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Husserl and Heidegger

Das Wunder aller Wunder ist reines Ich und reines Bewußtsein.

—Edmund Husserl36

Einzig der Mensch unter allem Seienden erfährt,

angerufenvon der Stimme des Seins,

das Wunder aller Wunder: daß Seiendes ist.

—Martin Heidegger37

Beginning with the foundational thought of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, this chapter will introduce phenomenology as a philosophical method and will suggest that the phenomenologies of Husserl and Heidegger inherently provide possibilities for a phenomenological theology. In his introductory chapter to the 1986 volume Essays in Phenomenological Theology, Steven Laycock describes phenomenological theology as an “inchoate discipline” and an “uncharted philosophical terrain” that seeks to “articulate the sense of the Divine from the matrix of prearticulate experience.”38 Phenomenological theology is, Laycock continues, a discipline that conducts “an original phenomenological investigation of a specific ‘region’ of experience,” namely, the experience of the divine.39 More precisely, for Laycock, “phenomenological theology is the specific phenomenology of God.”40 In a more recent debate, however, phenomenology, and French phenomenology in particular, has been criticized for taking such a “theological turn,” and precisely for this opening onto the invisible—the transcendent.41 Dominique Janicaud argues that this opening is a transgression of the phenomenological method; it presents, for Janicaud, “a rupture with immanent phenomenality.”42 In this chapter, I explore the phenomenologies of Husserl and Heidegger and consider the inherent possibilities in their work for the development of a phenomenological theology that opens from an immersion in the phenomenal world of the visible “things themselves” onto the invisible world of the transcendent.

Edmund Husserl:

Transcendental Phenomenology

Phenomenology as a discrete philosophical method was first fully developed by Edmund Husserl.43 As a philosophical system, Husserlian phenomenology is a descriptive science, working to describe what appears to consciousness in the manner in which it appears to consciousness. It is presuppositionless: the phenomenologist begins “in absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge” and focuses on what is given directly through experience.44 For Husserl, “phenomenological explication does nothing but explicate the sense this world has for us all, prior to any philosophizing, and obviously gets solely from our experience—a sense which philosophy can uncover but never alter.”45

Husserl’s lifework is traditionally thought of as developing in three stages: first, his early philosophical work with psychologism (1887–1901); second, the development of descriptive phenomenology (1901–1913); and third, phenomenology as transcendental phenomenology (1913–1938).46 Other scholars characterize Husserl’s thought in four stages: psychologism, (1891); the critique of psychologism (1900–1901); transcendental phenomenology (1913); and the final work on the transcendental I as immersed in the everyday social reality of the life-world (1935–1938).47 Still others think of Husserl’s development in terms of two major stages: pretranscendental and transcendental.48 It is primarily the final stage of transcendental phenomenology that will be discussed in this chapter.

Phenomenology, for Husserl, is the science of the essence of consciousness.49 Husserl seeks to return philosophy to the life of the living subject and to allow the meaning of an object of experience to emerge from the manner in which the object appears to consciousness. Central to Husserlian phenomenology is the understanding of consciousness as intentional. Consciousness is, simply put, the consciousness of something: the consciousness of the experiencing subject is intentionally directed toward the object of experience. Phenomenology describes various structures of experience—perception, memory, imagination, judgment—through which meaning emerges and a world is constituted for the experiencing subject.

Throughout Ideas I, Husserl begins to carefully define a distinction between two fundamental attitudes corresponding to habits of thinking: the natural attitude and the phenomenological attitude. The human person is most often engaged in the world (the life world, or Lebenswelt) in what Husserl defines as the natural attitude, that is, the everyday absorption in the objects and experiences of the surrounding world. In the natural attitude, we unquestioningly find the world presenting itself “as a factually existent actuality and also accept it as it presents itself . . . as factually existing.”50 The natural attitude gives rise to the natural sciences, which set out to investigate, as Kockelmans suggests, this “objectively existing, fully explainable world that can be expressed in exact, objective laws.”51 What is taken for granted is the possibility—the mystery—of cognition.

Husserl suggests that philosophy must approach the world differently: “Instead of remaining in this attitude, we propose to alter it radically.”52 To the natural attitude, Husserl contrasts the phenomenological attitude, in which “[w]e put out of action the general positing which belongs to the essence of the natural attitude.”53 The phenomenologist parenthesizes or brackets the type of positing that underlies scientific inquiry and judgments; phenomenology refrains from judgments. The “principle of all principles” guiding Husserl’s phenomenological method is that “every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition, that everything originarily (so to speak, in its ‘personal’ actuality) offered to us in ‘intuition’ is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there.”54 Husserl insists on a return back to “the things themselves” as they present themselves in experience through a philosophical method constituted as a rigorous science.55

For Husserl, this return to the things themselves—that is, the return to the phenomenon itself as it is directly experienced by the consciousness—requires a first step: the exercise of the phenomenological epoché (έποχή) which “completely shuts me off from any judgment about spatiotemporal factual being.”56 The phenomenological epoché is a suspension—or bracketing—of judgments and beliefs that are derived from the surrounding world when observed through the natural attitude; it is a disconnection of the self from the natural attitude through the bracketing of everyday beliefs. What remains after the epoché, Husserl suggests, is “the acquisition of a new region of being never before delimited in its own peculiarity,”57 namely, the being of pure consciousness itself as “transcendental consciousness.”58

Here, as Moran suggests, Husserl is beginning to ground phenomenology in transcendental consciousness: “Phenomenology must explore not just the essential structures of all conscious experiences and their intentional objects, but the rootedness of these essences and objects in a transcendental realm and in the transcendental ego as their ‘absolute source.’”59 This investigation of consciousness is the hinge connecting the various stages of Husserl’s lifework. For Husserl, consciousness is the “wonder of all wonders”60—the place where truth happens, where meaning is given to experience. This region of consciousness is accessed by the experiencing subject through the practice of the phenomenological method.

