James Orr - ''Being and Timelessness''- Edith Stein's Critique of Heideggerian Temporality

Modern Theology 30:1 January 2014 ISSN 0266-7177 (Print) ISSN 1468-0025 (Online) DOI: 10.1111/moth.12056 “BEING AND TIMELESSNESS”: EDITH STEIN’S CRITIQUE OF HEIDEGGERIAN TEMPORALITY JAMES ORR Heidegger’s self-consciously secular elaboration of existentialist philosophy springs from a revisionist account of time as the primordial ontological feature of being-in-the-world. This account pointedly rejects the theological notion of eternity as an empty and derivative correlate of time. His distaste for the eternal was characteristic of a widespread antipathy amongst twentieth-century existentialists towards the metaphysics of “essence” against which they so often defined themselves. For a commitment to essentialism was typically thought to presuppose a commitment to the ontological priority of a substance’s essence over a substance’s existence, and one crucial metaphysical feature of that priority was the former’s resistance to temporal flux. But Heidegger’s conception of temporality in his early period1 was also an explicit reaction against the alleged pessimism in theology’s construal of time as an indelible mark of human finitude and fallenness from which believers must hope ultimately to escape.2 This article challenges the coherence of Heidegger’s revisionism and his corollary critique of Christian theology’s alleged antipathy to time. It aims to do so by retrieving some unjustly neglected criticisms levelled at his James Orr St John’s College, Cambridge, CB2 1TP, UK Email: [email protected] 1 The ensuing discussion focuses on the “early” Heidegger, a phase in his thought that can be identified, following Kisiel’s periodisation, with his first Freiburg period (1919–1923), his Marburg period (1923–1928), and the first year of his second Freiburg period (1928–1929). See Theodore Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. xiii. 2 Michael Theunissen identifies a consistently negative attitude to time—prior to but exacerbated by Christian theology—running from Parmenides to Kierkegaard. See Michael Theunissen, Negative Theologie der Zeit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), esp. pp. 321–371. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd ” in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed. my own “Edith Stein’s Critique of Sociality in the Early Heidegger”. 2006). Finite and Eternal Being: An Attempt at an Ascent to the Meaning of Being (Washington. Maria-Chiara Teloni. 55–98.” in Hermann Schäfer (ed. pp. “Edith Stein und Martin Heidegger. Endliches und Ewiges Sein: Versuch eines Aufstiegs zum Sinn des Seins. DC: ICS Publications. The publication history of MHE betrays an indifference to Stein’s editorial intentions which extends well beyond the tragic circumstances of her death. pp. “Anhang: Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie”. pp. Journal of the British Society of Phenomenology 42/2 (2011). Antonio Calcagno. The editors—for reasons that remain a little unclear—omitted to include MHE in this edition. It was finally published in 1950.” Analecta Husserliana 83/5 (2004). and which brings into sharp contrast the painstaking care devoted to Heidegger’s own Nachlass. 269–285. Maynooth Philosophical Papers 4 (2007). in John Sullivan (ed. trans. no extended analysis and assessment has hitherto been undertaken of her central criticisms of the role played by temporality in Sein und Zeit that is sufficiently sensitive to their theological dimension. I briefly trace the relevant historical background to the time-philosophical approaches adopted by Heidegger and Stein. 2006). and Life-Philosophy in Edith Stein’s Critique of the Early Heidegger” (forthcoming). Alasdair MacIntyre. pp. 593–613. and Vincent Wargo. Ein Leben für die Wahrheit (Fridingen an Donau: Börsig. 379–396. pp. 198–214.g. but only as an independent treatise alongside shorter occasional writings. references throughout list German and English paginations respectively). “Time and the Formation of the Human Person: A Comparison of Edith Stein’s and Martin Heidegger’s Thoughts. Annäherungen an Martin Heidegger: Festschrift für Hugo Ott (Frankfurt: Campus-Verlag. the galley proofs were suppressed by the local authorities as a result of the Aryan publication laws introduced by the NSDAP in 1935. esp. 125–138. 1996). K. 5 Edith Stein. Edith Stein Symposium (Carmelite Studies 4) (Washington. eight years after Stein was gassed in the “Little White House” at Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 9. John H. Finitude.). MHE). 1942.). Edith Stein. Mette Lebech. Section II rehearses how Heidegger constructs his account of “authentic” temporality in polemical 3 A number of scholars have surveyed different aspects of Stein’s response to Heidegger’s early thought.3 Stein’s substantive challenges to her erstwhile colleague are primarily to be found in an ambitious neo-scholastic synthesis of medieval and phenomenological insights. Nota. 184–186. “Martin Heidegger’s Existential Philosophy”. Gesamtausgabe 11–12 (Freiburg: Herder. See e. 445–499. interest in it by this point would have been extremely limited on the basis that the intellectual mood had largely shifted in favour of an examination of the thought of Heidegger in his later period. pp. Rainer Marten. By way of brief summary of that publication history. F. Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie (hereafter. 1913–1922 (New York and London: Rowman & Littlefield. “Edith Stein and Martin Heidegger”.). Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue. Gesamtausgabe 11–12 (Freiburg: Herder. DC: ICS Publications. a few weeks before EES was due to be published in the summer of 1937. in Lina Börsig-Hover (ed. and “The Fullness of Life: Death.“Being and Timelessness” 115 approach by the Jewish-born phenomenologist and Carmelite spiritual writer.).4 and in a much shorter—and remarkably underexplored—reflection originally intended as an appendix to EES. Reinhardt. EES). trans. 2006). pp. 4 Edith Stein. 1987). It was finally published in 1962. “Sein und Zeit in the Works of Edith Stein: the Possibility and Forms of Existence. pp. Osvaldo Rossi. Timing and Temporality in Islamic Philosophy and Phenomenology of Life (Dordrecht: Springer. 1991). It was not until 2006—exactly seven decades after its composition—that MHE was finally published according to Stein’s original wishes. “Die Fülle oder das Nichts? Edith Stein and Martin Heidegger on the Question of Being”. Lina Börsig-Hover. “Reading Against the Grain: Edith Stein’s Confrontation with Heidegger as an Encounter with Hermeneutical Phenomenology”. Endliches und Ewiges Sein (hereafter. 50–73. 2002) (where relevant. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 74/2 (2000). © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . “Edith Steins Auseinandersetzung mit Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie”. In any event. Nevertheless. pp. Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 55/3 (2013).5 The argument of the present study unfolds as follows: in Section I. pp. 233–248. 