Introduction

Philosophers generally tackle their work by way of the same methodological atheism that Martin Heidegger said should determine phenomenology. The transcendental idealism of his phenomenology distinguishes the notion of God as an ethical duty and infinite Idea from the conception of the traditional God of faith, but such a distinction does not necessarily resolve the tension between them. The issue of translation leads to a more general consideration about the scope of this work itself. It would be unbalanced to expect an introduction to be the last word on developments in phenomenology today in France. Thus, to produce phenomenological texts that affirm an atheistic perspective as defense for the secularist interpretation of our human condition—Heidegger and Sartre most typically are enlisted to do the work—is no less a matter of preaching to the choir. Reading the history of philosophy phenomenologically, Vincent Carraud shows that the typical boundaries between philosophy and theology are put in question.