William Desmond

An original work which rethinks the question of God in a constructive spirit, drawing its conclusions by considering ideas received from both philosophy and religion. Makes an important new contribution to the ongoing scholarly debates surrounding the intersection of philosophy and religion Suggests that this junction is not just dictated by religion having to prove its credentials to rational philosophy, but that it is also a matter of philosophy wondering if religion is the ultimate partner in dialogue Includes discussion of a wide range of significant thinkers, both traditional and contemporary, such as Plotinus, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche and his successors Completes a trilogy of works by William Desmond, complementing its companion volumes, Being and the Between and Ethics and the Between.

An original work which rethinks the question of God in a constructive spirit, drawing its conclusions by considering ideas received from both philosophy and religion. Makes an important new contribution to the ongoing scholarly debates surrounding the intersection of philosophy and religion Suggests that this junction is not just dictated by religion having to prove its credentials to rational philosophy, but that it is also a matter of philosophy wondering if religion is the ultimate partner in dialogue Includes discussion of a wide range of significant thinkers, both traditional and contemporary, such as Plotinus, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche and his successors Completes a trilogy of works by William Desmond, complementing its companion volumes, Being and the Between and Ethics and the Between.

William Desmond, taking issue with typical assessments of the ancient Cynics, contends that figures such as Antisthenes and Diogenes were not cultural outcasts or marginal voices in the classical culture of the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. Rather, the Cynic movement had deep and significant roots in what Desmond calls "the Greek praise of poverty." Desmond demonstrates that classical attitudes toward wealth were complex and ambivalent, and allowed for an implicit praise of poverty and the virtues it could inspire. From an economic and political point of view, the poor majority at Athens and elsewhere were natural democrats who distrusted great concentrations of wealth as potentially oligarchical or tyrannical. Hence, the poor could be praised in contemporary literature for their industry, honesty, frugality, and temperance. The rich, on the other hand, were often criticized as idle, unjust, arrogant, and profligate. These perspectives were reinforced by typical Greek experiences of war, and the belief that poverty fostered the virtues of courage and endurance. Finally, from an early date, Greek philosophers associated wisdom with the transcendence of sense experience and of such worldly values as wealth and honor. The Cynics, Desmond asserts, assimilated all of these ideas in creating their distinctive and radical brand of asceticism. Theirs was a startling and paradoxical outlook, but it had broad appeal and would persist to exert a manifold influence in the Hellenistic period and beyond.

Seeking to renew an ancient companionship between the philosophical and the religious, this book's meditative chapters dwell on certain elemental experiences or happenings that keep the soul alive to the enigma of the divine. William Desmond engages the philosophical work of Pascal, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Shestov, and Soloviev, among others, and pursues with a philosophical mindfulness what is most intimate in us, yet most universal: sleep, poverty, imagination, courage and witness, reverence, hatred and love, peace and war. Being religious has to do with that intimate universal, beyond arbitrary subjectivism and reductionist objectivism. In this book, he attempts to look at religion with a fresh and open mind, asking how philosophy might itself stand up to some of the questions posed to it by religion, not just how religion might stand up to the questions posed to it by philosophy. Desmond tries to pursue a new and different policy, one faithful to the light of this dialogue.

Seeking to renew an ancient companionship between the philosophical and the religious, this book's meditative chapters dwell on certain elemental experiences or happenings that keep the soul alive to the enigma of the divine. William Desmond engages the philosophical work of Pascal, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Shestov, and Soloviev, among others, and pursues with a philosophical mindfulness what is most intimate in us, yet most universal: sleep, poverty, imagination, courage and witness, reverence, hatred and love, peace and war. Being religious has to do with that intimate universal, beyond arbitrary subjectivism and reductionist objectivism. In this book, he attempts to look at religion with a fresh and open mind, asking how philosophy might itself stand up to some of the questions posed to it by religion, not just how religion might stand up to the questions posed to it by philosophy. Desmond tries to pursue a new and different policy, one faithful to the light of this dialogue.

Addresses the end of art and the task of metaphysics. Though our time is often said to be post-religious and post-metaphysical, many continue to seek some encounter with otherness and transcendence in art. This book deals diversely with the issues of art, origins, and otherness, both in themselves and in philosophical engagements with the works of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Addressing themes such as eros and mania, genius and the sublime, transcendence and the saving power of art, William Desmond tries to make sense of the paradox that too much has been asked of art that now almost nothing is asked of it. He argues that there is more to be said philosophically of art, and claims that art has the power to open up mindfulness beyond objectifying knowledge, as well as beyond thinking that claims to be entirely self-determining.

