The Givenness of Desire

The Givenness of Desire PDF Author: Randall S. Rosenberg
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487510721
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Givenness of Desire, Randall S. Rosenberg examines the human desire for God through the lens of Lonergan’s "concrete subjectivity." Rosenberg engages and integrates two major scholarly developments: the tension between Neo-Thomists and scholars of Henri de Lubac over our natural desire to see God and the theological appropriation of the mimetic theory of René Girard, with an emphasis on the saints as models of desire. With Lonergan as an integrating thread, the author engages a variety of thinkers, including Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean-Luc Marion, René Girard, James Alison, Lawrence Feingold, and John Milbank, among others. The theme of concrete subjectivity helps to resist the tendency of equating too easily the natural desire for being with the natural desire for God without at the same time acknowledging the widespread distortion of desire found in the consumer culture that infects contemporary life. The Givenness of Desire investigates our paradoxical desire for God that is rooted in both the natural and supernatural.

The Givenness of Desire

The Givenness of Desire PDF Author: Randall S. Rosenberg
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487510721
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Givenness of Desire, Randall S. Rosenberg examines the human desire for God through the lens of Lonergan’s "concrete subjectivity." Rosenberg engages and integrates two major scholarly developments: the tension between Neo-Thomists and scholars of Henri de Lubac over our natural desire to see God and the theological appropriation of the mimetic theory of René Girard, with an emphasis on the saints as models of desire. With Lonergan as an integrating thread, the author engages a variety of thinkers, including Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean-Luc Marion, René Girard, James Alison, Lawrence Feingold, and John Milbank, among others. The theme of concrete subjectivity helps to resist the tendency of equating too easily the natural desire for being with the natural desire for God without at the same time acknowledging the widespread distortion of desire found in the consumer culture that infects contemporary life. The Givenness of Desire investigates our paradoxical desire for God that is rooted in both the natural and supernatural.

Desire and Distance

Desire and Distance PDF Author: Renaud Barbaras
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804746458
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Get Book Here

Book Description
Desire and Distance constitutes an important new departure in contemporary phenomenological thought, a rethinking and critique of basic philosophical positions concerning the concept of perception presented by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, though it departs in significant and original ways from their work. Barbaras's overall goal is to develop a philosophy of what "life" is—one that would do justice to the question of embodiment and its role in perception and the formation of the human subject. Barbaras posits that desire and distance inform the concept of "life." Levinas identified a similar structure in Descartes's notion of the infinite. For Barbaras, desire and distance are anchored not in meaning, but in a rethinking of the philosophy of biology and, in consequence, cosmology. Barbaras elaborates and extends the formal structure of desire and distance by drawing on motifs as yet unexplored in the French phenomenological tradition, especially the notions of "life" and the "life-world," which are prominent in the later Husserl but also appear in non-phenomenological thinkers such as Bergson. Barbaras then filters these notions (especially "life") through Merleau-Ponty.

Marion and Derrida on The Gift and Desire: Debating the Generosity of Things

Marion and Derrida on The Gift and Desire: Debating the Generosity of Things PDF Author: Jason Alvis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319279424
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the various encounters between Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Derrida on “the gift,” considers their many differences on “desire,” and demonstrates how these topics hold the keys to some of phenomenology’s most pressing structural questions, especially regarding “deconstructive” approaches within the field. The book claims that the topic of desire is a central lynchpin to understanding the two thinkers’ conflict over the gift, for the gift is reducible to the “desire to give,” which initiates a turn to the topic of “generosity.” To what degree might loving also imply giving? How far might it be suggested that love is reducible to desire and intentionality? It is demonstrated how Derrida (the generative “father” of deconstruction) rejects the possibility of any potential relation between the gift and desire on the account that desire is bound to calculative repetition, economical appropriation, and subject-centered interests that hinder deconstruction. Whereas Marion (a representative of the phenomenological tradition) demands a unique union between the gift and desire, which are both represented in his “reduction to givenness” and “erotic reduction.” The book is the first extensive attempt to contextualize the stark differences between Marion and Derrida within the phenomenological legacy (Husserl, Heidegger, Kant), supplies readers with in-depth accounts of the topics of the gift, love, and desire, and demonstrates another means through which the appearing of phenomena might be understood, namely, according to the generosity of things.

The Givenness of Things

The Givenness of Things PDF Author: Marilynne Robinson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374714312
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations. Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Lila and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past, Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer--and Shakespeare--can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared elite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display. Exquisite and bold, The Givenness of Things is a necessary call for us to find wisdom and guidance in our cultural heritage, and to offer grace to one another.

Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and the Desire to Be a God

Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and the Desire to Be a God PDF Author: Bruce N. Waller
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793632650
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and the Desire to be a God explores the hidden corridors of the moral responsibility system to discover why that system is so widely accepted and passionately defended. The moral responsibility system has obvious charms: it provides justification for our powerful strike-back motives, transforms selfishness into the virtuous defense of our justly deserved special benefits, draws a radical distinction between humans and the other species we exploit, and protects our nonconscious belief in a just world. Those charms notwithstanding, the resilience and endurance of the moral responsibility system indicates a hidden force that not only binds together the pieces of the system but also motivates our stubborn devotion to that system. That hidden force is a nonconscious desire to be a god: a desire that afflicts both believers and atheists, and that is almost universally denied (Nietzsche being a special exception). That desire can be found throughout the history of philosophy, from Aristotle to the present. It is also manifested in myths and a variety of religious practices and teachings. The breadth, power and harm of nonconscious “apotheosis aspiration” is the focus of this study.

God, the Gift, and Postmodernism

God, the Gift, and Postmodernism PDF Author: John D. Caputo
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253113326
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pushing past the constraints of postmodernism which cast "reason" and"religion" in opposition, God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, seizes the opportunity to question the authority of "the modern" and open the limits of possible experience, including the call to religious experience, as a new millennium approaches. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, engages with Jean-Luc Marion and other religious philosophers to entertain questions about intention, givenness, and possibility which reveal the extent to which deconstruction is structured like religion. New interpretations of Kant, Heidegger, Husserl, and Derrida emerge from essays and discussions with distinguished philosophers and theologians from the United States and Europe. The result is that God, the Gift, and Postmodernism elaborates a radical phenomenology that stretches the limits of its possibility and explores areas where philosophy and religion have become increasingly and surprisingly convergent. Contributors include: John D. Caputo, John Dominic Crossan, Jacques Derrida, Robert Dodaro, Richard Kearney, Jean-Luc Marion, Frangoise Meltzer, Michael J. Scanlon, Mark C. Taylor, David Tracy, Merold Westphal and Edith Wyschogrod.

Reforming a Theology of Gender

Reforming a Theology of Gender PDF Author: Daniel R. Patterson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666724068
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
Judith Butler and conservative Christian theology are often perceived to be antithetical on questions of gender. In Reforming a Theology of Gender they are shown to be strange bedfellows. By engaging in dialogue with Butler on her terms--desire, violence, and life--this book absorbs the heart of Butler's critique, revealing a righteous law and a seductive image in conservative theologies of gender. The law of Adam and Eve manifests in the unjust administration of guilt, grief, and death. By confronting this law, which in fact condemns all in their bodies, further reflection on Butler's thought leads to thinking about where one finds life in one's body of death. The seductive image of Adam and Eve is revealed to be a false hope and a site that induces slave morality or body-works-based righteousness. Butler's voice is strangely prophetic because it calls the church to offer hope and life by reorienting its gaze from the beautiful yet lifeless bodies of Adam and Eve to the bloodied and scarred, risen body of Jesus Christ. Gender, in the end, is shown to be a vocation of becoming what one is not.

City of Desires - a Place for God?

City of Desires - a Place for God? PDF Author: Reinder Ruard Ganzevoort
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3643903073
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
Originating at the 2011 conference of the International Academy of Practical Theology in Amsterdam, this volume explores the practical theological significance of desire. Although desire is central to many issues in practical theology and related disciplines, it is only rarely discussed under its own name. Three introductory chapters locate desire in concrete practices in the city and discuss the phenomenology, theology, and ethics of desire. Subsequent sections are organized around embodying desire, culturing desire, and transforming desire. The chapters include various kinds of desire, such as sexuality, consumerism, and spirituality. Perspectives from different contexts and religious traditions are offered in this rich and thought-provoking book. (Series: International Practical Theology - Vol. 16)

New Philosophies of Labour

New Philosophies of Labour PDF Author: Nicholas Smith
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900420976X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume addresses the long-standing neglect of the category of labour in critical social theory and it presents a powerful case for a new paradigm based on the anthropological significance of work and its role in shaping social bonds.

Hegel's Theory of Responsibility

Hegel's Theory of Responsibility PDF Author: Mark Alznauer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107078121
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first book-length treatment of a central concept in Hegel's practical philosophy - the theory of responsibility. This theory is both original and radical in its emphasis on the role and importance of social and historical conditions as a context for our actions.