Derrida, Ricoeur, Kearney

Journal of Applied Hermeneutics June 5, 2012 Translating God: The Author 2012

Sebastian Purcell

Abstract

The purpose of the present essay is to defend two related notions. The more specific notion that I seek to defend is Richard Kearney’s conception of God as posse, of God as a possible God. His position has recently been criticized for three separate reasons: that it is not radical enough, that it is crypto-metaphysical, and that it forecloses the most profound aims of ethics. At a broader level what seems to be at stake is the opposition between partisans of radical finitude, those who hold that the most profound questions are encountered at the limits of thought, and an alternative “infinite” conception that Kearney shares with Paul Ricoeur, which maintains that fidelity to unpredictable events opens the way to what is most profound about the human condition. In response, I argue that the criticisms fail to hit their mark because they presuppose a broadly Der- ridean or post-modern position in order to make their argument, when it is just those presupposi- tions that are in question.

Keywords deconstruction, Derrida, ethics, eros, events, finitude, God, hermeneutics, infinity, Kearney, Ric- oeur, translation

Whether one chooses to lead one’s life by Stephen Hawking are but two of the most means of a belief in a god or not, and how well-known of many recent authors to have one does so in light of such commitments, is engaged this topic.1 Yet philosophy as a dis- a central existential and practical matter for cipline has stood at some distance from this anyone’s life. This question orients our discussion, despite the clear public interest sense of what goals we deem worthy of pur- in it. The reason for this is that philosophical suing, what codes of conduct - at least in discussions on God tend to suffer from a fa- part - we deem necessary to observe, and tal defect: they deadlock almost immediately. above all it provides a distinct sense of our Atheists are likely never to accept any proof human place in the universe. Perhaps it is for God’s existence, and theists are likely for these reasons that one finds a broad public interest in question of religious belief in our modern world. Richard Dawkins and Corresponding Author: Sebastian Purcell, PhD Assistant Professor of Philosophy SUNY Cortland, NY Email: [email protected] 2 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 never to accept that their proofs are incorrect. following him, further linked both of these It would seem, as a result, that despite the aspects to a metaphysical view on the world. public interest in the matter, there is little The metaphysics of presence is a view on scholarly interest in it. As intense, personal, the world that is taken to be exemplified in and practical as the discussion might be, it the works of Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thom- would appear that philosophy has almost as Aquinas, and which at the same time gave nothing new to say about the topic. rise to the scientific approach to reality that denies any place to existential meaning.2 It It is in light of this deadlock that Conti- maintains that being is to be defined in terms nental philosophy as a whole, and herme- of its presence, in terms of what it is here neutics in particular, has something of spe- and now, in its actuality, and thus allows one cific value to contribute. This tradition of to manipulate it maximally according to thought has followed a path that Søren Kier- one’s best use of instrumental reason - as kegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche opened. one finds, for example in cost-benefit analy- Rather than pursue the question “does God sis. Such a view on reality has no place for exist?” it has instead pursued “what kind of existential meaning. The implication for the god would be worth believing in, would be philosophy of religion, then, is that even if worth hoping for, should such a being exist?” one were to believe in God’s existence, one This is the sort of question that theists and would have to do so within a framework that atheists alike can pursue, so that it does not did not draw upon the traditional metaphysi- result in an immediate deadlock, and it has cal accounts, on the metaphysics of presence, equally proven to be of both scholarly and since it is just those accounts that resulted in public value. Charles Taylor’s A Secular both the secularization of our contemporary Age (2007), for example, has renewed this culture and the broader problem of absurdity scholarly discussion, and Hubert Dreyfus in modern life. and Sean Kelly’s All Things Shining (2011), which pursues a defense of polytheism on Two of the most robust accounts of God existentialist grounds, has become a national that have been provided in response to the best seller. problem of nihilism are those by Jacques Derrida and Richard Kearney, though they The key problem, when one takes up this have not thus far seen eye-to-eye. My spe- approach, is what has come to be known as cific aim of the present essay, then, is to the problem “nihilism.” Nietzsche’s provide a defense of two related philosophi- (in)famous statement that “God is dead. God cal notions. At one level, I seek to defend remains dead. And we have killed him.” Richard Kearney’s conception of a possible compresses the two related aspects of this God, God understood as “posse,” the God matter (1974, p. 181). One aspect concerns who may be, from some recent Derridean the annihilation of Christian values, the fact criticisms, notably John Caputo’s and Mark that the Christian God does not provide Dooley’s, which suggest that his conception meaning for “Western” culture as He did belongs to the tradition of the metaphysics around 1500. The other concerns the distinct of presence. At a more general level, be- possibility that all our lives are but much cause the criticism Kearney’s work has re- sound and fury signifying nothing - a total ceived is of a distinctively Derridean kind, annihilation of meaning - which might be what is at stake in this defense concerns the termed the problem of absurdity. Nietzsche viability of an alternative to Derridean and the tradition of Continental philosophy thought, the viability of a program of

3 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 thought that is not committed to radical and Mark Dooley, while always friendly and finitude in the way that he is. Insofar as Der- appreciative in their responses, have made rida’s commitment to radical finitude may the strongest case in this regard. Taken to- be understood to be shared by Giorgio gether, one finds that they have leveled three Agamben, Martin Heidegger, even Slavoj separate charges: that Kearney’s work is Not Žižek, and insofar as Kearney’s commitment Radical Enough, that it is Crypto- to an alternative, one could call it: the pro- Metaphysical, and that it Forecloses Ethics, gram of infinite thought, is shared by think- or at least the most profound point of ethical ers as diverse as Alain Badiou and Paul Ric- responsibility. I take up these charges each oeur, the stakes of this opposition are signif- in turn. icant for Continental philosophy as a whole, and not only the philosophy of religion.3 The First Charge: Not Radical Enough

The argument that I pursue in what fol- Caputo has argued in a number of essays lows, then, makes the case both that there is and in several presentations that Kearney’s a viable alternative to the program of radical diacritical hermeneutics, along with Ric- finitude, and that Kearney’s conception of oeur’s reflective hermeneutics, is simply not God as “posse” is part of that alternative. radical enough to twist free from the meta- One result of this argument is thus to sug- physics of presence. He has made his case gest that it is not possible, as Derrideans against Ricoeur as early as Radical Herme- have done, simply to assume that because neutics (Caputo, 1984) and has expanded it Kearney does not share their basic philo- to include Kearney in his more recent work sophical commitments that his conclusions (Caputo, 2006, 2010, 2011). Incidentally, I are misguided. A second result is that it note that he is not the only Derridean to ar- might be possible to lead one’s life mean- gue that Ricoeur failed to meet the challenge ingfully if guided by a conception of God as posed by the metaphysics of presence. To posse, which, following Kearney, entails an mention but one other prominent scholar on ethical task for human living, a kind of eth- Derrida who has addressed the relation of ics of translation. Ricoeur and Derrida one could look to Leonard Lawlor’s work (1992).5 This line of Because exegetical points have in some critique, then, broaches a deep tension be- ways resulted in the current disagreement, tween Derrida and Ricoeur, indeed to my the present investigation will be served well mind, it broaches one of the most fundamen- by proceeding slowly and with clarity. I tal disagreements in contemporary Conti- begin, then, with a thorough review of the nental philosophy, and I shall gesture in that three charges that Derrideans have leveled direction below (section 3). Nevertheless, I against Kearney, specifically, and Ricoeur, begin with the Derridean criticism. from whom he draws, more generally. Caputo’s most recent argument is that 1. The Three Charges the structure of Kearney and Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, whether diacritical or reflective, Although Kearney’s work has been dis- is too Hegelian to countenance the possibil- cussed by other groups than Derrideans or ity of events, and this is important because if Continental philosophers generally, to my correct, this means that Kearney and Ric- mind it is the Derridean critique that poses oeur alike are committed to the metaphysics the most serious challenge.4 John Caputo of presence.6 To recall, should that commit-

4 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 ment turn out to be correct, then their pro- Kearney and Ricoeur’s Hegelianism is posed solutions to the problem of nihilism, problematic not because it forecloses certain and in particular their conceptions of God, risks - why should one value riskiness for its would turn out to be part of that same prob- own sake? - but because in that foreclosure lematic history. Specifically, in response to of risk, this structure of thinking has no Kearney’s most recent attempt to find a way place for events, no place for the “perhaps” to mediate between theism and atheism in that escapes the metaphysics of presence, Anatheism (Kearney, 2010) Caputo wrote: the “perhaps” that “is the necessary condition of possibility of every experience which Of course, Richard Kearney is interested is truly an ‘experience,’ which means that it in hermeneutics, not Hegelian metaphys- arises from the unpredictable otherness of ics, but the question is whether the future and shatters our horizons of ex- [Kearney’s] diacritical hermeneutics pectation, which is what [Derrida] means by does not have a Hegelian imprint. Are the possibility of the impossible” (Caputo, not Hegel and Kearney both writing their 2011, p. 59). This “perhaps,” this possibility own de Trinitate? In a hermeneutics of impossibility, is just the Derridean con- more radically conceived [i.e., Caputo’s cept of event: “[t]here the word peut-être own], where things are deeply at risk, cuts deeply into the name of God, so that belief and unbelief are not parts or mo- God is in the very element of the peut-être, ments in or in any way contributors to a the ‘event’ of the promise which is no less a third position one step removed. Their promise/threat, of the maybe which is also a momentum is never allowed to unfold or maybe not” (Caputo, 2011, p. 59). even get off the ground. … Instead of 1,2,3 we encounter the innumerable. The In short, Kearney and Ricoeur are not binary of theism and atheism is dis- radical enough for the following reasons: placed, has not earned the right to recon- they retain a Hegelian structure to their ciliation.…this is not simply a “negative” thought, and that structure forecloses the operation, for the displacement of these possibility of the event, yet one must remain “positions” exposes a more radical “af- open to the event, because it is only in this firmation,” a risky affirmation, a hope way that one can avoid commitment to the against hope, which is inscribed in a metaphysics of presence. more fundamental undecidability that bests both of them. (Caputo, 2011, p. 62) The Second Charge: Crypto-Metaphysics

Caputo’s argument is thus that Kearney and The charge that Kearney and Ricoeur are Ricoeur both retain a certain Hegelian struc- closet Hegelians might be one way to argue ture in their thought, that they are “closet that they are crypto-metaphysicians, but Hegelian[s]” (Caputo, 2011, p. 61). Ca- when Caputo levels this charge against puto’s own Derridean position, by contrast, Kearney in particular, he has something avoids the metaphysics of presence because more specific in mind. In The God Who May it remains open to a “risky” possibility; it is Be (Kearney, 2001), Kearney’s goal is to open to the notion that being/reality is not to mediate between the metaphysical concep- be understood entirely in terms of presence, tion of God understood, as Aquinas wrote, but also in terms of events, or radically un- as ipsum esse per se subsistens, and the predictable reconfigurations of being. more personal, eschatological God of the prophets in the Bible, the God of Abraham

