Preface to the Fourth Edition

p. xiii

Abbreviations

p. xvii

Translator’s Note

p. xix

Part One: The Personal “Mode of Existence”

Chapter One - The Ecstatic Character of Personhood

1. The fact of “relation” as the initial assumption of the ontological question, and the “person” as the sole existential possibility of relation

p. 5

2. The ontological priority of personal relation with regard to consciousness

p. 6

3. A void in ontology as such

p. 8

4. The ontological priority of personal relation with regard to the capacity for rational thought

p. 15

5. Personal relation as an ontological presupposition to the disclosure of the general “mode of existence”

p. 17

6. Personal relation as existential ek-stasis

p. 19

7. Apophaticism at the boundaries of the ontological problem: apophaticism of essence and apophaticism of person

p. 20

Chapter Two - The Universality of the Person

8. Personal otherness as existential actualizations of “nature in general”

p. 25

9. The ontological, as distinct from the ontic, interpretation of essence or nature

p. 28

10. The priority of the person with regard to nature or essence. The problem of essence in Heidegger’s ontology

p. 30

11. Truth as relation

p. 34

12. Beings as “things”

p. 35

13. The truth of Being as experience of personal universality

p. 39

Chapter Three - The Unity of the Person

14. The unitary character of the person as a prerequisite of ecstatic otherness

p. 43

15. The dual character of nature and the unitary character of personal existence

p. 44

16. The distinction between soul and body as an important differentiation of natural energy

p. 46

17. The reference of “in the image” to the uniformity (henoeidia) of existence 

p. 48

18. The formal definition of the unity (henotês) of the subject and the unitary (henikê) otherness of the person

p. 50

19. The distinction between nature and energies in terms of the unitary mode of existence

p. 52

20. The rationalistic ascent to the operative First Cause and the existential experience of the personal expression of the natural energies

p. 55

21. The nature participle through the energies. The energies homogeneous and heterogeneous with regard to the nature

p. 59

22. The consequences of accepting or rejecting the distinction between essence and energies

p. 62

23. The distinction between nature and energies as a presupposition of the powers of knowing unitary personal otherness

p. 66

Part Two: The Cosmic Dimensions of the Person

Chapter One - The Personal Aspect of the World

24. The "world" as "mode of disclosure" of physical reality

p. 73

25. The world as the noetic conception f ontic universality. Materialist, pantheist and theocentric approaches

p. 76

26. The scientific indeterminacy of cosmic harmony

p. 79

27. The personal logos of the world's decorum

p. 80

28. The erotic dimension of the world's beauty

p. 82

29. Ascetic self-transcendence as a presupposition for knowledge of the truth of the world's beauty

p. 84

30. "Natural contemplation"

p. 85

31. The "logical"constitution of matter

p. 87

32. The "triadic adornment"of creation

p. 89

33. The human being as "microcosm" and "mediator"

p. 92

34. The use of the world. History and culture

p. 96

35. The theological presuppositions of technocracy

p. 100

Chapter Two - The Personal Dimension of Space: Absence

36. Space as the accommodation as the fact of relation

p. 105

37. The objectifying of personal relation in local distance (apo-stasis) and spatial extent (dia-stasis)

p. 105

38. Absence as experience of non-dimensional nearness

p. 108

39. Possible ontological interpretations of the fact of absence as experience of the nothingness of ontic disclosure

p. 110

40. The experience of absence as a basis for the understanding of the dynamic "ou-topia" of the person

p. 114

41. Personal energies as the "place" of personal relation

p. 116

42. Eros as transcendence of ontic topicality, a non-dimensional mode of existence

p. 118

43. The world's eros. The erotic unity of the world's space

p. 120

44. Absence, death, and the triadic adumbration of the fullness of existence

p. 123

45. The non-dimensional place of ecclesial communion

p. 126

Chapter Three - The Personal Dimension of Time: Presence

46. The understanding of personal ec-stasy as temporal succession

p. 129

47. Time as the "measure" of personal relation

p. 131

48. The "now" as motionless time: the nothingness of successive intervals of events or the non-dimensional time of personal immediacy

