JASON ALVIS'S INCONSPICUOUS PHENOMENOLOGY PROJECT IN THE CONTEXT OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Abstract

We analyzed the work "The Inconspicuous God: Heidegger, French Phenomenology, and the Theological Turn", Jason W. Alvis, Indiana University Press, 2018, as well as reviews of it by Daniel Cox, Joerie Shrivers, Bernard Prusak. J. Alvis takes as a basis Heidegger's concept of eine phänomenologie des Unscheinbaren, which he tried to apply to the phenomenological study of religion and religious experience. Thus, synthesizing the concept of Martin Heidegger with the legacy of French philosophers, J. Alvis develops his own idea of inconspicuous phenomenology. The presented project by J. Alvis differs significantly from the context in which the analytical tradition today examines religious experience. Taking into account the novelty of the book, one can speak not only about the significant significance of this project in the continental philosophy of religion, but also about a new step in phenomenology, research on the developments of M. Heidegger and research on the concepts of religious experience. In the article, we analyzed how the approach of J. Alvis is connected with reduction, as well as with the era of entertainment, which the author so often mentions. Although J. Alvis himself does not mention the problem of God-forsakenness and secularized society, nevertheless his project can be successfully considered in the context of these problems of the 21st century. The work of J. Alvis that we have chosen, as well as the reviews of it, have not been translated into either Ukrainian or Russian, so this article can be perceived as an impetus for a dialogue between modern researchers of phenomenology and religious experience. Overcoming the stages of argumentation for his own project of imperceptible phenomenology, J. Alvis raises the ever-actual topic of dialectical perception and, in the end, calls for abandoning the outdated metaphysical dialectics. Quite a provocative thesis, but this is exactly how the researcher proposes to come up with a statement that the "phenomenology of religion" is not an oxymoron.