Overcoming Epistemology

Phenomenology, especially in its Heideggerian variety, attempts to overcome the modern obsession with epistemology and return us to being, to ontology. What Heidegger in fact seems to do is overcome the divide between epistemology and ontology so that philosophy is both at the same time, but neither in their usual senses.

If a thing is in its self-presentation, as Heidegger says, if the truth of a thing is its unveiling, then being and being-known are pretty much two ways to describe the same thing. This isn’t exactly epistemology anymore, because it doesn’t assume a subject-object dualism; it’s not exactly ontology anymore either, for the same reason. From Heidegger’s perspective, epistemology was parasitic on ontology scoured of epistemology, and vice versa.

Two theological observations: First, the notion that things are self-presentation seems to be one way to formulate the biblical notion that creation is God’s speech. Things communicate themselves because they are the language of God’s communication to us. Second, the notion that a thing is its self-presentation sure sounds a lot like the Father’s being in His self-presenting Word.