2007). I suggest that Stein’s theological engagement with Heidegger hints indirectly at the falsity of the dilemma between a commitment to the broadly “essentialist” metaphysics of classical theism and an “existentialist” attunement to the phenomenology of lived experience. More constructively. and not as an intrinsic feature of reality itself: as a pure “form of intuition” (Form der Anschauung).10–14 (217b 29–224a 17). The locus classicus is Aristotle.6 This position inaugurated an influential construal of time as an indispensable medium through which the faculty of understanding is able to conceptualise the “manifold of intuition” (Mannigfaltigen der Anschauung). successive moments.116 James Orr contradistinction (i) to a construal of time as an endless. Bergson’s recurring complaint against this model was that by conceiving of time exclusively in terms analogous to the physical division of a material 6 7 See e. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . Physics IV. Section III analyses Stein’s striking phenomenological elaboration of Aquinas’ argument for God’s existence ex contingentia. his own concept of the durée pure was ultimately motivated by the latter’s rejection of temporal realism. Although Bergson alleged that Kant failed adequately to distinguish time from space (the other form of intuition). Immanuel Kant. I. spatialised succession of present moments and (ii) to what I shall term an “onto-chrono-logical” understanding of eternity with which he alleges this construal to be structurally complicit.g. but rather to an ontologically ultimate being transcendent of temporal limitation. Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781/1787). I conclude that these multiple strands coalesce into a searching critique of Heidegger’s phenomenology of temporal awareness that should unsettle those who remain sympathetic to it. it orders the manifold of experience as part of a cognitive process internal to the experiencing subject. Kant’s account is of course notable for its insistence that time should be understood by reference to the structures of human subjectivity. The approaches adopted by Heidegger and Stein to the metaphysics of temporality trace their ultimate lineage to Kant’s arguments for time’s ideality set out in the Transcendental Aesthetic of the first Critique. the classical model of time—a descendant of Aristotle’s principle that time is the measure of change7 and ostensibly underwritten by Newton’s discoveries—suffered from the illusion that time was primarily to be understood as an evenly divisible series of equal. In Bergson’s view. Section IV examines Stein’s unique adaptation of Przywara’s analogia entis with which she seeks to advance this argument and shows how she recovers Kierkegaard’s notion of the “moment” from Heidegger’s attempt to vitiate its theological suggestiveness. namely sense experience. namely that the self’s introspective awareness of existential fragility—so astutely articulated in the pages of Sein und Zeit—points ultimately not to Heidegger’s “nothing”. A22/B26. and (ii) a futural dimension (“protention”) in which the object is anticipated (since the note is heard in the context of the sequence of notes that succeed it). It was only this kind of model that could do justice to a subjective awareness of time as structured in a single. a single note from a familiar melody). temporality was not only constituted by a complex intentional structure. pp. Time and Philosophy: A History of Continental Thought (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. for if an object were only ever given to sense experience in a chronologically discrete “now-moment”. in other words. 10 See in particular Edmund Husserl. it was itself the condition of possibility for many other forms of intentionality. Husserl is said to have remarked: “We are the true Bergsonians now” (quoted in Rafael Winkler. 90–139. unified intentional structure. A brief but instructive diagrammatic account of Husserl’s phenomenology of time can be found in David Woodruff-Smith. this structure is understood to be constituted by: (i) a temporal background (“retention”) in which the object is “reproduced” (since the single note in the melody is never heard in isolation.11 I claim only that—taken together—they (i) represent a broadly 8 Henri Bergson. pp. the metaphor contaminated its referent: time. pp. On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (Dordrecht: Springer. 1991). In addition to the primal impression. a “primal impression” corresponded to the “now-moment” of a “temporal object” (to borrow Husserl’s own example. Husserl’s proposal was to identify temporality as a function of what he termed the “pre-intentional” inner consciousness.8 The aim of Bergson’s own model of time as “duration” was to uncover instead a more primordial qualitative grasp of temporality that accorded a proper primacy to the experiencing subject. present. 2011). 2007). and future experiences. Husserl began to develop a still more nuanced account of temporality that nevertheless shared much with the one he advanced. it could not in fact be discernible as temporal at all.10 The cursory character of the foregoing survey should neither obscure the numerous differences between these three thinkers’ philosophical emphases nor suggest that other thinkers did not make equally significant contributions. pp. Thus Bergson dismissed what he considered to be the falsely objective “chronometric” model in favour of one that stressed the interpenetration of temporal states of consciousness. 2008).). But this itself was to be understood as part of a larger. 21–75. 93–115 at p. According to his view. but rather in the context of the sequence of notes that precede it). © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . came to be spatialised. 11 A useful recent overview of these contributions may be found in John McCumber. 210–217. A few years after Bergson had begun to formulate this approach.“Being and Timelessness” 117 object. 2006). Husserl (London: Routledge. 9 At a conference in 1911 held by the Göttingen Circle (the group from which the phenomenological movement partly sprang). in Anna-Teresa Tymienecka (ed. unified whole constituted by past. “Husserl and Bergson on Time and Consciousness”.9 For Husserl. Time and Freewill: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (New York: Cosimo Classics. Analecta Husserliana XC (Dordrecht: Springer. 93). McCumber argues that the continental tradition’s distinctive approach to time and history—in particular its fundamental rejection of atemporality—is its defining characteristic. First. 1992).12 “clock-time”—erroneously construes time in spatialised terms as if it were a kind of entity. the philosophical task of inquiring into the nature of time comes to be intimately bound up with a phenomenological analysis of temporal awareness. 