Reading the First Epistle of John with the Method of Formal Indication
This presentation has two tasks. First, following Heidegger’s presentation of the method of formal indication in his 1920-21 lectures on the Pauline Epistles, I draw out two possible meanings for the method. On the one hand, formal indication could be a hermeneutic tool, a use of the how indicated in language to guide one in understanding the original relation in experience as original relation (enacted). On the other hand, formal indication could be the enacting of the original relation myself, in other words, appropriating the original relation in my own life as something to be enacted by me. The second task of the presentation is to read the First Epistle of John in the context of formal indication and these two possibilities, highlighting the affinities between the Epistle and the early Heidegger’s method and ultimately arguing that the dialogical imperative in John presents its necessary foil.