Synopses & Reviews
The Gift of Death, Jacques Derrida’s most sustained consideration of religion, explores questions first introduced in his book Given Time about the limits of the rational and responsible that one reaches in granting or accepting death, whether by sacrifice, murder, execution, or suicide. Derrida analyzes Czech philosopher Jan Patocka’s Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History and develops and compares his ideas to the works of Heidegger, Lévinas, and Kierkegaard. One of Derrida’s major works, The Gift of Death resonates with much of his earlier writing, and this highly anticipated second edition is greatly enhanced by David Wills’s updated translation. This new edition also features the first-ever English translation of Derrida’s Literature in Secret. In it, Derrida continues his discussion of the sacrifice of Isaac, which leads to bracing meditations on secrecy, forgiveness, literature, and democracy. He also offers a reading of Kafka’s Letter to His Father and uses the story of the flood in Genesis as an embarkation point for a consideration of divine sovereignty. “An important contribution to the critical study of ethics that commends itself to philosophers, social scientists, scholars of religion . . . [and those] made curious by the controversy that so often attends Derrida.”—Booklist, on the first edition
Synopsis
The Gift of Death, Jacques Derridas most sustained consideration of religion, explores questions first introduced in his book Given Time about the limits of the rational and responsible that one reaches in granting or accepting death, whether by sacrifice, murder, execution, or suicide. Derrida analyzes Czech philosopher Jan Patockas Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History and develops and compares his ideas to the works of Heidegger, Lévinas, and Kierkegaard. One of Derridas major works, The Gift of Death resonates with much of his earlier writing, and this highly anticipated second edition is greatly enhanced by David Willss updated translation. This new edition also features the first-ever English translation of Derridas Literature in Secret. In it, Derrida continues his discussion of the sacrifice of Isaac, which leads to bracing meditations on secrecy, forgiveness, literature, and democracy. He also offers a reading of Kafkas Letter to His Father and uses the story of the flood in Genesis as an embarkation point for a consideration of divine sovereignty. “An important contribution to the critical study of ethics that commends itself to philosophers, social scientists, scholars of religion . . . [and those] made curious by the controversy that so often attends Derrida.”—Booklist, on the first edition
Synopsis
Jean-Luc Marions book, Negative Certainties, first published in French as Certitudes négatives in 2007, is without a doubt an important addition to his oeuvre. The main argument can be stated briefly: Following Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger, Marion emphasizes mans finitude and the limits of reason. But, he asks, isnt it certain that we can be certain about our finitude and rational limitations? After establishing this concept of negative certainty” he then applies it to four aporia or issues of certain uncertainty: the definition of man; the nature of God; the unconditionality of the gift, understood both as that which transcends exchange and as the given; and the unpredictability of events. And this in turn leads him to further reflections on God (or Being) as the unconditioned Giver of the Gift. This book, now available in English for the first time in Stephen Lewiss elegant translation, will be essential reading for postmodern theologians and philosophers of religion in general.
Synopsis
In
Negative Certainties, renowned philosopher Jean-Luc Marion challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions we have developed about knowledge: that it is categorical, predicative, and positive. Following Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger, he looks toward our finitude and the limits of our reason. He asks an astonishingly simple—but profoundly provocative—question in order to open up an entirely new way of thinking about knowledge: Isn’t our uncertainty, our finitude and rational limitations, one of the few things we can be certain about?
Marion shows how the assumption of knowledge as positive demands a reductive epistemology that disregards immeasurable or disorderly phenomena. He shows that we have experiences every day that have no identifiable causes or predictable reasons, and that these constitute a very real knowledge—a knowledge of the limits of what can be known. Establishing this “negative certainty,” Marion applies it to four aporias, or issues of certain uncertainty: the definition of man; the nature of God; the unconditionality of the gift; and the unpredictability of events. Translated for the first time into English, Negative Certainties is an invigorating work of epistemological inquiry that will take a central place in Marion’s oeuvre.
About the Author
Jean-Luc Marion, member of the Académie française, is emeritus professor of philosophy at the Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). He is the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Professor of Catholic Studies, professor of the philosophy of religions and theology, and professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He also holds the Dominique Dubarle chair at the Institut Catholique of Paris. He is the author of many books, including The Erotic Phenomenon and God without Being, both also published by the University of Chicago Press. Stephen E. Lewis is professor and chair of the English Department at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He has translated several works by Jean-Luc Marion.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Translator’s Acknowledgments
Introduction
§ 1 Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Certainties into Philosophy
I The Undefinable, or the Face of Man
§ 2 “What Is Man?”
§ 3 “Ipse mihi magna quaestio”
§ 4 What It Costs to Know (Oneself)
§ 5 Proscription
§ 6 The Fund of Incomprehensibility
§ 7 The Indefinite and the Unstable
II The Impossible, or What Is Proper to God
§ 8 The Impossible Phenomenon
§ 9 The Irreducible
§ 10 Possibility without Conditions
§ 11 The (Im)possible: From Contradiction to Event
§ 12 The (Im)possible from My Point of View
§ 13 The (Im)possible from God’s Point of View
III The Unconditioned, or the Strength of the Gift
§ 14 The Contradictions of the Gift
§ 15 The Terms of Exchange
§ 16 Reducing the Gift to Givenness
§ 17 Without the Principle of Identity
§ 18 Without the Principle of Sufficient Reason
IV The Unconditioned and the Variations of the Gift
§ 19 Sacrifice According to the Terms of Exchange
§ 20 Regiving, Beginning from the Recipient
§ 21 The Confirmation of Abraham
§ 22 Forgiveness According to the Terms of Exchange
§ 23 Regiving, Beginning from the Giver
§ 24 The Return of the Prodigal Son
V The Unforeseeable, or the Event
§ 25 What the Object Excludes
§ 26 The Condition of the Object
§ 27 Concerning the Distinction of Phenomena into Objects and Events
§ 28 Without Cause
§ 29 The Original Unknown
§ 30 The Double Interpretation
Conclusion
§ 31 In Praise of the Paradox
Bibliographical Note
Notes
Index