John D. Caputo

Статья посвящена выяснению философских и богословских предпосылок и характерных особенностей теопоэтической интерпретации Божественного в эпоху постмодерна, специфика которой состоит в замене поэтической чувствительностью к Божественному традиционной прозаической теологии с присущими ее интеллектуализмом, сциентизмом и вытеснением символов. На примере «слабого богословия» американского философа религии Джона Капуто автор осмысливает, как в условиях провозглашенного отсутствия фиксированного доступа человека к знанию или вере все же возможно говорить о Боге содержательным и уместным для постсовременного человека образом. Теопоэтика Капуто является важным компонентом его проекта«слабого богословия», которое рассматривает Бога не как всесильную личность или основание бытия, а как «слабую силу», лишенную традиционных метафизических атрибутов власти, силы и иерархии, незащищенную от риска и неопределенности. «Слабое богословие» стремится оставаться открытым «к самим вещам», то есть к тому, что составляет предельную заботу человека и не может быть сведено к точности утверждений объективирующего мышления. Соответственно Капуто понимает религию не как образное выражение метафизической субстанции или духа, но как способ поэтизировать то, что М. Хайдеггер, Ж. Деррида, и Ж. Делез называют событием. Также в данной статье проанализированы возможные последствия теопоэтической перспективы для становления новой политической теологии и поиска актуальных путей политической ангажированности христиан. В статье прослеживается, как консеквентная деконструкция идеи суверенного Бога, «приспособленного» в качестве одной из опор идеологии и практики политического насилия, влечет и деконструкцию самих репрессивных политических систем.

The present investigation employs a hermeneutical approach to interpret repetition as a technology of the numinous in performance. It achieves this by bringing together, under the overarching theoretical umbrella of radical hermeneutics conceived by John Caputo, Michael Foucault’s notion of ‘technologies of the self’ and Rudolph Otto’s concept of ‘numinous experience’. This methodological perspective offers an innovative framework of analysis to be applied to the performance The Artist is Present (2010) by Marina Abramović. The chapter shows how religiosity and secularity were closely intertwined in the theatrical and performative dynamics that this performance offered to its audience and examines how repetition was involved in these processes. The three elements of space, presence and action are closely analyzed to reveal how repetition informed a complex theatrical apparatus, which became for many spectators/participants the repository of powerfully personal, affective, religious sentiments.

The concept of “return” is an apparent phantasm throughout Derrida’s work with each new notion introduced, returning to the question alluded from the start of “Faith and Knowledge”: what is it, to talk of a “return”?  Derrida asks, “when we speak, we Europeans, so ordinarily and so confusedly today about “a return of the religious”, what do we thereby name?” . In this paper, I attempt to answer Derrida’s question by reversing it into “what we do not name” to discuss how is the “return” religious and what is religious in the “return”. Firstly then, the paper will focus on religious character of the “return” and then explore religious elements: how it comes to mean faith, promise and messianicity – a blind awaiting of a “to-come” that we do not name.

“Quando Luis Cruz-Villalobos se decide converter a matéria teológica em palavra poética, não está fazendo um trabalho de ornamentação. Senão que, toca a raiz mais profunda e a fibra mais antiga da teologia, que não é mais que a teologia sendo poesia antes que doutrina; sendo criação do mundo antes de ser credo, sendo poiseis antes de lógica endurecida, infundindo palavras de vida e morte, de sofrimento e alegria, antes de que as palavras mesmas sucumbam à rigidez da ortodoxia e seus cânones. A teologia é canção antes de ser conteúdo de uma summa ou de um concílio.” John D. Caputo

The notion of rock-bottom is widely used in the treatment of addiction and can be described in existential terms as an event of truth. Addiction is described as an attempt to technocratically alter the lived-texture of being while recovery is being open, while acknowledging the finitude that is humanity’s essential nature.

