In Deference to the Other

Lonergan and Contemporary Continental Thought

Edited by Jim Kanaris & Mark J. Doorley
Foreword by John D. Caputo

Subjects: Theology, Religion, Philosophy, Christianity
Paperback : 9780791462447, 202 pages, October 2004
Hardcover : 9780791462430, 202 pages, October 2004

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Table of contents

Foreword
John D. Caputo

Introduction
Jim Kanaris and Mark J. Doorley

1. Decentering Inwardness
Nicholas Plants

2. To Whom Do We Return in the Turn to the Subject? Lonergan, Derrida, and Foucault Revisited
Jim Kanaris

3. Self-Appropriation: Lonergan's Pearl of Great Price
James L. Marsh

4. Subject for the Other: Lonergan and Levinas on Being Human in Postmodernity
Michele Saracino

5. Kristeva's Horror and Lonergan's Insight: The Psychic Structure of the Human Person and the Move to a Higher Viewpoint
Christine E. Jamieson

6. Lonergan's Postmodern Subject: Neither Neoscholastic Substance nor Cartesian Ego
Frederick Lawrence

7. In Response to the Other: Postmodernity and Critical Realism
Mark J. Doorley

8. Lonergan and the Ambiguity of Postmodern Laughter
Ronald H. McKinney, SJ

Works Cited

Contributors

Index

Explores the work of Bernard Lonergan in light of contemporary continental thought.

Description

In Deference to the Other brings contemporary continental thought into conversation with that of Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984), the Jesuit philosopher and theologian. This is an opportune moment to open such a dialogue: philosophers and theologians indebted to Lonergan have increasingly found themselves challenged by the insights of thinkers typically dubbed "postmodern," while postmodernists, most notably Jacques Derrida, have begun to ask the "God question. " While Lonergan was not a continental philosopher, neither was he an analytic philosopher. Concerned with both epistemology and cognition, his systematic and hermeneutic-like proposals resonate with the concerns of philosophers such as Derrida, Foucault, Levinas, and Kristeva. Contributors to this volume find insight and affiliation between Lonergan's thought and contemporary continental thought in a wide-ranging work that engages the philosophical problems of authenticity, self-appropriation, ethics, and the human subject.

Jim Kanaris is Faculty Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at McGill University and author of Bernard Lonergan's Philosophy of Religion: From Philosophy of God to Philosophy of Religious Studies, also published by SUNY Press. Mark J. Doorley is Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethics and Assistant Director of the Ethics Program at Villanova University. He is the author of The Place of the Heart in Lonergan's Ethics: The Role of Feelings in the Ethical Intentionality Analysis of Bernard Lonergan.

Reviews

"…this small collection of very accessible essays serves as a welcome addition to the growing number of publications attempting to bring into clearer focus the similarities and differences between two ways of doing philosophy. " — Arc (The Journal of the School of Religious Studies, McGill University)

"… an inviting collaboration. " — University of Toronto Quarterly

"In the current revival of interest in religion among recent continental philosophers, the name of Bernard Lonergan is an unlikely partner. But, if the studies in this present volume succeed, that is likely to change, and Lonergan will assume a growing importance in this discussion. " — from the Foreword by John D. Caputo

"The essays collected here share many features in common: an openness to taking the challenge of postmodernism seriously, an appreciation for the contributions of postmodernism, and a desire for a genuine dialogue between the concerns of postmodernism and the work of Lonergan. " — Paulette Kidder, Seattle University