Brian Treanor
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226849
- eISBN:
- 9780823235100
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226849.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental ...
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“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. Emmanuel Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim “every other is wholly other”. But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate. This book traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness by examining the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Ultimately, this book makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude.Less
“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. Emmanuel Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim “every other is wholly other”. But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate. This book traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness by examining the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Ultimately, this book makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude.
Michael J. Scanlon and O. S. A.
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225187
- eISBN:
- 9780823237135
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823225187.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
John D. Caputo reminds us that the impossible immobilizes us on the cognitive level, but then we shift to the conative, to the sphere of praxis and the pragmatic order. This ...
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John D. Caputo reminds us that the impossible immobilizes us on the cognitive level, but then we shift to the conative, to the sphere of praxis and the pragmatic order. This is where Saint Thomas Aquinas developed his theology of grace even to the point of a theology of “merit”, wherein our grace-enabled praxis creates our eternal destiny. As Caputo might put it, we experience the impossible by doing it. For Aquinas, merit is not a psychological category of motivation — it is grace realism in the pragmatic order. Aquinas developed his theology of merit within his theology of grace, elaborated in the philosophical categories of Aristotle. He spoke of “human nature”, which is the essence of the human being as source of human activity unto a human end. As part of the modern vocabulary, the term “experience” fell under the suspicion of the Vatican, which delayed the development of any modern Catholic theology. Today, postmodern philosophy and theology question subjectivity together with the objectivity of metaphysical language as appropriate loci for talk about God.Less
John D. Caputo reminds us that the impossible immobilizes us on the cognitive level, but then we shift to the conative, to the sphere of praxis and the pragmatic order. This is where Saint Thomas Aquinas developed his theology of grace even to the point of a theology of “merit”, wherein our grace-enabled praxis creates our eternal destiny. As Caputo might put it, we experience the impossible by doing it. For Aquinas, merit is not a psychological category of motivation — it is grace realism in the pragmatic order. Aquinas developed his theology of merit within his theology of grace, elaborated in the philosophical categories of Aristotle. He spoke of “human nature”, which is the essence of the human being as source of human activity unto a human end. As part of the modern vocabulary, the term “experience” fell under the suspicion of the Vatican, which delayed the development of any modern Catholic theology. Today, postmodern philosophy and theology question subjectivity together with the objectivity of metaphysical language as appropriate loci for talk about God.
Mark Gedney
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823224951
- eISBN:
- 9780823235797
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823224951.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter examines the move made by philosophers Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo to reconfigure prayer as sans, in which prayer would be to pray without knowing where to direct the prayers. It ...
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This chapter examines the move made by philosophers Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo to reconfigure prayer as sans, in which prayer would be to pray without knowing where to direct the prayers. It questions whether such prayer is possible and whether it reinscribes the exclusivist logic that it seeks to avoid. This chapter argues that such a prayer appears to be presented as superior to that of traditions with a determinate messianism, and with this Derrida and Caputo failed to escape religious violence.Less
This chapter examines the move made by philosophers Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo to reconfigure prayer as sans, in which prayer would be to pray without knowing where to direct the prayers. It questions whether such prayer is possible and whether it reinscribes the exclusivist logic that it seeks to avoid. This chapter argues that such a prayer appears to be presented as superior to that of traditions with a determinate messianism, and with this Derrida and Caputo failed to escape religious violence.
Gregg Lambert
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474413909
- eISBN:
- 9781474422352
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474413909.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This statement takes up John D. Caputo’s seminal work of “weak theology,” The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (1997). In addition to calling into question a careful reading of Derrida on the ...
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This statement takes up John D. Caputo’s seminal work of “weak theology,” The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (1997). In addition to calling into question a careful reading of Derrida on the subjects of faith and reason, the author also critiques the elision of both skepticism and psychoanalysis as possible epistemologies.Less
This statement takes up John D. Caputo’s seminal work of “weak theology,” The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (1997). In addition to calling into question a careful reading of Derrida on the subjects of faith and reason, the author also critiques the elision of both skepticism and psychoanalysis as possible epistemologies.
Edith Wyschogrod
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226061
- eISBN:
- 9780823235148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226061.003.0020
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter is a discourse between Edith Wyschogrod and John D. Caputo on postmodernism and the desire for God. In the postmodern culture of images, so-called virtual ...
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This chapter is a discourse between Edith Wyschogrod and John D. Caputo on postmodernism and the desire for God. In the postmodern culture of images, so-called virtual reality raises the problem to a new level. Nothing is more common in the postmodern world than the replication of the violence of interactive video games and Internet images. In a world of semblances, people die by violence, but their deaths are and are not understood as being real. Violence is envisaged as simultaneously actualizing and de-realizing death. If all is semblance, a game, death's finality is fictive, undecidable. What is more, if transcendence and immanence are inextricable, the atheist could see le désir de Dieu not only as our desire for God but also as God's desire. So the amor dei, le désir de Dieu, in this culture of images, is to be the imago dei, to let the images of God fly up like sparks, and to affirm a certain holy undecidability between the “image” and “God”.Less
This chapter is a discourse between Edith Wyschogrod and John D. Caputo on postmodernism and the desire for God. In the postmodern culture of images, so-called virtual reality raises the problem to a new level. Nothing is more common in the postmodern world than the replication of the violence of interactive video games and Internet images. In a world of semblances, people die by violence, but their deaths are and are not understood as being real. Violence is envisaged as simultaneously actualizing and de-realizing death. If all is semblance, a game, death's finality is fictive, undecidable. What is more, if transcendence and immanence are inextricable, the atheist could see le désir de Dieu not only as our desire for God but also as God's desire. So the amor dei, le désir de Dieu, in this culture of images, is to be the imago dei, to let the images of God fly up like sparks, and to affirm a certain holy undecidability between the “image” and “God”.
