The Question of Sacrifice

In this concentrated and detailed look at questions surrounding the act of sacrifice, Dennis King Keenan discusses both the role and the meaning of sacrifice in our lives. Building on recent philosophical discussions on the gift and transcendence, Keenan covers new ground with this exploration of the religious, psychological, and ethical issues that sacrifice entails. According to Keenan, sacrifice is paradoxically called to sacrifice itself. But what does this necessary, yet impossible condition mean for living an ethical life? Along the way to an answer, Keenan considers the views of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bataille, Lacan, Levinas, Blanchot, Irigaray, Derrida, Kristeva, Nancy, and Zizek. This thoughtful and provocative work affords a sophisticated philosophical treatment of the question of sacrifice.

Dennis King Keenan is Professor of Philosophy at Fairfield University. He is author of Death and Responsibility: The "Work" of Levinas and editor of Hegel and Contemporary Continental Philosophy.

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

The Sacrifice of Sacrifice: Waiting Without Hope

1. A Genealogy of Theories of Sacrifice: A History of Economics, Sexism, and Christo-centric Evolutionism

2. Kristeva: Mimesis and Sacrifice

3. Bataille: The Hegelian Dialectic, Death, and Sacrifice

4. Nietzsche: The Eternal Return of Sacrifice

5. Levinas: On Resorting to the Ethical Language of Sacrifice

6. Irigaray: The Sacrifice of the Sacrifice of Woman

7. Lacan/Žižek: The Repetition of the Sacrifice of the Sacrifice as an Ethical Act

8. Derrida: The Double Bind of Sacrifice

9. Hegel at the Chiasm of Derrida and Lacan/Žižek

10. The Sacrifice of the Eucharist

Bibliography

Index