4–6. Heidegger holds that the ordinary Aristotelian concept—one might term this. and (ii) form the intellectual hinterland of Heidegger and Stein’s own treatments of temporality. What primarily the clock does in each case is not to indicate the how-long or how-much of time in its present flowing. Like Bergson (of whom he was nevertheless often critical). . and not simply episodes in one’s conscious awareness. time is the fundamental existential category: an authentic grasp of time allows Dasein both to project itself or “run ahead” (vorlaufen) to the very edge of its existence and to lay hold of the way in which its past lives on as a “having-been” (Gewesenheit) within a present which is consequently 12 In The Concept of Time. William McNeill (Oxford: Blackwell. which is in fact derivative of a more primary “authentic” temporality (eigentliche Zeitlichkeit) understood as an existential disposition towards time which allows Dasein to grasp the concrete “there-ness” of its lived existence. this subjectivist position goes hand-in-hand with a highly critical view of its realist counterpart. This time is thoroughly uniform. Only in so far as time is constituted as homogenous is it measurable . This second point can be unpacked in three closely connected ways. the axis just sketched signals a marked shift in at least one highly influential strand of the Western philosophical tradition in this period towards a more subjectivist understanding of time. . trans. pp. Both inherited their Doktorvater’s suspicions that a putatively objective model of time should be seen as definitive. Third. a position that it sees as adopting an excessively functional and reductive stance towards time as nothing more than a putatively objective measuring-stick for the unfolding of reality. homogenous. but to determine the specific fixing of the now”. . Heidegger asks: “What do we learn from the clock about time? Time is something in which a now-point may be arbitrarily fixed . . It is partly against the backdrop of Husserl’s phenomenology of time that Heidegger develops his own critique of the “ordinary” or “vulgar” concept of time (der vulgäre Zeitbegriff). though his corollary argument for the priority of “ecstatic temporality” as that which confers unity on one’s entire existence. For Heidegger. Clock-time founds Dasein’s “inauthentic” temporality (uneigentliche Zeitlichkeit). © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . both shared his sympathy for models emphasising the primacy of the subjective awareness of temporality. And yet no now-point of time is privileged over any other . II. represents a clear departure from Husserl. . . following his own analysis.118 James Orr continuous historical trajectory of approaches to time in continental philosophy during the century and a half or so prior to Heidegger and Stein. Second. Few thinkers exerted a greater influence than Husserl on the thought of Stein and Heidegger. we will never be able to employ eternity methodologically as a possible respect in which to discuss time. Concept of Time. p. 16 Martin Heidegger. 2000). Heidegger’s unmistakable influence on Sartre’s analysis of temporality in Being and Nothingness (London: Routledge. and future.16 this passage is expressed with relative tact. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . then philosophy will never have eternity and. should not be considered as a collection of ‘givens’ for us to sum up—for example. then he has resolved to understand time in terms of time or in terms of the aei.13 It is only in the context of this model that Heidegger acquiesces to any discussion of the self’s attaining “authenticity” by orienting itself towards “Being”. trans. . namely the conception found in the theological tradition.14 Given the centrality accorded to the task of “interpreting” Dasein against the backdrop of time in Sein und Zeit (hereafter. pp.“Being and Timelessness” 119 “stretched”. 14 In this article. pp. an “ontological” discipline and a subordinate “ontic” one. “Phenomenology and Theology”. The philosopher does not believe. particular beings has a bearing on the point that is being advanced. If the philosopher asks about time. present. the term “Being” is capitalised whenever (i) a reference is intended to Heidegger’s Sein and/or (ii) Heidegger’s version of ontological difference between ontological being “as such” and ontic. it is perhaps hardly surprising that the question of eternity is scarcely raised as its argument unfolds. Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. 1962). Yet in the opening to a lecture given to the Marburg Theological Society three years prior to the publication of SZ. 47–78. William A. in Wegmarken (Frankfurt: Klostermann. The eternity with which philosophy conjures when it fails to grasp this point is ersatz eternity: no phenomenological analysis of time could ever disclose the only conception of eternity that is not “a mere derivative of being temporal”. past. SZ). trans. accordingly. McNeill. 13 Martin Heidegger. pp. which looks like eternity but proves to be a mere derivative of being temporal (ein bloßes Derivat des Zeitlichseins). Philosophy can never be relieved of this perplexity. §65 passim. . Heidegger offers an intriguing explanation of this subsequent foreclosure of the question: If our access to God is faith and if involving oneself with eternity is nothing other than this faith. 1–2 (emphasis original). 1998).15 In light of Heidegger’s later and much more aggressive methodological distinction between philosophy and theology as. in Pathmarks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004). The message is clear: philosophy—by which he means phenomenology—lacks the resources with which to understand temporality sub specie aeternitatis. is the legitimate expert on time (So ist denn der Theologe der rechte Sachkenner der Zeit) . then. respectively. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. as an infinite series of ‘nows’ in which some are not yet and others are no longer—but rather as the structured moments of an original synthesis”. Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwell. 107: “The three so-called ‘elements’ of time. 1953). “Phänomenologie und Theologie”. Cf. The theologian. 39–62. Time therefore unifies Dasein within a threefold model of ecstatic temporality. 15 Heidegger. Timaeus 37d. 427/p. In SZ. If God’s eternity can be “construed” philosophically. Cf. for Heidegger eternity is the image of inauthentic temporality.17 This passage annotates Heidegger’s contention that eternity is structurally complicit with inauthentic temporality: when the ontology of the present-athand (Vorhanden) is applied to the eternity of God. the handful of references to eternity shows Heidegger to be more trenchant in his treatment of theological elaborations of the notion. The Question of God in Heidegger’s Phenomenology (Evanston. In the first of two significant references. p. does not need to be discussed in detail. 111. then it may be understood only as a more primordial temporality which is “infinite”. Whether the way afforded by the via negationis et eminentiae is a possible one remains to be seen. 18 17 © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . n. 475. p. moreover. 