Tatiana Litvin

In the article the main trends of modern philosophical theology are considered in the perspective of methodological tasks. Based on the diversity of the post-secular philosophical situation, the place of theology oft en turns out to be not only in the series of theological disciplines, but also acquires features of interdisciplinarity. Theological studies aimed at solving the problems of humanity, history, and time, combine hermeneutics and philosophical anthropology, philosophy of language and psychological methods, oft en becoming an experimental space for applying of humanitarian approaches. In the paper the ideas of theologians and philosophers of the Bultmann and post-Bultman periods are compared.

The article undertakes a phenomenological interpretation of the description of contingency in two late-antique models of the relationship of time and eternity — in the theory of Plotinus, and in the eschatology of Paul on the basis of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. Contingency as a possible property not of time, but of eternity, the presence of the supertemporal in the physical world — this hypothesis promotes a new view of the relationship between time and eternity and a new view of the properties of time. Time remains as immeasurable as eternity, inheriting its character as a phenomenon of consciousness. The article also compares the ideas of H. Bergson and E. Husserl on duration and memory, on the coincidence of moments and the measurability of the movement of time. A turn to Ptolemaic cosmology proposed by Q. Meillassoux seems relevant, an appeal to ancient mathematics and ontology through the optics of post-metaphysical criticism. The search for a new correlationism is significant for the philosophy of time, and contingency, like any coincidence of thought and object, the world and the subject, the signifier and the signified, leads to new forms of manifestation, new phenomena of presence, a new fullness of being in history.

The question of the knowledge of God in modern Orthodox theology is usually raised on the basis of the traditional meaning of Church Fathers, on the basis of hermeneutic and philosophical experience of medieval thought. However, the reconstruction of tradition does not always lead to theological conclusions and can be built into the academic dialogue. Even in the Middle Ages, the question of the knowledge of God included the theory of knowledge, the platonic tradition of contemplation or the genre of philosophical commentary. In modern philosophical theology, however, the idea of the subject, the human being as a creature, becomes the result of the sum of philosophical methods and scientific knowledge. The knowledge of God is considered like the experience of thinking and the phenomenon of consciousness which nature is understood, through philosophical forms of reflexion. In this paper, special attention will be paid to the phenomenological direction which, after the ‘theological turn’ of the French school becomes significant for the continental tradition, not only as description, but in terms of theological understanding of the internal experience of thinking. In particular, the ideas of E. Husserl, which further discourse is based on will be considered, as well as the hypotheses of J.-L. Marion and J.-P. Manoussakis—the view of postmetaphysical philosophy on religious experience, in which both science as a form of thought and faith as a form of being become unified in the special dialectics of God knowledge.

The aim of the paper is to develop a thesis about the potential of phenomenology as a method for analyzing classical ancient texts. The article outlines the key issues of the doctrine of the time of Augustine and raises the question of the principles of phenomenological interpretation. Proceeding from the presentism approach, parallels are drawn between the philosophy of Augustine and the phenomenology of E. Husserl, the issue of duration and structure of the present is especially considered. The philosophy of Augustine includes both theological and epistemological conclusions.

"Time. Perception. Imagination. Phenomenological Studies on the Question of Time by Augustine, Kant and Husserl". (rus), SPb, 2013. Summary: The monograph is devoted to the key elements of the philosophy of time which determine the necessity of historicism in the analysis of subjectivity. The main idea which defined the composition and design of this work is to trace how the Kantian definition of time as the “form of inner sense” is revealed in Husserl’s phenomenology. The original intention was to understand all three components of this definition. Firstly, what is the inner form, in terms of phenomenology, what are the principles of its constitution and how one can talk about the property of formation? Secondly, what is the meaning of the term "inner" in philosophy, where the division into internal and external has always been a formality, not affecting the essence of things? And finally, what sort of “sensibility” is assumed in transcendental science, bound to become the basis of understanding the history and culture. Presumably, these three Kantian concepts constituted the original plan to analyze the nature of cognitive capabilities of the subject, claiming the gnoseological stage on which the philosophy of time is unfolded. In other words, this work deals with the historical and philosophical analysis of the phenomenological principles by which the concept of time as developed in the twentieth century emerged in the framework of phenomenology. The analyze of the structure of the subject assumes that time, perception and imagination combine in a special type of inner synthesis, which may not be relevant to certain aspects of the method but maintain the basis for a kind of anthropology of time, in continuation of the traditional “inner” contemplation. I consider the inner structure of time with the account of philosophy of St. Augustine, who in many respects not only anticipated the conclusions of phenomenology, but also in his reflections encompassed deeper layers of inner experience. The first chapter is devoted to the doctrine of St. Augustine, in which the theory of time is analyzed in conjunction with the doctrine of “inner word”, specifics of memory representations and notion of inner sense. Additionally, I consider St. Augustine’s reflections about numbers that constitute the basis of aesthetic perception of music (De Musica). Thus, the philosophy of St. Augustine already covers the whole spectrum of anthropology of time, including the question of relation between time and eternity, which remains practically unexplored in phenomenology and serves as the proof of that in interactions between philosophy and theology the tradition remains important. The second chapter of this study is devoted to analysis of the transcendental aesthetic of Kant, which includes all the methodological possibilities of considering the category of time as a formal condition for any experience, consequentially serving as a foundation for further logical development by Husserl, which includes the critical disengagement of the founder of phenomenology from Kant's transcendentalism. Particular attention is paid to the origin of the concept of inner sense, as well as possible interpretations of the function of imagination, which as a transcendental ability remains the most interesting type of synthesis. Handwritten fragments of Kant’s works are also of interest to the character of the imagery as considered in detail by Husserl. Chapter three discusses the phenomenology of inner time consciousness, represented in those important aspects, without which it is impossible to speak about the internal structure of temporal experience - the subjectivity of time, retention, "living present", and the character of synthesis. Particular attention is paid to Husserl's polemics with those representatives of psychological branch in the studies of consciousness, whose ideas greatly influenced the very motivation for creating the method. Apart from the well-known criticism of Brentano, the third chapter highlights the rarely analyzed psychological ideas that motivated the choice of Husserl’s terminology - the "Präsenzzeit” by W. Stern, the "psychological analysis" by A. Meinong, and the “fusion” (Verschmelzung) by K. Stumpf. Chapter four deals with the need to analyze the specifics of image as an element of consciousness and imagery as such, which includes a system of objectified acts. Thus is revealed the very nature of synthetic connections in the acts of consciousness, as well as the presumably imaginative character of the constitution of temporal form.

