Videos by Felix Ó Murchadha
A video presentation showing how this new MA is committed to a vision of philosophy as deeply eng... more A video presentation showing how this new MA is committed to a vision of philosophy as deeply engaged with the world around us today. Drawing on internationally renowned expertise within the faculty, the MA is designed around two main Streams: Public and Applied Philosophy (including the Ethics of AI, concepts of Justice and Freedom, Civic Education, and Philosophy for Children) and Post-Kantian European Philosophy (including Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche, Heidegger, New Materialism, Philosophies of Nature, Emotion and Technology). Self-directed learning on topics agreed between a student and a faculty member is encouraged. 4 views
Papers by Felix Ó Murchadha
Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 2017
The MA in Philosophy is a one-year full time (or two-year part-time) master' s programme, with sp... more The MA in Philosophy is a one-year full time (or two-year part-time) master' s programme, with special emphasis on Public and Applied Philosophy and Post-Kantian European Philosophy.
For more details contact [email protected]
Contributions To Phenomenology, 2012
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form ... more No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfi lming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifi cally for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and the Social World, : The Continued Relevance of Phenomenology. Essays in Honour of Dermot Moran, ed. by: Anna Bortolan and Elisa Magrì (De Gruyter), 2022
This chapter explores listening through a phenomenological account of sound and rhythm, showing a... more This chapter explores listening through a phenomenological account of sound and rhythm, showing a musical structure in experience. This structure follows the rhythm of a sequence, leading the listener through an event of meaning that allows an other to appear as a self within a temporally constituted sequence of sense. While subject to such relations, listening is constitutively directed towards re-sensing, because we hear in terms of virtualities, whereby sense contains the power of new and unheard of meaning in each moment of its appearance. Such sense appears acoustically in an affective register between joy and despair, forming affective atmospheres, in which emotions are expressed in a manner irreducible to narrative context. The situation described here is characterized by a certain rhythm in which awareness is directed not so much to the corporeal boundaries of self and other but to the event of movement in which each person finds themselves.
Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 2018
The essential relation of the infinite to the finite, suggested already in the word itself, has t... more The essential relation of the infinite to the finite, suggested already in the word itself, has troubled philosophical thinking at least since Descartes. To speak of the finite and the infinite is already to speak of horizon: the horizon of understanding, the horizon as limitation, the horizon as opening towards and beyond the finite objects of perception and knowledge.Theology and philosophy intersect here precisely on the question of capacity for truth and the limits of reason. If reason is limited, then there is of necessity place for faith, as Kant already claimed. But crucially the question raised here is the nature of such faith, whether such faith is constitutive of worldly perception or a rupture of all worldly experience. It is not by accident that Husserl speaks of ‘conversion’ when re-ferring to the radical turning from the natural to the philosophical attitude. That turn-ing is a transformation in the way of seeing, in perception itself, which is as much a philosophical as a religious and theological motif. A transformation of seeing is a see-ing of the finite as finite, the limited as having limits which are those of natural sight itself. The philosophical, indeed the phenomenological, issue is the account of experi-ence which can justify the claim to validly understand the relation to the infinite and the terms for that relation.
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2019
There are no religious phenomena, only religious interpretations of phenomena. But while the reli... more There are no religious phenomena, only religious interpretations of phenomena. But while the religious interpretation of phenomena refers to a particular form of human activity, this activity responds paradoxically to the imposition of a fundamental curb on any possible activity. That curb is encountered to the extent to which the religious hermeneutic imposes itself in the event of the appearance itself. In this sense the religious structure of experience is that which appears affectively and contingently as beyond the power of the self to regulate. In exploring the place of the self with respect to the religious phenomenon, this article explores the place of the self in its capacity and incapacity with respect to phenomenal objects. In working through this understanding of the self, the irreducible affectivity of the self’s constitutive relations—specifically with
respect to love, hope, awe, and anxiety—is discussed. As an affectively constituted being, the self recognizes itself as subject to an irreducibly foreign origin and destiny. In examining this position of a “passionate self” the article concludes with a phenomenology of fortune and contingency, which it is argued is fundamental to any understanding of the religious phenomenon.
