Metaphysical Insideoutness
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METAPHYSICAL INSIDEOUTNESS: AN INTERPRET ATION OF OVERCOMING METAPHYSICS IN THE HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY, WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON JACQUES DERRIDA, AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE THOUGHT OF FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER A DISSERTATION Submitted to the faculty of The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Normunds Titans June 2003 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT VI A NOTE ON TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS Vll INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE THE PROBLEM OF OVERCOMING METAPHYSICS IN THE HISTORY OF WESTERN THOUGHT INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE................................ 11 Chapter 1. THE WAY FROM AMBIGUITY TO THE RELATIVELY LATE DEFINITIVENESS OF METAPHYSICS 13 The Problematic Origins of Metaphysics: The Aristotelian Puzzle The Middle Ages: The "Golden Age" of Metaphysics? Metaphysics Finally Defined 2. THE OVERCOMING OF METAPHYSICS IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 24 The First Decisive Overcoming of Metaphysics: Descartes The Second Decisi ve Overcoming of Metaphysics: British Empiricism Kant and Metaphysics Husser!: Phenomenology Overcomes Metaphysics Heidegger's Overcoming of Metaphysics The Prevalence of Metaphysical Insideoutness: Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Positivism, Pragmatism, Levinas 3. DERRIDA AND METAPHYSICAL INSIDEOUTNESS 87 Derrida's Understanding of Metaphysics II The Impossible Overcoming The Impossible Possibility: Overcoming without Leaving Insideoutness Outwitting Metaphysical Language with Words: Some Figures of Insideoutness The Interpretative Scheme of the Dissertation PART TWO SCHLEIERMACHER'S METAPHYSICS: UNDERST ANDING AND CONTEXT 4. MET APHYSICS AS SPECULATION 118 Speculation Defined Empirical Speculation as the Proper Speculation 5. SCHLEIERMACHER AND KANT'S METAPHYSICS 137 Similarities and Influences Differences: Schleiermacher's Overcoming Kant Schleiermacher and Kant: Difference in Similarity Summary PART THREE THE CONSCTRUCTIVE METAPHYSICS OF SCHLEIERMACHER INTRODUCTION 181 6. DIALECTICS: TRANSCENDENTAL (METAPHYSICS) AND FORMAL (LOGIC) .. 183 Non-metaphysical Dialectics Dialectics as Transcendental Metaphysics Logic Overcomes Metaphysics III Dialectics in the Point-Zero between Science and Art 7. THE METAPHYSICS OF CONTRASTS 197 Thinking and Being The Intellectual and the Organic Concept and Judgement God and World The Relativity and Interconnectedness of the Contrasts 8. METAPHYSICS OVERCOMING THE OPPOSITES/CONTRASTS 246 Gefiihl and Overcoming Metaphysics Gefiihl and Overcoming Metaphysics as the Ubergang The Ubergang, Gefiihl, and the Transcendent Ground PART FOUR DOGMA TICS OVERCOMES METAPHYSICS INTRODUCTION 271 9. THE GLAUBENSLEHRE AND METAPHYSICS 273 Non-metaphysical Dogmatics as the Discipline of the Church Gefiihl as the Reference Point for Non-Metaphysical Dogmatics Reason and Revelation: Between Rationality and Supra-Rationality of Christian Theology Speculative and Dogmatic Theological Propositions Speculative Consciousness (Metaphysics) and Religious Self-consciousness (Theology): Conflict or Complementarity? Schleiermacher's Commentary on the Glaubenslehre IV in the Open Letters 10. SOME REFERENCES TO OTHER WRITINGS 307 The Brief Outline Speeches on Religion The Letter to Jacobi PART FIVE SCHLEIERMACHER'S OVERCOMING OF METAPHYSICS: AN ASSESSMENT INTRODUCTION 317 11. PHILOSOPHICAL OR DIALECTICAL OVERCOMING OF METAPHYSICS 318 A Better Metaphysics Beyond Metaphysics 12. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY OVERCOMES METAPHYSICS 326 The Impossibility of Overcoming Dogmatics Overcoming Metaphysics Theology and Metaphysics Outside of Metaphysics between Theology and Philosophy CONCLUDING REMARKS: SOME SKETCHES ON SCHLEIERMACHER TODAy................................................... 363 The Figures of Insideoutness in Derrida and Schleiermacher Schleiermacher and Language The tiber of the Ubergang in Schleiermacher and Heidegger Schleiermacher and DIR/econstructive Theology BIBLIOGRAPHY 371 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Claudia Bergmann for her help with German translations. The full responsibility for the outcome, however, is solely mine. I also thank Ms. Eileen Fitzsimmons for the editing work. VI A NOTE ON TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS OF SCHLEIERMACHER'S WORKS Since the dissertation is written in English, I quote the English translations of the primary works of Schleiermacher wherever possible. If one wishes to consult the German originals of such works as the Glaubenslehre and the Brief Outline, I also add the paragraph and section numbers in endnotes. This also applies to the quotations from the basic works of other thinkers, such as Kant, Husserl, and