Abstracts Category : Other

The Immanence of the Transcendental: Buber, Emerson, and theDivine in a Secular World

by Dylan Joseph Scott

I explore certain acute and timely tensions betweencontemporary, postmodern philosophy and the popular status ofreligious tradition. Such tensions appear to draw much of theirstrength from two prominent sources: Nietzsches announcement ofthe death of the transcendent God, and Heideggers rejection ofabsolutist metaphysics. The problem is that if the transcendent Godhas become superfluous to thought, and the treatment of theabsolute metaphysical nature of things has become taboo, then thespecial status of religious claims as revealed, absolute truths ofa transcendent Being, and of the natures of the world and humanity,has been seriously called into question. I will show that aconsideration of two particular religious thinkers Martin Buberand Ralph Waldo Emerson will equip us with a sophisticatedresponse in the current philosophical environment of postmodernity,and provide us with the resources to construct a nuanced religiousnarrative of creation, sin, and salvation within the broadercontexts of metaphysical immanence, epistemological intertwining,and ethical instrumentalization that has followed in thede-absolutizing path laid by, among others, Nietzsche andHeidegger. Through an examination of the dialogical relationsbetween persons described by Buber, and the relations of disciplinebetween persons and the world described by Emerson, we will be ableto resurrect a sense of immanent, non-absolute religious practicein the era of postmodernity, after the death of the transcendentGod and the end of absolutist metaphysics.Advisors/Committee Members: Ryan, Frank (Advisor).