Continental Philosophy Review, 2018
Violence is essential to religion, while religion holds the promise of transcending violence. The... more Violence is essential to religion, while religion holds the promise of transcending violence. The designation religious refers not to a type of violence, but to a specific issue of violence, namely the claim to higher (theodical) justification. This religious aspect is not confined to religion; it is also evident in the secular domain. A critique of religious violence needs to show the gap between violence and its justifications, experienced affectively in horror. This horror in re-sponse to the unspeakable is structurally akin to mystical experience, the temporal structure of which indicates the failure of the theodical justification for violence.
Violence and Meaning, 2019
Violence permeates the temporality of human existence and in so doing is structured in relation t... more Violence permeates the temporality of human existence and in so doing is structured in relation to experience. Violence expresses memories of past wrongs, aims at hoped for futures, and indulges in cruelty in the present. Yet violence threatens to undermine the very structures of experience: closing off the future; failing to allow the past to pass perpetuating cycles of revenge; collapsing sense into destructive orgy of the present. Experience in the mode of hope, memory, and perception, in its directedness towards future, past, and present, structures those modes of justification which attempt to make violence meaningful, while violence threatens the very possibility of experience. Violence expresses a destructive force which has no limits in and of itself. The logic of violence is one of continual destruction which ends only through an exhaustion of the instruments of violence or by some factors outside of itself. This is so because violence as distinct from its discourses of justification has a fundamentally atemporal logic: its movement is in opposition to the three modi of temporal motion striving towards the to come, recalling the having passed, tarrying with the passing. Violence targets that very movement of passing, is deadly in manifesting the destruction of units of sense and meaning, by making impossible the temporal syntheses which allow such units to be. But violence in this way expresses non-being in time which resides not (as classically supposed) in the not yet and no more, but rather in a present which divides past and future, threatening a totally immanent present without temporal transcendence. That present is a moment of destruction and dissolution, which calls for the constructive restoration of sense through the constitution of temporal continuity. As such the constitution of meaning is a constant creative movement (both active and passive with respect to the agency of the self) in tension with violence as that destructive force which gives place for the creative movement of temporal meaning constitution. The world of sense, then, is continually formed through the re-figuring of meaning made necessary by violence yet endangered always by a logic of violence which is destructive of sense and of the temporal constitution of experience and world.
Hermeneutics and Phenomenology: Figures and Themes, 2018
Eschatology can be understood as the interpretation of signs of the last things; signs which are... more Eschatology can be understood as the interpretation of signs of the last things; signs which are both textual and traced in the experience of ending and finitude. Such hermeneutical readings are ambiguous between hope of salvation and despair in the face of the end of the world. This paper attempts to mediate between the sense of hope and of despair through a phenomenological account of endings as contingent events, cutting across the projections of everyday life. Such a phenomenological hermeneutics of finitude and contingency will be shown to yield an understanding time as characterised by the momentary possibility of transformation in the hope in or despair of an originary source of sense.
B. Richardson (ed.): Spatiality and Symbolic Expression. London: Palgrave, 2015
This chapter shows how philosophical approaches to space attempt to articulate a difference betwe... more This chapter shows how philosophical approaches to space attempt to articulate a difference between homogenous scientific space and the spatiality of human existence. From Kant and Hegel through to Agamben and Balibar the question at issue is what it means to be spatially constituted as being which lives in space in an irreducible temporal manner. Space, so understood, is not something external to the self, but rather that in which human beings are immersed as corporeal beings. Places are shown to be historical spaces embodying memories and gesturing possible meaning. However, space as historical place can be exclusionary and increasingly human beings experience place as exiles. Taking a view over the post-Kantian philosophical tradition, it is shown that to be in place is to risk displacement, to dwell is to be amidst ruination, to move is to be moved, to be spatial is also to be subject to spatiality.
Symposium, 2018
This article presents an understanding of time and temporality as adverbial. In normal discourse ... more This article presents an understanding of time and temporality as adverbial. In normal discourse we speak of time as a condition of action, thought, and events: to intervene in a timely fashion, to live anachronistically or to be before her time. Adverbially understood, time is experienced in terms of an oscillation between the timely and the untimely. Crucial to this is rhythm, and access to time so understood is acoustic rather than visual. We hear time, we do not see it, or if we do see time we do so only through its rhythmic, acoustic, and indeed musical structure. Discussing the Book of Ecclesiastes, philosophers such as Nancy and Lefebvre, as well as music theorists, this article articulates the different rhythms of the timely/untimely. It shows time as a living rhythm between the "energy of beginnings" and mechanicity.
Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 1999
Heideggerian reflections on the historicity of philosophy.
Aesthetic Genesis is a highly original and suggestive work, one which combines a powerful systema... more Aesthetic Genesis is a highly original and suggestive work, one which combines a powerful systematic thesis with a provocative overview of the history of philosophy and (to a lesser extent) of theology and science. In approaching this work, we wish to question some aspects of that historical account and in doing so, drawing especially on the emphasis on the corporeal in French thought from Descartes to Merleau-Ponty, sketch an alternative interpretation which, we believe, leads to a more nuanced approach to the " idealism " of Husserl and generally a more inclusive view of phenomenology than is allowed for in Mitscherling's account. This article consists of four parts. Part one will address some issues regarding the relation of Descartes to Medieval thought (I); part two will trace an account of embodiment from Descartes through to Merleau-Ponty, which indicates another strand in modern thought—which in particular emphasises the place of habit and embodiment (II); part three will turn to Husserl, in order to question the fruitfulness of discussing his account of intentionality under the rubric of realism/idealism (III); and the final part concludes with some brief reflections on recent French phenomenology (IV). I
Breached Horizons, ed. by A. Calgano and S. Lofts, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 2016
Marion’s account of the ego can be understood as an Augustinian critique of the ‘capable ego’ fro... more Marion’s account of the ego can be understood as an Augustinian critique of the ‘capable ego’ from Descartes to Kant. This paper will discuss such post-Kantian Augustinianism as a response to a certain Pelagian Stoicism in Modernity and investigate whether this response is phenomenologically demonstrable. The ‘receptive’ ego of Marion’s account when removed from a metaphysically secured Christian ontology leaves open the possibility that the gift of love is directed as much towards evil as good. This leads to the further worry, that of enthusiasm (Schwärmerei). The enthusiast is impervious to reason, for Kant, because he makes claims which transcend the bounds of experience. While Marion rejects Kant’s account of experience, this alone does not remove the concern that his Augustinianism leads him to neglect necessary ethical restraints on the erotic reduction. In closing it is suggested that Marion has resources for answering these concerns and these will be briefly explored
Phenomenology speaks primarily not of phenomena but of the appearing of phenomena. In so speaking... more Phenomenology speaks primarily not of phenomena but of the appearing of phenomena. In so speaking it moves from the level of things with generic or proper names, the level of things which are present or potentially so, to the level of universal terms and that which cannot be made contemporary, a past which was never present and a future which will never be fulfilled. This change of view happens within experience leading us to think metaphysically, but a metaphysics which can validate itself at the tribunal of experience. This situation which grounds phenomenology can be expressed in the preposition 'after' understood in its twofold sense: coming later and going in pursuit. In speaking of the appearing of what appears, phenomenology is a response to that which remains always past and aims towards that which is forever to come. In this sense phenomenology is a passion and against any superficial Cartesian reading of its project, it has always been a radical rejection of the account of philosophy as self-fulfilling act. Speaking after as striving is motivated by desire, which again needs to be heard in a twofold manner: To desire is to lack-only through absence is there desire; but to desire is already to have the absent as excess, as that which exceeds what is present. We have then a constellation of three spheres: time (the temporality of 'after'), desire (the dynamics of lack and excess) and language (the expression of what is in speech). The relation of these three spheres to each other is the theme of this article. The question is how to speak philosophically, which means how to speak when the very resources of speech in its directedness towards phenomena are themselves in question, how to speak while remembering both that speaking seeks grounds, reasons, and that speaking cannot but aim for that which it seems unable to attain, namely the thing glimpsed in that silence which is somewhat clumsily expressed by the little word 'after'.
