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En se mettant passionnément à son écoute, Heidegger nous a permis d’entendre la métaphysique d’une manière inouïe. Par un juste retour des choses, dans un geste inédit, il s’agira ici de mieux entendre Heidegger en se mettant patiemment à l’écoute d’un métaphysicien précis : Descartes, ou plutôt à l’écoute de ce qu’il nous en dit. Car loin d’être anecdotiques, les significations de la pensée de Descartes dans l’œuvre de Heidegger révèlent fidèlement les orientations de celui-ci, en et hors métaphysique. Comme il sied en herméneutique, il sera donc question de sens, celui que l’on prend n’étant pas moins indifférent à celui que l’on donne que celui que l’on donne n’est innocent de celui que l’on prend. / Heidegger shows us a new way to understand metaphysics by attending patiently to it. In this work, I would like to pay attention to Heidegger and to what he has to say about one metaphysician in particular, namely Descartes. Heidegger’s understanding of Descartes’ thought should not be considered as anecdotal since it brings to light his own path outside and within the metaphysical domain. I will adopt here a hermeneutic approach: focusing on the meaning one chose as well as on the meaning the other gave, we show how the former influenced the latter.

Les suites du spiritualisme en France et celles de l'idéalisme en Allemagne ont donné lieu à deux figures majeures de la pensée du XXème siècle : Bergson et Heidegger. La reprise du projet ancestral de la philosophie première conduit chacun à l'exigence d'un dépassement des structures conceptuelles de la tradition en vue de repenser à nouveaux frais, l'être selon le temps. Ainsi, à propos de la méthode proposée de part et d'autre, le premier pas consiste à articuler leur entente de la question "Pourquoi quelque chose plutôt que rien ? " dans la perspective d'un renversement du principe ontothéologique dont celle‐ci procède. Puis, après une lecture suivie de leur manière d'établir le concept d'un temps fondamental, et un examen critique de l'interprétation que Heidegger donne de l'idée bergsonnienne de durée, l'étude tente d'éprouver la divergence de leur confrontation à Aristote comme représentant de la conception naturelle d'un temps dérivé. Cette épreuve ultime visant à dégager de façon explicite leur position vis-à-vis d'une étape cruciale dans l'installation du règne de la métaphysique occidentale contribue dès lors à repenser les conditions d’un échange dont leurs projets respectifs pourraient au final bénéficier l’un l’autre / The after-­‐effects of spiritualism in France and those of idealism in Germany have led to two major figuresin XXth century thought: Bergson and Heidegger. The resurgence of the ancestral project of first philosophy conducted them both to demand an overcoming of traditional conceptual structures with a view to think being once again in regards to time. Thus, concerning both methods, the first step would be to articulate their understanding of the question "why something rather than nothing?" in the perspective of a reversal of the onto-­‐theological principle of which it proceeds.Then, after a sustained reading of their way of establishing the concept of fundamental time, and a critical examination of the interpretation Heidegger gives of the Bergsonian idea on duration, our study attempts to test their diverging confrontation ofAristotle as a representative of the natural conception of derivative time. This ultimate test which aims to release in an explicit way their position in regards to a crucial stage in the installation of the reign of occidental metaphysics contributeshenceforth the rethinking of the conditions of an exchange from which their respective projects could both finally benefit

Esta tese tem como objetivo demonstrar como a noção de ontoteologia se mostra como conceito que permite vislumbrar importante movimento no pensamento de Heidegger no início da década de 1930. Para tanto, parte-se das análises da tensão entre ontologia e teologia ressaltada por ele em suas interpretações fenomenológicas da filosofia antiga. A partir de 1927, quando se dedica à fundamentação da metafísica a partir da finitude do Dasein, essa tensão é incorporada no conceito de metafísica, entendida como conhecimento do ente enquanto tal e na totalidade. No entanto, devido ao conflito que se deflagra entre a ênfase crescente na finitude do Dasein e nas pretensões universalistas da metafísica, tornado evidente no confronto com Hegel, Heidegger abandona essa perspectiva transcendental de uma metafísica científica. A expressão ontoteologia, nesse sentido, torna-se indicativa do afastamento desse projeto por apontar a não consideração da finitude do Dasein e a sobreposição que se promove entre ontológico e ôntico / This thesis aims to show how the notion of ontotheology is a concept that indicates important movement in Heidegger\'s thinking in the early 1930s. To do so, we start with the analysis of the tension between ontology and theology emphasized by Heidegger in his phenomenological interpretations of ancient philosophy. From 1927, when he is engaged with the project of laying ground of metaphysics from the finitude of Dasein, this tension is incorporated in the concept of metaphysics, understood as knowledge of beings as such and as a whole. However, due to the conflict that breaks out between the increasing emphasis on the finitude of Dasein and the universalist pretensions of metaphysics, that becomes evident with the confrontation with Hegel, Heidegger abandons this transcendental perspective of a scientific metaphysics. The expression ontotheology is indicative of the abandoning of this project by pointing out the metaphysics failure to consider the finitude of Dasein properly and simultaneously to promote an overlap between ontic and ontological

