Caputo's book is riveting.... A singular achievement of stylistic brio and impeccable scholarship, it breaks new ground in making a powerful case for treating Derrida as homo religiosis.... There can be no mistaking the importance of Caputo's work." -Edith Wyschogrod
No one interested in Derrida, in Caputo, or in the larger question of postmodernism and religion can afford to ignore this pathbreaking study. Taking full advantage of the most recent and least discussed writings of Derrida, it offers a careful and comprehensive account of the religious dimension of Derrida's thought." -Merold Westphal
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: A Passion for the Impossible
A Map for the Perplexed
I. The Apophatic
1. God Is Not différance
2. Dreaming the Impossible Dream: Derrida and Levinas on the Impossible
3. Affirmation at the Limits: How Not to Speak
4. Save the Name: Wholly Other Towards a General Apophatics
Edifying Divertissement No. 1. Bedeviling Faith
II. The Apocalyptic
5. Viens!
6. Messianic Time: Derrida and Blanchot
7. An Apocalypse sans Apocalypse, To Jacques of El Biar
8. The Secret
Edifying Divertissement No. 2. From Elea to Elohim: God of the Same, God of the Other
III. The messianic
9. Of Marx and the Messiah
10. Messianic Passion and the Religion of Saint Jacques
11. Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (Almost)
IV. The Gift
12. The Time of Giving and Forgiving
Edifying Divertissement No. 3. Traditions and the World-Play
13. Abraham's Gift
14. Abraham and the Pharisees
Edifying Divertissement No. 4. Deconstruction and the Kingdom of God
V. Circumcision
15. Hegel and the Jews
Edifying Divertissement No. 5. Deferring Incarnation—and Jesus the Jew
16. Circumcision
17. Is Deconstruction Really a Jewish science?
VI. Confession
18. The Son of These Tears: The Confession of Jacques de la Rue-Augustin
Edifying Divertissement No. 6. A Prayer
19. These Weeping Eyes, Those Seeing Tears: The Faith of Jacques Derrida
Conclusion: A Passion for God
Bibliography on Derrida and Religion
About the Author :
John D. Caputo is David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. He is author of Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project; Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction; and Demythologizing Heidegger.
Review :
"... the most thorough and illuminating study to date of the decisive role played by the religious within Jacques Derrida's writings." Journal of Religion "The question of the relation between Derrida and religion has gradually been attracting attention. Caputo ... offers us here what may be the definitive study of this issue... Highly recommended." Choice "The book is a feast of wordplay, but it is wordplay the mind can feed on... a landmark publication." --Journal of the American Academy of Religion "Caputo's book is riveting... A singular achievement of stylistic brio and impeccable scholarship, it breaks new ground in making a powerful case for treating Derrida as homo religiosis... There can be no mistaking the importance of Caputo's work." -- Edith Wyschogrod "No one interested in Derrida, in Caputo, or in the larger question of postmodernism and religion can afford to ignore this pathbreaking study. Taking full advantage of the most recent and least discussed writings of Derrida, it offers a careful and comprehensive account of the religious dimension of Derrida's thought." -- Merold Westphal
