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Thesis Submitted to the University of Ottawa in Partial Fulfilment of The RATIONALITY, IMPOSSIBILITY, AND ANALOGY: GADAMER’S HERMENEUTICS AND THE “THEOLOGICAL” TURN IN FRENCH PHENOMENOLOGY ANTHONY DELLA ZAZZERA Thesis submitted to the University of Ottawa in partial Fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctorate in Philosophy in Philosophy Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Anthony Della Zazzera, Ottawa, Canada, 2020 ii RATIONALITY, IMPOSSIBILITY, AND ANALOGY: GADAMER’S HERMENEUTICS AND THE “THEOLOGICAL” TURN IN FRENCH PHENOMENOLOGY Anthony Della Zazzera BA, University of Ottawa, 2010 MA, University of Victoria, 2013 SUPERVISOR: Dr. Francisco Gonzalez, Professor of Philosophy INTERNAL EXAMINERS: Dr. Denis Dumas, Associate Professor of Philosophy Dr. Jeffrey Reid, Professor of Philosophy Dr. Sonia Sikka, Professor of Philosophy EXTERNAL EXAMINER: Dr. John Betz, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To begin, I would like to thank those who contributed most proximally to the completion of this thesis as a work of scholarship. Firstly, the Government of Ontario and the University of Ottawa for providing the funding necessary to complete this project. Secondly, my supervisor, Professor Francisco J. Gonzalez, whose direction was, invariably, measured, diplomatic, and informed by good sense and a wealth of expertise. Also, the internal members of my committee, Professors Denis Dumas, Sonia Sikka, and Jeffrey Reid, whose comments at the proposal stage remained consistently on my mind throughout the entirety of the two years it took to complete the project. In addition, the external member of my committee, Professor John R. Betz, whose work, from a theological standpoint, has been and should remain a source of instruction for me, from a philosophical standpoint. Finally, the Philosophy Graduate Studies Academic Officer, Catherine Bernard, whose administrative help was always impeccably prompt, efficient, and friendly. Next, I would like to thank those who contributed to this project perhaps more distally, by providing me consistent support and structure—intellectual, emotional, psychological, and spiritual—above all: my mother, my father, and Kira. Words, at least my words, are inadequate here. It behoves me to mention my MA thesis supervisors, Professors James O. Young and Margaret Cameron, since not a day went by during the completion of this project during which I did not recall some guidance they had previously given me. Also, though he was not involved in my project directly, I would like to thank Professor Graeme Hunter, for having always been— since my very first undergraduate philosophy course—an encouraging and clarifying influence on my philosophical work. To anyone I have not mentioned but should have, I apologise, but I doubt you will read this, nor should you need to in order to receive my thanks for whatever aid you have given me. iv ABSTRACT In contemporary, French phenomenology, a debate has arisen concerning whether phenomenology can allow for a certain kind of “theological” consideration. In particular, Jean- Luc Marion argues that the potential of the reduction has not been fully explored and that a full reduction to pure givenness in fact allows one to give an account of the paradoxical experience of the impossible beyond experience, which is described as a phenomenon of revelation and may include a Revelation of God. Marion’s claims have been considered contentious. As I interpret it, the debate plays out between 1) those who also admit that phenomenology can occasion a form of “theological” consideration, but maintain, unlike Marion, that it remains a more existential affirmation of the impossible beyond experience, represented by Jacques Derrida and John Caputo, and 2) those who refuse any role for this impossible beyond experience within phenomenology (and perhaps more generally), and insist that phenomenology be preserved as an essentialist science of the appearances, represented by Dominique Janicaud. I take the positions of Derrida and Caputo, on the one hand, and Janicaud, on the other, to each entail extreme consequences that ought to be avoided—the former resulting in a form of irrationalism and the latter converting phenomenology into a form of pragmatism. Furthermore, I find Marion’s basic claim, that the impossible beyond experience ought to have a role in shaping finite experience, to be worth investigating further. However, Marion concedes too much to the deconstructive position of Derrida and Caputo at the outset, and so I find that the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer provides an opportunity to correct some of the deficiencies in Marion’s position, but also argue to a similar end as he does. I find that Gadamer’s position incorporates an implicit analogical structure between rational experience and the impossible, thereby permitting one to maintain the impossible as impossible, but also affirm a certain possibility for understanding it. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Table of Contents v Introduction vi Chapter 1: General Definition of the Problem and Overview of the Thesis Project 1 What is Phenomenology?......................................................................................................................... 4 What is “Theology”?................................................................................................................................ 13 What is Phenomenology?—Revisited...................................................................................................... 20 Positions in the “Theological” Turn and My Contribution to the Debate................................................ 41 Chapter 2: “Theological” Phenomenology 66 Beyond Affirmation and Negation; Beyond Presence and Absence........................................................ 72 The Gift and the Impossible..................................................................................................................... 92 Phenomenality as Givenness and the Question of Saturated Phenomena................................................ 107 What is Being Attempted?........................................................................................................................ 117 Chapter 3: “Phenomenology and Theology Make Two” 134 Phenomenology, the Reduction, and the Invisible................................................................................... 138 Janicaud’s Philosophy: The Overcoming of Overcoming........................................................................ 156 Chapter 4: Gadamer’s Hermeneutics, the Other, and the Potential of Analogy 167 Recapitulation and Introduction of a New Theme................................................................................... 168 Chapter Methodology............................................................................................................................... 184 Gadamer’s Understanding of Philosophy, Metaphysics, and “Theology”............................................... 188 What is Speech?....................................................................................................................................... 225 Conclusion 275 Bibliography 281 vi INTRODUCTION In this thesis project, I investigate the relationship between rationality and impossibility in the context of the philosophical issues raised by the debate regarding the “theological” turn in French phenomenology. While the debate, ostensibly, concerns whether or not phenomenology, via a reduction to a paradoxical given, can be reimagined as allowing one to admit that the phenomenon of revelation (that may include a Revelation of God) is possible, I understand the most pressing concern of the debate to be the more general discussion of what role the impossible ought to play in relation to philosophical or rational thought. The impossible, here, refers to that which cannot be constituted within any horizon of finite human experience, that which is radically other to what our experiential apparatus can express. It is generally believed, by many of those involved in this debate, that what is so radically other cannot be conceived in terms of what is intelligible to us (i.e. in terms of being). It is suggested, however, that it may be accessed in some other manner, if one is able to successfully overcome or temper the philosophical concern for being. At stake is whether a strict philosophical discipline can or should incorporate any concern for such impossible otherness and, if so, in what form. The relation between this notion of impossible otherness and that to which one refers by the term “God” may not be immediately apparent; however, it comes to be largely convertible with this term, insofar as God, in the debate regarding the “theological” turn in French phenomenology, comes to represent the ultimate instance of otherness or of that which it is impossible for subjectivity to assimilate. God becomes the ultimate test case for whether phenomenology is meant to reduce all experience to some ideal form or whether it must leave some elements of experience beyond the reach of the reduction. In some ways this raises the question of the relation between essentialism and existentialism in contemporary continental vii philosophy generally and phenomenology in particular—where “essentialism” indicates a concern for the universal, formal, or ideal abstractions from individual experience and “existentialism,” indicates a concern for the particular, real instances and content of life, diversely, uniquely, or individualistically
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