423/p.. n. Thus in the second significant reference. Ibid. that exhibits a fascinating and—so far as I am aware—previously unnoticed structural parallel to Heidegger’s later “onto-theo-logical” critique of metaphysics.19 Previously Heidegger had been willing to treat the theologian as the “expert on time” for his ability to draw an illuminative—even constitutive—contrast between eternity and time. It is a critique. Plato. the traditional notion of eternity—misleadingly construed as the iterative reification of a single “spatialised” moment— is oblivious to the “spannedness” (Gespanntheit) of time that defines the “stretchedness” (Erstrecktheit) of authentic temporality. the latter is conceived as an unending series of putatively countable present moments. It is worth noting that nowhere in SZ or elsewhere does Heidegger seem aware of—much less discuss—the crucial distinction drawn in theological debates on time between sempiternity and timelessness. 13. where for Plato time is the image of eternity. 1990).120 James Orr Although Heidegger rarely alludes to the notion of eternity in SZ. 10. metaphysics is constituted by “onto-theo-logy” because it: (i) hypostasises particular “ontic” entities (and in so doing ignores their primordial “ontological” origin) before (ii) unreflectively projecting these entities onto a metaphysical backdrop that it illicitly construes as “ontologically” Heidegger. SZ. IL: Northwestern University Press. 479. by contrast. this basic attitude of qualified respect is still discernible. One crude way of framing this polarity is to suggest that. 19 George Kovacs. As far as Heidegger is concerned. he confines his remarks to a mere footnote. p. but these represent a tantalising moment in his early thought that comes to have a crucial bearing on Stein’s own approach: The fact that the traditional concept of “eternity” as signifying the “standing now” (nunc stans) has been drawn from the ordinary way of understanding time and has been defined with an orientation towards the idea of “constant” presence-at-hand. he cites Plato’s claim that time is “the moving image of eternity”18 as an egregious instance of this mistake. By way of reminder. presumably. with ontochronology: that conspicuous reluctance to administer a coup de grâce to theological reflection—the desire to purify and re-align theology rather than abolish it tout court—lies just beneath the surface of this earlier critique. and this. it is a question that Heidegger keeps pointedly open in SZ. This is most obviously attested by Heidegger’s declaration that the possibility of some viable concept of eternity becoming available is a question that “remains to be seen”. pp.“Being and Timelessness” 121 foundational for all beings. Joan Stambaugh. 31–68. Harnack. Moreover. “The OntoTheo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics”. but rather a purgation of idolatrous metaphysical intrusions upon the authentic experience of the early Christians (a view that was. can human beings fall to their knees. Only once this process of purgation is complete. 42–74.20 So too. “Die onto-theo-logische Verfassung der Metaphysik”. 20 Martin Heidegger. It is through this slender opening that Stein attempts to pick a route from temporal self-awareness to an atemporal source of the possibility of such self-awareness. foundational series of present moments—that is in fact tacitly derivative of it. As we shall see. In a similar vein. to re-orient believers away from the simulacra of the philosophers towards the true object of faith. is what motivates the sharp remark that “this god-less thinking is perhaps more open to [God] than onto-theo-logic would like to admit”. I suggest. especially in light of his remarks in the Marburg Lecture cited above. First. the implications of this for Stein’s engagement with him are twofold. The stated purpose of the critique is. at any rate. it is important to recall oneself to an important but frequently forgotten feature of those broadsides. and Bultmann). 1957). in Identität und Differenz (Pfulligen: Verlag Günther Neske. Heidegger seems to claim that what one might term “onto-chrono-logical” metaphysics: (i) reduces time to an unending series of present “ontic” moments before (ii) illicitly extrapolating from this reduction an “ontological” eternity—conceived as a reified. of course. 2002). If it is correct to suppose that Heidegger’s critique of ontochronology does indeed foreshadow his later broadsides against ontotheology. her attempt to re-open a theological window onto the concept of eternity does find a concrete exegetical basis—albeit a slender one—within the confines of SZ itself. he does so specifically in the context of analogy (“the way afforded by the via negationis et eminentiae”). dance. and play music before God. Second. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . the most promising means of developing a conception that is not ontochronological are to be found in the way of analogy. trans. claims Heidegger. IL: The University of Chicago Press. it is fair to suppose that Heidegger did not take every conception of eternity to be tainted with ontochronology. pp. By this I mean the influential view that Heidegger did not intend the ontotheological critique to be a rejection of the God of Christianity. At the very least. as far as Heidegger is concerned. largely received wisdom in the wake of the so-called Hellenization Thesis advanced by Bousset. in Identity and Difference (Chicago. in other words. EES.. 41/p. p. it reveals to me a dual aspect: that of Being and that of not-being. This question in turn points to an intimate association between Being and time that parallels Heidegger’s own account of Dasein’s ecstatic temporality and its relationship to “the nothingness of Being” (die Nichtigkeit des Seins): When I turn toward Being as it is in itself.24 Stein contends that introspective analysis confronts the individual with the question of the nature of that Being of which he is conscious and indeed of the self that is conscious of this Being. p.122 III. In this context. my joys and griefs—to everything. 44/pp. to everything that manifests itself as part of the being of the self-conscious ego.23 Yet Stein’s appeal to the Augustinian sum and Cartesian cogito resists the epistemological foundationalism to which these strategies tended to give rise in the modern era. What interests her is not whether the sense of epistemic certainty arising from self-awareness transcends all other reflective activity. so Stein’s philosophy of time is shaped fundamentally by her phenomenological analyses of the life of the essential self (Ichleben). Both therefore share a resistance to a concept of time as extrinsic to the world of the self. Indeed at one point Stein specifically disclaims the “container” view of time for which Heidegger evinces such contempt. James Orr Just as Heidegger sees temporality as intimately bound up with Dasein. II §3.21 But she departs from him in rooting her account of the life of the ego in arguments that recall Augustine’s De Trinitate and Descartes’ Méditations. 23 Ibid. in short. 