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Abstract
This article shows that Held’s central philosophical concern is with the manner in which the withdrawal of world is apparent in kairological moments disclosed in fundamental moods. The phenomenology of world is for him a way of overcoming voluntarist nominalism. World is of its nature a limit to will and is experienced in the passivity of being acted upon. It is shown how Held emphasizes the common origins of philosophy and politics in the fundamental moods of wonder and awe. In the final section it is argued – with reference to his more recent encounter with theological and scriptural themes – that Held’s understanding of kairos and doxa is one‐sided. By failing to account for the biblical transformation of both terms, especially St Paul’s conception of the kairos as a suspension of world and by equating the Judaeo‐Christian God with its voluntaristic conception, Held fails to give sufficient weight to the singularity of the kairos in the kenotic humbling of will implicit in the Christian notions of creation and incarnation.
Notes
1 See Janicaud, Citation2000. Held’s recent work in the phenomenology of religion can be seen, however, as obliquely responding to this turn.
2 This is a theme which comes up repeatedly in his published works. For a representative case see Held, Citation1997.
3 This is reflected, for example, in the fact that Held shows no hesitation in appealing to the political nature of human beings, which Arendt expressly denies.
4 See Held, Citation1998: p. 196: ‘Democracy … arose not only historically in the same age and culture as episteme, but both belong close together by virtue of the objective meaning of their primal institution.’
5 See Theaetetus 155d, Metaphysics 982b12ff.
6 For the following see Kittel, Citation1935: pp. 235–55.
7 In this sense the original meaning of kabod approaches the pre‐philosophical meaning of ousia: it refers to the property owned by the person.
8 As Karl Rahner puts it: ‘[I]n communicating himself as deus revelatus he becomes radically open to man as deus absconditus’ (Rahner, Citation1979: p. 243).
9 Jean‐Luc Marion talks in this context of bedazzlement. See Marion, Citation2002: pp. 66f.: ‘Bedazzlement arises when the gaze cannot bear what appears to it. This appearance must be perceived in order to bedazzle. It bedazzles, however, only if seen as a gift of love, and this is only possible through love “which bears all” (1 Corinthians 13:7).’
10 See 1 Corinthians 1:22–4.
11 See Marion: ‘the speech offered to God sings, that is, it praises’ (Marion, Citation2001: p. 133).
12 See Rahner, Citation1966: p. 166.
13 On the pre‐Christian meaning of kairos see Kerkhoff, Citation1973.
14 The very use of this word/name requires justification in a philosophical context. No claim is being made here as to the divinity or otherwise of Jesus of Nazareth. What is at issue is the phenomenological insights which may be gained from the accounts of doxa and kairos in the Judaeo‐Christian Scriptures.
15 In Paul’s account – something taken up by many of the Church Fathers – the death and resurrection of Christ repeat creation.
16 In this sense (pace Held, Citation2001: p. 256) I would claim that the love of neighbour is nothing other than a love of enemies. It is a love rooted in the ‘imitation of Christ’, i.e. a love for those who were his enemies (see Romans 5: 10). That the command to love your enemies can only be understood as an exhortation to imitation of the example of Christ is shown by Ricoeur: see Ricoeur, Citation1995.
17 Creation I take to be neither an exclusively theological issue nor a pseudo‐scientific theory, but rather to concern fundamentally the problem of alterity and world. Heidegger reduced creation to the metaphysics of matter and form, and Held in effect is doing the same by opposing it to the chora, which in his understanding is primordial to such a distinction. See Held, Citation1997: pp. 164f.
18 The nearest that the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures come so such a formulation is in 2 Maccabees 7: 28.
19 For a recent defence of such a reading of the kenotic significance of the incarnation see Caputo, Citation2006.
20 One only has to read Paul on virginity to be convinced of this. See 1 Corinthians 7.