5 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 and Issac, even Jesus, who seems to be little tions, his call for ethical discernment, fore- encumbered with metaphysical terminology. closes the more radical ethics to which de- He does this by reconceiving God in terms construction remains open, to which any of a sense of possibility beyond, or more philosophy that escapes the metaphysics of profound than, the metaphysical alternatives presence must remain open. Caputo put it as of potency and act, that is to say, he recon- follows: ceives God in terms of posse. Given this aim, Caputo argues that there is no real incompat- Richard takes up this question of the ibility between the two conceptions, and that “monstrous” name of khora in Strangers, Kearney’s “posse” thus turns out to do no Gods, and Monsters, where I think his more than “update” traditional scholastic complaint is that when all is said and accounts of God. Caputo wrote: done khora cannot be trusted. But that I think is precisely what the poetics of the It seems to me that there is no real in- im/possible implies, that the conditions compatibility between the eschatological under which we trust also undermine our and the metaphysical concepts of God trust, so that trust is trust in a radical which Richard distinguishes. There is no “perhaps,” a God who may or may not reason that God as such, God quoad se, be, who may or may not be trusted, as Aquinas would put it, or God “an which is after all what “perhaps” must sich,” as Kant would put it, could not al- surely mean, even as a trust that is com- so be pure act, actus purus, the God who pletely trustworthy is no trust at all but a “is” through and through without a trace surety. (Caputo, 2011, p. 60) of potency, while God quoad nos, or für uns, God in terms of our experience of Dooley understands Kearney in a similar God in time and history, is the God who way. He characterizes Kearney’s criticism of may be. …. Exactly how far is diacritical postmodernism, of deconstruction, in this from dialectical? (Caputo, 2011, p. 59) way: when “one opts for the postmodern suspension of the ‘appearance-reality dis- For Caputo, none of Kearney’s ideas are tinction,’ one leaves oneself without scope open to the maybe/maybe not, the peut-être to judge between good and bad. Once, in of God as event, as khora. As a result, when other words, one abolishes all notions of ref- Kearney proposes a new concept, such as erence and representation, one succumbs to “posse,” he is not twisting free from a meta- ‘narrative irresponsibility’ since one cannot physical approach to God, from the meta- differentiate good from bad narratives” physics of presence, he is simply “updating (Dooley, 2007, p. 161). Yet, like Caputo, it,” by providing another list of qualities that Dooley argues that by remaining committed would presumably stand alongside Thom- to ideas such as “reference” or “representa- as’s categories. Even though he claims to be tion” Kearney “remains captive, in spite of going beyond metaphysics, then, he is really himself, to a view of the self and the world just doing a more modern form of it. that is residually ‘foundational’” (Dooley, 2007, p. 166). The foundation in this case The Third Charge: Foreclosing Ethics ought to be understood as some form of ethical presence, a certainty, an unrisky, une- The final charge, which one finds in both ventful, definitely the case and not a per- Caputo and Dooley’s essays, is that the way haps/perhaps not. in which Kearney attempts to mediate posi-

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To sum up: Kearney’s ethical imagina- kind of hermeneutics is most aptly titled a tion remains ethical only in the pale, bland, reflective hermeneutics. metaphysical way, along with all the other concepts he has developed, and though he When viewed in this light, one sees that has tried to think beyond the metaphysics of Ricoeur’s central methodological piece is presence, despite himself, he always ends up one on the philosophy of reflection, specifi- slipping back into it. Furthermore, it is pre- cally his essay “Nabert on Act and Sign” cisely his idea (the very idea) of ethical dis- (Ricoeur 1972). The central points for Ric- cernment between good and bad that pre- oeur’s thought are the following. Nabert ar- vents him from recognizing the more radical gues (at least as Ricoeur interprets him) that demands of a possible ethics beyond, or at there is a distinction between conscious acts the limits of the metaphysics of presence. and the representation of those conscious acts in signs. There is a difference between, 2. Ricoeur’s Reflective Hermeneutics for example, perceiving the coffee mug on my desk and stating: “there is a coffee mug My basic point is that Derrideans have simp- on my desk.” The latter case represents the ly failed to understand Kearney and the Ric- conscious act by way of signs. Nabert, how- oeurian pattern of thought (not Hegelian) ever, does not understand this representation that is present in his work. Once that pattern of conscious acts in signs as an impediment is illuminated, once it is understood on its to knowledge, since they rather complete own terms and not Derridean ones, it seems (aufhebet) the conscious acts, enriching to me that the multiple ways in which their them with a sense they did not and could not criticisms beg the question will be rather have on their own. Representation by signs, clear. I begin my defense, then, with a re- then, becomes a necessary form of media- construction of Ricoeur’s thought and the tion on the way to knowledge, rather than an pattern at work in it in order to illuminate impediment. At this point, when one recog- what Kearney draws from his thought. nizes the productive role of the signifying representation of conscious acts, one has In his late exchange with the neuroscien- begun on the arc of philosophical reflection. tist Jean-Pierre Changeaux, Ricoeur gives us Signs call out for interpretation; they are not the key to understanding the continuity of always self-evident. Hermeneutics, under- his thought. There, he suggests that phe- stood as the art of interpretation, thus be- nomenology and hermeneutics form only comes constitutive of reflective philosophy. two parts of his three-part method, stating: In this way it is elevated from a regional “I want to make my position clear at the out- discipline, which addressed sacred texts, to set. I am a partisan of a current of European one of general philosophical import. philosophy that contains three distinctive approaches, typically referred to as ‘reflec- This approach makes Ricoeur’s herme- tive philosophy,’ ‘phenomenology,’ and neutics fundamentally different from either ‘hermeneutics’” (Ricoeur, 2000, p. 4). In Heidegger’s or Gadamer’s insofar as he does fact, it is Ricoeur’s commitment to reflective not attempt to “dig under” the ontical disci- philosophy that enables him to unify phe- plines, such as logic, mathematics, or sci- nomenology and hermeneutics, to graft the ence - in particular linguistics - but instead branch of the latter onto the tree of the for- attempts to traverse them. His reflective mer. It is because philosophical reflection hermeneutics is not about a fundamental plays this unifying role that I believe his pre-understanding, a horizion or back-drop