This study is concerned with the spiritual impetus and the lived dimension of the philosophy of the French Thomist Jacques Maritain in light of John Caputo's Heideggerian critique of Thomist metaphysics. In Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics, Caputo argues that the thought of Thomas Aquinas, probably the most important and most representative figure of orthodox Catholic thinking, is a paradigmatic case of what Martin Heidegger calls 'ontotheology'. This is the dominating tendency of Western philosophy and theology to view Being not as a mystery, but metaphysically as a mere collection of things which are simply present- external to the human being and the value of which is use. For Aquinas, according to Caputo, God is the highest 'being' that creates other 'beings', and it is in virtue of this relationship that human beings, allegedly made in God's image, view the world simply as a collection of things to be manipulated. The first question constituting this study's point of departure, then, is: if Aquinas is indeed an exemplar of ontotheological thinking, is the same true of Jacques Maritain, perhaps the twentieth century's most influential follower and interpreter of Thomas Aquinas? Yet in the same work Caputo also proclaims that what has been said is not the whole truth about Aquinas, and the argument that his thought is an instance of ontotheology is in fact what Caputo sets out to respond to-for the sake of recovering an Aquinas who was not a 'cold rationalist', but a spiritually gifted contemplative, a Catholic saint. Caputo makes the case that we can, by employing a method of 'retrieval' or 'deconstruction'-inspired by Heidegger and Jacques Derrida-find that which is hidden or left 'unthought' in Aquinas but which nevertheless determines his entire philosophical and religious life. This, Caputo argues, is a pre-metaphysical, mystical tendency directed towards the mystery of being, which overcomes metaphysics and escapes ontotheology. Here I apply this Heideggerian critique and retrieval to Maritain, and I argue that while there is in Maritain the same 'ontotheological' tendency to view reality as a collection of things and God as paradigmatic maker of things-the prima causa so richly expressed in Thomistic doctrines of the 'transcendentals' and participative being-there is in him a deep pre-metaphysical, mystical tendency which is, in fact, far more explicit than in Aquinas. In the first part of the study, I compare the philosophical doctrines and projects of Maritain and his first teacher and guide, Henri Bergson, and then of Heidegger in relation to Maritain. I also give a sketch of Maritain's religious and intellectual development, identifying the key religious and artistic figures involved: the novelist Léon Bloy and the painter Georges Rouault. In light of the philosophical analyses and what can be gleaned from Maritain's biographical notes, his correspondence, and the biographical insights provided by those close to him, I argue that we can see in Maritain the same concern for the question of the meaning of being in relation to human life that we find in Heidegger, and that, like Heidegger, this concern underlies his philosophical thought and serves as the impetus for something beyond philosophy. I show that from his Bergsonian beginnings to his later days as a Little Brother of Jesus, Maritain has a profound sense of the pre-conceptual and intuitive kinds of knowledge that we find in existentialist thinkers such as Heidegger, and also artists and mystics. I posit that while Maritain claims what he calls the 'intuition of being' is the most primordial experience human beings can have of ultimate reality, there is, in fact, an experience, or aspiration to have such an experience, which is even more basic, with greater implications for overcoming metaphysics and ontotheology: mystical communion with ultimate reality. The aspiration for such communion is, I claim, the 'unthought' in Maritain that must be sought out for the purpose of retrieving a Maritain who goes beyond metaphysics. Mapping out the main branches of Maritain's thinking about being in terms of the classical doctrine of the 'transcendentals' and corresponding instances of connatural knowledge, the second part of the study is devoted to finding where, in Maritain's thought, a retrieval might be possible. Examining Maritain's conceptions of the connatural experience-knowledge of the moral good and mystical experience, I conclude that we cannot discover any overcoming of metaphysics and ontotheology in either when they are taken on their own terms. For underlying both conceptions, I claim, is Maritain's 'master concept' of the 'act of existence', or esse, the metaphysical principle which makes it possible for the human being to take hold of their own existence and participate in the moral and divine life. The distinction between esse and the essence of beings (essentia) and a stress on the former, as Caputo argues with regard to Aquinas, in fact only supports Heidegger's thesis on the ontotheological character of Thomist thought. For a stress on esse, the principle by which God creates and sustains things in existence is only the outcome of a preoccupation with conceiving God primarily as the 'maker' of things. And what of esse when it comes to mystical experience? Mystical experience, Maritain says, is that of which metaphysical wisdom 'awakens a desire' even while it is unable to attain it, such that the testimony of it, such as that provided by St. John of the Cross, 'no philosophical commentary will ever efface'. Yet here, too, esse only serves to make an unbridgeable ontological and cognitive divide between God as viewed in terms of His causal transcendence and as an intentional object of consciousness, as presence- something or someone external to oneself. This is so even as one is, in virtue of the connatural experience-knowledge of love, united with Him in 'one spirit', as Maritain says, following St. John of the Cross. Given this, I seek a retrieval of Maritain elsewhere, in the richest and most original areas of his thought: the connatural experience-knowledge of the artist and the relationship between the artist and the mystic. For Maritain, true artists and mystics are not concerned with reducing reality to manageable chunks but with expressing the mystery of reality, and, as I demonstrate in the final two chapters, it is when the vocations of the Catholic artist and the Catholic mystic converge in Maritain's reflections-in the cases of Léon Bloy, St. John of the Cross, and Maritain's wife Raïssa-that we are able to retrieve a Maritain that, while very much remaining a Catholic philosopher, is also a mystic. I claim that it is when his thought is situated in its wider existential and religious context that Maritain as both thinker and contemplative escapes the charge of ontotheology because there exists in him a primordial and utterly determining mystical aspiration to experience a communion in love with ultimate reality, best expressed in terms of poetic and mystical language, rather than the metaphysical language of Thomist philosophy. Essential in demonstrating this are events in Maritain's life as well as people-artists and mystics-who reveal the mystery of Being to him. Toward the end of the study, I claim that this immanent mysticism in Maritain-which, unlike that of Caputo's retrieved Aquinas-balances apophatic and cataphatic elements and, as such, is complex and profound enough to render the categories of contemporary debate on the nature of mysticism and mystical experience in need of revision.