Hegel is widely regarded as one of the major thinkers of the modern era, if not the entire tradition of philosophy. Hegel, like many philosophers, took seriously traditional philosophical perplexities about God, but unlike many modern philosophers he claimed to take the specific characteristic of Christianity into account in his philosophizing. This book presents a new examination, interpretation and critical engagement with Hegel's philosophy of religion, and with his concept of God in particular. William Desmond explores the distinctive stresses of Hegel's approach to God, the influence it has exerted, and the fundamental problems that his approach exhibits.

Hegel is widely regarded as one of the major thinkers of the modern era, if not the entire tradition of philosophy. Hegel, like many philosophers, took seriously traditional philosophical perplexities about God, but unlike many modern philosophers he claimed to take the specific characteristic of Christianity into account in his philosophizing. This book presents a new examination, interpretation and critical engagement with Hegel's philosophy of religion, and with his concept of God in particular. William Desmond explores the distinctive stresses of Hegel's approach to God, the influence it has exerted, and the fundamental problems that his approach exhibits.

The culmination of a systematic metaphysics written by a world-class philosopher, demonstrating the need for a renewal of metaphysicsAs Plato told us long ago, the human being is neither a god nor a beast, but someone in between. Philosophy too is in between. How do we philosophize in between? W hat is the being of the between? This book answers the question in the most comprehensive terms possible. It offers an original understanding of metaphysical thinking and the fundamental senses of being, namely, the univocal, equivocal, dialectical, and metaxological senses. Part I of Being and the Between focuses on the nature of metaphysics, the question of being, in terms of the above fourfold sense. Part II develops a metaphysics of being as between, relative to our basic perplexities, concerning origin, creation, things, intelligibilities, selves, communities, being true, being good. The book calls for a generous hermeneutical rethinking of the philosophical tradition. Major figures and positions are reinterpreted. Desmond addresses the issue, common since Hegel, endemic since Heidegger, concerning the end of metaphysics. Granting a proper understanding of the between, Desmond believes that we need a resurrection of metaphysics, where the old perplexities, ever new, stand before us again.

Philosophy and its Others responds to the widespread sense that philosophy must renew its intellectual community with other significant ways of being and mind. The author articulates philosophy's community of mind with the aesthetic, the religious, and the ethical, without losing any of its own distinctive voice. He develops an original and constructive position between these extremes: the Hegelian extreme which reduces the plurality of others to a dialectical totality and the Wittgensteinian and deconstructive options that celebrate plurality, but without a proper sense of the connectedness of philosophy and its others.

Art and the Absolute restores Hegel's aesthetics to a place of central importance in the Hegelian system. In so doing, it brings Hegel into direct relation with the central thrust of contemporary philosophy. The book draws on the astonishing scope and depths of Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics, exploring the multifaceted issue of art and the absolute. Why does Hegel ascribe absoluteness to art? What can such absoluteness mean? How does it relate to religion and philosophy? How does Hegel's view of art illuminate the contemporary absence of the absolute? Art and the Absolute argues that these aesthetic questions are not mere theoretical conundrums for abstract analysis. It argues that Hegel's understanding of art can provide an indispensable hermeneutic relevant to current controversies. Art and the Absolute explores the intricacies of Hegel's aesthetic thought, communicating its contemporary relevance. It shows how for Hegel art illuminates the other areas of significant human experience such as history, religion, politics, literature. Against traditional, closed views, the result is a challenge to re-read Hegel's aesthetic philosophy.

Art and the Absolute restores Hegel's aesthetics to a place of central importance in the Hegelian system. In so doing, it brings Hegel into direct relation with the central thrust of contemporary philosophy. The book draws on the astonishing scope and depths of Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics, exploring the multifaceted issue of art and the absolute. Why does Hegel ascribe absoluteness to art? What can such absoluteness mean? How does it relate to religion and philosophy? How does Hegel's view of art illuminate the contemporary absence of the absolute? Art and the Absolute argues that these aesthetic questions are not mere theoretical conundrums for abstract analysis. It argues that Hegel's understanding of art can provide an indispensable hermeneutic relevant to current controversies. Art and the Absolute explores the intricacies of Hegel's aesthetic thought, communicating its contemporary relevance. It shows how for Hegel art illuminates the other areas of significant human experience such as history, religion, politics, literature. Against traditional, closed views, the result is a challenge to re-read Hegel's aesthetic philosophy.