New Book: Radical Atheism
Posted by Farhang Erfani on November 30th, 2008
Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)
Description from the publisher’s website:
Radical Atheism presents a profound new reading of the influential French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Against the prevalent notion that there was an ethical or religious “turn” in Derrida’s thinking, Hägglund argues that a radical atheism informs Derrida’s work from beginning to end. Proceeding from Derrida’s insight into the constitution of time, Hägglund demonstrates how Derrida rethinks the condition of identity, ethics, religion, and political emancipation in accordance with the logic of radical atheism. Hägglund challenges other major interpreters of Derrida’s work and offers a compelling account of Derrida’s thinking on life and death, good and evil, self and other. Furthermore, Hägglund does not only explicate Derrida’s position but also develops his arguments, fortifies his logic, and pursues its implications. The result is a groundbreaking deconstruction of the perennial philosophical themes of time and desire as well as pressing contemporary issues of sovereignty and democracy.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Wasn’t it always known Derrida was an atheist? Weren’t the “religious elements” in his thought (or Heidegger’s for that matter) more tied to either a genealogical element or a structural similarity? Even Caputo’s The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion acknowledges the atheism.
I suppose one could see it all as a double move between atheism and theism with Derrida being “something else.”
I’m curious as to where this really does differ from the consensus.