22 The term refers to the practice—pioneered by Husserl—of suspending one’s ordinary beliefs about sensory objects in order to lay bare the purely qualitative impact of phenomena on subjective experience. no enduring being can be concealed in them”. in which I live and am. but the much more modest observation that self-awareness exhibits a perduring quality that illuminates by contrast the temporality and transience characteristic of other realms of conscious experience. 24 Ibid. these latter two dimensions of time are not static: they are not containers in which something could be preserved or from which something could emerge. thinking self on the basis of introspective reflection on one’s capacity for self-awareness. 36. The “I am” is unable to endure this 21 Stein. Stein argues that what remains in the wake of the phenomenologist’s reductions or “bracketing”22 is a residual field of primordial self-awareness that encompasses the individual’s cognitive and affective dimensions: [T]he same [indubitability] applies to all my desires and volitions. my dreams and hopes. texts that famously argue for the indubitability of the existing.. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . 39–40: “Although the present moment could not be without past and future. ”27 Much of Stein’s analysis therefore bears the stamp of Husserl’s intentional structure of time-consciousness averted to in Section I. in all likelihood. 164. and Science: The Literacy of Investigative Practices and the Phenomenology of Edith Stein (Dordrecht: Kluwer. But by its breaking apart in its flux into Being and not-being. experiential model of time fundamentally akin to that espoused by Heidegger: past and future clocktime are folded into the “stretched” present. 28 Marianne Sawicki. 61. is null and void . that temporality is inseparable from finite being. nor any “no longer” and “not yet. Husserl handed the manuscript for this work over to Heidegger. as I know it and as I know myself in it. Body.29 But it also shows signs of a profound engagement with Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein’s “stretched” temporality and with the role that non-being plays within that temporal structure. Furthermore. 29 Cf. at every moment I find myself face to face with nothingness. 57/p. 38. who hurriedly published an unpolished version of it in 1928—no mention was made of Stein’s extensive contributions. 37 (emphasis original). 30 Stein. In pure being there is no longer any admixture of not-being. 42/p. p.30 Yet axiomatic to Heidegger’s analysis is the assumption that the “Nothing” that supposedly enshrouds Dasein is impenetrable: his own philosophical Ibid. 39. that it juts continuously out into nothingness: My own being. Ibid. is “an ever repeated flashing-up of actuality. .”26 Time is therefore nothing more than the self’s experience of the passing present. p.25 Stein seems implicitly to favour a durational. Stein agrees that phenomenological analyses of moods provide a legitimate basis for a philosophical inquiry into the nature of time. 55. . much of the drafting28—of his definitive statement on the subject. and that temporality is to be construed not as “clock-time” but “ecstatically”. she concludes. by myself I am nothing..” In short.“Being and Timelessness” 123 dual perspective . This means that the Being of which I am conscious as mine is inseparable from temporality . n. time is not represented by means of spatial metaphors. 27 Ibid. this is not entirely surprising. the idea of pure Being is revealed to us. 62/p. . Only in the present can an individual grasp the past (through memory) and the future (through expectation) in a way that makes sense of these as temporal dimensions that can be “filled with the existential breadth of Being. EES. p. p.. . pure Being is not temporal but eternal. . Text. 26 25 © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . p. Given that her stint as his assistant included extensive work on the editing—and. 44/p. 2001). and only in this present is Being disclosed as “actual”: existence. she endorses Heidegger’s claim that Dasein’s being is suspended on a knife-edge. .. note 10 above. . David Farrell Krell. by contrast. that “the Nothing noths” (das Nichts nichtet). Dasein is so thoroughly encompassed by the Nothing.31 For Stein. is blown wide open . why does it return so incessantly to the question of the meaning of Being? In Stein’s view.124 James Orr inquiry into it returns the mystical proclamation. . One might try by whatever power to silence it till it dies or to prohibit it as meaningless—it always inevitably arises again from the displayed distinctiveness of the human being and requires a something which is founding without being founded. is not autonomous but received being. MHE. the question concerning the origin does not completely disappear.32 Differently put. 465/pp. “What is Metaphysics?” in Basic Writings (London: Routledge. . she remarks that it is as if in Heidegger’s case “a door [viz. 481/p. since this would be inconsistent with the phenomenological deliverances of its self-awareness.. “Was ist Metaphysik?” in Wegmarken (Frankfurt: Klostermann. Hedwig Conrad-Martius. p. p. the radical contingency of Dasein that emerges when it is set against the backdrop of nothingness serves only to exacerbate the problem of Being.” Thus does thrownness reveal itself as creatureliness. bolted and so thoroughly blocked that any further opening seems impossible” (Ibid. p. 2004). 45). and then immediately closed again. and its being are inescapably there: it is a being “thrown into existence” [which] marks [it] as the extreme opposite of an autonomous and intrinsically necessary being a se . © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . Quoting from a review of SZ by her friend (and godmother). the question of the meaning of being] . not to resolve or clarify it. p. . The being of the ego. 43–51 at p. something which founds itself: one that throws the “thrown. . . famously ridiculed by Carnap. If. 103. It must therefore be sustained by something altogether different: The ego . . 33 In a related context. Heidegger fails adequately to confront the significance of his own insight: The human being is designated as thrown . 70–71. if Dasein’s existence really bears the marks of radical contingency—as Heidegger of course claims it does—why is it incoherent for one to ask after the availability of a non-contingent correlate to existential contingency?33 Stein notes that it cannot be the ego that self-sufficiently sustains conscious life. quoting Hedwig Conrad-Martius. . . for instance. It has been placed into existence and is sustained from moment to moment 31 Martin Heidegger. Philosophy Today 3/1 (1959). . . “Phenomenology and Speculation”. With this. 116/p. as a constantly changing living present. 81. 70–71). 465/p. Stein asks: “Does [Heidegger’s] investigation not in many places and in surprising ways halt in front of references which present themselves in a direct imperious manner?” (ibid. 2011). however. pp. trans. 32 Stein. 58/p. This means that we have now found a legitimate point of departure for a philosophy based on natural reason and natural knowledge. 