ABSTRACT

This chapter begins by putting into context and then exploring a key theme in the work of Meister Eckhart, namely, acting without why. It explores this theme in Eckhart's thought further as it is taken up by the poet Angelus Silesius, whose thinking is in turn employed by Heidegger. Meister Eckhart makes it clear throughout his works that if we are to know God it must be for God's sake and not our own. It is fairly well known among scholars of his work that Martin Heidegger also explored Eckhart's notion of 'living without why'. The chapter seeks to show drawing from Martin Heidegger's insights, that desire to explain and rationalise circumscribes the nature of philosophy as speculative knowledge, which is always on the lookout for reasons. Heidegger examines Leibniz's 'Principle of Sufficient Reason', which argues that 'nothing is without a reason or ground', or put another way, 'nothing is without a why'.