Esta tese tem como objetivo demonstrar como a noção de ontoteologia se mostra como conceito que permite vislumbrar importante movimento no pensamento de Heidegger no início da década de 1930. Para tanto, parte-se das análises da tensão entre ontologia e teologia ressaltada por ele em suas interpretações fenomenológicas da filosofia antiga. A partir de 1927, quando se dedica à fundamentação da metafísica a partir da finitude do Dasein, essa tensão é incorporada no conceito de metafísica, entendida como conhecimento do ente enquanto tal e na totalidade. No entanto, devido ao conflito que se deflagra entre a ênfase crescente na finitude do Dasein e nas pretensões universalistas da metafísica, tornado evidente no confronto com Hegel, Heidegger abandona essa perspectiva transcendental de uma metafísica científica. A expressão ontoteologia, nesse sentido, torna-se indicativa do afastamento desse projeto por apontar a não consideração da finitude do Dasein e a sobreposição que se promove entre ontológico e ôntico / This thesis aims to show how the notion of ontotheology is a concept that indicates important movement in Heidegger\'s thinking in the early 1930s. To do so, we start with the analysis of the tension between ontology and theology emphasized by Heidegger in his phenomenological interpretations of ancient philosophy. From 1927, when he is engaged with the project of laying ground of metaphysics from the finitude of Dasein, this tension is incorporated in the concept of metaphysics, understood as knowledge of beings as such and as a whole. However, due to the conflict that breaks out between the increasing emphasis on the finitude of Dasein and the universalist pretensions of metaphysics, that becomes evident with the confrontation with Hegel, Heidegger abandons this transcendental perspective of a scientific metaphysics. The expression ontotheology is indicative of the abandoning of this project by pointing out the metaphysics failure to consider the finitude of Dasein properly and simultaneously to promote an overlap between ontic and ontological

