Adam Morton
Project leader:
Dr Adam Morton (University of Nottingham)
Title:
Prophecy and Orientation to Life
Description:
The welcome revival of metaphysics in philosophical theology poses a risk of reopening a set of old problems, stemming from the tendency for metaphysical abstraction to become detached from embodied life. It is unfortunately common to see formalistic gestures at life as a divine name, or at God as being itself, with relatively little effort to describe what difference this might make for life in the concrete. Such efforts risk unwitting repetition of the conditions which led to suspicion of metaphysics in the first place.
This project takes up ‘orientation to life’ as its central inquiry, examining the conditions under which abstraction takes place, and seeking after what it is for philosophical theology (as a species of human thought generally) to receive a renewed orientation to life and lived experience in the concrete, just as to God as the source of life and life itself.
The inquiry consists in an effort to recover and systematize an often neglected phenomenon in the history of philosophy, and in the continental tradition in particular, of what might be termed prophetic interventions or a prophetic mode of discourse. This mode (exemplified variously, but for the purposes of this project seen especially in J.G. Hamann and the later works of Michel Henry) appears in opposition to the severing of thought from life, and constitutes a distinct, often Christologically-focused attempt, analogous to prophecy or preaching, to address and re-orient metaphysics to the concrete of life.
The purpose of the project, drawing upon the phenomenological method of Henry and the technique of ressourcement, is to explore and develop such a mode of direct ‘prophetic’ philosophical discourse, in order to contribute to contemporary metaphysical renewal through the re-orientation of metaphysics to life. The expected output is to include a monograph on the subject.
Final Report:
This project opens a new approach to Christian philosophical theology through the correlation of life and speech. This ‘prophetic’ mode, described through analysis of the act of sensual, intersubjective communication and its power to both destroy and bestow life, presents an alternative to the Christian Platonic or Neo-Platonic paradigm of analogy and participation. The research offers grounds for a reassessment of Luther’s significance within the Continental philosophical tradition, tracing reverberations of his thought through an eclectic array of modern figures, among them J.G. Hamann, Lev Shestov, and Michel Henry. Within an account of living speech, exploration of connections between creation and truth, atonement and intersubjectivity, and scripture and the unrepeatable serve to demonstrate the fruitfulness of the approach.
The following videos recorded for the St John’s Timeline project, one on J.G. Hamann, and the other on Luther and Modernity, proceed substantially from the research for this project and illustrate some of its basic aims:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlxGe9KuVcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFsoEPbdXsc&t
