Apocalyptic Phenomenology: The Culmination of the Phenomenological Movement

Abstract

In this article, I delineate a notion of phenomenology, which differs in many ways from earlier approaches. I term this understanding apocalyptic in the sense that this phenomenology discloses not only the essences of particular things, logical entities, ideas, and transcendental processes, but beyond them, it reveals reality in its essential openness to newness. The term apocalupsis refers not simply to the unveiling of something unknown earlier, but more importantly to the central determinant of reality in that it discloses irreducible newness. I show that the phenomenon of self-disclosure or revelation was at the center of the work of the first phenomenologists, such as Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl; I emphasize the notion of phenomenological revelation in the thought of Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger. In this context, I offer an interpretation of the phenomenologies of Emmanuel Lévinas, Michel Henry, and Jean-Luc Marion. I argue that the notion of nouveauté novatrice of Miklos Vetö is a phenomenologically inspired insight into the nature of the essence of phenomenology. I claim that newness is the core of reality engendering a new conception of phenomenology as a philosophy of reality–a phenomenology aptly termed neology, a development of what is known as “the phenomenological movement”.

Phénoménologie de la Vérité: The Phenomenological Roots of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theology

“…The methodological patterns have also changed from description to intentional analysis, from transcendentalism to ontology, from ontology to alterity, and from the latter to the discovery of the ultimate theological horizon that defines even the simplest phenomena in our world. Apocalyptic phenomenology follows the latter path, centering on divine revelation and elaborating the perception of this revelation as the proleptic function of revelation here and now (Mezei 2022a). It is clear from this brief summary that, contrary to opinions that emphasize the divergences and contradictions of the various phases of phenomenology's development, I see the evolution of the problems of phenomenology as more of a synergistic process, in which certain problems have triggered the emergence of other problems and, in this way, all have contributed to what I call the culmination of the phenomenological movement.…”

“…Apocalyptic phenomenology can be called the culmination of the phenomenological movement (Mezei 2022a) in that in it the core of reality is disclosed. Insofar as Balthasar outlined a historical form of apocalyptic thought, his approach can be used in the proper explanation of apocalyptic phenomenology.…”