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Models of Sociality After Idealism in Gadamer, Levinas, Rosenzweig, and Bonhoeffer Christopher J

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Models of Sociality After Idealism in Gadamer, Levinas, Rosenzweig, and Bonhoeffer Christopher J University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School November 2017 From Object to Other: Models of Sociality after Idealism in Gadamer, Levinas, Rosenzweig, and Bonhoeffer Christopher J. King University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Philosophy Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Scholar Commons Citation King, Christopher J., "From Object to Other: Models of Sociality after Idealism in Gadamer, Levinas, Rosenzweig, and Bonhoeffer" (2017). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7047 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. From Object to Other: Models of Sociality after Idealism in Gadamer, Levinas, Rosenzweig, and Bonhoeffer by Christopher J. King A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy with a concentration in Philosophy and Religion College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Co-Major Professor: Lee Braver, Ph.D. Co-Major Professor: Michael DeJonge, Ph.D. Cass Fisher, Ph.D. Michael Morris, Ph.D. Date of Approval: November 3, 2017 Keywords: ontology, dialogue, intersubjectivity, anthropology, revelation, responsibility Copyright © 2017, Christopher J. King Dedication For Danielle Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Gadamer and Dialogical Sociality ...........................................................................13 Gadamer’s Critique of Idealism .........................................................................................14 Gadamer’s Hermeneutic Ontology ....................................................................................19 The Structure of Understanding .........................................................................................23 Self and Other ....................................................................................................................26 Initiative and the Between .................................................................................................38 Gadamer and Dialogicalism ...............................................................................................44 The Contribution of Gadamer’s Account of Sociality .......................................................51 Chapter Two: Levinas and Sociality as Responsibility .................................................................54 Idealism, Ontology, and the Rejection of Ontology in Levinas ........................................55 The Encounter with the Other: Revelation and Face .........................................................64 Language and Command ...................................................................................................70 Initiative and Passivity .......................................................................................................74 From Two to Three, or Beyond the Face ...........................................................................78 Levinas and Dialogical Sociality .......................................................................................83 Levinas and Transcendental Sociality ...............................................................................89 The Contribution of Levinas’s Model of Sociality ............................................................91 Chapter Three: Rosenzweig and Revelational Sociality ................................................................95 The Critique of Idealism in Rosenzweig ...........................................................................96 Rosenzweig’s Ontology .....................................................................................................99 The Initiative of Revelation .............................................................................................101 Revelation as Love ...........................................................................................................106 Revelation as Temporality ...............................................................................................107 Revelation and Dialogue ..................................................................................................110 The Love of Neighbor ......................................................................................................113 Love of Neighbor as Ethics ..............................................................................................116 A Community for Redemption ........................................................................................119 Rosenzweig and Levinas..................................................................................................125 Rosenzweig and Dialogical Sociality ..............................................................................131 Rosenzweig and Gadamer ................................................................................................133 The Contribution of Rosenzweig’s Account of Sociality ................................................138 Chapter Four: Bonhoeffer and Revelational Sociality .................................................................140 i The Critique of Idealism and Model of Sociality in Sanctorum Communio ...................141 Sociality in the Primal State .................................................................................144 Sociality After the Fall .........................................................................................148 Sociality in the Church.........................................................................................156 The Critique of Idealism and Model of Sociality in Act and Being.................................165 Levinas and Idealism ...........................................................................................170 The Barthian Inversion of Idealism .....................................................................175 Sociality in Christ as the Solution to Idealism .....................................................177 The Ontology of Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being ...........................................180 Bonhoeffer, Rosenzweig, and Revelation ........................................................................183 Chapter Five: Conclusion – Sociality and Ontology ...................................................................186 Beyond Theunissen ..........................................................................................................187 Sociality and Synthesis ....................................................................................................189 The Contributive Approach .............................................................................................191 Philosophy and Theology ................................................................................................197 Ontology and Sociality ....................................................................................................201 References ....................................................................................................................................204 ii Abstract This dissertation offers an account of the different ways in which putatively idealist and transcendental models of sociality, which grounded the subject’s relation to other human beings in the subject’s own cognition, were rejected and replaced. Scrapping this account led to a variety of models of sociality which departed from the subject as the ground of sociality, positing grounds outside of the subject. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Emmanuel Levinas, Franz Rosenzweig, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer represent alternative positions along a spectrum of models of sociality which reject the idealist concept of sociality. The central argument of this dissertation claims that the responses to idealism and transcendental models of sociality ultimately find fault with an inadequate ontology, one which grounds sociality (as well as all of reality) in the cognition of the subject. The ontology of the transcendental model locates the subject as initially unconnected to other subjects such that the first move in relating them together must be epistemological. The social relation is grounded in the subject’s cognitive grasp. Each of the thinkers I examine identifies this as the key problem with idealism; however, their solutions to this problem differ. The differing solutions of Gadamer, Levinas, Rosenzweig, and Bonhoeffer can be identified as occupying different representative positions along a continuum, call it the “scale of social grounding.” What I offer here is a topography of responses to the idealist model of sociality. The ontological ground of sociality, instead of being the subject, is posited as situation of dialogue (Gadamer), the face of the other (Levinas), or divine revelation (Rosenzweig and Bonhoeffer). In each of these alternative models,
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