p. 133

49. Counted time. "Motion" and "continuity"

p. 135

50. Death as temporal "continuity" and total ecstatic "motion" of individual existence

p. 138

51. The "duration" of personal energy

p. 140

52. The erotic transcendence of temporal "continuity," "divided eros" and "true eros"

p. 142

53. The "estrangement" of time in decay and death as connected with the use of the world

p. 145

54. The ascetic experience of life as "duration"

p. 149

55. Liturgical time

p. 150

Part Three: The "Semantics" of Personal Disclosure

Chapter One - The Logos as Disclosure of the Person

56. The logos as "declaration" and the logos as "logic"

p. 159

57. Logos as "mode" of the person's ecstatic reference

p. 163

58. Logos as "signifier" of personal relation

p. 165

59. The "logic" of aesthetic experience

p. 167

60. Natural energies as the logos of personal otherness

p. 171

Chapter Two - The Image as "Signifier" of Non-conventional Logos

61. Phenomenological ontology as a presupposition of conventional semiology 

p. 173

62. The ontology of the personal "mode of existence" as a presupposition for knowledge as a universal relation

p. 176

63. The unity of knowledge as a fact of universal relation

p. 178

64. Logos and language - language and morality

p. 180

65. The image as analogous knowledge

p. 184

66. The Greeks and "contemplation" (theôria)

p. 188

67. The language of images. A code for readers

p. 190

68. Truth's iconic disclosure and essential hiddenness

p. 194

69. The image as a category of sensory, logical and intellectual beauty

p. 196

Chapter Three - On Analogy and Hierarch

70. The way of knowledge by analogy

p. 201

71. Scholastic analogy as theological epistemology

p. 210

72. The analogy of dissimilar similarities

p. 212

73. Hierarchy as teletarchy, as the ordered perfection of the transmission of knowledge

p. 216

74. The hierarchic unity of truth

p. 219

Part Four: The Fall and Nothingness

Chapter One - Nothingness as "Outside" Personal Relation

75. Nothingness as the distantiality of ontic individuality

p. 223

76. The Fall as existential alienation or estrangement

p. 227

77. The existential fact of freedom: the ontological difference between person and nature

p. 232

78. The exercise of freedom: opposition to the passions

p. 234

79. The moral paradox of freedom: justice and love

p. 237

80. The limit to the self-annihilation of freedom: the dissimilarity of distantiality

p. 240

81. Distantiality as nakedness and shame

p. 243

82. Nothingness as erotic experience of the absence of relation

p. 245

Chapter Two - The Personal Dimension of Nothingness

83. The existential grounds of personal otherness

p. 249

84. The triadic summons: the fundamental starting-point of personal otherness

p. 251

85. The energies of the divine nature as the ontological presupposition of a relation "outside of" that nature

p. 257

86. Ecstatic otherness with regard to nature, and the antithetical dimension of person and nature

p. 262

87. The ontological content of "salvation"

p. 267

88. Nothingness as personal power and choice

p. 272

Chapter Three - The Moral Dimension of Nothingness

89. Morality and Being: identity and difference

p. 275

90. Morality as convention and an axiological ontology

p. 276

91. Heidegger's combination of morality and Being

p. 280

92. The "ethics of freedom" in French existentialism

p. 282

93. Good and evil, two anhypostatic concepts

p. 285

94. "Virtue comes through truth"

p. 288

95. Sin, the moral content of nothingness as an existential fact

p. 290

Notes

p. 295

Index

p. 389

Paperback:

395 Pages

Publisher:

Holy Cross Orthodox Press

ISBN:

978-1-885652-88-1

Product Dimensions:

6 x 9 x 0.8 inches

Author:

Christos Yannaras

Publication Year:

2007