Phenomenology and the Horizon of Experience

Joseph Rivera is a tenured professor of philosophy and theology at Dublin City University, Ireland. He is the author of The Contemplative Self after Michel Henry (2015) and Political Theology and Pluralism: Renewing Public Dialogue (2018). He’s the co-editor with Joseph O’Leary of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology and Theology.

"When Husserl borrowed William James’s notion of a horizon, he enabled phenomenology to give the richest account of experience that philosophy had yet known. Can this horizon be erased or disturbed? Some contemporary writing suggests so. For his part, Joseph Rivera points us to the implacable philosophical and theological need for a horizon as a way of orienting and deepening our experience of the world, one another, and God." - Kevin Hart, The University of Virginia "As a whole, Phenomenology and the Horizon of Experience enriches the reader’s understanding of phenomenology after the theological turn […]. Joseph Rivera navigates the tumultuous waters of the French debate by illuminating not only the theological or religious character of French phenomenology after the turn, but in fact its spiritual character as well. In this way, Rivera offers an original reflection on experience and phenomenality which, through the logic of the horizon, carries the theological metaphysics of the turn into discourse with the spiritual life of faith, culminating with a fascinating analysis of sacramentality as a practical ‘attitude’ towards human being in the world." – James Lorenz in The Heythrop Journal"At times, the author moves effortlessly from analytic philosophy to medieval theology through phenomenology and into literary prose all within one page. Yet this diversity and these methodological transitions do not distract from how this still is a serious work of phenomenology. While accessible and interdisciplinary, it is not merely another repetition of hermeneutic explanation of those great ‘fathers’ of the theological turn. It carefully assesses their work and develops its own original argument and novel concepts." - Jason Alvis in Modern Theology

• Part 1 Horizonality 1. Overcoming the Metaphysics of Representation 2. Affection and the Horizon of Experience Part 2 Michel Henry and Life 3. Incarnate Self: The Night of Love 4. Spiritual Life and the Phenomenology of Life 5. The Spirit of Empathy Part 3 Jean-Luc Marion and the Gift 6. Selving: L’adonné and Ethics 7. Spiritual Exercises: An Augustinian Reduction 8. The Given and the Manifestation of the Trinity Part 4 Jean-Yves Lacoste and Liturgy 9. Spiritual Life: Angst, Peace, Love 10. Lived Experience and Metaphysics in Theology 11. The Body and Eucharistic Experience Postscript 12. Sacramental Worldhood