The words we determine for God; form the God determined by words: Dare we speak of God? The possibility and potency of this question, lies not only in what can be said of God, but how it can be spoken; whether through positive terms of affirmation, or through finding a way beyond words by negating their defining ability. These two approaches positive/negative, kataphatic/apophatic, not only cut through the use of theological language, but down to the very heart of who we say God is (not). Religion prides itself on the positive pronouncements it can make on God, however in the postmodern return to religion a resurgence of interest among thinkers has opened up toward negative theology, seeking to find what religion cannot say. Works such as Caputo's The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought, Rollins's How (Not) to Speak of God, and Keller's Cloud of the Impossible, have all incorporated aspects of negative theology with philosophy in a postsecular context. This creative flirtation between philosophy and negative theology has helped spark a colour and a play between both these disciplines of thought. However, on the whole, an eastern apophatic tradition has remained largely foreign and little grasped, even by western theologians let alone continental philosophers. It is these different traditions of negative theology, east and west, that I want to briefly explore in this article: how they differ in approach, their distinctive features, and the types of problems encountered in apophatic theology. Moreover, is there perhaps something in negative theology that, if we are not careful, instead of returning us to the hidden depth of God, only reinforces our dependence on dogmatism?

Travail de Maîtrise en Théologie : il porte principalement sur une comparaison et une évaluation des propositions d'Eberhard Jüngel et de John D. Caputo sur le sujet de la toute-puissance de Dieu. Une enquête théologique et philosophique sur un attribut divin controversé en contexte post-moderne.

In his 2012 work, Faith of the Faithless, the philosopher Simon
Critchley presented an ‘atheistic’ formulation of faith as an ‘experiment’
in ‘political theology.’ This work, as part of the so-called
‘turn to religion’ in continental political philosophy, gave an
account of what Critchley had formerly articulated as ‘atheistic
transcendence.’ Tracing the genesis of the latter and then linking
to his notion of the supreme fiction, the paper seeks to account for
Critchley’s ‘a/theological’ shift. Through a close reading, the paper
argues that Critchley’s ‘faith of the faithless’ depends on the
Christian hermeneutic tradition – or radical theology – for its
articulation. Finally, using John D. Caputo’s radical theology as
the principal proponent in this regard, the paper demonstrates a
necessary symmetry with Critchley’s faith of the faithless. Such a
claim leads to the conclusion that while symmetrical, Critchley and
Caputo are also inversely related. That is: a Critchlean radical
politics nourished by radical theology opens up the possibility
for a Caputoian radical political theology nourished by Critchlean
radical politics.

This article takes up the onto-theological critique of metaphysics and questions whether onto-theology is not something to evade or overcome, but is inevitable. Consequently, it furthers the exploration of onto-theology by asking, if it is inevitable, then what comes after onto-theology? For the past half-century, onto-theology has been a central concern for philosophy, particularly in phenomenology where one sees a theological turn in order to understand and incorporate what might be beyond, or within, consciousness that does not readily appear to the self. In this turn, one often sees philosophers (and theologians) attempt to craft a post-metaphysical understanding. Resultantly, many of these philosophers herald what I call the 'end of everything,' often due to their onto-theological character: from the 'end' of philosophy of religion, to the 'end' of metaphysics, to the 'end' of theology. However, when investigating their findings, one often sees these concepts arise from the grave, perhaps showing that some onto-theological construction is inevitable. This paper proceeds by first giving a brief overview of the philosophers Jean-Luc Nancy, Richard Kearney, John Caputo, and Merold Westphal to propose how onto-theology is still an issue for their philosophies by revealing a necessary link between ontology and empirical reality. It then builds off of this proposal through the work of Joeri Schrijvers to show what might lie ahead of philosophy (and philosophy of religion in particular), arguing that if onto-theology is inevitable then philosophy should turn further into theology to explore how theology deals with this inevitability on an empirical basis. Basically, since theology always already accepts being in default (through concepts like original sin), then how does it help believers cope with this inevitability and how does it focus upon the empirical reality of this ontological gesture. Finally, this paper investigates the work of Colby Dickinson in order to solidify this finding into a programmatic, philosophical framework. Martin Heidegger's critique of the onto-theological constitution of metaphysics has, in a sense, stultified thinkers on how to either present a pathway that evades it altogether or nevertheless overcomes it through reconceptualizing traditional concepts such as transcendence and immanence. 1 After these various attempts, an emerging consensus is that perhaps lapsing into onto-theology is an inevitable result of employing these philosophical concepts within the world itself; lifting these ideas off of the paper, as it were, and attempting to use them in real, day-today life. Resultantly, whereas this critique sparked the kindling of philosophy's renewed engagement with theology's fundamental conceptions of God and the divine, perhaps philosophy must turn further into theology to see what comes after onto-theology. In this article, I will modestly propose that, once onto-theology is accepted 1 I use this text as my primary understanding of Heidegger's formulation of onto-theology, for a strong summary of onto-theology's pervasiveness and proliferation (

