The Man who Prays: Constructing a Post-Heideggerian’s Concept of Subject through the Phenomenology of Jean-Yves Lacoste

Abstract

In contemporary phenomenology, the concept of the subject proposed by early phenomenologists—namely Husserl and Heidegger—has faced various criticisms from contemporary phenomenologists. For contemporary phenomenologists, Husserl and Heidegger’s concept of the subject has numerous problems, rendering it incapable of enabling the subject to attain its true existence. To address this issue, Jean-Yves Lacoste proposes a concept of the subject that focuses on the analysis of the present and/or presence. Within the present and/or presence, Lacoste discovers the true existence of humanity—that is, when a person encounters God in the practice of prayer, specifically when the subject releases all worldly determinations to move toward God. And this encounter with God is the ultimate definition of true existence. Therefore, by employing Lacoste’s subject analysis, the author can propose a concept of the subject capable of addressing the issues in Heidegger’s thought—what the author terms “the man who prays.” Through prayer, the subject leaves the world and moves toward God. It is in this movement toward God that the subject attains its true existence.