Page 293 - Contribution To Phenomenology

286 JAMES G. HART

ism, etc. Perhaps we could here add much of Eastern philosophy.
Whereas the earlier Greek philosophers rested all foundation upon what
is truly evident in experience, and this served as normative for all founda-
tions, the new sense of philosophy rests either on 1) religious belief
which is counterpoised to knowing and does not rest on evidence in the
sense of what rises from experience or autonomous sophia but on
revelation; or 2) it is not grounded on a positive belief in a revelation
but on an intuition which enjoys an analogy with reUgious faith. In this
case we approach not only what in this essay we have been calling faith-
experience or the original intuition of values as guiding faith and reason,
but also what Husserl elsewhere called **wisdom,'' and "Welt-
anschauungsphilosophie" (see the discussion below). Here the world is not
submitted to a mythic hypothesis which one hopes subsequently to
validate. Rather such an idea of science is no longer an ideal because it
is no longer regarded as a genuine possibility; the dream (of such a
science) is over. Finally there is another type 3) in which the genuine
task of science is regarded as a possibility but the very possibility of this
task as well as the validation of all principles of reason rests on
revelation and faith. And not only do revelation and faith validate the
principles of reason but they also limit it, for example, on the assumption
that the divine might violate these principles, e.g., through miracles or by
revealing truths which excede what can be grasped by experience and
apriori principles. Clearly here Husserl has some sense of medieval
science and scholastic thought in mind. What here is essential is that the
rational in some way depends upon the irrational. (For these distinctions
see A V 21, 21a ff.)

V. Eutopian Poetic Theology

Perhaps Husserl's most unique contribution to the study of religion is
precisely the way in which he opens up a field for reflection on how the
rational depends upon the irrational and how the rational requires a kind
of irrationality for its sustenance. Indeed, Husserl's own attitude toward
the just reviewed types of theology would not seem to be merely one of
criticism. Recall the subtle strains of appreciation for world-views or
"Weltanschauungsphilosophie" in the otherwise sharply critical (1911)
Logos essay. There Husserl argued on behalf of philosophy as strict
science; indeed he claimed it was the most radical necessity of life. All
life was taking a position, and the position-taking stands under the norm