The adoption of the phenomenological attitude through the epoché is the first stage of this method. Once the natural attitude is suspended in the epoché, the experiencing subject may then exercise the phenomenological (or transcendental) reduction through which the experiencing consciousness reflectively turns to the act of experiencing itself. Through the series of exclusions exercised by the epoché and the reductions, the experiencing subject reaches what finally remains as the “phenomenological residuum.”61 The phenomenological epoché and reduction, Husserl argues, “make ‘pure’ consciousness and subsequently the whole phenomenological region, accessible to us.”62 The experiencing subject focuses reflectively not only on the object of perception, but also on the act of perception itself by the (subject’s own) experiencing consciousness.

The reductions, for Husserl, are the step-by-step means for the experiencing subject to return to the experiencing consciousness as the original ground of knowledge. Similar to the epoché, the reduction is a change in attitude from the everyday to the phenomenological. It is through the adoption of the phenomenological attitude and the subsequent reflection upon consciousness, Husserl argues, that the experiencing consciousness demonstrates a certain directedness: consciousness, as consciousness of something, is intentionally directed (the noesis) toward that particular something (the noema). The pure I is directed toward the intended object; the intended object is given to the pure I in the experience of consciousness. Through the eidetic reduction, the essence of the phenomenon is presented to the experiencing consciousness. As Kockelmans observes, the eidetic reduction “is the procedure through which we raise our knowledge from the level of facts to the sphere of ‘ideas.’”63 The experiencing subject moves from the instance to the essence of the phenomenon.

Through the phenomenological or transcendental reduction, the experiencing consciousness is turned toward the experiencing subject’s own transcendental subjectivity as it constitutes the experienced phenomenon. What is given, then, in the experience of consciousness (as the consciousness of something) through the phenomenological method of epoché and reduction is not only the phenomenon but transcendental consciousness. It is through reflection upon the act of intentionality—the directedness of the consciousness toward the object of consciousness—that the experiencing subject considers not only the intended, experienced phenomenon, but also the act of experiencing itself. As Kockelmans suggests, “the transcendental reduction leads from all-that-is-given and can be given to its ultimate condition and presupposition, the transcendental subject.”64

Husserl’s phenomenological method intuitively leads to the description of the “pure I and pure consciousness.”65 Beginning with the adoption of the phenomenological attitude through the epoché—the completely presuppositionless reflection upon the experience of consciousness as a consciousness of something—and continuing by exercising the phenomenological or transcendental reduction, the experiencing subject, in reflecting upon the experiencing or meditating I, reaches the originating ground of cognition: the transcendental I and the transcendental consciousness.

Martin Heidegger: Ontological Phenomenology

The phenomenology of Martin Heidegger differs significantly from that of Husserl. While Husserl considered transcendental consciousness as the “wonder of all wonders,” for Heidegger, the wonder of all wonders is the disclosure of Being—simply, “that beings are.”66 As Moran observes, Heidegger’s “whole life’s work was a single-minded attempt to reexamine the question of Being, a question he saw as inaugurated in ancient Greek philosophy, but which had rigidified into an arid metaphysics, generally neglected in his time.”67 Immediately, in the introductory pages to Being and Time, Heidegger sets out to retrieve the question of Being—a question, as he argues, that is forgotten by contemporary philosophical inquiry. This, he insists, is fundamentally a phenomenological project, since, for Heidegger, “phenomenology is the science of the being of beings—ontology.”68

Heidegger distinguishes—and distances—his work from Husserl-ian phenomenology in a direct comparison of their phenomenological reductions:

For Husserl the phenomenological reduction . . . is the method of leading phenomenological vision from the natural attitude of the human being whose life is involved in the world of things and persons back to the transcendental life of consciousness and its noetic-noematic experiences, in which objects are constituted as correlates of consciousness. For us phenomenological reduction means leading phenomenological vision back from the apprehension of a being, whatever may be the character of that apprehension, to the understanding of the being of this being (projecting upon the way it is unconcealed).69

Heidegger is concerned with the disclosure of Being through beings, and therefore begins his phenomenological investigation with an ontology of the human person as Dasein (literally, as “Being-there” or “There-being”) and with the corresponding comportment of Dasein toward Being. As Herbert Spiegelberg observes, for Heidegger, it is Being that reveals itself: Being is “in a sense self-determining. All that our thinking can do is to ‘let Being be’ (Seinlassen).”70

Heidegger proposes a description of Dasein as “this being which we ourselves in each case are and which includes inquiry among the possibilities of its being.”71 The human person is thus described phenomenologically in terms of this essential relation to Being. It is important to note again here an important distinction between Heidegger and Husserl. Heidegger defines phenomenology as “apophainesthai ta phainomena—to let what shows itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself.”72 When Heidegger references Husserl’s maxim, “To the things themselves!,” it is a return to the thing itself as a disclosure of Being—to the thing as it shows forth Being and allows Being to come to light. Heidegger’s ontology of the human person as Dasein is a phenomenological investigation into Dasein as both a showing-forth and coming-to-light of Being, and as the unique being who sees and interprets the showing-forth and coming-to-light of Being.

