Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida [Paperback]

Hent de de Vries (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 16, 2001

Does violence inevitably shadow our ethico-political engagements and decisions, including our understandings of identity, whether collective or individual? Questions that touch upon ethics and politics can greatly benefit from being rephrased in terms borrowed from the arsenal of religious and theological figures, because the association of such figures with a certain violence keeps moralism, whether in the form of fideism or humanism, at bay. Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida's careful posing of such questions and rearticulations pioneers new modalities for systematic engagement with religion and philosophy alike.

Editorial Reviews

Review

One cannot but be impressed by the acumen and erudition of Hent de Vries' Religion and Violence, which is a very fine addition to contemporary continental European philosophy of religion... It is a book well worth reading.

(Brian Schroeder Ars Disputandi 2003)

Religion and Violence continues de Vries's reexamination of the place of philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion in the major texts of continental philosophy. Both subjects are transformed as de Vries meticulously unpacks the major texts of the post-Kantian philosophical tradition, unfolding in effect a new history of the afterlife of theology.

(Choice 2004)

A rich text with many insightful readings... Hent de Vries is an excellent philosopher and scholar.

(Lasse Thomassen Philosophy in Review/Comptes rendus philosophiques )

Demonstrates with rich erudition how the Derridian programmatic can shed light on the 'religious' dimension of philosophical and ethical strategies that seek to address violence.

(Thomas E. Reynolds Journal of Religion )

Here Hent de Vries deals with some of the most difficult authors—Kant, Kierkegaard, Benjamin, Levinas, and—throughout—Jacques Derrida, as well as with some of the most difficult issues in philosophy (not to say in political and personal life) there are, and the result is a rich, rewarding, and extremely important book.

(Hilary Putnam, Harvard University )

Hent de Vries counters the reductions of ethics to morality (and to moralism) by offering a capacious understanding of error as essential to the ethical turn. This book reverberates with intellectual complexity and intensity.

(Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley )

With outstanding skill and remarkable insight, de Vries interrogates a range of texts from Kant to Derrida and challenges us to rethink the received picture of 'the secular Enlightenment.'.

(Talal Asad, City University of New York Graduate Center )

One of a number of first-rate monographs published in the field of philosophy this year.

(Arthur Bradley Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory )

About the Author

Hent de Vries is professor of Modern European Thought in the Humanities Center and the Department of Philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University and professor of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Among his books are Philosophy and the Turn to Religion and Minimal Theologies: Critiques of Secular Reason in Adorno and Levinas, both available from Johns Hopkins. He is the co-editor, with Samuel Weber, of Violence, Identity, and Self-Determination and Religion and Media, and, with Mieke Bal, of the book series Cultural Memory in the Present.

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; First Edition edition (November 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801867681
• ISBN-13: 978-0801867682
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,638,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.