Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This dissertation is a work of multidisciplinary comparative philosophy of religion. It comprises a philosophical analysis and evaluation of Western traditions of philosophy and theology around the issue of religious anthropomorphism. More specifically, this study focuses on the tradition of Neoplatonic onto-theology in Western thought, and the divide in this tradition over the question of religious anthropomorphism and the divine nature. The dissertation frames this divide in terms of the distinction between an “anti-anthropomorphic” conception of the divine nature on the one hand, and an “attenuated anthropomorphic” conception of the divine nature on the other. Chapters two and three analyze key figures and texts from the “attenuated anthropomorphic” and “anti-anthropomorphic” traditions of Neoplatonic onto-theology. The fourth chapter considers a significant critique of this tradition as a whole leveled by Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger, among others, namely, that the onto-theological project as such constitutes a form of conceptual anthropomorphism. The fifth chapter provides an overview of the multidisciplinary scientific field known as the “bio-cultural study of religion,” which has yielded compelling evidence that anthropomorphic religious ideas are maturationally natural, culturally adaptive in certain past cultural contexts, and thus may reflect human cognitive limitations. The final chapter incorporates evidence from the BCSR (bio-cultural study of religion) in a comparative philosophical evaluation of the debates within and around the traditions of Neoplatonic onto-theology. The central philosophical thesis of this dissertation is that evidence from the BCSR negatively impacts—without decisively undercutting—the plausibility of the “attenuated anthropomorphic” tradition relative to the “anti-anthropomorphic” tradition. It does so by demonstrating that the anthropomorphic attributions inherent to the attenuated anthropomorphic view are undergirded by hypersensitive cognitive mechanisms, which are prone to misfiring. However, the BCSR also indicates several important weaknesses of the anti-anthropomorphic tradition of Neoplatonic onto-theology with regard to the social viability of this tradition. The BCSR also erodes the plausibility of the critique that onto-theology is itself a form of gross conceptual anthropomorphism. It does so by demonstrating that abstract onto-theological concepts lack the conceptual and cognitive liabilities inherent to the type of religious anthropomorphism advocated by Barth and Heidegger.

It is the critique of Western metaphysics in the thought of the later Martin Heidegger that poses the problem for consideration in this work. Namely, if Western metaphysics as onto-theology has indeed fulfilled its prefigured configurations and found its completion in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, as Heidegger claims, then what place, if any, is left for those theologians inspired by Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysics? To assist in developing a basis upon which to address this issue, I limit this work to a critical examination of Whitehead's metaphysics in light of the later Heidegger's critique of onto-theology. Therefore Heidegger's critique is normative for this project. The application of Heidegger's critique to Whitehead's metaphysics results in the following conclusion: Whitehead's metaphysics does not commit the mistakes detailed in Heidegger's critique of metaphysics. It is demonstrated, further, that the general character of Whitehead's metaphysics as fallibilistic at least leaves his metaphysics open to the possibility of Being (Sein). Specifically, it is shown that Whitehead's metaphysics does not divide entities into existence and essence; nor does it search for the explanatory principle (arche); nor is God understood as causa prima and therefore causa sui; nor is Creativity an empty concept and therefore nihilistic; nor is his metaphysics rooted in the cogito sum, nor does it anthropomorphize the world in order to secure certainty amongst multiple perspectives. Whitehead's metaphysics does not lead away from Being (Sein); rather, it may very well provide an occasion for Being (Sein). After this evaluation there are some brief remarks offered about how Whitehead's metaphysics, while not obscuring Being (Sein) in any of the ways detailed by Heidegger, also offers a philosophy of nature. This philosophy of nature leaves open the possibility of developing a natural theology that is not necessarily indicted by Heidegger's critique. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

DUBOVEC, M.: Difference of ontological difference in thinking of Martin Heidegger (Master's thesis) Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Humanities, Institute for philosophy and religious studies. Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Aleš Novák, Ph.D. The aim of master's thesis consists in explication of ontological difference in Martin Heidegger's thinking. For this purpose is used a dual method of interpretion of difference in the concept of ontological difference. First it is the issue of the difference as such. For the understanding of this idea it is analyzed the text Onto-Theological Constitution of Metaphysics. The second interpretation od difference concentrate on different understanding of ontological difference. The text Basic Problems of Phenomenology is presented as the opposite one, in which the ontological difference is connected with the temporality. The last part of master's thesis concerns the text On the essence of ground. With this the concept of transcendence is introduced as a subject in which the explication of ontological difference leads. Key words: ontological difference, onto-theology, ecstatic-horizontal temporality, Temporality, transcendence, understanding of Being

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This thesis argues that in order to demonstrate the possibility and sensibility of Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo's 'weak religious belief', it should be understood as the becoming uncertain of traditional, metaphysical (strong) belief. The difference between weak belief and strong belief can thereby be understood not as two distinct modes of belief, but as an event of weakening in the history of belief that has yet to be realized by those who believe with the support of metaphysical certainty. Since Vattimo aligns metaphysics with violence, and since he aligns traditional belief with metaphysics, to demonstrate and defend the possibility of Vattimo’s weak belief amounts to the reduction of violence in the world. However, the possibility and validity of weak belief has been called into question by thinkers such as Richard Rorty. In light of a review of the arguments and counter-arguments between Rorty and Vattimo, I argue that it is possible to distinguish weak belief from strong belief as long as this remains a weak distinction.