For Heidegger, it is Dasein—the human being—who holds a special relation to Being: “Of all beings, only the human being, called upon by the voice of being, experiences the wonder of all wonders: that beings are.”73 Dasein discloses itself as being-in-the-world in relation to other beings and grounded in temporality.74 As Moran observes, for Heidegger, “Human being and Being are caught in an ontological revealing and concealing dynamic which is at the very heart of what it means to be, to come to presence, to appear in time.”75

Heidegger’s definition of the phenomenological method through the Greek words λόγος and φαινεσθαί allows him to argue that a phenomenology of Dasein is properly hermeneutics. Phenomenology understood as “λέγειν τὰ ϕαινόμενα” (letting something be seen) or “ἀποϕαίνεσθαι τὰ ϕαινόμενα” (letting that which shows itself be seen from itself in the manner in which it shows itself) emphasizes the interpretive function of phenomenological description.76 Heidegger argues that “because the function of logos lies in letting something be seen straightforwardly, in letting beings be apprehended, logos can mean reason.”77 Moreover, the understanding of λόγος as etymologically related to λέγειν (setting forth) and λεγόμενον (that which is set forth) enables Heidegger to bring out the relation of the showing-itself, the seeing, and the as-such of the seen. Being appears—Being shows itself—through beings. Dasein sees this appearing, and interprets these semblances of Being as Being: “Wievel Schein jedoch, so viel ‘Sein.’”78

For Heidegger, phenomenology is an investigation into the question of the meaning of the Being of beings. Any phenomenological description of Dasein, the human being who experiences the wonder of Being, must also describe Being. Phenomenology, Heidegger argues, is hermeneutical:

The logos of the phenomenology of Da-sein has the character of hermēneuein, through which the proper meaning of being and the basic structures of the very being of Da-sein are made known to the understanding of being that belongs to Da-sein. Phenomenology of Da-sein is hermeneutics in the original signification of that word, which designates the work of interpretation.79

Phenomenology and ontology are thus linked in Heidegger’s hermeneutics: “Ontology is possible only as phenomenology.”80 Phenomenology, as hermeneutics, describes and interprets the appearing and self-showing of Being.

For Heidegger, the true essence of Dasein is experienced as transcendence—as at once being and Being—with Being as the horizon of this transcendence. As a human being, Dasein is an individual event of Being: “Das ‘Wesen’ des Daseins liegt in seiner Existenz.”81 What uniquely characterizes Dasein among all other beings is that Dasein is concerned with comprehending the possibilities of Being: Dasein seeks to interpret and understand Being. Authentic Dasein raises the question of the Being of beings. As William Richardson observes, “It is comprehension which constitutes the inner possibility of existence so that in turn existence constitutes the interior possibility (Wesen) of There-being.”82 The relationship that engages Dasein and Being is that of possibility: “The being which is concerned in its being about its being is related to its being as its truest possibility.”83 For Heidegger, “Dasein is always its possibility.”84

This relationship of possibility is authentically lived as “In-der-Welt-sein” (“being-in-the-world”).85 In the as-such of its own finite transcendence, Dasein retrieves the question of Being by recollecting itself as a disclosure of Being.86 Dasein’s disclosedness is constituted as attunement (Befindlichkeit) and understanding (Verstehen); and attunement and understanding are determined through discourse (Rede).87 Dasein is engaged, in an originary way, in its own self-interpretation as an appearing and self-showing of Being. This originary participation in a hermeneutics of self-understanding is fundamental to an ontological understanding of Dasein.

As being-in-the-world, Dasein authentically exists as an event of ek-stasis: Dasein transcends itself toward Being. As Reiner Schürmann suggests, it is because “we ‘exist ecstatically’, i.e., because we always ‘transcend’ ourselves, that we always already understand Being.”88 Being in-the-world, Dasein finds itself with others: “The world of Da-sein is a with-world. Being-in is being-with others. The innerworldly being-in-itself of others is Mitda-sein.”89 In addition to a being-with, the being-in of Dasein is also a being-ahead-of-itself. As a being concerned about Being, Dasein is already a reaching-beyond-itself in the possibilities of Being. Heidegger includes these three modalities of Dasein in his understanding of care (Sorge): “The being of Da-sein means being-ahead-of-oneself-as-already-in (the world) as being-together-with (innerworldly beings encountered). This being fills in the significance of the term care.”90 For Heidegger, Sorge (care) expresses the full dimensionality of the disclosedness of Dasein as being-in-the-world by including these additional modalities of being-with and being-ahead-of-itself.