7 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 of understanding that needs to be in place in Returning to the general schema of Ric- order to make sense of those sciences. Re- oeur’s thought, one notes that the result of flective hermeneutics is instead posterior to these methodological commitments is that the sciences, rather than prior, for it is the the hermeneutic arc of any of Ricoeur’s in- conflict of interpretations among these re- vestigations is sustained by reflecting on a gional disciplines that gives rise to the need specific kind of meaning, and in the course for hermeneutics. One reflects on these con- of his career he provided three specific flicts in order to complete one’s intentional models of such meaning: the symbol, the conscious experience. How that interpreta- text, and translation. I shall not here pursue tion is to be carried out, and how it is to be the details of all these models, because it is related, tested, with respect to the original only the model of translation that is neces- phenomenological evidence are the ques- sary for understanding Kearney’s sense of a tions that formed the task of Ricoeur’s intel- possible God - God as posse. lectual career. In his brief work entitled On Translation, A caveat is necessary at this point in or- Ricoeur stated that the problem of transla- der to understand one of Kearney’s more tion may be taken in two ways: “either take significant departures from Ricoeur. Ric- the term ‘translation’ in the strict sense of oeur’s understanding of phenomenology was the transfer of a spoken message from one such that he never agreed with Levinas that language to another or take it in the broad the Other, the experience of the second- sense as synonymous with the interpretation person intention, maintained priority over of any meaningful whole within the same one’s first-person conscious experience. In speech community” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 11). his late The Course of Recognition, Ricoeur There is a specific point concerning transla- addresses the relation of Husserl to Levinas tion in the narrow sense that is pertinent to as follows: translation in the wider sense, namely the “construction of comparables” (Ricoeur, One version, that of Husserl in his Car- 2006, p. 34). After one gives up the Roman- tesian Meditations, remains a phenome- tic ideal of perfect translation, it is possible nology of perception. In this sense, his to recognize that it is the work of translation approach is theoretical. The other, that of that establishes the equivalent terms be- Levinas, in Totality and Infinity and tween languages. Ricoeur’s paradigm case Otherwise than Being or Beyond Es- in this regard is established by reflecting on sence, is straightforwardly ethical and, the French sinologist François Jullien, who by implication, anti-ontological. Both argues “that Chinese is the absolute other of approaches have their legitimacy, and Greek - that knowledge of the inside of Chi- my argument here does not require us to nese amounts to a deconstruction of what is decide in favor of one or the other of outside, of what is exterior, i.e. thinking and them. (Ricoeur, 2005, p. 154) speaking Greek” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 36). Ricoeur does not dispute Jullien’s point, but For Ricoeur, the opposition is one that re- rather points out that in order to make his sults from a choice about methodological case, Jullien must engage in a construction origin, and could not be decided simply by of equivalent but not identical terms, espe- averting to the phenomena. Below I review cially with regard to the tenses (or lack Kearney’s significant departure from Ric- thereof) of Chinese verbs. This construction oeur on this matter. is just what Ricoeur means by the construc-

8 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 tion of comparables. Moving across (trans- of being Ricoeur was interested in was being latum) from one untranslatable language to as capability. In Memory, History, Forget- another is made practically possible by the ting he puts it thus: construction of comparable, though not identical, terms, by an equivalence without as we read in Aristotle’s well-known identity. Ricoeur takes this as a general declaration in Metaphysics 4.2: “There hermeneutic method of reflection for relat- are many sense in which a thing may be ing, without equating, two mutually incom- said to be.” I have argued elsewhere on patible domains of sense, such as cultural the basis of this Aristotelian warning in and personal memory, or (as Kearney pur- exploring the resources of the interpreta- sues) Christian and Hindu conceptions of tion that, among the various acceptations, God. privileges that being as act and as power on the plane of a philosophical anthro- This traversal through the conflict of in- pology: it is in this way that I propose in terpretations, especially by means of the the course of the present chapter to hold model of translation, sets up Ricoeur’s ap- “the power to remember” (le pouvoir proach to metaphysics. This terminal point faire mémoire) to be one of these powers in Ricoeur’s hermeneutic arc is import, since - along with the power to speak, the I need to demonstrate that Ricoeur was in power to act, the power to recount, the fact a metaphysical philosopher and not just power to be imputable with respect to a philosopher of language in order to re- one’s actions as their genuine author. spond to the Derridean charge that Ricoeur (Ricoeur, 2004, p. 343-344) and Kearney could not avoid being metaphysicians of presence, since they only ever In his work on recognition, Ricoeur adds discuss linguistic meaning. Ricoeur always a sixth power to the list: the power to recog- maintained that in order to complete the arc nize and be recognized. This last is a sort of of hermeneutical reflection it was necessary meta-capability, since it is by mutually rec- not only to travers the existing conflicts of ognizing one another that one in fact devel- interpretation, but to take the results back to ops capacities. “[I]t is a question,” Ricoeur their ontological root, to follow the referent writes, “of seeking in the development of of the symbols, metaphors, texts, and trans- conflictual interactions the source for a par- lations back to being itself. In principle, this allel enlargening of the individual capacities” sort of project could address any form of (Ricoeur, 2005, p. 187). This six-fold list is being, so that the arc of reflection could be Ricoeur’s response to Heidegger’s existen- completed by returning to the being indicat- tials in Being and Time and his correction of ed by physical or mathematical equations. the Kantian categories, since in the former Don Ihde has, for example, shown how Ric- case, Ricoeur maintains that Heidegger’s oeur’s approach to hermeneutics lends itself account remains untested by the conflict of quite fruitfully to an analysis of contempo- interpretations, and in the latter, one must rary science and technology (see Idhe, 1993, note that none of these capacities may be 1998). That domain of investigation, how- understood to apply to natural beings, such ever, was not Ricoeur’s concern. Rather, as rocks or trees, so that Kant’s categories since the very beginning of his work, he was prove to be far too broad to correctly expli- concerned with the ontology of human be- cate the human condition. They thus stand as ings, with elaborating a philosophical an- a significant contribution to the ontology of thropology. It is for this reason that the kind our human condition, and prove equally that

