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Abstract
This article revisits the debate on the ‘religious and ethical readings’ of Derrida that was instigated by Martin Hägglund’s Radical Atheism. The impasse in this debate can be overcome in a new reading of Derrida’s work that combines the strong elements of the opposing interpretations. At the same time, this new and critical reading exposes an implicit metaphysical desire, a desire without desire, in Derrida’s work, the presuppositions and consequences of which are not well understood in all the other interpretations. This desire turns out to be an excessive desire, which should be balanced with a more contextual approach.
Abstract
Shīʿī mujtahids (mujtahidun) and thinkers often try to adopt the norms of Islamic law to contemporary conditions, and usually it is hampered by the absolute authority of the ‘letter’ of the Qurʾān, Sunna, and sometimes the opinions of authoritative theologians of the past, which leads to an understanding of Islamic law as dogmatic. However, some scholars attempt to revise this approach, appealing to the principles and ‘spirit’ of the Qurʾānic verses and the need for the Islamic legal norms to meet the conditions of the time and place of their application. This paper analyses the case studies with approaches of contemporary Shīʿī mujtahids Yousef Saanei and Mohammad Ebrahim Jannaati and their views on this issue.
Abstract
In his monumental work on Indian culture and society, al-Bīrūnī (d. around 1048 AD) sets out a multifaceted program. He aims at gathering various Indian religious, philosophical, and scientific beliefs for his Muslim audience, and in a second step compares this material to Greek philosophy and even Islamic doctrines. In this paper, we discuss al-Bīrūnī’s attitude towards his sources and his methodology in distinguishing beliefs held by the masses throughout the various religious traditions from beliefs that are rather established on firmer grounds, namely by way of a rational examination. We approach such questions by two case studies, on divine action and reincarnation.
Abstract
More than any other biblical book, the Song of Songs has over the centuries generated a tumultuous conflict of interpretations, which divide between an overly sacred allegorism and an excessive profane materialism of the text. This article addresses the hermeneutical question of the Canticle and considers the corporeality of its language, in which the question of meaning cannot be separated from the question of the body and its affections. The philosophical categories of Platonic chora in Julia Kristeva’s reception and Lacanian lalangue will be examined, each of which stands at the crossroads between biology and sense, libido and signifiers, and affect and meaning. Within this horizon, the woman who is the speaking subject of this biblical text becomes a witness to the powerful yet ambivalent experience of eros, of a desire characterised by a dialectic of presence and absence, but above all of a word inhabited by the body.
Abstract
Benjamin’s essay Toward the Critique of Violence has often irritated readers. This is even more true of his concept of divine violence, which is defined as “law-annihilating” and goes against legally sanctioned state sovereignty. In this paper, I present a new reading of both Benjamin’s essay and divine violence. Against an apocalyptic tendency of Benjamin, I argue that divine violence can only be an instrument of justice if it is understood as violence suffered rather than perpetrated. This is especially the case where people suffer persecution – imprisonment, torture, death – as a result of nonviolent resistance to an oppressive political regime. Only where such resistant suffering occurs, can violence properly be called divine. Only then does it offer a perspective beyond the never-ending atrocities of human history.
Abstract
What is it about Michel de Certeau’s thinking and approach to the crisis of Catholicism in the (post-) conciliar years that gives it a particular capacity to inspire the advent of a synodal Church? The contribution attempts to answer this question by outlining the main features of de Certeau’s theological gesture. It will then clarify his perspective of the Christian community, which he approaches from the angle of a “missionary” itinerancy, or even an “exit” or “alteration” provoked by the encounter with the stranger, giving rise to linguistic creativity and requiring a new practice of authority. In the end, it is this “way of doing things” according to Certeau, which can be found in the Scriptures and is constantly being reinvented in very different cultural spaces that can enable ecclesial communities, and the Church as a whole, to embark on the “uncharted path” of synodalization.
Abstract
The thought of the French Jesuit Michel de Certeau revolves around the figure of the absent Other. This article is dedicated to this enigmatic figure and its elusive appearance. The account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus and their encounter with a stranger serves as a point of departure for an examination of the interplay between absence and presence of this Other. The article thus analyzes the nature of the relationship that can be established with the stranger, who, upon closer inspection, emerges as the risen Christ in the narrative. In this manner, the article draws upon psychoanalytic theory of mourning developed by Freud to identify the concept of incorporation as a crucial tool to elucidating the relationship between the self and the Other and its significance for the question of discipleship.