This paper shows how turns in theology in early Modernity and in the last century framed the cont... more This paper shows how turns in theology in early Modernity and in the last century framed the context of distinct philosophical understandings of the self. Focusing on the concept of " pure nature " , the foreshadowing of philosophical themes in theology is shown. It is further argued that while the modern self emerging from certain early Modern theological discourses from Suárez, through Descartes to Kant was deeply implicated in Stoic apatheia, the self which arises from a phenomenological rethinking (especially in Marion) of the place of love and beauty in the worldiness of being and appearance is one which is fundamentally passionate. At play here is a shift in the notion of will from that of sovereign indifference to desire. The mutual influence of philosophy and theology can be traced through the history of Western Philosophy back to Aquinas and (with a certain anachronism) further back than that. If we can speak of a " theological turn " in phenomenology, then we would need to place those thinkers involved within a complex and fecund history. This paper cannot accomplish such a task, but rather seeks to show how the problematic of grace finds philosophical articulation in both Modern and Contemporary philosophy through the concerns with autonomy, the foundations of morality, and the aesthetics of nature. The concerns are both historical and thematic: that a certain turn in theology framed the context of a philosophical understanding of the self in and towards nature and how this understanding can be challenged by a rethinking of passion, love and beauty. The question of grace is philosophically important for reasons which are related to, and yet distinct from, the theological. The articulation of grace occurs in response to the reality of human desire, which seems to outstrip both human need and capacity. Understood erotically such desire functions to fulfil a lack which is itself contingent on the situation (epistemically, socially or historically understood) of the desiring
Fives A. and Breen, K. (eds): Philosophy and political engagement reflection in the public sphere (Palgrave Macmillan 2016)
An exploration of violence and philosophy with respect to responsibility, in particular the philo... more An exploration of violence and philosophy with respect to responsibility, in particular the philosophical responsibility to rationality.
Enns, D. & Calcagno, A (eds): Thinking about love : essays in contemporary continental philosophy(Penn UP, 2015)
This article examines love as eros and as agape in terms of the Skeptical-Stoical understanding o... more This article examines love as eros and as agape in terms of the Skeptical-Stoical understanding of a self. Arguing that the erotic and the agapeic both tend towards extremes of self-loss and self-mastery which undermine the very conditions of love itself, the article presents an account of being-in-love which it argued imples a practice of philosophy beyond the Stoic-Skeptic inheritance that continues to inform the ascetics of philosophical reflection and accounts of the self in philosophy.
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Videos by Felix Ó Murchadha
Papers by Felix Ó Murchadha
For more details contact [email protected]
respect to love, hope, awe, and anxiety—is discussed. As an affectively constituted being, the self recognizes itself as subject to an irreducibly foreign origin and destiny. In examining this position of a “passionate self” the article concludes with a phenomenology of fortune and contingency, which it is argued is fundamental to any understanding of the religious phenomenon.
For more details contact [email protected]
respect to love, hope, awe, and anxiety—is discussed. As an affectively constituted being, the self recognizes itself as subject to an irreducibly foreign origin and destiny. In examining this position of a “passionate self” the article concludes with a phenomenology of fortune and contingency, which it is argued is fundamental to any understanding of the religious phenomenon.
Exploring this trajectory, The Formation of the Modern Self pursues a number of themes central to the Early Modern development of selfhood, including, amongst others, grace and passion. It examines on the one hand the deep-rooted dependence on the divine and the longing for happiness and salvation and, on the other hand, the distancing from the Stoic ideal of apatheia, as philosophers from Descartes to Spinoza recognised the passions as essential to human agency.
Fundamental to the new question of the self was the relation of faith and reason. Uncovering commonalities and differences amongst Early Modern philosophers, Ó Murchadha traces how the voluntarism of Modernity led to the sceptical approach to the self in Montaigne and Hume and how this sceptical strand, in turn, culminated in Kant's rational faith.
More than a history of the self in philosophy, The Formation of the Modern Self inspires a fresh look at self-identity, uncovering not only how our modern idea of selfhood developed but just how embedded the concept of self is in external considerations: from ethics, to reason, to religion.
Two conclusions emerge: The first is that one’s relationships with others will always be central in determining the social, political, and artistic forms that philosophical self-reflection will take. The second is that our practices of aesthetic judgment are bound up with our efforts as philosophers to adapt ourselves and our objects of interest to the inescapably historical and indeterminate conditions of experience.
