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This collection of ground-breaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view, demonstrating that the phenomenology of prayer is as much about the character and boundaries of phenomenological analysis as it is about the heart of religious life.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Bruce Ellis Benson, Mark Cauchi, Benjamin Crowe, Mark Gedney, Philip Goodchild, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Lissa McCullough, Cleo McNelly Kearns, Edward F. Mooney, B. Keith Putt, Jill Robbins, Brian Treanor, Merold Westphal, Norman Wirzba, Terence Wright and Terence and James R. Mensch. Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Norman Wirzba is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown College, Kentucky. He is the author of The Paradise of God and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader.
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The Phenomenology of Prayer Series Board James Bernauer Drucilla Cornell Thomas R. Flynn Kevin Hart Jean-Luc Marion Adriaan Peperzak Richard Kearney Thomas Sheehan Hent de Vries Merold Westphal Edith Wyschogrod Michael Zimmerman John D. Caputo, series editor P ERSPECTIVES IN C ONTINENTAL P HILOSOPHY Edited by BRUCE ELLIS BENSON AND NORMAN WIRZBA The Phenomenology of Prayer F O R D HA M U N IV ER SI TY P R E S S New York 2005 Copyright 䉷 2005 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy Series, No. 46 ISSN 1089-3938 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The phenomenology of prayer / edited by Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba. p. cm. — (Perspectives in continental philosophy, ISSN 1089-3938 ; no. 46) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8232-2495-3 (hardcover) — ISBN 0-8232-2496-1 (pbk.) 1. Prayer. 2. Phenomenology. I. Benson, Bruce Ellis, 1960– II. Wirzba, Norman. III. Series. BL560.P48 2005 204⬘.3—dc22 2005017145 Printed in the United States of America 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1 First edition Contents Introduction Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba P ART I : L EARNING H OW TO 1 P R AY 1 Prayer as the Posture of the Decentered Self Merold Westphal 13 2 Who Prays? Levinas on Irremissible Responsibility Jill Robbins 32 3 Becoming What We Pray: Passion’s Gentler Resolutions Edward F. Mooney 50 4 Prayer as Kenosis James R. Mensch 63 5 The Prayers and Tears of Friedrich Nietzsche Bruce Ellis Benson 75 6 Attention and Responsibility: The Work of Prayer Norman Wirzba 88 P A R T I I : P R AY I N G P HENOMENOLOGY 7 AND THE L IMITS OF Irigaray’s Between East and West: Breath, Pranayama, and the Phenomenology of Prayer Cleo McNelly Kearns 103 vii 8 9 10 Heidegger and the Prospect of a Phenomenology of Prayer Benjamin Crowe Edith Stein: Prayer and Interiority Terrence C. Wright ‘‘Too Deep for Words’’: The Conspiracy of a Divine ‘‘Soliloquy’’ B. Ke