In this short tract, Calvin D. Ullrich proposes that the reinventions of radical theology have important political consequences, focussing on the American philosopher and theologian John Caputo. He introduces some of Caputo’s key ideas: the notion of events, God’s weakness and insistence, and the importance of theopoetics. Ullrich’s argument is that this radical theology challenges us to think of a God without sovereignty, and therefore to imagine a very different politics.

[Winner of the Manfred Lautenschläger Award - 2022]

In this book, Calvin D. Ullrich argues for the political significance of the philosopher-theologian John D. Caputo's radical theology. Against the backdrop of present debates, the author traces the notions of 'sovereignty and event' by drawing on the political theology of Carl Schmitt and Caputo's evolving engagement with postmodern thought; from its genesis in Martin Heidegger to its deeply involved association with Jacques Derrida. Calvin D. Ullrich shows that contrary to some misleading interpretations of his religious deconstruction, Caputo has always held nascent political concerns which culminate in his radical theology. Writing for scholars working in contemporary philosophy and theology, this book offers one of the first major in-depth analyses covering Caputo's writings of the last four decades, and seeks to defend their relevance for discussions responding to ongoing political-theological challenges.

It is surely no overstatement that if in recent times we have ever needed a counter-narrative, what one might call a ‘politics of hope’, now is that time. This is what David Newheiser has given us in his prescient new book, Hope In A Secular Age (2019). Newheiser enjoins us that despite all the disappointment and uncertainty, we must persist; neither blindly into idealist utopias which resist ambiguity, nor into cynicisms which thwart concrete improvements. Hope as the solution to these false choices has that character of resilience which “enables desire to endure without denying vulnerability”.

The theological turn in continental philosophy has beckoned several new possibilities for theoretical discourse. More recently, the question of the absence of a political theology has been raised: Can an ethics of alterity offer a more substantive politics? In pursuing this question, the article considers the late work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo. It argues that, contrary to caricatures of Caputo's "theology of event, " his notion of theopoetics evinces a "materialist turn" in his mature thought that can be considered the beginning of a "radical political theology. " This position is not without its challenges, however, raising concerns over deconstruction's ability to navigate the immanent but necessary dangers of politics. In order to attempt to speak of a form of "radical political theology"-i.e. a movement from theopoetics to theopraxis-the article turns to some of the political writing of Simon Critchley. It is argued that a much desired "political viscerality" for a radical political theology is supplied by Critchley's anarchic realism. The latter is neither conceived as utopian nor defeatist, but as a sustained program of inventive and creative political interventions, which act as responses to the singularity of the situation.

This article seeks to distill key moments in the early work of the philosopher John D. Caputo. In considering his early investigations of Martin Heidegger, it argues that an adequate account of the trajectory of his later theological project requires a refraction through a crucial double gesture in these earlier writings. To this end, the article follows Caputo's relationship with Heidegger where the optics of 'overcoming metaphysics' are laid bare (the first gesture). In these deliberations, alongside Neo-Scholastic Thomism, it is clear that what constitutes (theological) metaphysics for Caputo is any thinking which fails to think that which 'gives' the distinction between Being and beings. The second gesture, then, reveals 'a certain way' (d'une certaine maniére) of reading that allows him not only the unique possibility to re-read Scholastic Thomism by way of Meister Eckhart, but also the delimitation of the mythological construal of Being in the later Heidegger himself. The article's methodological argument is that this transgressionary impulse gleaned from Heidegger, constitutes the 'origins' of Caputo's move into the ethical-religious paradigm of deconstruction and, therefore, is also axiomatic for his later radical theology of 'religion without religion.'

Given the evidence of black suffering more than two and half decades after apartheid, this paper proceeds on the premise that theology cannot continue as business per usual. It attempts to stage a critical and creative encounter between the radical theology of the philosopher, John D. Caputo and the liberation Christology of the South African theologian, Takatso Mofokeng. It demonstrates both the commonalities and limits of their respective accounts and suggests that radical theology and liberation Christology supplement each other in critically-constructive ways. Liberation Christology’s criticism of power, institution, and Western modes of theological discourse, which it shares with radical theology, supplements the latter’s somewhat abstract account of “the event” with the particularity of black experience. Radical theology, on the other hand, offers black Christology a way to be critical of its own metaphysical claims, as well as its tendency to mimic the oppressor in its categories of positive identification.

Philosophical hermeneutics disregards the meaning of the text and the What would Jesus do? This question serves as a pressing challenge to the prevailing attitude of Christianity over public domain. Contemporary thinkers explore the role of religion in addressing global trends and challenges, such as global injustices, poverty, war, refugee crisis, and climate change. Hermeneutical philosophical-theological thinking wants to carry on with these issues, however, the relevant question is, what would your faith tradition do? John D. Caputo, an American continental philosopher, offers an alternative hermeneutical theory to deal with this problem. Caputo suggests that the derridean deconstruction gives us key to fully understanding our prophetic role in the twilight of modernity. This propulsion necessitates us to deconstruct our faith traditions that marginalizes other sectors and re-affirmed the prophetic spirit of what the gospel aims to convey - semper reformanda est ---forced to reform and reconfigure. This article is divided into three parts. The first part, provides an overview of Caputo’s award winning book entitled What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (2007). The second part, I argued that Caputo’s notion of deconstruction as a hermeneutics of the Kingdom of God can be divided into three challenges: deconstructing oneself, deconstructing the church, and deconstructing society. In the last part, I provide a short conclusion

This article seeks to offer insights into what is called a radical public theology. Such a theology views contemporary religious uncertainty as an opportunity rather than as a site for apologetic resistance. The article sketches the linguistic-hermeneutic turn, before reflecting on an example of a new proposal of faith from the philosopher Simon Critchley. In conversation with the prominent radical theologian, John D. Caputo, the article argues that Critchley's (ir)religious faith can be read idiomatically as a radical theology. This reading carves a space for a public theological reflection, which is 'public' because it engages and is responsive to the call of 'the least of these' in society. Finally, it is argued that a radical public theology offers resources toward the notion of 'meontological communities,' functioning to deepen theological reflection on the public nature of faith and life of the church.

The primary premise of this dissertation is to construct a hermeneutical approach for local theologizing in the context of globalization. In particular, it is necessary for the local contexts to move out from the shadows of theologizing based on a hermeneutic of victimization to a transforming articulation based on a hermeneutic of affirmation. This process includes dealing with the presence of colonial mentality in the collective consciousness of people in a given society.

The dissertation outlines the current context where all hermeneutics are constructed. This is the inter-related network between the global and local contexts. In this study, the priority is to view the realities of the global context based on the lens of the local contexts. In this process, the study re-discovers that the primal instincts in local Asian cultures are precursors to postmodern conditions. Specifically, the study focuses on three common themes/conditions: the “otherness” or alterity, decentredness or distortion and diversity or plurality.
The study uses local narratives as case studies to give light to the subject at hand. This includes descriptions of local socio-economic-cultural practices, local religio-cultural discourses, individual stories. In addition, this study presents a collective articulation for a theological construction to describe the core constitution of “insider movement” by believers who are engaged in the movement.

In the end, this dissertation provides eight recommendations. These are topics by which this dissertation can be extended and where new theological formulations, both from the global and local contexts, can be constructed. More than anything, these recommendations signify an admission that this dissertation is viewed as a starting point for further constructing the framework towards a hermeneutic of affirmation.

Why is Derrida infatuated with Chora?
Of course, it is feminine and has elusive charm. Yet, is that enough to explain the long acquaintance of over 30 years and 25 texts, one of which is even specifically dedicated to her?
Chora is useful to Derrida: in the third Platonic genre he sees the perfect name for what is unnamable, the opportunity to enunciate what relentlessly resists every explanation.
Derrida’s willful conservation of Chora’s virginity bears its most effective fruits in the philosophical and theological reflection of the French philosopher: Chora’s absolute disjunction proclaims the impossibility of reducing Western thought to nothing more than the binomial mythos-logos, like a philosophical designation of this principle of indetermination, which marks the limits of knowledge incapable of completion; Chora’s inexplicability hence becomes the possibility of a philosophy of religion that is feasible precisely because a not empty silence required for all discourses about God (John Caputo expresses his thanks and rewrites a significant contemporary apophantic theology).
However, when the French philosopher and not a few of his followers try to introduce the resistant principle of Chora into other contexts, the outcome is less satisfactory. Derrida himself states his disappointment with respect to the architectural design of the Parc de la Villette, inspired by Chora and her unpurposive tension: what remains of stairways that lead nowhere and buildings that cannot be entered? Likewise, the results of political and social discussions conducted through Chora are apparently just as disappointing; no identity resists the sieve of the third genre: welcoming a foreigner becomes possible only if one radically renounces all determinism (and, thus, in the end, history itself), while what is feminine became a third genre before sexual distinction in order to avoid confrontation with the other, which is masculine: feminist thought is celebrating, but what?
Virginity becomes infertility: Derrida not only kills Heidegger, guilty of determinism against Chora, but also loses Plato who introduces the third genre, even at the cost of a bastard discourse, in order to explain the world and its complexity.
Chora is useful to Derrida, because it allows him to say that not everything is necessarily useful: the criticism is fascinating, but the thought (and the life?) gets muddled.

In this paper, I argue that Augustine's conception of God as substance (substantia) has misleadingly been evoked by Martin Heidegger's deconstruction of onto-theological and substantialist variants of metaphysics as they mistook entities (Seienden, entia, beings) for their very Being (Sein, ens, esse) which cannot be conceptualized or objectified by human thinking, but makes both their thought and reality possible. Even though Augustine sought somehow to reconcile a Neoplatonic, essentialist cosmology with a Judeo-Christian worldview of historical redemption, Heidegger not only failed to properly recognize his indebtedness to Augustinian existential anthropology, but also the latter's contention that the actuality of beings and contingent history ultimately determines ontological concepts in their basic difference from their ontical counterparts, compromising thus Heidegger's intuitive criticisms against the confusion between God and Being (Sein).
Resumo: Neste artigo, argumento que a concepção de Deus como substância (substantia) tem sido invocada de forma equivocada pela desconstrução heideggeriana de variantes onto-teológicas e substancialistas da metafísica, na medida em que confundiram entidades (Seienden, entia, entes) com seu próprio Ser (Sein, Ens, esse), que não pode ser conceitualizado ou objetivado pelo pensamento humano, mas torna possível o seu pensamento e realidade. Apesar de Agostinho ter procurado de alguma forma conciliar uma cosmologia essencialista neoplatônica com uma cosmovisão judaico-cristã da redenção histórica, Heidegger não apenas deixa de reconhecer adequadamente seu endividamento quanto à antropologia existencial.

This article inquires into Merold Westphal’s attempts to overcome onto-theology in the works, Overcoming Onto-Theology and Transcendence and Self-Transcendence. In so doing, this inquiry employs the critiques John Caputo has levied against Westphal’s thinking in order to reveal that Westphal’s philosophy is deeply eschatological and can be better read as a fundamental theology. As a fundamental theology, Westphal’s work also reveals itself to have important pastoral implications for a Protestant faith which can lead to stronger dialogue to Catholic systematic theology, particularly on issues such as pneumatology and soteriology.

This paper examines the experience of disaffiliation from religious tradition as a phenomenon linked with deconversion, secularisation, and postmodernity, in a Western context. By utilising the work of a variety of authors across several disciplines including, philosophy, theology, and sociology, this paper explores the themes of secularisation, religious belief and deconversion, and questions how much we can say about any of these concepts. This paper uses an autoethnographic and a phenomenological method in addition to examining case studies to explore and give language to the experience of losing one’s religion. The author proposes the concept of spiritual homelessness as a term to encompass the multifaceted experience of leaving behind one’s spiritual home, dwelling in uncertainty, and the loss of a secure knowledge of God which is argued as being symptomatic of the postmodern age. The language of spiritual homelessness tries to provide a relatable description of what many individuals in the Western world live as a spiritual reality today. However, ultimately, questions remain regarding how much we can say about this experience and whether we can truly capture in words something we can never fully comprehend.

John D. Caputo (1940-) is the leading figure in postmodern theology. Employing a deconstructive approach that takes seriously the insights of negative theology, he has reimagined the very purpose of theology itself, moving it from talk about God to talk directed to God and to what God calls us to do. Working within the Christian tradition, he has produced a strand of postmodern theology known as ‘weak theology’ that challenges modern presuppositions within traditional or ‘strong’ theology (most notably, the sovereignty and omnipotence of God) with an eye to re-awakening theology to its practical and ethical aims. His work has exercised considerable influence, not only in philosophical and theological discourse, but also in the ‘Emergent church’ and other lay movements. He is a key figure in bridging 20th and 21st century theology.

L’événement et l’attente sont au centre de la philosophie de la religion de John D. Caputo. Dieu est ainsi le nom de ce qui vient, ce qui est toujours à venir. C’est pourquoi Caputo s’écarte d’emblée du thème de la mort de Dieu pour lui préférer celui de la naissance qu’il pense plus conforme à une pensée de l’événement. Jean-Daniel Causse [*] reprend d’abord cette question en indiquant comment le christianisme se construit sur une double absence ou une double kénose constitutive de sa compréhension de l’événement. Il relève et discute ensuite trois aspects de la structure de l’événement chez Caputo – l’événement est impossible à prévoir, il est traumatique, il suppose d’être accueilli – avant de réfléchir à la manière dont le messianisme christologique, proche et distinct du messianique de Derrida, permet d’articuler trois temps du verbe venir : il est venu, il vient, il viendra.

Advent and expectation are at the heart of John D. Caputo’s philosophy of religion. Thus, “God” is the name of what is coming, what is always a-coming, which is why Caputo dismisses the theme of the death of God in favour of the birth of God, more in keeping with a philosophy of the event. The author discusses this question, indicating how Christianity is built upon a double absence or double kenosis which constitutes its understanding of the event. He then stresses and discusses three aspects of Caputo’s structure of the event – it cannot be foreseen, it is traumatic, it needs to be welcomed – before discussing how Christological messianism, close yet distinct from Derrida’s messianism, allows for the articulation of three tenses for the verb “come” : “he has come,” “he comes,” “he will come”.

James Joyce’s Ulysses can be read through the prism of the New Materialist School of contemporary critical thought to shed light on ongoing questions in the humanities about the relationship between language and embodiment. Specifically, Ulysses resonates with three thematic concerns of New Materialisms: the nature of matter, the correspondence between human and animal, and the role of affect. Contra some calls for the humanities to retrench in a conservative posture that reaffirms the special status of human reason and “consciousness” – corresponding to Catholic readings of Ulysses that find in Joyce a metaphysical philosopher of transcendence – New Materialisms take human continuity with animals and matter seriously. Joyce’s Ulysses, by developing robust accounts of the interactions between matter, language, and thinking bodies, offers a template for exploring this convergence, demonstrating that the human “ghost” must be understood as radically inextricable from its material body and the material formations of its world.

THEOLOGICAL POETRY (Second Edition)

Three books of poetry: 'Eroga Tau. The accused poet opens his wings'; 'Haikus to Heaven'; and 'Pauper God. Theographies'. Poems with a clear style and deep themes, now translated into English, by a Chilean poet, Luis Cruz-Villalobos, who is also a Presbyterian minister, clinical psychologist, and theologian of Latin American Theological Fraternity. The book opens with a preface by prominent contemporary philosopher, John D. Caputo.

"[...] when Luis Cruz-Villalobos entitles his book Theological Poetry, when he sets about to bring the theological matter to poetic word, he is not engaged in a work of ornamentation. He has struck the deepest root and touched the most ancient nerve of theology, which is that theology is poetry before it is doctrine; that is world-creation before it is creed; that it is poiesis before it is hardened over into a logic; that it breathes the words of life and death, of suffering and joy, before it allows its words to succumb to the formularies of orthodoxy and its canons" (foreword, p.15).

The meaning of negativity within the context of interpretative practices is likely to unravel, thus manifesting different or even divergent heuristic strategies. However, these have been equivocally referred to as negative hermeneutics, an expression that occurs in the discourse of authors such as Ricœur and Jameson. This “negative,” either challenging or complementing “positive” hermeneutics, has consequences for the thought of “literary science,” if there is such a thing and such a possibility.

This paper seeks to elucidate Jean-Luc Nancy’s and Søren Kierkegaard’s shared understanding of faith by providing a phenomenology of faith. This is accomplished by applying Nancy’s conception of experience (which resonates with that of a number of contemporary phenomenologists, notably Claude Romano) to Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, of which this paper thus offers a phenomenological reading in order to analyse the experience of faith its pseudonymous author relates (i.e., the ordeal of Abraham’s life as depicted by the book). In doing so, however, we will discover that faith belongs to a realm of experience that is more fundamental than, and thus takes priority over, the lived-experience of classical phenomenology: it is an experience of life as a whole that as such forms the basis on which things are subsequently lived in experience. Faith is therefore held up as the prime example of the phenomenologically primary sense of “experience”: namely, the experience in which a life lived consists, the experience of undergoing life itself; the experience that, as Nancy puts it enigmatically, is existence. Since classical phenomenology fails to think this experience that makes its lived-experiences possible, the paper suggests that phenomenology should turn itself into poetics: namely, a discourse on the creative forms of life that constitute all lived-experiences. To that end, the paper proceeds in four steps: the first step consists in an exposition of the phenomenological framework used (drawing especially on Nancy, Gadamer and Romano); the second and third steps consist in applications of said framework to Kierkegaard’s understanding of faith; the fourth and final step draws on Nancy to spell out the consequences of the preceding analysis.

Dans cet essai, j'analyse les présuppositions du récit dudit 'retour du religieux', du point de vue de la psychanalyse (Freud) et de la déconstruction (Derrida). Après avoir mis à jour l'eurocentrisme et le colonialisme inhérents aux concepts de 'magie', 'animisme', 'religion' et 'croyance' chez Freud (en particulier dans Totem et tabou), j'offre une lecture déconstructrice des discours politiques contemporains sur le sécularisme, la foi et le savoir.
[In this essay, I unpack presuppositions involved in the narrative of 'the return of the religious', from the point of view of psychoanalysis (Freud) and deconstruction (Derrida). After highlighting the Eurocentric and colonialist components of the concepts of 'magic', 'animism', 'religion', and 'belief' in Freud (with special emphasis on Totem and Taboo), I provide a deconstructive analysis of contemporary political discourses on secularism, faith and knowledge.]

This paper is a rapid evidence assessment of five published articles that report on chaos theory in the organizational environment historically, as well as two published case studies of the theory within the past five years, to determine how insights from the theory might inform a weak leadership framework. Operationalizing chaos theory as leaders involves a willingness to set aside notions of a mechanistic, cause and effect world for an understanding of the organizational environment that better reflects the fluid and dynamic nature of reality. The paper identifies six key themes from the literature: adaptability, operating on the edge of chaos, nonhierarchy, nonlinearity, open and iterative communication, and uncertainty. These six themes are shown to align with the basic premises of a weak leadership framework. This larger framework emerges out of the tradition of weak theology, where weakness is understood as a positive attribute. Its basic premises include: community building, consensus-based decision-making, dispersed knowledge, noncoercion, nonhierarchy, and nonomniscience. Chaos theory as a component of weak leadership within the organizational environment allows for the development of a model of the chaordic organizational state – one that remains in motion as it moves to temporary states of order rather than falling prey to either complete chaos or total stagnation. Practitioners and researchers are encouraged to test this model in operation in a variety of settings to examine its ongoing effectiveness in response to change and crisis. 

Keywords: chaos theory, leadership, organizational environment, rapid evidence assessment, weak theology

What could it mean to think "after the theological turn"? This article proposes one possible answer by reframing the theological turn in light of the way in which Paul's kenosis serves as a metaphor for deconstruction in a variety of continental philosophers who are all nevertheless hostile to overt theologising. Tracking this notion through the history of theology and philosophy, the article argues that it has been philosophically appropriated so as to indicate the point within the Christian theological complex that constitutes its fatal agent by setting in motion Christianity's own self-deconstruction or de-theologisation. This dynamic, which implies that every engagement with theology ultimately carries itself outside of theology proper, will then allow the article to reconceive the gesture operated by phenomenology's theological turn: in their right turn towards theology, the philosopher must be careful not to simply remain stuck there, for it only serves their investigation insofar as this engagement is precisely what allows them to turn away from "the theological," or for phenomenology de-theologise itself. By drawing out the kenotic motif in contemporary continental philosophy and connecting it to phenomenology's theological turn, the article thus argues that what is needed now is a deconstruction of the theological turn. This can be accomplished by way of what the article proposes to call a "phenomenology of kenosis": namely, a phenomenology that starts from theology (Paul's notion of kenosis), precisely so as to move beyond it (to de-theologise itself).

What may the thought of Richard Kearney contribute to the challenge of thinking otherness translated as decolonisation in the context of South Africa? This chapter will attempt to enter into dialogue with Kearney’s thought, specifically his book Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness (2013), to suggest four remarks as a response to the question. In attempting this task, the chapter will firstly outline what a sense of decolonisation might not be by briefly revisiting the critique of Western metaphysics or what I will call the logic of the coloniser. This move, in turn, will allow for a proposal on what a sense of decolonisation might be, with recourse to Kearney’s notion of diacritical hermeneutics or what I shall call a diacritical decolonisation. Accordingly, the chapter consists of four parts. The first part will briefly outline a double critique of Western metaphysics, firstly, in terms of onto-theology and, secondly, with recourse to the denial of the African subject while at the same time sketching how, in relation to Kearney’s thought, this way of interpreting otherness leads to the construction of Western Gods and African Monsters. The second part will argue that a sense of decolonisation, following the analyses in the first part, may not be the reconstruction of new gods and monsters, namely African Gods and Western Monsters. The third part will engage with Kearney’s proposal of a diacritical hermeneutics in order to formulate in the final part, four suggestions toward a diacritical decolonisation that aims to critically interpret otherness instead of rehearsing the same violent essentialising logic of the coloniser and thereby attempts to break the perpetuating cycle.

The aim of this paper is to show that Jacques Derrida’s prayer is not disaffected by the loss of presence produced by différance. Further the relationship between negative theology and deconstruction will be shown to be consistent rather than opposed. Derrida’s prayer is influenced by his work on negative theology and the importance of performativity. This bears a resemblance to the conversion of Augustine and will provide the context for assessing Derrida’s prayer. The problem that binds both Derrida and Augustine is whether the name of God can be spoken without determining the other. Derrida’s prayer is distinguished to Augustine’s in that the latter knows the addressee whereas the former is cautious on making such a move. However this caution does not inhibit him to the extent that Caputo assumes in his interpretation of Derrida’s prayer.