Prelude: The “Transcendental Pretense” of the Modern Subject

“Ultimately,” Eliade argued, following Wach, van der Leeuw, following Otto, Dilthey, and Schleiermacher, “the historian of religion is forced by his hermeneutical endeavor to ‘relive’ a multitude of existential situations and to unravel a number of presystematic ontologies” (Eliade 1969, 10). Besides reading texts and gathering facts, the unique, spiritual calling of the history of religions is to re-experience, imaginatively and empathetically, in oneself the religious experiences of the collective past of “Man.” Unfortunately, this had not been accomplished, Eliade felt, due to an inadequate understanding of “Man” created by the tendency towards narrow specialization in the History of Religion. Consequently, the promise of “Man,” the promise for “Man,” of the history of religions has not yet been realized: “But it is easy to understand that the failure to search for the real center of a religion may explain the inadequate contributions made by the historians of religion to philosophical anthropology” (Eliade 1969, 11). We have seen only data, not essence, and so have failed to see that the “creative hermeneutics” implicit in the very conception of the History of Religion (Religionswissenschaft, phenomenology of religion, comparative religion), “changes man” (Eliade 1969, 62).

But who or what is “Man”? Since Descartes (to speak somewhat metaphorically), “Man” is a subject. The philosopher Robert Solomon explains what is meant by “the modern subject” (or self): “The self in question is no ordinary self, no individual personality, nor even one of the many heroic or mock-heroic personalities of the early nineteenth century.