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Ricoeur’s reflective hermeneutics does ad- Adequate Inference Argument: This is dress being and not just language. I now turn the weaker of the two responses. It ar- to develop how this ontology escapes the gues that there are, in the contemporary legacy of the metaphysics of presence. discourse of Continental philosophy, two broad accounts of events. One of these, 3. Not Radical Enough? the Derridean-Heideggerian, has a two- part structure, while another, the Ric- One of the basic criticisms of Ricoeur and oeurian (and Kearneyan, and Badiousi- Kearney’s hermeneutics is that it is not radi- an), has a three-part structure. Next, ra- cal enough, that it is not open to the event, ther than settle which side has a better the unforeseeable, unpredictable, impossible conception of events, the argument possibility. This charge, then, amounts to moves to establish the weaker claim that the point that any hermeneutics following a it is unwarranted simply to presuppose Ricoeurian structure is too Hegelian (which that one account is correct and then is a point of contact I have provocatively charge the other side with failing to con- courted in the foregoing) to twist-free from form to one’s presupposition. To do so the metaphysics of presence. Having pre- would be to engage, rather straightfor- sented the foregoing on Ricoeur, it seems to wardly, in begging the question. Yet, me that I could respond to this charge in ei- when Caputo, or Lawlor, or Dooley ac- ther of two ways: by means of what might cuse Ricoeur or Kearney of failing to be be called an Adequate Account Argument, sufficiently radical, their argument or by means of a similar Adequate Inference amounts just to the charge that Ricoeur Argument. By these arguments I intend the and Kearney’s conception of events does following. not conform to the two-part structure one finds in Derrida’s thought. In doing so, Adequate Account Argument: This is the as a result, they beg the question, since stronger of the two responses. It argues what needs to be established is whether that in the contemporary discourse of that conception of events is the correct Continental philosophy there are two one. To sum up, this argument concerns broad accounts of events: one, the Der- the (in)adequacy of the Derridean’s in- ridean-Heideggerian account, has two ferences, while the former is an argu- parts, and one, which Ricoeur, Kearney ment about the (in)adequacy of the Der- and others (including most notably Alain ridean account of events. Badiou) maintain, which has three parts. Next, it argues that the two-part account While I maintain that the conclusions of is unworkable, but the three-part account the Adequate Account Argument are war- is not. This argument, in short, seeks ranted,7 establishing that claim is both more both to establish what an adequate ac- involved than the space I have available for count of events would look like, and that the present essay, and it is something that I the Derridean conception is inadequate have already explored (to some extent at given those criteria, while the Ricoeurian least) in some of my other pieces.8 For the conception is adequate. Hence the title: present essay, then, I think it is enough to it is an argument about which account of make the case for the Adequate Inference events is most adequate, given the Argument. The character of the present de- shared aim of twisting-free from the fense, as a result, leaves one with a choice metaphysics of presence. between two approaches to events, to God

10 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 even, but I do not think that this decision is exists” in the structure of sense; it exists in one that is groundless, or one that will re- the structure of univocal semantics precisely main unresolved. Rather it looks to me as as that which is excluded from it (Badiou, though a new field for research is opened, 2009, p. 153). Because it does not clearly and that some fruitful discussion is likely to exist as something literally meaningful, be- follow. For the present, I content myself cause one can imagine logical positivists with making the case that there is a need for dismissing the investigation of “evil” in the this discussion. Bible as nonsense, one must wager that it does exist. Second, one must act, one must In order to make my case, I begin with do something to bring about this meaning, the point that is common to both alternatives, and this is the process of verification. The namely that in the contemporary discourse long detour through the conflict of interpre- of Continental philosophy there are two tations just is this process of verification, of broad accounts of events. Since Derrideans truth-making. Finally, if successful, this pro- have overlooked or misunderstood the alter- cess will have brought a new kind of mean- native account, the one found in Ricoeur’s ing into existence, so that my wager is trans- thought, I begin with it. formed, so that the world of dictionary sense is displaced. This is a structure that Ricoeur In the conclusion to The Symbolism of maintains for all his models of sense; it Evil (Ricoeur 1967), a relatively early work, holds just as much for the new sense provid- Ricoeur outlined a three part process for the ed by symbols as it does for that provided by recovery of symbols. texts, or for that provided by translation. At the same time, because it is always possible [i] I wager that I shall have a better un- to follow the referent of any sign to its onto- derstanding of man and of the bond be- logical base, each of these ruptures in the tween the being of man and the being of established order of sense, (symbolically, all beings if I follow the indication of textually, translatively) is at the same time a symbolic thought. That wager then be- rupture in the order of being. In each case, comes [ii] the task of verifying my wager utterly new and unpredictable forms of and saturating it, so to speak, with intel- meaning and being are brought fourth. They ligibility. In return, the task [iii] trans- are, in short, events. What this structure de- forms my wager: in betting on the signif- scribes, then, is just how events occur and icance of the symbolic world, I bet at the are completed. It is this three-part structure same time that my wager will be re- (wager, verification, and transformation), stored to me in the power of reflection, which moves through representations rather in the element of coherent discourse. than trying to subvert, “dig under,” or dis- (Ricoeur, 1967, p. 355) place them, that is intended by the “infinite” structure of events. To summarize, the process has three parts: a wager, verification, and transformation. Derridean (radically finite) events, by contrast, have only two parts. The first of The wager itself is a wager on symbolic these is the recognition of an in-existent, the meaning, that is to say, meaning that is not structure of included exclusion, Heidegger’s present in the semantics of ordinary, dic- no-thing, Derrida’s supplement, in the struc- tionary sense. To use a little terminology ture of signification. Next one takes a step to from Alain Badiou, symbolic meaning “in- the recognition of something “beyond,”

11 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 something “older” than the supplement, One account of events has two parts, “‘older’ than presence and the system of then, another three parts. Both are commit- truth, older than ‘history’” (Derrida 1973, p. ted to the twisting-free from the metaphysics 103). Or in Derrida’s later work, one comes of presence, but each attempts to do so in to recognize the surprise of the incoming of different ways. I do think that Ricoeur’s ap- the Other, of the unpredictable, im-possible, proach is the only workable one, but the unforseable, radical break in meaning and foregoing suggests a more modest conclu- being that is an event (Heidegger’s Ereignis). sion: that Derrideans cannot charge Ric- One does not verify the event, for Derrida, oeurians of being insufficiently radical, since to do so would be to presuppose what measured by their own standards, when it is the event was, to reduce its riskiness by the adequacy of their standard that is the naming it, and thereby betraying its very point of contention. In a similar way, they character as an event. cannot accuse Ricoeurians of shirking from risk, when the sense of “risk” is the point of Where Ricoeur’s account differs from contention. In short, their argument presup- the Derridean account of events concerns the poses their point of view’s correctness in role of agency. For Derrideans, Ricoeur’s order to make its claim, but it is their pre- (or Kearney’s, or Badiou’s) mediations are suppositions that have yet to be established. an attempt to gain control over the unpre- The charge of insufficient radicality, as a dictability of events, to lessen their riskiness. result, does not appear to be sustainable, ei- Yet for Ricoeur, events simply do not come ther for Ricoeur or Kearney, since both are into being on their own - or at least not all of committed to this three-part structure. them.9 For human events, and for the as- sessing (the working-through) of non-human 4. Diacritical Hermeneutics events, a certain kind of agency is necessary to foster their transformation - this is the While I have spent some time reviewing process of verification, of truth-making. Ricoeur’s thought, with the intention of de- Mediation completes the events, not by fending Kearney’s work, one should not un- bringing them into some higher dialectical derstand Kearney to be engaged some sort synthesis, but by allowing them to happen - of application of Ricoeur’s general princi- this is the Ricoeurian sense of “Aufhebung.” ples. What Kearney accepts from Ricoeur is One might say, then, that more risk is in- two-fold: a commitment to a three-fold volved in Ricoeur’s approach to events than structure for events (which he shares as Derrida’s, since in Ricoeur’s approach one much with Badiou as he does with Ricoeur), must commit oneself to the fostering, to the and the way that Ricoeur “grafts” hermeneu- be-coming of events, while in Derrida’s ap- tics onto phenomenology, namely by begin- proach, one only tries to prepare the way to ning with phenomenological consciousness, the recognition of the radical unpredictabil- moving through a conflict of interpretations, ity of their occurrence - no agency is neces- and then returning to a refigured conscious- sary to make them happen. To put it another ness. His disagreements are at least three- way: for Derrida, the risk involved with fold: he entirely re-characterizes the arc of events concerns their unknowability, in as- hermeneutic reflection, he broadens Ric- senting to a radically unknown, for Ricoeur oeur’s account of narrative, and he redresses the risk involved with events concerns one’s Ricoeur’s l’homme capable by introducing own actions, concerns acting on behalf of an the capacity for eros. Any of these points, I unknown. believe, put him rather deeply at odds with

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Ricoeurians, and as one will note, they are criticism of dia-critical hermeneutics is sus- mutually interdependent claims. tained, is completed, only by averting to the demands of an original ethical intention. Kearney’s general correction of Ric- oeur’s reflective hermeneutics consists in This point has rather significant implica- the argument that the choice between tions for the status of events for Kearney. Levinas and Husserl on the priority of the While his thought still follows the “infinite” Other is not merely a matter of methodolog- model of events by retaining a three-part ical origin, as Ricoeur maintained.10 For structure, the agentive aspect of events for Kearney, Levinas was right in one capital Kearney is always ethical. Veri-fication, sense: the presence of the Other disrupts what Ricoeur calls truth as attestation at cer- first-person consciousness in an irreducible, tain points, is an ethical practice. One cannot irrecoverable way: “[t]he rejection of rela- divorce the most profound sense of truth tive otherness in favor of absolute otherness, from ethical activity. It is in this way that he by Levinas and other thinkers of radical al- maintains the Levinasian thesis that ethics is terity, marks a decisive ‘break’ between first philosophy, and he does so without the thought and language” (Kearney, 2003, p. need to commit himself to some form of ab- 16). Furthermore, once acknowledged, this solute asymmetry, or “madness” as he puts it. break, this disruption of consciousness and For Ricoeur, a kind of rational completion of language indicates that one has a respons- events allows them to happen, while for ability to the Other, a capacity for ethical Kearney this completion (Aufhebung) is al- response. Kearney wrote: “[t]he basic aim of ways ethical. diacritical hermeneutics is, I suggest, to make us more hospitable to strangers, gods My hope is that these points should clar- and monsters without succumbing to mys- ify how Kearney could respond to Dooley’s tique or madness” (Kearney, 2003, p. 18). concern (the third charge) that Kearney is Ricoeur, of course, recognizes one’s capaci- not open to the most profound call of ethics. ty for moral imputation as one of the basic Dooley sees a sort of “shrinking back from capabilities of human beings, but Kearney the abyss” in Kearney’s insistence that me- draws a deeper lesson from Levinas. What diation, that completion, of opposed posi- Levinas’ phenomenologies indicate for tions in the conflict of interpretation always Kearney is that one does not begin only with remain subordinated to an ethical intention. phenomenological consciousness, which God might be monstrous after all, and so must then pass through the conflict of inter- could the stranger, he seems to suggest. Yet, pretations, so that it can finally return to in making such an argument, Dooley is some ontological dimension. Rather, one clearly presupposing the Derridean two-part begins with an ethical, phenomenological account of events, wherein the greatest chal- consciousness, which gives rise to a conflict lenge, the greatest risk, concerns assenting of interpretations, and returns to an ontology. to an utterly unknowable. For Kearney, the The trajectory of hermeneutic reflection, risk of response requires agency, and this then, is sustained from beginning to end by agency is only possible by living together, an ethical obligation. One cannot, as a result, by our respons-ability, and so is only possi- mediate among conflicting interpretations by ble in a broadly ethical way. Kearney’s eth- simple appeal to rational or logical criteria. ics, then, in no way forecloses the most pro- Rather, such mediation must always pass by found challenges of ethical response, but way of an ethically evaluative moment. The rather it opens a way to it.

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Even with this rather substantial modi- Kearney is not content simply to construct a fication to Ricoeur’s thought, Kearney inno- term that functions as an equivalence with- vates in other significant ways. To begin, his out identity. Although he does provide spe- general correction of Ricoeur’s hermeneu- cific terms, such as posse or anatheism, to tics results in a process of hermeneutical identify his projects, what Kearney in fact thought that at a more specific level acts as designates by these terms is a comparable if it were a correction of Ricoeur’s model of narrative. Unlike Ricoeur, Kearney main- translation. I write that it acts “as if” it were tains that narratives are their own model of a correction of the translative model, since sense - they are not simply a form of textual Kearney developed his own account before meaning as Ricoeur thinks. It is just this Ricoeur completed his account of translation. point that Kearney explores in On Stories The “correction” that I suggest, then, is for (Kearney 2002), which is part of the trilogy the sake of illustration, and so is warranted that includes The God Who May Be only by its ability to illuminate the signifi- (Kearney 2001) and Strangers, Gods, and cance of Kearney’s departure Ricoeur. One Monsters (Kearney 2003). It is by mediating may think of it in the following way. In both irreconcilable narratives, by translating them, The God Who May Be and Anatheism, that Kearney undertakes to reconcile (with- Kearney undertakes to mediate hermeneuti- out identifying or synthesizing) opposed re- cally (diacritically) between two seemingly ligious traditions, or even theists and atheists. untranslatable poles: in the former case, he It is in this sense that Kearney’s religious, mediates between the scholastic conception diacritical hermeneutics, which consists of of God as ipsum esse subsistens (Thomas constructing comparable narratives between Aquinas’ interpretation of Exodus 3:14 - “I untranslatable positions, and which is al- am who am”) and new eschatological con- ways carried out by means of the ethical ceptions, while in the latter case, he medi- demand, may be considered a project that ates between a naïve theism and a postmod- aims at translating God. ern atheism. The work of these works consists in something like the construction of A third and final significant departure comparables, in the construction of an from Ricoeur’s thought that I see in equivalence without identity. In the former Kearney’s work concerns the role of desire, case, the comparable term that Kearney con- of eros. It is a remarkable point that among structs is God understood as posse, while in Ricoeur’s fundamental human capabilities the latter it is, quite obviously, anatheism he does not include the capacity for eros or (Kearney, 2003, p. 98; Kearney, 2010, p. 6). love more generally. Yet, since Kearney is Incidentally, one might note that Kearney committed to the Levinasian point that the has taken a similar approach in his Hosting ethical intention fundamentally transforms The Stranger (Kearney & Taylor, 2011) col- one’s phenomenal consciousness, and be- lection, in which the Latin “hostis,” meaning cause Levinas maintained that eros was one both guest and host, becomes the compara- of the ways to try to complete this ethical ble term for translating between untranslata- intention, it is perhaps unsurprising that ble and irreconcilable cultural differences, Kearney would move to include eros as a such as the opposition between Israelis and fundamental feature of our ethical responsi- Palestinians. bility. The centrality of eros to Kearney’s thought is something that Patrick Burke has This analogy with Ricoeur’s thought, identified (Burke, 2011), and it is a point however, only carries one so far, since with which Kearney has explicitly agreed

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(Kearney, 2011a). Despite his commitments all Kearney argues: “the Shulamite’s passion to Levinas, however, Kearney does not de- represents free love—she is faithful to her velop his account of eros in a Levinasian lover ‘outside matrimonial bonds and social way. demands’ (e.g., demands to remain a servant, wife, child-bearer, mother, or commercial While Kearney has explored the topic of exchange object)” (Kearney 2003, p. 57). eros in a number of ways, what I think is The lover is thus a model for ethical dis- most important for the present essay is the cernment without formal criteria because in way in which eros functions for him as a a loving relation one responds automatically, model for ethical discernment without for- without thinking, to the needs, the demands mal criteria.11 In the tradition of virtue ethics of one’s beloved. In the loving relation, one it is the phronimos, the man of practical has no need either of deontological univer- wisdom, who is able to make discerning salizing criteria or a list of Ten Command- judgments without formal criteria. For ments (love your beloved is not one of Kearney, it is the lover. One of the more them!). At the same time, this kind of re- significant differences between these two sponse knows no boundaries. It would seem sorts of person is the way in which the lover to go against the very nature of love to re- is open to excessive actions that the man of quire moderation in response to one’s be- practical wisdom’s moderation would not loved. Love is an overflowing excess allow. Nowhere is this point clearer than in through and through, and this is why it may Kearney’s analysis of the Shulamite woman seem to be an appropriate model for a hu- in the Song of Songs. This biblical chant us- mans relation to God. Additionally, one es powerfully charged erotic imagery. notes, it is only this kind of excessive ethics, Kearney wrote: an ethics modeled on eros, that would seem to be appropriate to the agency required to the amorous verses [defy] any purely al- complete an event of meaning - a moderate legorical interpretation: “his left arm is ethics, closed both to the excesses and fra- under my head and his right makes love gility of love, would not appear to be up to to me (2:6 and 8:2); he “pastures his the task of response to utterly new breaks in flock” among the lilies (6:3); his “foun- meaning and being. tain makes the garden fertile” (4:15); or “my beloved thrust his hand/through the These points, I believe, demonstrate why hole in the door; / I trembled to the core Kearney is not a crypto-metaphysician, why of my being” (5:4). Doesn’t get much his account of God as posse is not a simple hotter than that. …This kind of language “update” to scholastic conceptions of God. was, according to André LaCocque, al- Caputo was concerned that such a concep- most unprecedented in the bible. And it tion of God was not open to the horizon was to prove so controversial in the later shattering possibility of the event, the riski- rabbinical and Christian monastic tradi- ness of the “perhaps” of God. Yet this point tions as to be frequently laundered, chas- again presupposes his Derridean commit- tened, or censored. (Kearney, 2003, p. ments. Kearney’s God as posse is possible in 56) more than one sense, but I think most pro- foundly insofar as the meaning of this God Yet it is not only that the language is one as posse inexists in our contemporary that courts excess, nor is it even the case that (Christian) religious traditions. Kearney’s this biblical chant is a woman’s song, above posse is a mediating construction, a notion

