Richard Kearney

Whilst the condition of a damaged ethical life has received due scholarly attention to date, only rarely is resistance to it conceived as an actual possibility with the potential of real effects on a macro-social scale. This is not just a curious lacuna in the literature. To ignore or miss concrete possibilities or even instances of resistance is to reinforce the apparent naturalness and inevitability of structures of injustice. The aim of this edited collection is to help address this epistemological neglect, exploring the multiplicity of motives, presuppositions, sites, ways, and consequences of acts of resistance. As shown in the ensuing contributions, resistance can be recalcitrant or transformative in its aims, discursive or physical in its means, and local or generalised in its loci. If there is a single argument that can be distilled, it is that the emergence of progressive resistance entails the incessant rational critique of so-styled ‘common sense’ and prevalent ethical claims–a process which could be called ‘the banality of good’. Contributors (in alphabetical order): Andrea Mubi Brighenti, Leonidas K. Cheliotis, Lilie Chouliaraki, Spiros Gangas, Richard Kearney, Alison Liebling, John O’Neill, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Justice Tankebe, Ezra Tessler, Sappho Xenakis.


Contents

List of Contributors
Acknowledgements

1. Roots, Rites, and Sites of Resistance: The Banality of Good: An Introduction
Leonidas K. Cheliotis

2. Values, Crisis, and Resistance: Prospects for Freedom Reconsidered
Spiros Gangas

3. Narcissism, Humanism, and the Revolutionary Character in Erich Fromm’s Work
Leonidas K. Cheliotis

4. Thinking after Terror: An Interreligious Challenge
Richard Kearney

5. Ecce Homo: The Political Theology of Good and Evil
John O’Neill

6. Resistance as Transformation
Andrea Mubi Brighenti

7. Acting on Vulnerable Others: Ethical Agency in Media Discourse
Lilie Chouliaraki

8. Sites of Resistance: Death Row Homepages and the Politics of Compassion
Ezra Tessler

9. Face to Face with Abidoral Queiroz: Death Squads and Democracy in Northeast Brazil
Nancy Scheper-Hughes

10. Resisting Submission? The Obstinacy of ‘Balkan’ Characteristics in Greece as Dissidence against ‘The West’
Sappho Xenakis

11. Legitimation and Resistance: Police Reform in the (Un)Making
Justice Tankebe

12. ‘Governmentality’ and Governing Corrections: Do Senior Managers Resist?
Alison Liebling

El hombre es un ser, no para sí, sino para los demás;  el hombre despojado, libre, fuera del sistema individualista, abierto, comprometido y entregado, es la realización de la kenosis de Dios en Jesucristo. Es luminoso el resultado de esta tesis: llegar al concepto de Dios como donación, como donación de amor, como revelación plena en Jesucristo, y a la kenosis como revelación y atributo divino.

EN
Imagination was conceived as a mediating power way before the concept of media became a hot topic of philosophy. One might refer not only to Plato, but also to Aristotle or to Stoic phantasia kataleptike, or to Hume, and especially to Kant, for whom imagination was a mediating agent as long as it provided the synthesis of sensory manifold. According to Kant, the schematism of perception was supposed to be the function of imagination. Einbilidungskraft actualizes the function of transcendental schematism, i.e., accumulates the multitude of varying experiences into sketches of meaning, creating the initial models for perception. It is namely because one imagines, ones manages to orientate through mediation; or – to  be more precise – the mediation and imagination coincide.

The paradox is that the process of the strong identification, through obeying the “will of bombarding multiplicity of images”, coincides with the distanciation of any unity. Human mind merges with the virtual, losing any connection to the world, that presumably remains alien to any technological impact. However, natural, organic, biological, subconscious, alien is not supposed to be rediscovered outside technological, but namely through it, by intensifying the disrupting power of machineries, by provoking the virtual fields to reshape their preconceived order, or by intermediating the media. Interruption of flux always presents itself as a call for undetermined, unexpected, unforeseen.

Reconsideration of the problem of the imaginary effaces the distinction between interiority and exteriority, redefining he field of interaction between sensorial and super-sensorial. The renewed understanding of the imaginary extends the analysis of the imagination, unleashing it from problem of subjectivity as well as disclosing the intertwining between ontological and epistemological realms. Cornerstone of such a concept can be found in Derrida’s spectral hauntology: both false consciousness and ideological mystification are not the products of dissociating phantasies, but refer to the irreducible field of the spectral – the third dimension, which is the creative force that cannot be equated with an individual mind. The ghost unveils the uncertainty as the irreducible realm where the imaginary manifests itself not through the repetition or representation of reality, but rather functioning as creative factor or the generative matrix of reality itself.

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LT
„Įsivaizduojamybė“ yra filosofinis bandymas permąstyti vaizduotės problemą atsietai nuo vidujybės ir išorybės perskyros. Sankirtoje tarp technologijos, meno ir filosofijos, ši knyga iškelia klausimą apie pilkąsias zonas, kuriose neįmanomos griežtos ontologinės skirtys. Šiame kontekste ir meno kūrinys suprantamas kaip įvykis, kurio virtualioji plotmė išlieka tiek pat reali, kiek ir aktualioji.

Atsisakius psichologizuotos sampratos, pagal kurią vaizduotė tėra dar vienas „vidinis sugebėjimas“, įsivaizduojamybė atsiskleidžia savo tranzityvų pobūdį, steigiantį perėjimus, kaitas ir mutacijas. Atsiliepdama į perfomatyviąją plotmę, vaizduotė veikia tiek kuriant vaizdus, tiek juos patiriant. Šis kūrybos veiksmas sąlygoja vaizdų atsiradimą, bet kartu turi būti vaizduotėje pratęstas ir išžaistas juos suvokiant. Būtent todėl, kad vaizduotė keistu būdu nuolat siejasi su pačiu pasauliu, dažnai negalime tiksliai pasakyti, kur prasideda, o kur baigiasi įsivaizdavimo veikimo laukas.

Sumišimas, buvimas „tarp“, įstrigimas nevisavertėje būtyje, kurią reikia išspręsti nebūtimi, yra mąstymo apie įsivaizduojamybę išeities pozicija. Ja remiantis vaizduotė atsiskleidžia ne kaip būties imitatorė ir kopijuotoja, bet kaip egzistavimą atrandantis ir įgyvendinantis veiksnys. Būtent tuomet tarpinė sritis, kurios negalime suvokti tuomet, kai tikrovę redukuojame į griežtą parmenidišką perskyrą tarp Būties ir Niekio, atskleidžia savo protėjišką pirmapradiškumą ir galią.

The globe is now facing a population deluge. One of the most important issues confronting many Western countries is migration. However, we also face complex attitudes to migrants - strangers crossing borders in the face of so much uncertainty in the hope of finding a better life than they had in their own nations. The concept of inviting strangers into one's home and nation has gotten a lot of attention in recent years. We have heard several instances of both animosity and friendliness. In terms of the migratory scenario - welcoming newcomers - all philosophers agree that our hospitality shapes our moral attitude toward others. They differ, however, in how they approach meeting and welcoming individuals. In this piece, I'd want to discuss what it means to reciprocate (hospitality) in the deconstructionist tradition of continental philosopher Jacques Derrida. I also employ Kearney's hermeneutical technique to highlight or criticise some flaws in Derrida's concept of hospitality.

Christian spirituality is often "activist." It consists in the performance of various actions through which a faithful person attempts to secure the presence of God. The argument of the present essay is that spiritual "activism" cannot actually accomplish this goal. For this reason, it is necessary to seek a foundation for all spiritual activism in spiritual "inactivism." This means that all Christian spiritual activity must be reconceived as a response to and celebration of a prior presence of God that comes before any performance. The phenomenological philosophy of Michel Henry makes it possible to appreciate how God is so present in the very fact of being alive. This can make the whole of Christian spiritual practice a Eucharist – a perpetual thanksgiving.

This chapter introduces Richard Kearney's intellectual autobiography (the next chapter) and, while doing so, helps situate his work into three questions: Where have you been, Where are you now, Where are you going?

Since narrativity is so important to his work, this chapter asks of Richard Kearney the simple Ricoeurian question: D'ou parlez vous? It also touches upon his more recent work on carnal hermeneutics.

This is an open access book that can also be downloaded here: https://books.aosis.co.za/index.php/ob/catalog/book/94

A recent proposal for a post-metaphysical re-imagination of God has come from Irish philosopher Richard Kearney in his widely acclaimed monograph, The God who may be: A hermeneutics of religion (2001). Writing as a philosopher, and approaching his subject matter mainly by means of phenomenology and hermeneutic returns to biblical texts, Kearney invites theologians to contribute to the discussion from a specifically theological point of view. It is the intention of this thesis to accept Kearney’s invitation and address both the challenges and opportunities posed to Christian theology by such a post-metaphysical re-reading of God.
Specifically, the thesis investigates the implications of post-metaphysical reimaginings of God for the theological categories of hamartiology and soteriology. When metaphysical assumptions no longer convince, how may we begin to reimagine the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, as well as salvation offered to a “fallen” humanity? The thesis proposes that a hermeneutical re-reading of certain counter-traditions in Scripture may assist the Church explore new ways forward. Specifically, such traditions may enable believers to traverse the polar opposites of atheism (the necessary death of the metaphysical God) on the one hand, and philosophically ignorant repetitions of theological formulations that no longer hold water, on the other, since both of these polarised options are undesirable on their extremities.
The methodology that the thesis applies is based on hermeneutical re-readings of biblical narratives and traditions. It re-engages those voices in the history of interpretation of biblical texts that offered alternative possibilities to the metaphysical way in which God (or sin and salvation) has traditionally been imagined. As such, we attempt an archaeology of the yetser, an Old Testament concept of imagination, and pay special attention to its Talmudic reinterpretation. The Gospel narratives of the Annunciation and Transfiguration, as well as the window that Song of Songs opens on the metaphor of the desire of God also receives special mention.
What results from this approach is, first, yet another deconstruction of the Augustinian formulation of original sin, as well as an eschatological reinterpretation of the Christ event in terms of the messianic Kingdom of God. Christ, who submits his yetser to the will of the Father in an act of worshipful surrender, becomes the perfect embodiment of the Word of God to a humanity whose yetser is perpetually put in service of itself in an act of idolatry. The enabling of the Kingdom of God in Jesus, who embodies the human telos, captures the human imagination and transfigures humanity through the existential experience of transcendence which breaks into its concrete reality through the Christ-event and its retelling. In this way, realising eschatology is possibilised through the imagination. Christ as prototype of the divinely intended telos of humanity becomes an existential possibility via the transfiguration, enacted by the imagination. This enables humanity to become co-creators with God of his new creation, or Kingdom of God.
Such an interpretation proposes an eschatological approach to God (a God of posse) as an alternative to the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnicausal God of metaphysics (the God of esse). Whereas the God of esse faces the discrediting of philosophy, is ever haunted by the conundrum of theodicy, and is a God torn between his love for and his judgment of a humankind caught in a perpetually sinful state, the God of posse captures the free yetser of humankind and ever calls creation forward to its fulfilment in God’s Messianic Kingdom of love and justice.

Is theology at the limit possible?  This study explores the question of the limits and possibilities of doing theology “at the limit” through the hermeneutic philosophy of Richard Kearney, author of the trilogy, “Philosophy at the Limit.”  It tries to understand Kearney’s attempt to think at the limit through three focal points.  Each focal point illuminates a different aspect of his thought and sheds light on the dialogical detours through which Kearney’s own position takes shape.
Chapter One, "Facing the Limit: Kearney’s phenomenological-existential heritage," investigates how Kearney’s phenomenological heritage, inaugurated by Edmund Husserl and developed by Martin Heidegger, facilitates a decisive turn to “face the limit.”  In doing so, it gives an account of how Kearney appropriates some of the tradition’s central insights in his own thought.  These include: a high regard for human freedom and responsibility, a privileged appreciation for possibility over actuality, and a desire to situate philosophical reflection in the life world of human existence as a “being interpreted.”  Following this, the discussion extends to Kearney’s phenomenological account of the persona to reveal how he extends a logic of relatedness, thus stretching phenomenology to confront its own limits.  The result is a more personal, embodied and relational sense of what it means to “face” the limit.
Chapter Two, "Transfiguring at the Limit: Kearney’s hermeneutic imagination," shows how phenomenology undergoes a decisive transformation via the work of Paul Ricoeur to become a hermeneutic phenomenology.  It explores how Ricoeur’s work informed Kearney’s “hermeneutic imagination” which can be understood as a proposal for rediscovering and reviving the creative potential of the human imagination – at the limit – as fragile, fallible, finite beings, “resolving to recover, in spite of the odds, the yes in the sorrow of the finite” (Kearney, 2003a: 231).  This is done in three parts: the first of these (Transfiguring Imagination) offers a reflection of Kearney’s hermeneutic approach to human creativity at the linguistic level of symbol, metaphor and narrative, while the second (Transfiguring the Social Imaginary) situates this creative capacity, and its tendency to serve ideological interests, in the world of culture and politics.  The third part (Transfiguring God) explores how Kearney’s hermeneutic imagination interprets the sacred by retracing his readings of a number of biblical texts (for e.g. Exodus 3; Luke 9; Mark 10).
Chapter Three, "The Limit as Threshold? The stranger and Kearney’s diacritical hermeneutics," narrows the focus somewhat to consider how Kearney’s hermeneutic imagination deals with the challenges posed by alterity or strangeness and more specifically how this manifests in our dealings with strangers in interpersonal and broader political contexts.  It reflects on Kearney’s engagement with other continental philosophical accounts of the stranger (Levinas, Derrida, Kristeva) and presents his own diacritical hermeneutic response as a way of becoming more hospitable to strangers and more capable of critical (self)discernment.  Thus, Kearney steers a way between transcendent and immanent extremes to transfigure the limit into a threshold where strangers may be encountered.
Finally, the concluding chapter sketches a number of hermeneutic lines, internally, between the various focal points and then externally, to the question of theology at the limit.  It enters the dialogue about the basic options, conditions and tasks of a theology at the limit, by rephrasing the question in a more personal key: who is a theologian at the limit?  Drawing from the preceding discussions a description of a “theologian at the limit” is then tendered in three complementary images: the theologian i) as a dialogical, yet critically involved  interpreter, ii) as a translator serving authentic encounters at the threshold, and iii) as a poet who “gently shifts the potency” of God-talk “from the propositional to the imaginal” (Keller, 2004: 890) – serving greater nuance, mystery, freedom and responsibility, catholicity and “the other”.

A recognised dialogue partner in the renewed philosophical quest for God, Richard Kearney subscribes to the move in contemporary philosophy of religion that places the God-after-God in a dialectical relationship with the metaphysical God of pure act and strives to overcome it. In The God who may be, Richard Kearney takes up the challenge of re-imagining God and traditional concepts of transcendence in a postmodern context, and in a way that takes issue with both idolatry and injustice. Between the two rival ways of interpreting the divine – the eschatological and the onto-theological – Kearney proposes the God-who-may-be as a third, “onto-eschatological” way that negotiates between these polar opposites.
The study examines Kearney’s post-metaphysical reflection on God. More specifically, it probes into his utilisation of both eschatology and the imagination as a way of negotiating a third way, according to a “poetics of the possible,” between the polar opposite understandings of God as either Being or Non-Being. It aims to understand The God who may be within the larger context of his trilogy and his other publications on the subjects of the imagination, ethics, hermeneutics, and “thinking God” post-metaphysically. It considers Kearney’s God of posse from a theological perspective, with the guiding question of what may be gained and what will be lost along the way of the post-metaphysical wager. The hypothesis is that Kearney’s notion of the God of posse promises new possibilities for leading theology and its discourse about God beyond metaphysical categories to allow for an eschatological understanding of the existence of God. The study finds that Kearney’s God of posse does present some interpretational difficulties, but ultimately concludes that, if approached within the confines that Kearney lays out for himself – namely that of a poetic, phenomenologico-hermeneutical exploration of certain symbols of the Judeo-Christian tradition – that Kearney at least prepares the field for thorough and creative theological engagement with his proposals.

Keywords: Richard Kearney; postmodern theology; post-metaphysical theology; Exodus 3:14; possibility/impossibility; philosophy-theology debate; “Religious turn” in Continental Philosophy; imagination and theology; God-who-may-be.

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 (

This paper, which the author delivered as his inaugural lecture as the Chair of Philosophy at Maynooth University, explores the relationship between philosophy, poetry, and religion. Through a line-by-line interpretation of Leonard Cohen's song "Steer Your Way," it discovers the poet in a space between postmodern disillusionment and a desire for faith. What opens Cohen to the latter is specifically the experience of pain and brokenness, which lead him to the figure of Jesus. The paper concludes with a reflection on Richard Kearney's notion of "anatheism," the return to a "God after God."

Note: The text posted here is not the final published version. Please cite the published version.

In the second half of the traumatic and explosive twentieth century, thinkers began considering the possibility of viewing our time as a new Axial Age affecting all areas of existence and thinking. In theological philosophy the interpretation of God and of the self in relation to God continues to change in the direction of a growing awareness of God's otherness while celebrating this very otherness. An effervescent debate on the meaning of God and of God's Other, and the future of a continental philosophy of religion after Nietzsche–Altizer's kerygma of the " death of God " has been enlivening ever wider circles in and outside American and European academe. Various debates have opened up in relation to this theme and inhabit presently the center of what has been identified as the " theological turn " in phenomenology and hermeneutics. The contemporary conversation has enlisted prominent thinkers – belonging to diverse generations, intellectual backgrounds, and academic spheres – such as

Jazz has a unique character and history that finds analogy in matters of life and death. Its spontaneous and courageous aspect provides compelling models for leadership and social creativity and has a procreative capacity that imitates the eternal cycles of birth and extinction. Jazz’s transformative quality allows reinvention and reinterpretation of old and new forms and can inspire the creation of shared convictions. Its ebb and flow through mentors and griots is a model for preservation and sustainability. Yet, jazz’s emphasis on the moment recalls the brevity of life, the importance of living life to its fullest and the inevitability and finality of death. Deeply embedded in its philosophy and culture, are the historical lessons for transforming adversity into freedom and joy, and for discovering a synchronistic rhythm that makes meaning of “man’s inhumanity to man.” The Buddhist principles of non-violence, dialogue and compassion are the foundations of jazz and form the basis of human life’s highest integrity.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine and compare Nietzsche’s concept of chaos and Berdyaev’s notion of the Ungrund, bearing in mind the ontological problem of human freedom and the context of the ‘God after metaphysics’ debate. Nietzsche and Berdyaev introduce their respective concepts in trying to overcome the impasse of onto-theology caused by the view of God as actus purus. Chaos and the Ungrund stand for the idea of the posse reintroduced in our days by Richard Kearney. The primary cause of onto-theology, for Kearney, is the classic metaphysical tendency to subordinate the possible (posse) to the actual (esse). I identify posse with Godhead, which is the first principle in God, the ‘unapproachable intensity of his being’ and the ‘inexhaustible ground’ from which everything origi- nates. But during the past centuries rationalism has deprived God of this first principle. ‘The power of the Godhead has disappeared.’ Berdyaev reminds us that there cannot be a valuable theodicy without onto- logical anthropodicy. God ceases to be actus purus when, as the result of his becoming, there is more being than there was before. God and the human being are more than just God. Humans must possess potency similar to the divine, which implies that at the end of their action there is more being than there was before. God cannot be the living God if his creature is not alive. The overcoming of onto-theology, therefore, requires a theanthropic hermeneutical method.

This paper explores the post-metaphysical theology of Richard Kearney (1954–) from
a Jewish theological perspective. It seeks to provide an original analysis of his project
“anatheism,” considering the prominence of Jewish texts in the development of the
concept of anatheism. Rooted in deconstructionist and Continental philosophical discourses, Jewish hermeneutics also plays a central role in anatheism. This discursive
intersection has received scarce scholarly attention to date. Biblical and other texts
which he interprets, include the rabbinic exegesis of Rashi and of modern Jewish
hermeneutical philosophy notably of Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel
Levinas. I analyse elements of Kearney’s interpretation primarily of the “Burning Bush”
biblical narrative as a test case for anatheistic reading of Jewish texts as they appear in
one particular text “I Am Who May Be” in The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion (2001). Kearney’s textual reading of the Burning Bush offers an unusual example
of a Christian engagement with Jewish interpretations of the biblical parable as well
as of Levinas, Derrida, and others. Kearney’s effort highlights an approach of a mutual
search for ways of interpreting texts not “of” the other, but “with” the other, in a mutual
engagement of post-metaphysical theology. More broadly, this examination offers an
important contribution to the developing field of post-metaphysical theology in the
Jewish and Christian traditions, ultimately posing questions as to how and whether
elements of Jewish scriptural interpretative techniques might or can imbue contemporary Christian post-metaphysical theologies. Conversely, the question can be asked as
to what a Jewish version of anatheism might look like. This examination presents a test
case for possibilities of reading and learning from discourses across different religions.

In this fragmented essay, I approach the theme of imagination as a realm that enables the exposure of the radically impossible possibilities, introduces the perspectives of their development, and overcomes the predetermined articulations and representations.
Often understood as a capacity of either a subject or consciousness, imagination is, in my view, a way of opening up to the future and the unknown. At the same time, simultaneously being a sphere of change and transformation, it invents the directions of its own development and acts as a link between a human and the powers of the world.

This is the reason why I am attempting to think about imagination through its relation with the imaginary-i.e., beyond the distinction between the interiority and exteriority. By way of liberating the imagination from the cliché of an 'interior capacity,' the imaginary not only appears as a sphere for the exchange of powers, but demonstrates its transitive character which establishes transitions, changes and mutations. It is a performative realm where imagination both creates and experiences the images.

Precisely because imagination resides in constant and peculiar relation to the world, we are often unable to tell the exact limits of its field of force. Positioned at the intersection between technology, art, and philosophy, this essay raises the question about the grey zones where the strict ontological distinctions become impossible. In this context an artwork is also understood as an event, the virtual realm of which remains just as real as the actual one. In this sense, the question of imagination is merely a radicalised form of the question of reality.

While all phenomenologists aim to grasp the “things themselves,” they disagree about the best method for doing this and about what the “thing themselves” are. Many metaphysicians, especially Catholic realists, reject phenomenology altogether. I show that many phenomenological methods are useful for reaching the goals of both phenomenology and realist metaphysics. First, I present a history of phenomenological methods including those used by Scheler, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Marion, Kearney, Rocha, and others. Next, I consider two sets of challenges raised to some of these methods. Finally, I outline how to join these methods with each other and with the methods of realist metaphysics, ultimately arriving at an aesthetic method, inspired by the work of von Balthasar, for considering fundamental phenomena.

Eğer bir hermenötik faaliyetten, metnin yorumlanmasından bahsedeceksek, bu yorum aslında iki cisim arasında gerçekleşen tensel temasın bir yorumudur. Bu yüzden her kompozisyon, yani metinle her karşılaşma, her okumadan bir diğerine değişiklik gösteren, her seferinde başka parçaların ve çeşitli faktörlerin biraraya gelerek eşsiz bir dizilim oluşturduğu duygu(lanım)sal bir tecrübedir. Okumanın bedensel hermenötiğinin amacı da, okur ve metnin birbirine temas ettiği bu kompozisyonun, anlamın ortaya çıktığı bu bileşimsel ilişkinin (compositional engagement) fenomenolojik ve hermenötik bir analizini sunmaktır.

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.]

How does one learn of the other? Is it possible to become better at responding to the experience of strangeness? If the presence of the stranger calls for hospitality, is that something one could cultivate in oneself or in others? It is in grappling with these types of questions that I wish to set forth my conversation with Richard Kearney.

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.

This chapter sets out to analyse Richard Kearney’s concept of anatheism in terms of transcendence. The main question is what type of transcendence is described, implied or motivated by Kearney’s anatheism. In the first part, the importance of this question will be highlighted by first giving an overview of the current post-metaphysical philosophical debate with regard to transcendence. In the second part, the focus will be on the concept of anatheism and its link to transcendence. The question here will be why Kearney opts for this type of transcendence of anatheism. Some possible critiques of this position will also be raised. In the last section of the chapter, Kearney’s ‘anatheistic transcendence’ will be brought into conversation with the work of other contemporary philosophers who have explored this theme. The aim is to provide further elucidation of Kearney’s anatheism and its transcendence.

Continental philosophers of religion and the theologians who engage with them have recently began to blur the lines between the disciplines of philosophy and theology. This is particularly true after the so-called " theological turn " in phenomenology. I argue for an appreciation of their approaches but will also express that these explorations must remain interdisciplinary. Far too often philosophers and theologians alike appropriate freely within their interdisciplinary research with little regard for the presuppositions and methodologies latent within their appropriations. This article will demonstrate these appropriations through an exploration of Merold Westphal and Richard Kearney's use of hermeneutical phenomenology, and will claim that their use of this methodology falls upon two distinct discourses, a theological one for Westphal and a philosophical one for Kearney. The upshot of this exploration is an argument for a renewal of methodological restraint when appropriating from other disciplines and a respect for the difference between academic disciplines.

Prominent Irish philosopher Richard Kearney’s notion of ‘carnal hermeneutics’ is introduced by applying it to a case study of a recent event that took place at one of South Africa’s university
campuses. The narrative assists in illuminating some of the core principles of carnal hermeneutics and illustrates the applicability of carnal hermeneutics as a ‘diagnostic caring for
lived existence’. In the process, an analysis is also given of the event in question, which is connected to what has widely been labelled as ‘blackface’. In conclusion, the contextual, philosophical, ethical, and theological implications of carnal hermeneutics are explored with an eye on theological praxes in South Africa today.

Whatever else it takes to drive a taxi, it takes trust. Day after day, the driver has to decide whether the other is or is not trustworthy. I take the taxi as a test case to analyze and assess Richard Kearney's diacritical hermeneutics of the other. I argue that Kearney functionalizes the concept of transcendence in order to connect the transcendence of the finite other to the transcendence of the infinite other. However, in his central critique of the deconstructionists following Jacques Derrida, Kearney counters his connection. While Kearney's critique of Derrida's account of absolute alterity is correct and compelling, I argue that Derrida's critique of a distinction between the trustworthy other and the non-trustworthy other might be more crucial than Kearney contends. Insisting on openness to the other's otherness, Derrida provokes any hermeneutic of the other to trust in transcendence. The taxi is taken as a test to illustrate the implications which diacritical and deconstructive drivers might have for evaluating the entanglement of ethics and eschatology—inside and outside the taxi.

Richard Kearney, uno de los filósofos de la actual filosofía continental, sobre la línea de los
pensadores del Giro Teológico de la fenomenología, hace una propuesta interesante: la
microescatología. ¿Qué tal si volviéramos a redescubrir lo infinito en lo infinitesimal?,
¿Qué tal tocar lo sagrado envuelto en las semillas de las cosas ordinarias? (Kearney, 2006,
p. 3).
Propone así un giro que invita a experienciar lo último en lo mundano, lo primero en lo
más sencillo, lo máximo en lo mínimo. Como él mismo lo dice: Ello nos llevaría a entrar en
diálogo con aquellos que buscan lo divino en la pausa entre dos respiros, la trascendencia
en un movimiento del follaje, la eucaristía en un trozo de pan, el reino en un vaso de agua
fresca, Dios en un grito urbano. En nuestra prisa por los altares de omnipotencia a menudo
descuidamos las teofanías de lo simple y familiar. Nos olvidamos de atender a los
gérmenes de la manifestación del Reino en las cosas pequeñas