55. p. is that the fundamental sense of existential security reveals Dasein to be in the grip of a delusion. 38 Ibid.37 But at this point she simply draws attention to the philosophical legitimacy of her inquiry into the origin of this received existence: [T]hus eternal and temporal. since it awakens within it a desire “not only [for] an endless continuation of its own being but a full possession of being as such”. 57/p. 37 Ibid. EES. “we go through life almost as securely as if we had a real grip on our existence”.”35 But she goes on to argue that the contingency of the ego itself introduces Dasein to the idea of fullness (Idee der Fülle).. . claims Stein. 54 (Stein’s emphasis). p. immutable and mutable being (and also non-being) are ideas which the intellect encounters within itself.36 Elsewhere Stein describes the ontological dependence characteristic of temporal being in terms of the ongoing receiving of Being as gift. pp. 56. 35 34 © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . 37. she notes.. insisting that prior to it lies a more prevalent mood of fundamental existential security: “normally”. p. this attitude to life is to be dismissed as entirely unreasonable given Dasein’s exposure to nothingness.“Being and Timelessness” 125 (Es ist ins Dasein gesetzt und wird von Augenblick zu Augenblick darin erhalten).34 Stein has already noted that the temporal flux that is constitutive of Dasein’s conscious experience points to the idea of “pure being. 58. 59/p. 56–57/p. But she is quick to deny Heidegger’s claim that this mood is dominant. p. 42/p. p.. 40 Ibid. . Ibid. 62/p. Heidegger rejects the self’s sense of existential security as a superficial mark of Dasein’s lostness in “the One” (das Man).38 Stein agrees that Dasein’s experience of anxiety (Angst) signals that it has been brought face-to-face with nothingness itself. they are not borrowed from anything outside itself. 36 Ibid. 42/p. it is in fact an entirely warranted—and more phenomenologically credible—counterpoint to the anxiety that Heidegger takes to be Stein. so that the rational human approach ought to consist in (again quoting Heidegger) “a passionate .. cf. 37. p.39 Yet according to Heidegger. consciously resolute anxiety-stricken freedom toward death. What this would imply.”40 She strongly rejects this inference by reverting to the earlier account of the perduring quality of the Ichleben that withstands and unifies the ceaselessly fluctuating character of conscious experience. But for Stein.. 61: “Whatever exists in the mode of temporality does not possess its being but receives it ever anew as a gift”. 39 Ibid. 126 James Orr Dasein’s existentially determinative mood. it follows that no separation can be drawn between what it is and that it is: this being. I am.41 Stein proceeds to position her account of the self’s awareness of temporal contingency as the first premise in an argument that seems to have been adapted from Aquinas’ argument for God’s existence from the contingency of creaturely existence.2 a.44 Phenomenology may strike some as an unprepossessing point from which to defend the doctrine of divine simplicity. eo quod ipsa est esse tantum . . quod est per aliud. a first cause—there must be something which is the cause of the existence of all things and which for this reason is being itself .3 resp. 58.43 Furthermore. . “The Anthropology of Aquinas’ De Esse et Essentia”. Review of Metaphysics 51/4 (1998). Et hoc est causa prima. 59. . For if a child were living in the constant fear that its mother might let it fall. 836–838. that from moment to moment I am sustained in my being. 43 See esp. 42 41 © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . 829–847 at pp. . For her. Schudt argues that Stein’s argument bears a closer resemblance to Aquinas’ argument in De Esse et Essentia (which she had translated for the first time into German) than—as was previously thought—to the tertia via in Summa Theologiae Ia q. It is here that one reaches the very core of Stein’s disagreement with Heidegger’s interpretation of the transcendental temporality that frames Dasein: The undeniable fact that my being is limited in its transience from moment to moment and thus exposed to the possibility of nothingness is counterbalanced by the equally undeniable fact that despite this transience. Everything temporal is as such fleeting and therefore needs an eternal hold or support. since the ultimate source of received being cannot itself receive being. “must be its very act of existing”. This security [is] the sweet and blissful security of a child that is lifted up and carried by a strong arm . pp. Yet this is precisely what Stein attempts. Stein. . EES. 60 / p. Cf. . “Edith Stein’s Proof for the Existence of God from Consciousness”. Karl Schudt. what separates the necessary identity of essence and Ibid. we should hardly call this is a “rational” attitude. De Ente et Essentia IV: “Et quia omne. And this is the first cause which is God”). 59–60/p. reducitur ad illud quod est per se sicut ad causam primam. quae deus est” (“And since everything which exists by virtue of something else can be traced back to that which exists by virtue of itself—that is to say. For further discussion. oportet quod sit aliqua res. Stein concludes. 105–125 at p. in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82/1 (2008). and that in my fleeting being I share in enduring being .. 44 Ibid. 118. . pp. pp. quae sit causa essendi omnibus rebus.42 The temporal contingency of the “I” that introspection lays bare suggests an ultimate reliance on a source of being that is not itself contingent: The security which I experience in my fleeting existence indicates that I am immediately anchored in an ultimate hold and ground. p. see James Lehrberger. . this work represents the first and most influential modern statement of this crucial theological insight. 1926).46 But the specifically phenomenological twist that Stein applies to Przywara’s retrieval of the doctrine represents an intriguing—and genuinely novel—re-fashioning of the traditional approach to understanding the relation between the temporality of the “I” and the atemporality of God that it fleetingly glimpses. Stein read and commented in detail on an early draft of Przywara’s 1932 work. By contrast.45 IV. in terms of the analogia entis. MI: Wm. Oldenbourg. It is at this point that Stein’s developing integration of neo-scholasticism and phenomenology interacts most fruitfully with the work of her friend and mentor. 119–127.: His Theology and His World (Notre Dame. Put differently. Erich Przywara. she claims. Indeed so totalising is the horizon of temporality in Heidegger’s early thought that he applies it with apparent indifference to both beings and Being. 1982). O’Meara. p. Analogie et Dialectique: Essais de Théologie Fondamentale (Geneva: Labor et Fides. 47 The phrase analogia mei is itself indebted to Philibert Secretan’s description of Stein’s use of “l’analogie du ‘je suis’. in the late 1920s. one might term this Stein’s analogia mei:47 I explore this point at greater length in “The Fullness of Life” (see note 3 above). In recognition of the conceptual debt to Przywara. Modern Theology 22/1 (2006). 