The paper reconstructs the key epistemological ideas of Merab Mamardashvili which form the bridge between his philosophy and phenomenology. He advances four key concepts in his sketch of a natural historical epistemology: the geometry of causal experience, the belonging to a certain time, the chronotype of a subject, and the ‘elaboration’ of the mind by consciousness. The concept of “fruitful tautology” leads Mamardashvili to a new aesthetics of thinking. The semiotics, rightfully included in Russian social sciences, assumes that the symbol is a certain universal first element of psychic reality.

The article is aimed to describe one of the aspects of the phenomenological analysis of time, namely the role of motion. One of the not published manuscripts of Husserl in which he reconsiders the problematic of transcendental aesthetics of Kant from phenomenological positions undertakes a basis. Aspects of the problem of time are considered in the light of Husserl’s interpretation to the purposes of transcendental aesthetics. The concept of motion is connected with the process of a constitution of phantom, a problem of identity of a thing, specific character of causality, a unity of perception. This spectrum of problems of the transcendental-phenomenological aesthetics underlines the difference of Husserl’s concept of consciousness of time as directed on the present, as «Gegenwärtigung».

Lectures on the phenomenology of internal timeconsciousness, such as the investigations of the early period by Husserl, have often become the subject of study and interpretation. As for the methodology of phenomenological description, and for historical and philosophical comparison of the philosophy of time with other theoretical systems of the twentieth century, a diagram of phenomenological time generates a wide range of issues in the analysis of subjectivity. Because the specific phenomenological justification the issue of time does not exist in isolation from other problem fields in the analysis of the transcendental self, and an explication of the total scheme of time-consciousness involves an examination of phenomenological reflection as such, Aleksey Grigorevich Chernaykov indicates the engagement of phenomenology in the interpretive strategies of the description of consciousness as a finite consciousness. Phenomenology treats the ways of givenness of the intentional object, and in this context, under the theological question we do not mean the concept of God as an object of philosophical systematization, but some idea about the sense of divine presence, included in the motivation of all manifestations of consciousness. The question of the relationship between time and eternity in the analysis of subjectivity. In addition, turning towards the sense of the divine presence is phenomenologically related to the constitution of human presence, or rather to the fullness of the presence of reflecting consciousness. Following Held’s interpretation, theology in Husserl’s phenomenology can be considered on the basis of the idea of a “living present” and the principles of its constitution, given the nature of transcendental subjectivity. As early as the Ideas, Husserl mentions the need to review the concepts of God. In later manuscripts, especially those that relate to genetic phenomenology, we find the statement of the problem of rational theology, its possible phenomenological study, an analysis of the status of religious judgments in the consciousness, of universal world teleology (Weltteleologie) and of the boundary problems of metaphysics and teleology. The subject of this paper is to analyze the thematic unity of the phenomenology of time and the theological question. I consider the fact of the emergence of theological difficulties in Husserl, its prerequisites and its theoretical potential. The article consists of three parts. The first part is devoted to disclosing the structure of the ‘living present’ and the experience and perception of time by which the reflecting nature of consciousness and the related theological justification become clear. In the second part I examine one of Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts on theology and ethics, to identify the phenomenological understanding of the tasks of theology as such. And the third part is devoted to the central theme, based on Held and his understanding of theology in a phenomenological method.