The Fidelity of Reason: A Phenomenological Metaphysics of Self, Nature and Divinity

The book reveals a phenomenological metaphysics, which places it at the cutting edge of contemporary work on phenomenology. It addresses the crisis of world that is all around us as the meaning structures relating to self, nature and divinity all seem to be undermined politically and socially within the current reality of climatic, geo-political and ideology turmoil. In addressing these issues, this text argues for a renewed understanding of reason as a fidelity to world understood as faithfulness to the being and value of self, nature and divinity. The account of the self engages with contemporary and older phenomenological discussions (Husserl, Heidegger, Ricoeur, Henry, Zahavi) as well as debates in the Philosophy of Mind; the account of nature ranges over Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, Whitehead, Philosophy of Quantum Physics and Bruno Latour; the section on divinity engages with debates in Anthropology and the History of Religion as well as within the so-called ‘theological turn’ and theological discussions of ecology. This book is directed at scholars working within the fields of phenomenology, philosophy of nature, philosophy of self, philosophical theology, philosophy of religion and metaphysics as well as upper undergraduate and graduate students in philosophy, ecological studies and theology.