Religious Existence and Metaphysical Speech

Abstract

Philosophy is “reserve personified”. For the philosopher as philosopher it is impossible to take part in the prayerful, singing, lamenting, sorrowing and cursing calling of the name “God”. A philosophical text is never a religious text because the philosopher’s “attitude” implies reserve, distance and critique. A religious text uses all available means to overcome “recalcitrance” to the religious message and evoke the “consciousness of depth”. But the philosopher as philosopher is “recalcitrance personified”. As philosopher, he refuses to be concerned with anything but rationality; he uses only his power to let objective meaning appear; he lets himself be convinced only by what he “sees”; he is always ready to let his “seeing” be unmasked as “putative seeing”.