others. I also may occasionally insert some original German words into these quotes from the translated books. As for Schleiermacher's Dialektik, one of the basic texts for this investigation, since the full translation is not available in English, I have had to use the German texts. Basically, I use the original, most comprehensive, Jonas edition of 1839, but next to that I also refer to Odebrecht's 1976 edition of Schleiermacher's lectures of 1822 and Tice's English translation of the 1811 lectures (see bibliography). All translations of the quotations from Jonas and Odebrecht are mine, but the German originals of all direct quotations are supplied in endnotes or, in cases of shorter phrases, in parentheses. I do not do so, however, when translating and quoting other German authors writing on Schleiermacher. In addition, in cases where I do not quote Schleiermacher directly, but rather summarize larger fragments in my own words, I may insert the original German for some ambiguous terms in parentheses. Mostly I do it in order to point out a specific term or word or to show when my translation of a term or word intentionally differs from the plain and most direct translation. Vll INTRODUCTION General Remarks on Motivation, Arguments, Course, and Significance of the Dissertation I have chosen the problem of the overcoming of metaphysics as the main theme of my dissertation. This theme is important today inasmuch as metaphysical foundations in philosophy, as well as in theology, are challenged as never before. Different nonfoundational philosophies and theologies have emerged that claim to have left metaphysics behind. Have they always succeeded? In my opinion, as the dissertation will show, this leaving behind is not as easy as it might seem. Metaphysics has, like the proverbial cat, nine lives, or even many more than nine.' Sooner or later, every metaphysics is challenged and overcome. Yet, every new overcoming of metaphysics has its own implicit metaphysical presuppositions, which may be challenged in tum. The always discernible implicit metaphysics appears to make the overcoming of metaphysics impossible. Is the situation hopeless then? Is there no way out? I think that despite the perseverance of metaphysics, there are some ways out of it. As the title of the dissertation indicates, I am going to contend for a particular position in regard to the problem of metaphysics. My position will be somewhere in the middle between the two ways of overcoming metaphysics. The first is when one metaphysics overcomes another, less adequate metaphysics. The second is when nonmetaphysical thinking leaves metaphysics behind. On the one hand, my position, caJled metaphysical insideoutness, remains inside the game of metaphysics insofar as it acknowledges the impossibility of leaving metaphysics completely behind.2 Therefore, to some extent, it opts for the overcoming of metaphysics in the first sense. On the other hand, my position at the same time calls for the overcoming of metaphysics in the second sense and acknowledges at least some ways of stepping outside metaphysics. This stepping outside takes place while remaining inside the first overcoming. Thus, it is a vacillating middle position between the two. Insofar as this position includes both ways of overcoming, I believe it is a finer way to address the problem of metaphysics. Accordingly, the figure whose thought I would choose as the main object of investigation should have been conscious of both the need of going beyond metaphysics and the impossibility of its final overcoming. Likewise, this thinker would had to have accomplished some overcoming of metaphysics in both senses presented above: proposing some more adequate metaphysics in contrast to the existing ones and also leaving metaphysics behind. In fact, there are many famous philosophers or philosophical schools to which I could apply this philosophical tactic of metaphysical insideoutness as a hermeneutical key, and I will demonstrate it in the first part of the dissertation. However, as the main object, I chose the thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher, a thinker from nineteenth-century Germany who is not so notable as a philosopher or metaphysician, although he is famous in such other fields as theology, pedagogy, hermeneutics, religious philosophy, and others. However, he also addressed metaphysical questions in the lectures on dialectics, which were edited and published posthumously. Moreover, he also worked to overcome metaphysics in theology. In any case, Schleiermacher fits all those requirements. His lectures on dialectic represent a serious contribution to metaphysics and its overcoming. As I will present in the dissertation, Schleiermacher appropriated the most current metaphysics of his time, Kantian transcendental philosophy, at the same time striving to overcome it with, in his view, a more appropriate metaphysics. Besides, Schleiermacher's dialectics as logic overcomes