Phenomenology: Heidegger and Catholic Thought

Phenomenology has been one of the main philosophical movements of the 20th and 21st Centuries and has occupied the attention of Catholic thinkers from the beginning. The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with some aspect of this tradition, and to form a judgment of the tradition from a Catholic perspective. Previous iterations of the course have looked at the “Roots of Catholic Phenomenology,” tracing out a lesser-known current of phenomenological reflection from its original founder Edmund Husserl through Max Scheler and some of his followers, both faithful and critical. Another iteration has explored the work of Martin Heidegger, especially his later essays, and considered the reception of that work in Catholic/Christian theology, both in its positive and its negative assessments.