Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Phenomenolgy and Logic: The Boston College Lectures on Mathematical Logic and Existentialism

Titel: Phenomenolgy and Logic: The Boston College Lectures on Mathematical Logic and Existentialism

Stichwort: Bedeutung d. Phänomenologie 2; Heidegger (Dasein, Existentialismus); Binswanger, Freud (Träume d. Nacht, d. Morgens); Bultmann (Glaube: existentielles Element im Christentum)

Kurzinhalt: [...] Heidegger's existentialism (if one may call it that) is parallel to phenomenological analysis. Not only is what Heidegger is doing a phenomenology of the existing man but the man is structured after the fashion of phenomenology itself.

Textausschnitt: 272d Just as the phenomenologist finds structured meanings in what is manifest, so for Heidegger a man is a source of meanings. He uses the term Dasein to eliminate the subject-object opposition. We might say in English that the existing subject is the origin of the meanings that correspond to the understanding of the phenomenologist in the manifest data. And just as the phenomenologist has to refrain from taking on face value the first bright ideas that come along, just as he has to scrutinize and dig and feel around and penetrate and eliminate oversights and oversimplifications, so man in his living first of all lives inauthentically, and if he begins to penetrate things a little better he may move on to authentic living. In other words, Heidegger's existentialism (if one may call it that) is parallel to phenomenological analysis. Not only is what Heidegger is doing a phenomenology of the existing man but the man is structured after the fashion of phenomenology itself. Just as the phenomenology is the meaning in data, so man is the source of meanings in a living. Just as man may be a source of meanings in a superficial manner that results in inauthentic living, so the phenomenologist may be misled by superficial ideas. And just as the phenomenologist may penetrate to the real meaning of the phenomena and read them off rightly, so the man may move from inauthentic to authentic living. In other words, there is a profound influence of phenomenology on Heidegger, not only from the viewpoint of method but also from the viewpoint of content. (Fs) (notabene)

273a Now Heidegger's existentialism was followed more or less immediately by Ludwig Binswanger's new interpretation of the dream. Freudian interpretation of the dream had been a matter of taking the dream symbols and moving up immediately to a conceptual level of interpretation; Freudian interpretation of what the dream really means is up on the conceptual level. But Binswanger considers the dreamer as the existential subject, and he interprets the dream on the level of the dream. At least that is his ideal. He has written a very short essay entitled Traum und Existenz' ('Dream and Existence'). It has been translated into French,2 and the value of that French translation is that there is also an introduction by Michel Foucault of about 125 pages pulling out all the implications and background and significance of this thirty-page essay that had been written about twenty years previously. Binswanger distinguishes between dreams of the night and dreams of the morning. It is a fairly old distinction. Dreams of the night are mainly under somatic influences. Dreams of the morning are the existential subject beginning to create his world.3 (Fs)

274a Then there is Heidegger's influence on Bultmann. 'The objective' for Bultmann is either science or myth. Christianity is not science, and therefore what is objective in Christianity has to be just myth. What the interpreter of the New Testament has to do is find the existential elements in Christianity. These existential elements are faith, and faith is Christian understanding of Being; the rest is myth. (Fs) (notabene)

274b As you know, of course, this has led to a terrific amount of discussion. There has been published by H.W. Bartsch a series of five volumes under the title of Kerygma und Mythos, Kerygma and Myth, from 1948 to 1955. There is also a supplemental volume to numbers 1 and 2, in which are collected together discussions of Bultman's interpretation of the New Testament.1 From a Catholic viewpoint, Rene Marlé of Louvain, a Jesuit, has written a book on Bultman and the interpretation of the New Testament. It was published in Paris by Aubier in 1956, in the collection of our Jesuit Fathers of Lyons, Théologie, volume 33.2 Marlé provides us with a very thorough exposition of Bultmann. (Fs)

274c So much, then, for the significance of phenomenology: it is a new approach in psychology that has yielded very rich results; there is the profound influence of Husserl's philosophy on Heidegger, and through Heidegger on others, including Sartre; there is the work of Merleau-Ponty; the influence goes into depth psychology and into scriptural interpretation. It ranges pretty well over the map. (Fs)