1–50 at p. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2013). see Erich Przywara.). Together with his Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie (Münich: Druck und Verlag R. B. Erich Przywara. 46 45 © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . that it begins precisely as a phenomenological investigation like Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. trans. See also the pertinent remarks in John Betz. Betz and David Bentley Hart. pp. see Thomas F.“Being and Timelessness” 127 existence in God (on the one hand) from the contingent connection between the essence and existence of finite beings (on the other) is the very gulf of ontological difference it is Heidegger’s stated ambition to recover for Western thought. her own analysis of temporality exhibits considerable sensitivity to the ontological difference. 140. and the possible influence of the former over the latter. Heidegger abolishes that divide. But in Stein’s thought that difference is greater than any conceivable on Heideggerian terms.” See Pierre Gisel and Philibert Secretan (eds. IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 1932). Ur-struktur und All-rhitmus (Einsiedeln: Johannes-Verlag. On the close intellectual kinship and friendship between Stein and Przywara. pp. Analogia Entis. her charge is that in establishing time as a univocal feature spanning both sides of the divide between beings and Being. S. 2009). Analogia Entis: Metaphisik. 26: “[O]ne must bear in mind that [Przywara’s] Analogia Entis was conceived at least in part as a response to Husserl’s increasingly transcendental phenomenology. “Beyond the Sublime: The Aesthetics of the Analogy of Being (Part Two)”. some 81 years after its original publication. It is because no meaningful diremption between beings and Being seems possible on that basis that Stein’s complaint carries such force. who was in many ways Przywara’s only intellectual companion”. which was published only a few years earlier. For the fleeting-yet-perduring contact between finite and eternal being is best understood. and that Przywara’s first reader was none other than his friend (Husserl’s assistant) Edith Stein. John R.J. Analogia Entis: Metaphysics: Original Structure and Universal Rhythm (Grand Rapids. It is a measure of the remarkable neglect with which this work has been treated that the first English edition has appeared so recently. of the fullness of being which knows of no temporal change .128 James Orr What is meant by analogia entis (as indicative of the relationship existing between temporal and eternal being) also becomes faintly visible at this point. is merely a remote image or likeness. i. Cf. at the moment at which it is. EES. 50 Stein cites the classic formulation of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): “Inter creatorem et creaturam non potest tanta similitudo norari quin inter eos maior sit dissimilitudo notanda” (“Between creator and creature no similarity can be identified. p. 49 48 © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . Third. note 10 above. 42/pp. on the other hand. reveals something of the nature of being as such. 37–38. her deployment of analogy in relation to the distinction between temporality and atemporality crucially safeguards her analysis from the ontochronological critique discussed in Section II. Finally. Momentary or temporal being. albeit a point of contact that is always superseded by an ever greater unlikeness. Reversing Heidegger’s strategy of co-opting motifs from the Christian philosophical tradition. First. she deliberately follows the only route to a concept of eternity that Heidegger explicitly refuses to foreclose.49 Along the via negationis. her insertion of an analogical interval between created time and divine timelessness insulates her doctrine of God against Heidegger’s later critique of ontotheology. related to the primordial prototype of its similitude but yet infinitely far removed from it by its dissimilitude. in adopting the mechanism of analogy. that would not require one to identify a greater dissimilarity”). the analogical method opens up an ontology of time that is nuanced enough for Stein to preserve the ontological difference with more philosophical coherence than Heidegger himself. however great. Set against the backdrop of her discussions in EES—which constitute the bulk of her critique of Heidegger’s treatment of time—the explicit criticisms Stein raises in MHE begin to assume a shape and point lacking in their absence. .50 At least four related points can be affirmed in connection with Stein’s phenomenological rendition of the analogia entis.e. The via eminentiae. Actual being. all comparisons between the temporalised self and the timelessness of the divine being are always and everywhere to be denied. Stein re-claims an insight arising from Heidegger’s appropriation of Kierkegaard’s øjeblik (“glance of the eye” or Stein. Second. by contrast. This is because any alleged similarity between finite and infinite temporality is perpetually qualified by the ever greater (semper maior) dissimilarity between them. . licenses an interpretation of the self’s flashing glimpse of its permanence as revealing the dimmest point of contact between the creaturely “I” and the immutable vitality of God.48 Central to the success of Stein’s argument is the claim that the existential conundrum in which the self finds itself—teetering as it does on the knifeedge between time and timelessness—is ultimately resolved by means of the very option to which Heidegger himself alludes with a measure of approval. but always hastens towards the future [and] does not do justice to the moment”. 52 Stein. created—status of an individual’s temporalised existence and a non-dependent. and Koral Ward. 79. 54 Ibid. The Young Heidegger: Rumour of the Hidden King (Bloomington. in an echo of her earlier criticisms. maintain something (what Heidegger calls “having-been”). MHE. William McNeill. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . . 187 and p. It is precisely this that Stein insists Kierkegaard’s notion permits once it is interpreted in a manner more consistent with the phenomenological method: From the standpoint of an understanding of time that knows of no eternity and declares Being as such to be temporal. If 51 For an insightful discussion of Kierkegaard’s influence on Heidegger’s concept of Augenblick. 114–136. NY: State University of New York Press. this refusal betrays a prejudicial indifference to the possibility that—from a purely conceptual point of view—human finitude’s true meaning derives from the fact that it is conditioned by infinitude.51 She notes with approval Heidegger’s attempt to “break open” a temporality characterised by a “bustling that dwells on no particular thing. . pp. and the Ends of Theory (Albany. see John Van Buren. 2008). p. . 1994). In other words. as Stein concludes.“Being and Timelessness” 129 “moment”). timeless source of that existence. 