Dasein demonstrates care (Sorge) through “concern” (Besorgen)91 and “solicitude” (Fürsorge).92 Heidegger makes an important distinction between concern for things that are present-at-hand (Vorhanden) and solicitude for Others (Anderen). Things occurring within the world are objectively present-at-hand in a manner unlike the being-in and being-with-one-another of Dasein. Solicitude, as a state of Dasein’s being, is authentic care for the Dasein of others as encountered through being-with: “Dasein-with characterizes the Dasein of Others to the extent that it is freed by its world for a Being-with. Only so far as one’s own Dasein has the essential structure of Being-with, is it Dasein-with as encounterable for Others.”93 Dasein as Dasein-with comports itself toward other Dasein through the care of solicitude (Fürsorge) as authentic being-with-one-another being-in-the-world.

Dasein as being-in is a clearing (Lichtung) through which Being presences: “To say that it [Dasein] is ‘illuminated’ means that it is cleared in itself as being-in-the-world, not by another being, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing.”94 Here Heidegger is developing an understanding of Dasein that continues throughout his later philosophy—an understanding that interprets Dasein through disclosedness, possibility, world, and care.

Through disclosedness, the being that we call Da-sein is in the possibility of being its there. It is there for itself, together with its world, initially and for the most part in such a way that it has disclosed its potentiality-of-being in terms of the “world” taken care of. The potentiality-of-being as which Da-sein exists has always already given itself over to definite possibilities.95

Dasein exists authentically in an attunement to the possibilities of this potentiality-of-being—an attunement that is disclosed in the world as care. This attunement is through authentic seeing (as beholding the wonder of Being) and authentic listening (as a coming-to-understanding of the call of conscience).

Authentic seeing, for Heidegger, is a type of beholding (Anschauung) through which Dasein beholds the unconcealing and unhiddenness of Being: “Being is that which shows itself in the pure perception which belongs to beholding, and only by such seeing does Being get discovered. Primordial and genuine truth lies in pure beholding.”96 Here Heidegger is contrasting everyday seeing (the everyday visual perception of phenomena that arises through Dasein’s natural curiosity) to seeing as beholding, the “contemplation that wonders at being, thaumazein.”97

In a similar fashion, Heidegger contrasts everyday and authentic listening. Dasein is summoned to its own disclosedness through the call of conscience: “The call of conscience has the character of summoning Dasein to its ownmost potentiality-of-being-a-self.”98 The summons calls Dasein forth from inauthenticity—from ordinary everyday (existentiell, ontic) existence—to the authenticity of ontological existential transcendence. This ontological dimension lies forgotten in the everydayness of Dasein. As a finite being, Dasein is characterized by “thrown-ness” (Geworfenheit): “As thrown, Da-sein has been thrown into existence. It exists as a being that has to be as it is and can be.”99 “Thrown-ness” describes the ontological situation of Dasein as “being delivered over to the there”100 and is characterized by “fallen-ness” (Verfallenheit) into inauthenticity. “Fallen-ness” is Heidegger’s term for Dasein’s absorption into the everydayness of existence: “As an authentic potentiality for being a self, Da-sein has initially always already fallen away from itself and fallen prey to the ‘world.’”101 Conscience summons Dasein to authenticity; authentic listening hears the summoning call of conscience.

Authentic existence, for Heidegger, is not something “which floats above falling everydayness; existentially, it is only a modified way in which such everydayness is seized upon.”102 Authentic existence is a matter of comportment through which Dasein recollects its own existential, ontological transcendence toward Being. Dasein, hearing the call, chooses its own possibilities as Dasein: “Understanding the call, Da-sein listens to its ownmost possibility of existence. It has chosen itself.”103 Dasein chooses its own possibilities as Dasein through resolve (Entschlossenheit): “Resolute, Da-sein is revealed to itself in its actual factical potentiality-of-being in such a way that it itself is this revealing and being revealed.”104

The resolve of Dasein unfolds in time and is expressed through discourse. Accepting itself as finite transcendence, Dasein exists in the in-between of birth and death: “Temporalizing itself with regard to its being as temporality, Da-sein is essentially ‘in a world’ on the basis of the ecstatic and horizontal constitution of that temporality.”105 Dasein’s disclosedness is expressed in the temporal present by discourse: “The complete disclosedness of the There constituted by understanding, attunement, and falling prey is articulated by discourse.”106 The articulation of Dasein’s disclosedness is made present as discourse through language; as Heidegger suggests, “this phenomenon has its roots in the existential constitution of the disclosedness of Dasein.”107 Here again, Heidegger is establishing the interconnections between discourse, language, and λόγος (logos) in his hermeneutics of Dasein’s disclosedness.

Through resolve, Dasein opens itself to be summoned into truth (alētheia). In truth, Dasein discovers its own being as transcendence toward Being: “The being-true of the logos as apophansis is alētheuein in the manner of apophainesthai: to let beings be seen in their unconcealment (discoveredness), taking them out of their concealment.”108 Heidegger is grounding his ontological-existential analysis of the disclosedness of Dasein in his understanding of phenomenology: “The ‘being true’ of logos as alētheuein means: to take beings that are being talked about in legein as apophainesthai out of their concealment; to let them be seen as something unconcealed (alēthes); to discover them.”109 The themes of ἀλήθεια (truth as ἀ-λήθεια, unconcealment), Seinlassen (letting Being be), and entdecken (discovering, uncovering) are foundational to Heidegger’s understanding of the relation between Dasein (as There-being) and Being (Sein): “Wahrsein als entdeckend-sein ist eine Seinsweise des Daseins . . . Das Entdecken ist eine Seinsweise des In-der-Welt-seins.”110 Dasein as authentically Being-in-the-world discovers the unconcealment—the uncovering—of Being.

