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COMPREHENDING OF RELIGION PHENOMENA: HEIDEGGER’S METHOD VS METHOD OF DUTCH SCHOOL

Abstract
The author compares the approaches of Heidegger and Dutch religious phenomenologists to the identification, description, and interpretation of religious phenomena. The focus of comparison is set by Heidegger’s stance in the course of lectures Einleitung in die Phanomenologie der Religion. The author fixes the five base aspects of the phenomenological method: exclusion of generalizations and abstractions, non-conceptual consideration, identification of historicity, grasping the uniqueness of the phenomena of religious life, and the absence of preconditions in phenomenological consideration. The aim of consideration is the concretization of the effectiveness of these principles for the comprehension of religious life. This comparison allows to detect the commonality between the Heidegger’s approach and that of religious phenomenologists. It presupposes rejecting conceptual schemes, objectifying approaches, doctrinal prerequisites, striving to reveal the authentic meaning of religious life phenomena, fixation on the uniqueness of religious experience, and construction of a first-person perspective. However, there are principal methodological differences. Dutch phenomenologists assumed that a large-scale coverage of historical and doctrinal facts of religious life is not only possible but also necessary while Heidegger did not deem necessary the comparison of different religious phenomena for their understanding. This is due to Heidegger did not set the task of qualification of religious phenomenon. The Dutch phenomenologists excluded generalization and universalization but did not exclude grouping and typology of religious life elements. They held an anti-historical position conditioned by the idea of the specificity of religious phenomena; they studied religious data on the base of historical facts to reveal the hidden or deep structures. The special methodological problem is presuppositionless consideration, which indicates the limits of the applicability of Husserl’s phenomenological method to religious research. In the conclusion of the article, the author compares how Heidegger and Dutch phenomenologists solve this problem.

Keywords
presuppositionless, historicity, formal indication, non-conceptual consideration, meaning, significance, sacred, structural phenomenology of religion, G. van der Leeuw, W. Brede Kristensen.

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