480/p. that it does not exhaust itself in temporality. 221. proves that our being is not simply temporal. . The criticism relates to whether any delimitable grasp of what Heidegger means by temporality and finitude is possible given his resolute refusal to attribute so much as a hypothetical status to the correlative notions of eternity and the infinite. That we . The Glance of the Eye: Heidegger. . Theoretical reflection also uncovers a connection between the dependent—or. A Heidegger Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell. despite our being’s fleeting nature. 97–124. it is not through phenomenological analysis alone that human finitude points suggestively beyond itself.54 Stein then touches upon a point rarely remarked upon in the extensive commentary on Heidegger’s early thought. Augenblick: The Concept of the “Decisive Moment” in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Western Philosophy (London: Ashgate. 195–198. p. 53 Ibid. For Stein at least.52 For he rightly sees that each moment contains a “fullness” that suggests it is not “simply to be taken as a mere ‘moment in time’. 1999). can take the timeless up into ourselves. to clarify the meaning [Heidegger] gives to “the moment” . by means of which the latter intended to illustrate the individual’s fleeting sense of contact with eternity as contemporaneity with Christ. a section between ‘stretches’ of past and future. pp.”53 Nevertheless. see Michael Inwood. it is impossible . Aristotle. 1999). IN: Indiana University Press. according to the terms of Heidegger’s analysis Dasein remains so defined by temporality that it becomes impossible to make sense of how temporality might be transcended in this way. . For an overview of the concept’s role in Heidegger’s thought. pp. On the contrary. . with the result that “the finite reaches its highest possible participation in the eternal . see pp. a work widely considered to have been the material intended for inclusion as the first division of SZ’s projected but unfinished second part: [Createdness] can be proved rationally—perhaps not the [biblical] kind of creation . this problematic implication of Heidegger’s instinct for the immanent is one that laps at the edges of his early thought. 191: “Lässt sich aber die Endlichkeit im Dasein auch nur als Problem entwickeln ohne eine ‘vorausgesetzte’ Unendlichkeit? .130 James Orr the notion of finitude is not to be entirely evacuated of conceptual content. but the necessity not to be per se or a se. even as a problem. at least some sense must be made of that which delimits and defines it. Was bedeutet die so ‘gesetzte’ Unendlichkeit?” (“Is it possible to develop the finitude in Dasein. a work often considered to represent the projected sequel to SZ. IN: Indiana University Press. For an analysis of the medieval concept of the aevum. . Richard Taft. . midway between time and eternity that Christian philosophy has designated as aevum”. 56 Stein. Yet she denies that this represents the final meaning of Dasein’s Being. (Stein’s emphasis). 12–19. “according to their testimony” both invite themselves to be overcome in order to reach the fulfilment of the meaning of its Being. 1951). p. For further discussion of the (almost indistinguishable) concept of participated eternity in Aquinas’ thought. 222/p. She alludes in particular to some intriguing remarks made in the closing paragraphs of his book—published in 1929—on Kant’s doctrine of schematism and time. trans. 80 (emphasis original). That tension arises from its temporal condition and manifests itself in “care” (Sorge). 1997). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (Bloomington. See Martin Heidegger. 1964). even as a problem. Stein’s reference is to some tantalising remarks made in the closing paragraphs of Heidegger’s 1928 “Kant-buch”. Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 20–34. Is this not precisely the authentic meaning of finitude? Heidegger touches on this when he finally brings up the question: “Is it possible to develop the finitude in Dasein. which follows from the fact that the human being is something but not everything. pp. What does the infinitude thus posed mean?”). 480/p. see Carl Peter. 57 Ibid. . Participated Eternity in the Vision of God (Rome: Gregorian University Press. . without presupposing infinity? . .56 And the mode of being that achieves this is one in which the distinction between the timeless moment and temporal duration is itself overcome. . MHE. but ab alio. . As Stein notes with some astuteness.57 55 Ibid. without presupposing infinity?” He must immediately add a further question: “What is the nature of this presupposition in Dasein? What does the infinitude thus posed mean?”55 Stein implicitly translates the tension between authentic resolution and possibility that energises Dasein into the Thomistic idiom of a tension between act and potency. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . p. 58 58 My deepest thanks to Sarah Coakley.“Being and Timelessness” V. consenting as they do to Heidegger’s own methodological starting point in phenomenological analysis. the primary aim of the foregoing analysis has not been to buttress this kind of rejoinder with various illustrations of the way Stein makes legible the theological script hidden beneath Heidegger’s secular palimpsest. 131 Resisting such metaphysical extravagance. and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts of this article. that finitude should not be separated from infinitude. coalesce into a body of penetrating objections to the internal coherence of Heidegger’s account that are independent of theological commitment. Anthony Orr. even as they speak to the latter’s theoretical power. Rather. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd . dedicated followers of Heidegger may well conclude that Stein’s assiduous efforts at re-orienting Dasein towards eternal being twist his account of temporality into fitting a conception of transcendence that he studiously and repeatedly rejects. it has been to suggest that her recurring insistence that contingency must be grounded in necessity. Nevertheless. or to one that would trace its lineage from it. should disquiet anyone still broadly committed to his account. the constructive counterpoint to Stein’s critique hints at one way in which attentiveness to the experiential dimensions of temporal existence—so central to twentieth-century existentialism and continental philosophy more generally—need not have come at the cost of jettisoning an ontology in which God and the self are construed as essences wholly or partly resistant to temporal flux. Yet in other quarters this sort of objection might legitimately provoke a tu quoque rejoinder. These objections. and that a phenomenology of lived experience should make sense of apparently timeless “moments” in that experience. Heidegger’s barely acknowledged trespasses across the terrain of the Christian philosophical tradition give rise to a number of interpretative tensions in his own account of temporality. For as we have seen. More positively.