Season four of the BSP Podcast continues with a paper from William Large, University of Gloucestershire. The recording is taken from our 2019 Annual Conference, ‘The Theory and Practice of Phenomenology’.
ABSTRACT: This paper offers a broad historical analysis of atheism and a new conceptual definition. It describes three kinds of atheism: atheism of being, atheism of the idea, and atheism of the word. The first is an atheism of a metaphysical order and science; the second an atheism of morality; and the third an atheism of the community and the word. Each atheism comes in an historical sequence but are conceptually distinct. In terms of the traditional divisions of philosophy, the first atheism is ontology, the second is ethical, and the third is aesthetic and political. This historical sequence is not a necessary one, but contingent, and because each atheism is conceptually distinct, they can emerge at any time. Cutting across this horizontal historical series of atheism, is a vertical distinction between essence and existence. Theism responds to atheism through the passion of religion which sets the next form in motion. When, philosophy says, ‘God is being’, religion responds, ‘God is a hidden’. If philosophy replies, ‘God is an idea’, then religion responds again, ‘faith is the passion of a life’. Only in the last form is the dialogue between philosophy and religion reversed. Religion says, ‘faith is the word’, but philosophy responds, ‘the word is spoken by no-one’. The last atheism has a political consequence. What binds a community without a word?
BIO: William Large is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham. He is the author of Maurice Blanchot [co-authored] (Routledge, 2001), Ethics and the Ambiguity of Writing: Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot (Clinamen, 2005), Heidegger’s Being and Time (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), Levinas ’Totality and Infinity: A Reader’s Guide (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), and numerous articles in continental philosophy. He was president of the British Society of Phenomenology from 2010-14.
The ‘British Society for Phenomenology Annual Conference 2019 – the Theory and Practice of Phenomenology’ was held at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, UK, 5 – 7 September, 2019: https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/conference/
You can check out our forthcoming events here:
https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/events/
The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast. Why not find out more, join the society, and subscribe to our journal the JBSP? https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/
Prof. Giovanna Colombetti - ‘Varieties of incorporation: beyond the blind man’s cane’
Prof. Alia Al-Saji - 'Fanon and an Engaged Phenomenology of Affect: Touching the wounds of colonial duration'
Marieke Borren - ‘The Spatial Phenomenology of White Embodiment’
Ondra Kvapil - ‘Thought-provoking Death’
Sam McAuliffe - ‘The Improvisational Encounter: What is Common to Music and Hermeneutic-Phenomenology’
Adriano Lotito - ‘Tran Duc Thao between Phenomenology and Marxism’
Maria-Nefeli Panetsos - ‘Dancing Phenomenology: A New Source of Non-Verbal Knowledge’
Pablo Fernandez Velasco - ‘Evenki wandering and situationist wandering’
Mary Coaten - ‘Dance Movement Psychotherapy in Acute Adult Psychiatry: Psyche and Dasein’
María Jimena Clavel Vázquez - ‘Perceiving like a girl? Sensorimotor Enactivism in the face of situated embodiment’
Mary Fridley & Gwen Lowenheim presenting for Susan Massad - ‘Creating a New Performance of Dementia’
Giuseppe Torre - ‘Noise, Phenomena and the Digital Psychosis’
Joel Krueger - ‘Taking Watsuji online: aidagara and expression in the techno-social niche’
Juan Toro - ‘The Ecological-Enactive Model of Disability: Why disability does not entail pathological embodiment’
Ellen Moysan - ‘Phenomenological Description of the Notion of Inner Song: Doing Phenomenology to Understand Music Practice’
Bence Peter Marosan - ‘Engaged Eco-phenomenology. An Eco-socialist stance based upon a phenomenological account of narrative identity’
Belinda Marshal - ‘Being-in-the-Virtual-World’
D. R. Koukal - ‘Teaching Phenomenology as a Heuristic Tool in Architectural Design’
Sadaf Soloukey - ‘Phenomenological Embodiment in Patients with Spinal Cord Injury Receiving Neural Implants’
Michael Fitzgerald - ‘Phenomenological interpretations of patient engagement in research’
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall
The No-Frills Teacher Podcast
Heal, Survive & Thrive!
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast