1st Edition

Between System and Poetics William Desmond and Philosophy after Dialectic

Edited By Thomas A.F. Kelly Copyright 2007
    319 Pages
    by Routledge

    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    This is the first book-length examination of the work of an important contemporary thinker in the continental tradition, William Desmond. His thought is a new, post-modern way of articulating what he calls the ’between’. Rooted in Plato and Augustine, and advancing through a confrontation with Hegel and Nietzsche, Desmond rejects facile scepticism and wins through to a strikingly original and powerfully searching articulation of the human. The present volume contains essays on Desmond’s work both by emerging scholars and by well-established thinkers. It also contains a specially written essay on the practices of philosophy by Desmond himself.

    Contents: Introduction, Thomas A.F. Kelly. Part I William Desmond on Philosophy: Between system and poetics: on the practices of philosophy, William Desmond. Part II Desmond and Irish Philosophy: Transcendence and intelligibility, Garrett Barden. Part III Reading Desmond: Metaxological metaphysics and idiotic style: the 'conceptual persona' of William Desmond, Jere O'Neill Surber; Repetition: Desmond's new science, Cyril O'Regan. Part IV Desmond and Metaphysics: William Desmond's overcoming of the overcoming of metaphysics, James L. Marsh; What shines between: the metaxu of light, Catherine J.C. Pickstock. Part V Desmond, Love and the Good: An archaeological ethics: Augustine, Desmond and digging back to the agapeic origin, Renée Ryan; The equivocity of freedom and the suffering of being: the call of the good and the finesse of other forms, Jason J. Howard; A world of values in cones and planes, Miles Smit. Part VI Desmond on Eros: Eros, power and justice: William Desmond and his others, James McGuirk; Plurivocal Eros: a metaxological reading of Plato's Symposium, Duston Moore. Part VII Desmond and God: Maybe not, maybe: William Desmond on God, Richard Kearney. Part VIII Reading with Desmond: Strangely out of place: Phaedrus 227a-230e, Ian Leask. Part IX Desmond, the Arts and the Environment: Glissando: life, gift and the between, John Milbank; All things shining: Desmond's metaxological metaphysics and The Thin Red Line, Christopher Ben Simpson; Towards a metaxological ethics of architecture, John Hymers; Towards a metaxological hermeneutics of plants and animals, Peter Scheers; A bibliography of William Desmond's works; Index.

    Biography

    Thomas A. F. Kelly is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He is a native of Dublin and was educated at University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, from which he holds a doctorate, summa cum laude. His research interests include ontology, philosophical theology and anthropology.

    ’Readers interested in Desmond's work will find many of the essays in Between System and Poetics helpful in terms of how they explore the primary themes of Desmond's thought within a variety of contexts... offers to readers a wealth of philosophical treasures, all unified under Desmond's novel vision 'metaxological metaphysics'.’ Ethical Perspectives