The papers collected here address the issue that critical communities and aesthetic practices are never politically neutral and can never be abstracted from their particular contexts. It is for this reason that the contributors investigate the politics, not of laws, parties or state constitutions, but of open, indefinably critical communities such as audiences, peers and friends.
Critical Communities and Aesthetic Practices is distinctive in providing a current selection of prominent positions, written for this volume. Together, these comprise a pluralist, un-homogenized collection that brings into focus contemporary debates on critical and aesthetic practices.
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"The Time of Revolution presents Heidegger as fundamentally rethinking the temporal character of revolutionary action and radical transformation.
I present Heidegger as a thinker of revolution. Understanding revolution as an occurrence whereby the previously unforeseeable comes to appear as inevitable, the temporal character of such an event is explored through Heidegger's discussion of temporality and historicity. Beginning with his magnum opus, Being and Time, Heidegger is shown to have undertaken a radical rethinking of time in terms of human action, understood as involving both doing and making and as implicated in an interplay of the opportune moment (kairos) and temporal continuity (chronos).
Developing this theme through his key writings of the early 1930s, the book shows how Heidegger's analyses of truth and freedom led to an increasingly dialectical account of time and action culminating in his phenomenology of the - artistic and political - 'work'. A context is thus given for Heidegger's political engagement in 1933. While diagnosing the moral failure of this engagement, I defend Heidegger's account of the time of human action and shows it to foreshadow his later thought of a 'new beginning'. "
Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience (SOPHERE) Conference 2023:
Religious Experience and the Phenomenology of Nature
16th – 19th August 2023
CFP Extended deadline: March 31 2023
Submission to be sent to: [email protected]
(Hosted by the University of Galway and St. Angela’s College, Sligo)
See: https://sophere.org/conferences/
Theme of the Conference
Faced as we are with climate change, mass extinctions of species, global pandemics, there is probably no more pressing theme today than that of nature. It is, however, not at all clear what we mean by ‘nature’, and whether discourse about nature is even meaningful today. Many speak of the ‘death of nature’ while at another extreme we find the exhortation toward a ‘re-enchantment’ of [by] nature. What the conference aims to explore is the place of religious experience within this our current situation.
We are delighted to have great keynote speakers for this conference:
Prof. Lisa Landoe Hedrick is Professor in the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Timothy Mooney is Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin.
Dr. Martin Nitsche is Professor and Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Prof. Timothy Howles is Assistant Director for Research Programming at the Laudato Si’ Research
Institute at the University of Oxford.
Abstracts/Papers
If you wish to present a paper, please send either an anonymized paper of no more than 3,000 words or an abstract of no more than 600 words free of any identifying information, and in Word format, to [email protected] by March 15th 2023 (midnight Irish time). Although we are accepting abstracts, preference will be given to completed papers. In a separate document, send identifying information. You should receive an email acknowledging your submission.
We welcome abstracts from multiple perspectives, including from postgraduate researchers. Areas of interest include the first-person phenomenological perspective and research of religious experience in the following contexts (though not limited to these):
> Natural Theology and Revelation
> Religious Nature Poetry
> Eco-feminism
> Nature Aesthetics
> Environmental Aesthetics
> Naturphilosophie
> Eastern, Northern, and Southern Perspectives
> Nature and Grace
> Philosophy of Nature in Different Religious Traditions
> Metaphysics of Nature
> Subjectivity and Nature
> Phenomenology of Spiritual Practices in Nature
> Eco-phenomenology and Religious Experience
Timeline:
>10th September 2022: CfA/P opens
>31st March 2023 (midnight Ireland): CfA/P closes
> Mid-June 2023: Abstract submission outcomes communicated
> Early July 2023: Speaker and delegate registration opens
Selection process:
>Papers/Abstracts will undergo blind peer-review by members of the SOPHERE board and of the Conference Committee.
> We intend to inform everyone of the outcome of their submission by 15 June 2023.
If you have any questions about the conference, please email the conference organizers:
> Professor Felix Ó Murchadha: [email protected]
> Dr. Mary Shanahan: [email protected]