Heidegger suggests that Dasein is always already in truth and untruth, uncovering and covering, unconcealment and concealment:

The fact that the goddess of truth who leads Parmenides places him before two paths, that of discovering and that of concealment, signifies nothing other than the fact that Da-sein is always already both in the truth and the untruth. The path of discovering is gained only in krinein logō, in distinguishing between them understandingly and in deciding for the one rather than the other.111

Phenomenology—as λέγειν τὰ ϕαινόμενα (letting something be seen or apprehended straightforwardly)—accompanies Dasein in this process of discovery by allowing the paths to be seen straightforwardly and by describing these paths such that Dasein is able to distinguish between the two. Phenomenology is, for Heidegger, “the [process of] allowing the most proper concern of thought to show itself.”112 It is the process through which Dasein engages in κρίνειν λόγω: distinguishing and reasoning between the possibilities of discovery and concealment, and choosing, with understanding, the path of truth.

Following Being and Time, the later phenomenology of Heidegger continued to explore the path of truth as ἀλήθεια, or unconcealment, but with a slight variation—with a turn, or Kehre. As Heidegger describes this, “the reversal between Being and Time, between Time and Being, is determined by the way Being is granted, Time is granted.”113 For the later Heidegger, this process of granting—the “Es gibt”—is “the lighting-up of the self-concealing [that is proper to] the process of coming-to-presence.”114 Heidegger is turning from the resoluteness of Dasein (Entschlossenheit) to the releasement of Dasein (Gelassenheit) in response to the lighting-up and coming-to-presence of Being. Dasein’s truest calling is to wait—to while—in the stillness of a meditative repose for the lighting-up of Being.

Heidegger likens this stillness to that of the rose in the poetry of Angelus Silesius: “humans, in the concealed grounds of their essential being, first truly are when in their own way they are like the rose—without why.”115 The beauty of the rose in its blooming is “a pure arising on its own, a pure shining.”116 Dasein, through the stillness of meditative thinking, opens itself in releasement to the gathering presence of the pure arising and shining of Being. For Dasein, it is a matter of choosing paths through which thinking can respond to the coming-to-presence of Being. As Heidegger asks, “are we obliged to find paths upon which thinking is capable of responding to what is worthy of thought instead of, enchanted by calculative thinking, mindlessly passing over what is worthy of thought?”117

Phenomenological Theology

Dominique Janicaud argues that it is precisely this kehre, this turning of Heidegger’s later phenomenology, that has given rise to the theological turn of contemporary French phenomenology and the subsequent “rupture with immanent phenomenality.”118 Does this represent, however, a transgression of the phenomenological method, or does transcendental phenomenology itself express, as Dermot Moran suggests, “the inner essence of religion”?119 Jean-Yves Lacoste argues that phenomenology inherently accesses more than immanent phenomenality: “there is no perception of the visible without a co-perception of the invisible . . . perception grasps— Auffassung—simultaneously the visible and the invisible.”120 The transcendental consciousness of Husserlian phenomenology and the event of Alētheia in Heidegger’s later phenomenology are simultaneously visible and invisible. In these moments of co-perception, there is an opportunity to describe the immanence of the transcendent.

As Jeffrey Bloechl very succinctly asks, “What will it mean for phenomenology to seek an understanding of divine transcendence only within the limits in which it presents itself to be seen?”121 Bloechl continues by suggesting that “[o]ne can only investigate the form of life that makes such a confession [of faith in God], and ask whether elements of it might testify to a dimension beyond capture within any horizon.”122 Religiousness, for Heidegger, arises out of a factical religious life experience which results in a fundamental comportment of the religious person to life: “The hope that Christians have is not simply faith in immortality, but a faithful resilience grounded in Christian factical life.”123 It is this “experiential comportment to God [that] gives direction to the specifically religious constitution of ‘God’ as a ‘phenomenological object’” and, as Heidegger continues, “the determinations of the sense of this—that is, of the ‘absolute’—are to be discovered only in the specific structures of the constituting experience.”124 These constituting experiences are often described through means of texts. As the following chapters turn specifically to the text of the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke, this text will be interpreted through phenomenology as, borrowing Heidegger’s words, the description of an “experiential comportment” to the divine.

36. “The wonder of all wonders is the pure I and pure consciousness” (Husserl, Ideen III, §12, p. 75). See also Husserl, Ideas III, §12, p. 64.

37. “Of all beings, only the human being, called upon by the voice of being, experiences the wonder of all wonders: that beings are” (Heidegger, “Nachwort,” 307, emphasis in original). See also Heidegger, “Postscript,” 234.

