A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism. By Lee Braver. Pp. xxi, 590, Topics in Historical Philosophy, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007, $79.95; Thinking Through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J.J. Altizer. Lissa McCullough and Brian Schroeder, eds. Pp. xxvii, 254, Suny Series in Theology and Continental Thought, Albany, NY: SUNY, 2004, $26.95.
Lee Braver is chair of the department of philosophy at Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio. In this book he elaborates on the claim(s) of anti-realism, mainly: ‘There is no real world now that can be known’. Of course, this claim is in contradistinction to the view of realism, which is the standard view of both analytic philosophy and continental philosophy. Braver contends that philosophy today faces a dilemma that is not unlike the one that was present at the end of the eighteenth century between rationalism and empiricism. At the present time, the analytic/continental split dominates philosophy, and this work offers a possible bridge to that divide. Pointedly, he contends that both traditions share a ruminant of what could be called anti-realism.
In chapters one and two, Braver traces the roots of anti-realism to Kant’s idea that the mind actively organizes experience using a framework derived from analytic thinkers. He then shows in depth, in chapters three and four, how this idea of anti-realism evolves through the works of Hegel, Nietzsche, showing how they reduce Kant’s realism to the subject by introducing multiplicity into the subject’s experience-orienting faculties. Chapters five and six elucidate how the early Heidegger wrestled with the Kantian paradigm, as well as laying-out how the latter Heidegger broke free from the Kantian framework, inaugurating what was the first truly non-Kantian philosophy (as opposed to merely post-Kantian). Braver highlights how Foucault worked within – yet extended – the Heideggerian paradigm in chapter seven, which leads to the final chapter, covering Derrida. In noting that Derrida is possibly the most important philosopher post-Heidegger, Braver contends that he made the destruction of realism his goal; in so doing, Derrida makes the transition to a new paradigm all the easier, highlighting that conceptual schemes are inherently fragile and deeply unstable.
Braver’s narrative is an illuminating account of the history of continental philosophy that explains how these thinkers build on each other’s attempts to develop new concepts of reality and truth in the wake of the rejection of realism. By developing a parallel vocabulary, Braver demonstrates that the analytic and continental traditions have been discussing (nearly) the same issues, although from different approaches and with differing vocabularies. More pointedly, he shows that Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger all subscribe to parts of Kant’s philosophy, all the while trying to surpass it. Braver notes that we can almost say of Kant what Nietzsche says of God, i.e. that he is ‘dead’, which creates a segue into our second text under review herein.
While considered a ‘radical’ by everyone, Thomas J.J. Altizer rejected the liberalism of the 19th and 20th centuries (Schleiermacher, Harnack) and its claim to ground Christian faith in the personality of Jesus to which we have access by historical research. He also rejected the 20th century rejection of liberalism by neo-orthodox theology (Barth, Brunner) that asserted in Jesus we have the Word of God mixed into the human condition as the Wholly Other. In dialogue with these options, Altizer fashioned his theology by utilizing the linguistic forms of Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, along with the substance of the Bible, mediated by the arts.
Altizer, currently Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at SUNY, Stony Brook, was born in Charleston, West Virginia. He was educated at the University of Chicago and graduated with B.A., M.A., and PhD degrees. His doctoral dissertation of 1955 examined Carl Gustav Jung‘s understanding of religion. While teaching at Emory, Altizer’s religious views were featured in two Time magazine articles in 1965 and 1966. The latter issue was published near Easter, and its cover asked in bold red letters on a plain black background, ‘Is God Dead’? (fast forward 43 years and one finds that similarly in 2009, Time once again published a magazine with the cover invoking ‘The Decline of Religion in America’). This generated a short-lived media storm in the late 1960s. Altizer has repeatedly claimed that the outcry and death threats he received were misplaced. In truth, Altizer viewed God’s death (or self-extinction) as a process that began at the world’s creation and came to an end through Jesus – whose crucifixion poured out God’s Spirit into this world.
Notably, McCullough begins the volume with a historical introduction to the antecedents of and development of Alitzer’s thought. Mark C. Taylor contributes a chapter that highlights the extraordinary consistency of Alitzer’s theological vision throughout his entire fifty-year career, and argues – from it – for the impossibility of doing cogent theology today. Brian Schroeder elaborates on Alitzer’s radical conceptioning of atonement, noting that it consists of the reconciliation of good and evil within God, in essence rectifying the ‘fall’. Edith Wyschorgrod and D.G. Leahy each contribute a chapter that seeks to establish and elaborate upon connections between the works of Alitzer and Levinas, both of which are interesting – nay, downright stimulating – reads. Not only does this volume contain a critical examination of the thought of theologian Altizer, but also a response from Altizer himself, one that touches on every essay included herein. This response by Alitzer allows one to proverbially ‘piece together’ the disparate threads of the title theretofore, and makes the book thoroughly worthwhile.
All in all, these two texts – taken together – display a possible linkage between the movements of anti-realism, continental and analytic philosophy, and the death of god. I would like to see these texts used in survey courses of continental philosophy, as they provide invaluable background and analysis; I wish I had encountered them earlier.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.