Sean McGrath (philosopher)

McGrath’s publications and presentations since graduating from the University of Toronto in 2002 fall broadly into the area known as continental philosophy, but with an interdisciplinary focus that encompasses religion, ecology, and depth psychology. Three areas are predominant in his output: (1) the philosophy of religion and Christian theology; (2) the philosophy of nature; and (3) the philosophy of psychology.[2] A major theme of his work concerns the legacy of religion in secular society. Where many theories of secularization speak of the progressive separation of culture from religion, McGrath understands the phenomenon to be far more complex. With thinkers such as Max Weber, Karl Löwith, and Marcel Gauchet, McGrath maintains that secular society is itself a product of the Christian religion, and continues to depend upon it.

McGrath explored the problem of secularization in his book, The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy: Phenomenology for the Godforsaken (2006, reprinted 2013). Struck by the analogies between the thought of the early Heidegger and late medieval and early Protestant Christianity, McGrath discovered that the similarities were far from accidental. Through careful archival work in Germany, McGrath argued (with Max Scheler and Jacques Derrida), that Heidegger, an ex-seminarian and formerly devout Catholic, had secularized Christian concepts in Being and Time. Heidegger’s book went on to become a foundational text in 20th century atheist thought, and yet none of its major themes would be possible, according to McGrath, without Christianity. Theodore Kisiel described Phenomenology for the Godforsaken as “a systematic and detailed dismantling of Heidegger’s deconstruction of medieval scholasticism … Substantial and novel, this work offers a significant and timely contribution to the Heidegger literature” (back cover). On the strength of this work, the Centre for Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, the theological think-tank headed by the Anglican theologian John Milbank, commissioned McGrath to write a short critique of Heidegger for theologians.[3][4][5][6]

McGrath’s second book, Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction, extended the theological analysis of Heidegger into political terrain. McGrath argued for a clear connection between Heidegger’s Nazi sympathies and his relationship to Christianity.[7][8][9][10][11] John Hughes described the book as “one of the clearest and most elegantly written [accounts of Heidegger] I have come across”.[12]

The work of unraveling the complicated relationship of secular forms of thought to theology led McGrath to his next major project: psychoanalysis. McGrath’s examined how the psychoanalytical concept of the unconscious originates in German Idealism, especially the work of the German philosopher, Friedrich Schelling. With the support of a Humboldt fellowship, and after four years of research in Germany and Switzerland, McGrath published his third book, The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the Unconscious. The Dark Ground received many favorable reviews: “Among the most imaginative, original, at times exhilarating, studies of Schelling to appear in recent years,” wrote Jason Wirth of Seattle University. “Rarely has Schelling been written about with such clarity and passion,” wrote Paul C. Bishop of the University of Glasgow. “McGrath’s careful research clinches the argument that the theosophical tradition of Boehme as received by Schellingian philosophy constitutes the root of the unconscious.”[13][14] With Jason Wirth, McGrath founded the North American Schelling Society in 2011. McGrath is currently working on a study of the late Schelling’s philosophy of religion. It will be published in 2021 under the title The Late Schelling and the End of Christianity.[15]

McGrath is active in environmental philosophy and interdisciplinary ecology. He has examined the theological origins of the ecological crisis in several articles. His recent publications have stressed the religious roots of consumerism, underscoring the need for an ethical transformation of the social imaginary if we are to meet the challenge of climate change. In his fourth book, Thinking Nature: An Essay in Negative Ecology (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), McGrath argues against a major trend in environmental theory that thinks “nature is dead.” The concept of nature, however vague, remains vital, in McGrath’s view, to both metaphysics and to public ecological discourse, and has the potential to produce new meanings which could mobilize communities to creatively respond to climate change. The symbol of nature has a vague religious aura in contemporary culture, according to McGrath, precisely because ecology is a site—perhaps the last site—for the resurgence of the sacred in a secular setting. The forgetting of nature leads directly to the ascendency of consumerism, which preys on the Western imaginary in dangerous ways. Only by remembering nature, McGrath argues, and what we owe to it, will we find the will to disengage from consumption.[16][17]

In 2015, with Kyla Bruff (doctoral candidate in Philosophy at Memorial) and Barry Stephenson (Religious Studies, Memorial) McGrath founded For a New Earth, a registered NPO in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. FANE has as its mission “ecological conversion for everyone.”[18]

• The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy: Phenomenology for the Godforsaken (Catholic University of America Press, 2006, reprinted 2013)
• Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Eerdmans, 2008)
• The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the Unconscious (Routledge, 2012)
• Thinking Nature: An Essay in Negative Ecology (Edinburgh University Press, 2019)
• Schelling and the End of Christianity, forthcoming
• A Companion to Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religious Life, Edited by S. J. McGrath and Andrzej Wierciński (Rodopi, 2010)

• Sean McGrath at Memorial University of Newfoundland