Religion, Metaphysics, and the Postmodern: William Desmond and John D. Caputo (Indiana Series in the

university press. Bloomington and Indianapolis modern continental philosophy of religion is post- or anti-metaphysical. Be- yond this, the talk to the particular work of John D. Caputo as a representative of the broader post- or . a digest of Desmond's ideas and a series of doorways into Desmond's texts. Secondarily.
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Putting Desmond in conversation with John D.


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Caputo, an important philosopher of religion from the Continental tradition, Christopher Ben Simpson casts new light on Desmond's complex, multifaceted, and nuanced thought. The comparative approach allows Simpson to get at the core of recent debates in the philosophy of religion.

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He develops a rich understanding of how ethics and religion are informed by metaphysics, and contrasts this approach to the decidedly anti-metaphysical stance in Continental philosophy. Religion, Metaphysics, and the Postmodern presents a systematic analysis of Desmond's thought as it advances work on Caputo's thinking and on the philosophy of religion.

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How now -- in the context of recent continental 'postmodern' philosophy -- God? Within the broad outlines of this question, I wish to address the more particular issue of the relationship between religion and metaphysics -- and, secondarily, ethics p. How Simpson "addresses" and "attends" to this large horizon is by placing the thought of two authors in relation to each other on the topics of metaphysics, ethics, and religion.

The thesis argued regarding the relationship between the figures, and consequently, between the emblematic forms of thinking, "is that William Desmond's approach to thinking about religion and God in relation to the domains of metaphysics and ethics provides a viable and preferable alternative to the like position represented in the work of John D. The book, published by Indiana University Press in its series on Philosophy of Religion series editor, Merold Westphal , is a very minimally revised Ph. Desmond, Religion, Metaphysics and the Postmodern , completed in under the supervision of John Milbank at the University of Nottingham.

How we should think of religion and God today, or in any day, has proven to be an enduring, controversial issue for Western thought.

2010.08.06

The "today" location of this issue places the thinking at a particularly congested intersection of professional discourses: And at this congested intersection several discussions converge, some with quite a long history, others with a more recent vintage: To be sure, Simpson's book addresses a large matrix of issues that are both important in the tradition of Western thought about religion and God and of current concern given the rapidly changing discourses involved in the discussion.

So the question then becomes, "Can and does the book achieve its goal through this strategy of juxtaposing the thought of Caputo and Desmond, the goal understood not only as the viability and preferability of Desmond's metaphysical approach to philosophy of religion, ethics, and God, over that of Caputo, but also the viability and preferability of metaphysical theism over and against a postmodern radical hermeneutics? The structure of the book is clear. The six page introduction sets out the broad strategy of the argument and locates the discussion which pairs Caputo and Desmond against much larger backgrounds invoked through several contrasts: The first chapter is a 16 page summary with five pages of footnotes of the work of Caputo on metaphysics, radical hermeneutics, and the consequent criticism of ethics and religion given this analysis of metaphysics.

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It ends with a short summary of what Caputo suggests as the form of post-metaphysical religion. The following three chapters pages with 69 pages of footnotes present a summary analysis of the work of Desmond on metaphysics chapter 2 , ethics chapter 3 , and God and religion chapter 4. Each of these chapters takes the same form, namely a presentation of Desmond's work, generally about two thirds of each chapter, followed by a critical comparison of Desmond's work with that of Caputo. It argues for the "viability" of Desmond's metaphysical theism by demonstrating how it escapes Caputo's static conceptions of metaphysics, ethics, and religion; it argues for the "preferability" of Desmond's position by demonstrating how it better addresses Caputo's "motivating concerns" and generally "out-narrates" Caputo's philosophy of religion.

It is a form of post-Hegelian metaphysics, less concerned with thought thinking itself in the ultimate certainty of the rational concept, and more concerned with an appreciative ethical and religious response within community to the giftedness of being. The argument is that this form of metaphysics is both logically coherent and able to represent the exigencies of valued living without reducing value to the activity of the autonomous subject.


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Fundamentally for Simpson metaphysics is alive and well -- and necessary -- on the other side of the failed attempts of various Enlightenment, critical, and deconstructionist attempts to bury it. But more than being a viable form of thinking, Desmond's metaphysical theism is preferable because it "out-narrates" a response to the contemporary concerns with ethics and religion that Caputo and Desmond share.

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The claim of "out-narrating" is more difficult to clarify than the argument about viability. What Simpson wants to demonstrate is the ability of Desmond's position and metaphysics as a whole to include the LeviNietzschean anxieties, criticisms, and calls for responsibility thus Caputo's and much of postmodernity's diagnosis about ethical and religious ambiguity is not all that wrong but to "out-narrate" this position by shifting value from human action to "being" thus providing a better foundation for ethics and by understanding being as an agapic gift that calls for a response of gratitude thus providing a better foundation for religion.

Wanting to do good beyond the good for me as an individual "entails" or is better, more coherently narrated, via metaphysics where being and good are interchangeable. The same with religion: So back to the central question: If the goals were to be achieved the book would have to accomplish the following six tasks: This is surely a tall order, a demanding roster of tasks set in motion by making Caputo and Desmond stand as emblematic for a very large and intricate matrix of issues.

And because it sets its sights quite high, it almost inevitably must fall short.

Religion, metaphysics, and the postmodern : William Desmond and John D. Caputo

Let me cite three important ways in which the book falls short, not in order to dismiss or minimize the work or thought that is evident in Simpson's book, but more to see why it seems that many projects associated with Radical Orthodoxy require further thought.

First, I am not sure in the end that there is not a great deal more that Caputo and Desmond agree on in relation to ethics, religion, and God than they disagree on.

Simpson recognizes this repeatedly throughout the text e.