Post-Secular Philosophy - edited by Phillip Blond
The dismissal of God from philosophical consideration is a hallmark of
"modern" philosophy. However the expulsion of God has led to the "creation"
of a secular world whose disintegration is all too apparent. Until recently
the irreligious assumptions that have governed modern thinking have been
left unquestioned. In this major and comprehensive new book the atheistic
presuppositions of modernity are laid bare and disputed by a revitalised
theology that no longer needs to be apologetic.
Post-secular Philosophy examines fifteen thinkers who have constitued
and shaped contemporary western philosophy. By placing the problem of God
in its historical and philosophical context, these essays chart the origin
of secular modernity and show how other possibilities are now conceivable.
Those discussed are:
| Descartes |
Kant |
Hegel |
| Keirkegarrd |
Nietzche |
Neidegger |
| Levinas |
Marion |
Wittgenstien |
| Derrida |
Freud |
Lacan |
| Kristeva |
Irigary |
Baudrillard |
A comprehensive and fascinating introduction by Philip Blond places the
debate in context, arguing that Christian faith must be considered a real
alternative to the relativism and nihilism that dominates Western thinking.
Contributors
The contributors of the book are a fascinating bunch:
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Alison Ainley is currently working on a book on Irigary and Feminist Philosophy.
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Phillippa Berry's books include Shadow
of Spirit, Charity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the un-married
Queen, Shakespeare's feminine endings: Figuring women in the
tragedies.
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Howard Caygill's books include The
Art of Judgement, The Kant Directory, Walter
Benjamin: the Colour of Experience
-
Michael Haar's books include Heidegger
and the essence of Man, The Song of the Earth and Neitzsche
and Metaphysics.
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Kevin Hart's works include The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction,
Theology and Philosophy, A.D.
Hope, The
Oxford Book of Australian Religious Verse, Losing the Power to say
'I', and New and Selected Poems. He has recently completed a
study on Samuel Johnson and is now writing monograph on Maurice Blanchot.
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Fergus Kerr is the editor of New Blackfriars and author of Theology
after Wittegnstein and Immortal Longings:Versions of Transcending
Humanism.
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Jean-Luc Marion (Prof - Visiting Prof)'s recent books include Etant
donné: essai d'une phenomonologie de la donation, God without
Being, Réduction et donation, La Croisée du visible,
Sur la prime métaphysique de Descartes.
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John Millbank's books include The Religious Dimension of Thought in
Gimabattista Vice, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, The
World Made Strange: Theology Language Culture.
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John Peacocke is currently edinting a collection of papers entitled Lacan
on Naricissism.
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Regina M Schwatrz's books include The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy
of Monotheism, Remembering and Repeating: On Milton's Theology and Poetics,
The Book and the text: the Bible and Literary Theory, The Postmodern Bible.
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Graham Ward's books include Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology,
Theology and Contemporary Critical Theory, Michel de Certau SJ, The Postmodern
God. He is the senior editor of Literature and Theology.
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Andrew Warnick's books include Promotional Culture: advertising, ideology
and symbolic expression, Shadow of Spirit, and Images of
Ageing: cultural representations of later life
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Rowan Williams's books include Arius: heresy and tradition, Teresa of
Avilia and After Silent Centuries
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Charles E Winquist's books include Desiring theology and Epiphanies
of Darkness.
Extracts from Philip Blond's Introduction
We live in a time of failed conditions. Everywhere people who have
no faith in any possibility, either for themselves, each other, or the
world, mouth locutions they do not understand. With words such as 'politics'
they attempt to formalise the unformalisable and found secular cities on
it... Since God is committed to presence, they assume that theology is
no longer an option for serious minds...Since it approaches the visible
univers as a subject approahced its object, the secular gaze objectifes
the visible world into its ontic possession...
In truth all secular discourses, all the ontic claims made about reality
and correct description, are not even wrong, they are just weak.
Reality is real, but if configured only within the secular or pagan rubric
it is reality at its lowest power... In John we find Christ saying...unless
a man is born from above he cannot see the Kingdom of God.. And the glory
is that man is born from above, his possibility stems from the fact
that he is born from the highest actuality and it is this and our participatn
in it that alone allows human beings to transfigure themselves and their
world.