecidable position on the issue of religion, thematising religion without religion, the messianic without messianism, etc. On such a view, militant atheism or the positing of any unambiguous outside to religion is seen as superficial, and it is worth noting that Peter Hallward has also recently argued that Deleuzes thought has close ties with mysticism of various shapes and guises 1 But why then does the religious accusation recur in their critical writings on forms of phenomenology that they want to distance themselves from? Briefly, it is bound up with the attribution of other tendencies to phenomenology that they clearly have reservations about, especially in regard to veiled commitments to humanism, along with ontological transcendence and hierarchical forms of thought more generally. Of course, this rhetorical gesture is also part of an effort to distinguish their philosophies from one of the main contemporary areas of research in French phenomenology. Philosophers like Marion and Michel Henry, among others, have come to fame in the last generation or two for explicitly affirming the necessity for a theological turn in phenomenology. Reflections on the gift and saturated phenomena (Marion), suffering and auto-affectivity (Henry), the other (Levinas), sacrifice (Jan Patocka), etc., can all be seen as part of this turn, even if Levinas tried to distance his phenomenology from his phenomenology of religion and, in particular, his Talmudic readings. But it can also be plausibly argued that Edith Stein and Max Scheler are precursors to this turn to religion within phenomenology. Derrida even intimates in On Touching: Jean-Luc Nancy (2005) that the entire modern French tradition of philosophies of the body since Descartes remains thoroughly invested in a certain Catholicism and Gregg Lamberts essay in this volume explores this intriguing claim. Even for Husserl and Eugene Fink, certain of their statements, suggest that the phenomenological method is fundamentally about renewing the attitude of wonder vis--vis the world and is hence bound up with revelation and manifestation. There have also, as readers of Sophia know, been innumerable essays comparing Heidegger (and other phenomenologists) with various aspects of Asian philosophy and religious thought. The connection between phenomenology and religion has hence been an enduring one. In very different ways, this alliance is both illuminated, and argued against, by the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy and Alain Badiou. This volume includes essays expounding and arguing with the central claims of these five philosophers, written by major international experts on their work: James Williams, Stphane Legrand, Gregg Lambert, Laurens ten Kate, Justin Clemens and Jon Roffe. Williams paper sets out critical arguments opposing the theist phenomenology of Henry with Deleuzes philosophy of the event, and he presents an argument against the theological turn on the grounds that it misunderstands the form of affectivity when compared to Deleuzes work on affect and event. Legrand offers a subtle account of the indebtedness and divergences between Foucaults philosophical project and phenomenology, focusing upon the role given to experimentation as opposed to experience as the key differentiator (a

Hallward, P., Out of this World: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Creation, London: Verso, 2006.

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version of this argument also occurs in Williams paper). Lamberts essay offers a close reading of Derridas recent opus, On Touching: Jean-Luc Nancy, particularly concerning what Derrida alludes to as the Christian thinking of the flesh in the French phenomenological tradition post-Husserl, performing a cryptonomy of references to the Christian body, and of the return of religion. Laurens ten Kate discusses Nancys avowed deconstruction of Christianity, arguing that his approach to the non-apparent differs fundamentally from the explicit thinkers of the turn. Clemens and Roffe together achieve the difficult job of explicating Badious critical engagements with phenomenology, religion and post-structuralism. My own essay on Derrida and Merleau-Ponty is also included, partly in the interests of balance and to offer a phenomenological rejoinder to Derridas uncharacteristically strident critique of Merleau-Ponty in On Touching. Finally, also part of this issue is a Critical essay by one of Sophias long-time editors, Purushottama Bilimoria on the proto-poststructuralist, Nietzsche, which helps to counterbalance the Eurocentrism and focus upon Christianity that is at the heart of the concerns of the other essays. Without seeking any ultimate synthesis of these disparate views, this issue of Sophia sheds new light on the complicated and uneasy nexus between phenomenology, post-structuralism, and religion, thus accomplishing something that promises to be of interest to both continental philosophers and philosophers of religion alike.