Cullan JoyceCorresponding authorORCID id

Unity, Interdependence, and Multiplicity in Maximus the Confessor
An Engagement with Heidegger’s Topology

Article
20/2 - Fall 2015, pages 183-200
Date of online publication: 15 juin 2016
Date of publication: 01 juin 2016

Abstract

This paper explores how Heidegger’s discussion of experience as topos (place) can illuminate some elements of Maximus’ writings. In Heidegger’s later work, the experiencing subject emerges from, and experiences only within, place. Experience is only ever constituted when the conditions of its emergence come together concretely, which is to say, somewhere. Topos, a place, such as a city or my home, is a unity of the elements that make it up. The essay first examines how Heidegger sees philosophical inquiry as a drawing out of the different elements that constitute the unity of experience as place. Many works of Maximus the Confessor, including his ascetic writings, examine how the subject experiences within the world. Using the topological account of experience described by Heidegger, the paper examines several distinctions that emerge from Maximus’ ascetic thought. Using examples, the essay suggests it is possible to see Maximus’ analyses as being engagements with an understanding to the effect that experience emerges with a unity, in topos. The essay suggests that reading Maximus through topos helps explain why it is that so many structures can arise interdependently through his engagement with experience.

Keywords

Cite this article

Joyce, Cullan. “Unity, Interdependence, and Multiplicity in Maximus the Confessor: An Engagement with Heidegger’s Topology.” Forum Philosophicum 20, no. 2 (2015): 183–200. doi:10.35765/forphil.2015.2002.16.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License