Alternative confessions, conflicting faiths: A review of the influence of Augustine on Heidegger [Book Review]

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82 (2):317-335 (2008)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The extent of the influence of Augustine on Heidegger, long only indicated in a few notes in Being and Time, has come into focus with the publicationof Heidegger’s earliest lectures. Far from one among many sources upon which Heidegger draws, we now know that Augustine’s Confessions is a central source of concepts for the early Heidegger. While this is further evidence of the ongoing relevance of Augustine to contemporary philosophy, it does not necessarily makeHeidegger an Augustinian thinker. The question of the degree to which Heidegger’s philosophy is compatible with Augustine’s theology is the subject of a recentlypublished volume of papers, The Influence of Augustine on Heidegger. While the editor, Craig de Paulo, proclaims the advent of an “Augustinian phenomenology”founded upon Heidegger, several contributors exhibit more caution, pointing out important divergences between Heidegger—whom no one would call a Christian—and Augustine. The author sides with the skeptics, reading Heidegger as in fact a subversion of Augustine. Heidegger reverses Augustine’s central insight, that the restless heart is intentionally structured, directed toward union with God. Heidegger’s anxiety in the face of death has no intentional term; it is self-reflective,Augustinian agitation without that which agitates it

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Augustinian Elements in Heidegger’s Philosophical Anthropology.Chad Engelland - 2004 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 78:263-275.
Heidegger on Luther on Paul.Timothy Stanley - 2007 - Dialog: A Journal of Theology 46 (1):41-45.
The Augustinian Impact on the History of Time.Daniel Collins-Cavanaugh - 2001 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 75:183-196.
Hannah Arendt on conscience and evil.Arne Johan Vetlesen - 2001 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 27 (5):1-33.
Augustine on evil.Gillian Rosemary Evans - 1982 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Memory.Jeffrey Andrew Barash - 2008 - Studia Phaenomenologica 8:401-409.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
56 (#254,517)

6 months
3 (#439,232)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Sean McGrath
Memorial University of Newfoundland

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references