38. Laycock, “Overview of Phenomenological Theology,” 1­–2.

39. Ibid., 2.

40. Ibid., emphasis in original.

41. See Janicaud et al., Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn.”

42. Janicaud, “Theological Turn,” 17.

43. Dermot Moran provides a helpful and concise history of “phenomenology” prior to Husserl in the editor’s introduction to The Phenomenology Reader, 9–12.

44. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §1, p. 2. See also Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, §1, p. 44: “so habe ich damit den Anfang der absoluten Erkenntnisarmut erwählt.”

45. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §62, p. 151, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, §62, p. 177: “als den Sinn auslegen, den diese Welt für uns alle vor jedem Philosophieren hat und offenbar nur aus unserer Erfahrung hat, ein Sinn, der philosophisch enthüllt aber nie geändert werden kann.”

46. This characterization was proposed by Husserl’s assistant, Eugen Fink. See Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, 65–66; see also Kockelmans, Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology, 10. See Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, for a correspondence to representative publications, including: the first stage, Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891); the second stage, Philosophy as a Rigorous Science (1910–1911) and Ideas I (1913); the third stage, Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929), Cartesian Meditations (1931), and Crisis of the European Sciences (1936).

47. See Smith, Husserl, 33–35. Smith argues that Crisis of the European Sciences belongs to this fourth stage.

48. See Kockelmans, Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology, 8.

49. Husserl, Ideas I, §34, p. 76. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §34, p. 74: “Das Wesen des Bewußtseins als psychologisch-phänomenologisches Thema.”

50. Husserl, Ideas I, §30, p. 57, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §30, p. 63: “Die ‘Wirklichkeit’, das sagt schon das Wort, finde ich als waches Ich in nie abbrechender zusammenhängender Erfahrung als daseiende vor und nehme sie, wie sie sich mir gibt, auch als daseiende hin.”

51. Kockelmans, Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology, 13.

52. Husserl, Ideas I, §31, p. 57. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §31, p. 63: “Anstatt nun in dieser Einstellung zu verleiben, wollen wir sie radikal ändern.”

53. Husserl, Ideas I, §32, p. 61, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §32, p. 67: “Die zum Wesen der natürlichen Einstellung gehörige Generalthesis setzen wir außer Aktion.”

54. Husserl, Ideas I, §24, p. 44, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §24, p. 52: “Am Prinzip aller Prinzipienn: daß jede originär gebende Anschauung eine Rechtsquelle der Erkenntnis sei, daß alles, was sich uns in der ‘Intuition’ originär, (sozusagen in seiner laibhaften Wirklichkeit) darbietet, einfach hinzunehmen sei, als was is sich gibt, aber auch nur in den Schranken, in denen es sich da gibt.”

55. Husserl, Ideas I, §19, p. 35. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §19, p. 43: “Sachen selbst.”

56. Husserl, Ideas I, §32, p. 61, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §32, p. 67: “‘phänomenologische’ έποχή.”

57. Husserl, Ideas I, §33, p. 63, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §33, p. 70: “die Gewinnung einerneuen, in ihrer Eigenheit bisher nie aufgewiesenen Seinsregion.”

58. Husserl, Ideas I, §33, p. 66. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §33, p. 73: “transzendentales Bewußtsein.”

59. Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, 125.

60. Husserl, Ideas III, §12, p. 64. See also Husserl, Ideen III, §12, p. 75: “Das Wunder aller Wunder ist reines Ich und reines Bewußtsein.”

61. Husserl, Ideas I, §33, p. 65, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §33, p. 73: “phänomenologisches Residuum.”

62. Husserl, Ideas I, §33, p. 66, emphasis in original. See also Husserl, Ideen I, §33, p. 73: “welche uns mit der absoluten Region einer eigenständigen Subjektivität den Seinsboden erschließt.”

63. Kockelmans, Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology, 15.

64. Ibid., 17.

65. Husserl, Ideas III, §12, p. 64. See also Husserl, Ideen III, §12, p. 75: “reines Ich und reines Bewußtsein.”

66. Heidegger, “Postscript,” 234. See also Heidegger, “Nachwort,” 307: “daß Seiendes ist.”

67. Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, 195.

68. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 33. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 37: “Sachhaltig genommen ist die Phänomenologie die Wissenschaft vom Sein des Seienden—Ontologie.”

69. Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, §5, p. 21, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, §5, p. 29: “Für Husserl ist die phänomenologische Reduktion . . . die Methode der Rückführung des phänomenologischen Blickes von der natürlichen Einstellung des in die Welt der Dinge und Personen hineinlebenden Menschen auf das transzendentale Bewußtseinsleben und dessen noetisch-noematische Erlebnisse, in denen sich die Objekte als Bewußtseinskorrelate konstituieren. Für uns bedeutet die phänomenologische Reduktion die Rückführung des phänomenologischen Blickes von der wie immer bestimmten Erfassung der Seienden auf das Verstehen des Seins (Entwerfen auf die Weise seiner Unverborgenheit) diese Seienden.”

70. Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 377.

71. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §2, p. 6. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §2, p. 7: “Dieses Seiende, das wir selbst je sind und das unter anderem die Seinsmöglichkeit des Fragens hat, fassen wir terminologisch als Dasein.”

72. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 30. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 34: “Phänomenologie sagt dann: ἀποϕαίνεσθαι τὰ ϕαινόμενα: Das was sich zeigt, so wie es sich von ihm selbst her zeigt, von ihm selbst her sehen lassen.” The word ἀποϕαίνεσθαι translates as: to show forth something of one’s own; to allow something of one’s own to appear, to come to light, to shine forth.

73. Heidegger, “Postscript,” 234. See also Heidegger, “Nachwort,” 307.

74. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §83, p. 398: “The preliminary disclosure of being, although it is unconceptual, makes it possible for Da-sein as existing being-in-the-world to be related to beings, to those it encounters in the world as well as to itself in existing . . . The existential and ontological constitution of the totality of Da-sein is grounded in temporality” (emphasis in original). See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §83, p. 437: “Die vorgängige, obzwar unbegriffliche Erschlossenheit von Sein ermöglicht, daß sich das Dasein als existierendes In-der-Welt-sein zu Seiendem, dem innerweltlich begegnenden sowohl wie zu ihm selbst als existierendem, verhalten kann . . . Die existenzial-ontologische Verfassung der Daseinsganzheit gründet in der Zeitlichkeit.”

75. Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, 199.

76. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 34. See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 30.

77. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 30, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 34: “Und weil die Funktion des λόγος im schlichten Sehenlassen von etwas liegt, im Vernehmenlassen des Seienden, kann λόγος Vernunft bedeuten.”

78. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 36. See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 32: “However, where there is semblance there is ‘being.’” Cf. Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §7, p. 60: “Yet so much semblance, so much ‘Being.’”

79. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 33, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 37: “Der λόγος der Phänomenologie des Daseins hat den Charakter des ερμηνεύειν, durch das dem zum Dasein selbst gehörigen Seinsverständnis der eigentliche Sinn von Sein und die Grundstrukturen seines eigenen Seins kundgegeben werden. Phänomenologie des Daseins ist Hermeneutik in der ursprünglichen Bedeutung des Wortes, wonach es das Geschäft der Auslegung bezeichnet.”

80. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 31, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 35: “Ontologie ist nur als Phänomenologie möglich.”

81. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §9, p. 42, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §9, p. 40: “The essence of Da-sein lies in its existence.”

82. Richardson, Heidegger, 35.

83. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §9, p. 40. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §9, p. 42: “Das Seiende, dem es in seinem Sein um dieses selbst geht, verhält sich zu seinem Sein als seiner eigensten Möglichkeit.”

84. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §9, p. 40, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §9, p. 42: “Dasein ist je seine Möglichkeit.”

85. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §12, p. 53: “Diese Seinsbestimmungen des Daseins müssen nun aber a priori auf dem Grunde der Seinsverfassung gesehen und verstanden werden, die wir In-der-Welt-sein nennen.” See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §12, p. 49: “These determinations of being of Da-sein, however, must now be seen and understood a priori as grounded upon that constitution of being which we call being-in-the-world.”

86. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §28, p. 133: “Der Dasein ist seine Erschlossenheit.” See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §28, p. 125: “Da-sein is its disclosure.” See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §28, p. 171: “Dasein is its disclosedness.”

87. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §28, p. 133: “Die beiden gleichursprünglichen konstitutiven Weisen, das Da zu sein, sehen wir in der Befindlichkeit und im Verstehen . . . Befindlichkeit und Verstehen sind gleichurspürunglich bestimmt durch die Rede.” See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §28, p. 126: “We see the two equiprimordially constitutive ways to be the there in attunement and understanding . . . Attunement and understanding are equiprimordially determined by discourse.”

88. Schürmann, “Heidegger’s Being and Time,” 83.

89. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §26, p. 112. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §26, p. 118: “Die Welt des Daseins ist Mitwelt. Das In-Sein ist Mitsein mit Anderen. Das innerweltliche dieser ist Mitdasein.”

90. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §41, pp. 179–80. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §41, p. 192: “Das Sein des Daseins besagt: Sich-vorweg-schon-sein-in-(der-Welt-) als Sein-bei (innerweltlich begegnendem Seienden). Dieses Sein erfüllt die Bedeutung des Titels Sorge.”

91. Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §12, p. 83. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §12, p. 57. Cf. Stambaugh’s translation, Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §12, p. 53, “taking care of.”

92. Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §26, p. 157. In n. 4, Macquarrie and Robinson point out the etymological connections between Sorge (care), Fürsorge (solicitude), and Besorgen (concern). See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §26, p. 121: “Fürsorge.” Cf. Stambaugh’s translation, Heidegger, Being and Time (1996) §26, p. 114: “concern.”

93. Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §26, p. 157. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §26, p. 121: “Mitdasein charakterisiert das Dasein Anderer, sofern es für ein Mitsein durch dessen Welt freigegeben ist. Das eigene Dasein ist nur, sofern es die Wesensstruktur des Mitseins hat, als für Andere begegnend Mitdasein.” Cf. Stambaugh’s translation, Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §26, p. 113: “Mitda-sein characterizes the Da-sein of others in that it is freed for a being-with by the world of that being-with. Only because it has the essential structure of being-with, is one’s own Da-sein Mitda-sein as encounterable by others.”

94. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §28, p. 125, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger Sein und Zeit, §28, p. 133: “Es ist ‘erleuchtet’, besagt: an ihm selbst als In-der-Welt-sein gelichtet, nicht durch ein anderes Seiendes, sondern so, daß es selbst die Lichtung ist.”

95. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §55, p. 250. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §55, p. 270: “Durch die Erschlossenheit ist das Seiende, das wir Dasein nennen, in der Möglichkeit, sein Da zu sein. Mit seiner Welt ist es für es selbst da und zwar zunächst und zumeist so, daß es sich das Seinkönnen aus der besorgten ‘Welt’ her erschlossen hat. Das Seinkönnen, als welches das Dasein existiert, hat sich je schon bestimmten Möglichkeiten überlassen.”

96. Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §36, p. 215. Cf. Stambaugh’s translation, Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §36, p. 160: “Being is what shows itself in pure, intuitive perception, and only this seeing discovers being. Primordial and genuine truth lies in pure intuition.” See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §36, p. 171: “Sein ist, was im reinen anschauenden Vernehmen sich zeigt, und nur dieses Sehen entdeckt das Sein. Ursprüngliche und echte Wahrheit liegt in der reinen Anschauung.”

97. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §36, p. 161. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §36, p. 172: “dem bewundernden Betrachten des Seienden, dem θαυμάζειν.”

98. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §54, p. 249, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §54, p. 69: “Der Gewissensruf hat den Charakter des Anrufs des Daseins auf sein eigenstes Selbstseinkönnen.”

99. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §57, p. 255, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §57, p. 276: “Als geworfenes ist es in die Existenz geworfen. Es existiert als Seiendes, das, wie es ist und sein kann, zu sein hat.”

100. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §29, p. 127. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §29, p. 135: “das Dasein in seinem Überantwortetsein an das Da enthüllt.”

101. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §38, p. 164. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §38, p. 175: “Das Dasein ist von ihm selbst als eigentlichem Selbstseinkönnen zunächst immer schon abgefallen und an die ‘Welt’ verfallen.”

102. Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §38, p. 224. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §38, p. 179: “Umgekehrt ist die eigentliche Existenz nichts, was über der verfallenden Alltäglichkeit schwebt, sondern existenzial nu rein modifiziertes Ergreifen dieser.” Cf. Stambaugh’s translation, Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §38, p. 167: “On the other hand, authentic existence is nothing which hovers over entangled everydayness, but is existentially only a modified grasp of everydayness.”

103. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §58, p. 265, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §58, p. 278: “Das Dasein ist rufverstehend hörig seiner eigensten Existenzmöglichkeit. Es hat sich selbst gewählt.”

104. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §62, p. 284 (emphasis in original). See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §62, p. 307: “Entschlossen ist das Dasein ihm selbst in seinem jeweiligen faktischeen Seinkönnen enthüllt, so zwar, daß es selbst dieses Enthüllen und Enthülltsein ist.”

105. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §69, p. 334. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §69, p. 365: “Hinsichtlich seines Seins als Zeitlichkeit sich zeitigend, ist das Dasein auf dem Grunde der ekstatisch-horizontalen Verfassung jener wesenhaft ‘in einer Welt.’”

106. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §68, p. 320. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §68, p. 349: “Die volle, durch Verstehen, Befindlichkeit und Verfallen konstituierte Erschlossenheit des Da erhält durch die Rede die Artikulation.”

107. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §38, p. 150. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §38, p. 160: “dieses Phänomen in der existenzialen Verfassung der Erschlossenheit des Daseins seine Wurzeln hat.”

108. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §44, p. 202. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §44, p. 219: “Das Wahrsein des λόγος als ἀπόϕανσις ist das ἀλήθεύειν in der Weise des ἀποϕαίνεσθαι: Seiendes—aus der Verborgenheit herausnehmend—in seiner Unverborgenheit (Entdecktheit) sehen lassen.”

109. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §7, p. 29, emphasis in original. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §7, p. 33: “Das ‘Wahrsein’ des λόγος als ἀληθεύειν besagt: das Seiende wovon die Rede ist, im λέγειν als ἀποϕαίνεσθαι aus seiner Verborgenheit herausnehmen und es als Unverborgenes (ἀληθές) sehen lassen, entdecken.”

110. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §44, p. 220. See also Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §44, pp. 202–3: “Being true as discovering is a manner of being of Da-sein . . . Discovering is a way of being-in-the-world.” Cf. Macquarrie and Robinson’s translation, Heidegger, Being and Time (1962), §44, p. 263: “Being-true as Being-uncovering is a way of Being for Dasein . . . Uncovering is a way of Being for Being-in-the-world.”

111. Heidegger, Being and Time (1996), §44, p. 205. See also Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §44, pp. 222–23: “Daβ die Göttin der Wahrheit, die den Parmenides führt, ihn vor beide Wege stellt, den des Entdeckens und den des Verbergens, bedeutet nichts anderes als: das Dasein ist je schon in der Wahrheit und Unwahrheit. Der Weg det Entdeckens wird nur gewonnen im κρίνειν λόγω, im verstehenden Unterscheiden beider und Sichentscheiden für den einen.”

112. Heidegger, preface to Richardson, Heidegger, xvi (translated by Richardson). The German (xvii) reads: “‘Phänomenologie’ als das Sichzeigenlassen der eigensten Sache des Denkens.”