Phenomenology of Revelation in Heidegger, Marion, and Ricoeur (eBook)

The Phenomenology of Revelation in Heidegger, Marion, and Ricoeur provides a critical framework for understanding the phenomenology of revelation through a series of close readings that serve as the basis for an imagined dialogue between Martin Heidegger, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricoeur. Adam J. Graves distinguishes between two dominant approaches to revelation: a ';radical' approach that seeks to disclose a pre-linguistic experience of revelation through a radicalization of the phenomenological reduction, and a ';hermeneutical' one that characterizes revelation as an eruption of meaning arising from our encounter with concrete symbols, narratives, and texts. According to Graves, the radical approach is often driven by a misplaced concern for maintaining philosophical rigor and for avoiding theological biases, or ';contaminations.' This preoccupation leads to a process of ';counter-contamination' in which the concept of revelation is ultimately estranged from the phenomenon's rich historical and linguistic content. While Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology may do a better job of accommodating the concrete content of revelation, it does so at the price of having to renouncing the kind of ';presuppositionlessness' generally associated with phenomenological method. Ultimately, Graves argues that a more nuanced appreciation of the complex nature of our linguistic inheritance enables us to reconceive the relationship between revelation and philosophical thought.