D. G. Leahy and the Thinking Now Occurring

Edited by Lissa McCullough & Elliot R. Wolfson

Subjects: Philosophy, Theology, Ethics, Metaphysics, History Of Philosophy
Series: SUNY series in Theology and Continental Thought
Hardcover : 9781438485072, 359 pages, September 2021
Paperback : 9781438485065, 359 pages, January 2022

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Table of contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction to D. G. Leahy: A Quick Start Guide for the Vexed and Perplexed
Lissa McCullough

Part I: History and Time

1. History and the Thinking Now Occurring
Charles Stein

2. Temporal Diremption and the Novelty of Genuine Repetition
Elliot R. Wolfson

3. A Metaphysics of Enchantment or a Case of Immanentizing the Eschaton?
Graham James McAleer

Part II: Apocalyptic Actuality

4. Apocalypticism in Modern Thinking: Descartes, Hegel, Leahy
Thomas J. J. Altizer

5. The Shape of Catholic Apocalypse
Cyril O'Regan

6. The Act of Omnipotence: Abolition of the Mystical Quest
Michael James Dise

Part III: A Physical Ethics

7. The Ethic of Simplicity
Nathan Tierney

8. The Vanishment of Evil from the World
Todd Carter

9. The Transparency of the Good
Alina N. Feld

Part IV: The Edge Where Creating Begins

10. Concerning the Absolute Edge
Edward S. Casey

11. To Think the Beginning: The Apocalyptic "I"
Sarah Lilly Eaton

12. Life at the Edge: Medicine and the New Thinking
Steven B. Hoath, MD

Glossary of Key Terms in D. G. Leahy
D. G. Leahy Comprehensive Bibliography
D. G. Leahy Biographical Sketch
Contributors
Index

A critical introduction to the American philosopher D. G. Leahy (1937–2014), whose oeuvre sets forth a fundamental thinking in which change itself is revealed to be the very essence of reality and mind.

Description

This book offers a critical introduction to the work of American philosopher D. G. Leahy (1937–2014). Leahy's fundamental thinking can be characterized as an absolute creativity in which all creating is "live"—a happening occurring now that manifests a supersaturated polyontological actuality that is essentially created by the logic that characterizes it. Leahy leaves behind the categorial presuppositions of modern thought, eclipsing both Cartesian and Hegelian subjectivities and introducing instead an essentially new form of thinking founded in a nondual logic of creation. The new thinking delineates the absolute unicity of existence as a creative interactivity beyond all traditional dichotomies (such as one vs. many, unity vs. plurality, identity vs. change): a fully "digitized" actuality that is nothing but newness, which inherently implies nothing but change. Through this new form of thinking, change itself is revealed to be the very essence of reality and mind. Any reader looking for a quantum leap beyond the thrall of modern and postmodern fixations is invited to hear and apprehend this new thinking that refuses to be conditioned by paradigms, categories, species, genera, walls, bridges, boundaries, or abstractions: an essentially free thinking that embodies creative novelty itself.

Lissa McCullough is Lecturer in Philosophy at California State University, Dominguez Hills. She is editor of The Call to Radical Theology by Thomas J. J. Altizer and coeditor (with Brian Schroeder) of Thinking through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J. J. Altizer, both also published by SUNY Press. Elliot R. Wolfson is Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His many books include Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path of Poiēsis.

Reviews

"D. G. Leahy is one of the most important yet commensurately most difficult of the post–Death of God theologians. So far there has been no volume to help readers into the dense yet deeply original labyrinth of Leahy's confrontation with contemporary philosophy and theology and his own thinking of an absolute beginning and of absolute creativity and objectivity. This will be the book for those attempting to find their way into Leahy's work, providing not only an entrance and orientation to his thought, but also critically confronting and reflecting on it." — Jason M. Wirth, Seattle University

"Leahy is a genuinely original thinker, extraordinarily intelligent on many different fronts, and someone who will, in my estimation, become a luminary for study in years and decades to come. This book is an excellent introduction towards that end." — Andrew W. Hass, author of Auden's O: The Loss of One's Sovereignty in the Making of Nothing