Pixar’s Toy Story (John Lassiter, 1995) is not just a story about toys and the children that play with them, but a demonstration of how we interact with the world. This thesis looks at the way in which both main children, Andy and Sid, interact with their toys and how this interaction is one that is structured by way of what Martin Heidegger calls “Enframing.” In this modality of playing, toys and other things and entities in the world, and the world itself, appear to the children as on-hand resources for use at any time and can be molded, as if plastic, to fit their needs. I problematize this way of interacting with the world by looking at not only it manifests in Toy Story, but also in the process of the film’s production, Silicon Valley aesthetics, our reliance upon plastics, neoliberal capital in light of the “1099 economy,” and ecological ramifications of these practices as seen in the ecological registers. Through these metaphysics, we seek to mold the world in accordance with human-centered interests as we play within the world. My thesis also turns to understand how metaphysics has transformed over time so that we can work towards bringing forth a different way of relating to the world that is sustainable, ethical, and one of care. I argue for an understanding of things in the world likened to an interconnected and interdependent network that we are always connected to, and in an “interplay” with. I conclude the project by arguing for a possible turn to the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, and other philosophers who work in process metaphysics for a possible reinvigoration of “apparatus theory,” which has lost favor with many film scholars since the 1970s/1980s. I argue that a process framework could provide fresh light on the cinematic apparatus in light of digital at-home streaming services, as well as work towards revealing stronger interlinked connections between media, economics, ecology, geopolitics, etc.

This thesis provides an historical and intellectual summary of the role of the concepts of 'substance,' and 'participation,' in the making of the doctrine of the Trinity. In the concluding chapter, a study is made of the assumptions of deconstruction, which are somewhat hostile to a substance paradigm. We argue for an appreciation of the importance of both substance and participation for the Trinity, and philosophy generally. Chapters are dedicated to individuals who have in some way contributed to perceptions of these two terms, as they pertain to the Christian notion of the Trinity. Additionally, we seek to define some philosophical problems that accompany a Trinitarian metaphysics of 'substance,' and 'participation.' The problems include those of deconstruction: issues such as 'Logocentrism,' and 'Presence.' Finally, we investigate how Trinitarian ontology can provide answers to many of the questions Derrida raises conceming the problematic future of metaphysical thinking. / Philosophy and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

This thesis provides an historical and intellectual summary of the role of the concepts of 'substance,' and 'participation,' in the making of the doctrine of the Trinity. In the concluding chapter, a study is made of the assumptions of deconstruction, which are somewhat hostile to a substance paradigm. We argue for an appreciation of the importance of both substance and participation for the Trinity, and philosophy generally. Chapters are dedicated to individuals who have in some way contributed to perceptions of these two terms, as they pertain to the Christian notion of the Trinity. Additionally, we seek to define some philosophical problems that accompany a Trinitarian metaphysics of 'substance,' and 'participation.' The problems include those of deconstruction: issues such as 'Logocentrism,' and 'Presence.' Finally, we investigate how Trinitarian ontology can provide answers to many of the questions Derrida raises conceming the problematic future of metaphysical thinking. / Philosophy and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

This thesis explores the most basic purpose of education and how it can be advanced. To begin to analyze this fundamental area of concern, this thesis associates notions of education with notions and experiences of truth and authenticity, which vary historically and culturally. A phenomenological analysis, featuring the philosophy of Heidegger, uncovers the basic conditions of human experience and discourse, which have become bent upon technology and jargon in the West. He draws on Plato's account of the 'essence of education' in the Cave Allegory, which underscores human agency in light of truth as unhiddenness. Heidegger calls for ontological education, which advances authenticity as it preserves individuals as codisclosing, historical beings.