Religiously We Dwell: Heidegger's Later Contribution to Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

The Enlightenment has bequeathed to us the notion that religion can be treated as an object of theoretical inquiry, giving rise to the “secular” concept of religion as a field of meaning or truth‐content that is (ideally) isolable from the particular practices that constitute religious worship. I argue that the later Heidegger's “poetic” thought disrupts the paradigm underlying the secular concept of religion and points us toward an alternative understanding of religion as tantamount to being‐in‐the‐world. Heidegger thus opens the way for post‐secular reflection on the transformative potential of religion in human culture.

Confucian Translation Problems and a Phenomenological Solution

“…Insofar as it is the very root of interpretation, Confucian ideas always remains partially concealed or withdrawn from their English translations. Perhaps the most central issue at stake in the classical paradigm was that of the possibility of correspondence of our knowledge to the things as they are in themselves (Rogers, 2015).…”

“…The "being" of a thing consists in the way in which it points beyond itself (i.e. its actuality as a thing) into wider possibilities for meaning (Rogers, 2015). In this sense, the temple of Confucius is not merely a temple; rather it is a large-scale complex of temple buildings in oriental style in memory of Confucius.…”