15 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 of a God that he hopes to assist in bringing Derrideans’ criticisms are unfounded. Their to completion, to articulate by translating the arguments must presuppose the accuracy of narratives on God in both metaphysical and just those points that are objects of dispute. postmodern conditions, even theists and atheists. Furthermore, the character of this A number of consequences follow for God is one that is to be discerned ethically, how one is to live in light of Kearney’s con- following the model of erotic demand, fol- ception of God as posse. The first of these lowing the way of the Shulamite woman - connects with the broad concern of Conti- not following formal codes or moral rules. nental philosophy: just how does this ac- This is the God, probably, that he hopes for, count respond to the problem of nihilism? and as a result this God remains only a pos- Rather than assert that meaning enters the sibility in just that sense. This is not the world through belief in some transcendent God für uns, as opposed to an sich. It is a Being (the traditional, scholastic approach), God, perhaps - if we can make sense of Kearney’s approach accepts straightforward- Him/Her/It, if we can make this kind of ex- ly that the realm of sense described by natu- istence meaningful (though perhaps we will ral science proscribes existential meaning. fail, and that is always a risk!). The sense of “God as posse” inexists in the order of being so understood, so that one 5. How to Life with/for a Possible God gains access to its meaning only insofar as one sub-jects oneself to the God-event. In At this point, I hope to have made it reason- wagering on the sense of “posse” then, one ably clear why none of the charges against twists-free from the tradition of the meta- Kearney’s conception of God hit their mark. physics of presence by finding a space for To argue, as the Derrideans do, that existential meaning through the events of Kearney’s thought is (1) not radical enough, being. In short, being is not all there is, for that (2) it is crypto-metaphysical, or that (3) there “are” also events, understood as the it is closed to the most profound possibilities unpredictable shifts, happenings of being. of ethics, is simply to misconstrue the character of Kearney and Ricoeur’s thought. Yet this approach to God does more than Both of these thinkers maintain that herme- restore a form of existential meaning to the neutics is a response to events of mean- universe, which is also something that the ing/being, and that this response has a three- Derridean account contends that it is able to part structure: wagering, verifying, trans- do. For the sense of God as posse also pro- forming. This three-part structure is what I vides a means by which to live - an ethics if have been calling the structure of infinite not a rule-bound morality - for one must also thought, and I have opposed it to the struc- act in order to bring about the happening of ture of radical finitude, which the Derride- the event. The exchanges between Kearney ans defend. Their sense of radical finitude and Caputo have often centered on an anal- turns on a conception of events that consist ogy about opening doors. Caputo argues in the identification of an inexistent, and the that his account of events is radical insofar recognition of the unpredictable to-come (a as it recognizes that in the case of God, decision on the undecidable). While I have one’s belief is like opening the door to one’s not provided any grounds for evaluating the house without knowing who stands on the relative strengths of these competing con- other side - it might be a friend or a murder- ceptions, the mere identification of two rival er. Living before this mysterium tremendum approaches is enough to demonstrate that the et fascinans constitutes the life of the reli-

16 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 gious believer, who cannot foreclose the the need for hermeneutic trans-lation defines possibility that God might be a monster. the basic ethical character of our lives. For This analogy aptly characterizes the Der- Kearney, we live in and through our herme- ridean account of events, since it has two neutic endeavors, in and through our at- crucial parts: an inexistent, in this case rep- tempts to construct comparables between resented by the door, and the incoming of an incomparable narratives, in and through the unforeseeable possibility, the person/beast dissenting stories that people tell both in our standing on the other side. The Kearneyan own cultures and in those of others. response is to suggest that the opening of the door is not something one does alone, that I close these reflections with two brief Caputo’s metaphor presupposes a kind of indications for some further research that individualism. Events, he would respond, might follow from the foregoing. One of the are only brought into being with others, so more immediate consequences of the fore- that when I open the door, I do so in relation going argument is that it suggests a new area to the other people in my household, those for research in the philosophy of religion. It who have enabled me to live as I am. The seems to me that the tactic of radical finitude opening itself, then, is a third part (the veri- has been explored rather thoroughly in con- fication), without which the event does not temporary thought, in the work of Derride- happen. This basic difference concerning the ans, such as Caputo, in Jean-Luc Marion’s character of events thus entails different conception of the doubly saturated phenom- ways of living. enon, or even those who have followed Heidegger, such as Jean-Yves Lacoste.12 The event of God as posse, Kearney This alternative path, taking up the position suggests, is sustained by the practice of love, of infinite thought, perhaps deserves more including even erotic love. At its most pro- consideration. Kearney’s way is one way to found level, loving God as posse means that do so, but perhaps there are others. one must work actively to find better desig- nations of God by translating incomparable A second consequence suggests that narratives about God. This act of translation more work needs to be undertaken to evalu- must be guided by an ethical commitment, ate the respective strengths of these posi- since one only realizes an event with others tions. Given the shared aim of twisting-free and through one’s respons-ability to them. from the metaphysics of presence, which Unethical conceptions of God, monstrous account of events is most capable of achiev- conceptions, then, are proscribed because ing this aim? This point seems to me to be a they arise from a conception of human liv- general metaphysical problem, and one that ing, human intentional consciousness, that is concerns one of the most profound points of abstract - one that assumes that individuals contention in that area. If the “theological exist prior to the communities in which they turn” took place just for the reason that it live. None of this suggests that the ethics of seemed poised to test such points of profun- a commitment to God as posse follows rules, dity, then perhaps it will continue to serve for the basic point that is underscored is the our thought well on this explicitly metaphys- need to trans-late incommensurable concep- ical point. The other area that seems to be tions of God, incommensurable conceptions flourishing in contemporary Continental phi- of the highest goal for our lives, and this losophy is this so-called “speculative turn,” must follow the model of love, which oper- a field in which Badiou, Deleuze, and Žižek ates excessively, without criteria. As a result, have established the existing contours. Per-

17 Purcell Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2012 Article 5 haps a point of contact between these two In N. Deroo & M. Zlomisc (Eds.), Cross and discourses, one metaphysical and one theo- Khora: Deconstruction and Christianity in logical, would be salutatory for both. At the work of John D. Caputo (pp. 140-150). least for any theological conception moti- Eugene, OR: Pickwick. vated by conceptions of possibility, this “perhaps” is one that should not be missed. Caputo, J. D. (1997). The prayers and tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without reli- References gion. Bloomington & Indianapolis, IN: Indi- ana University Press. Agamben, G. (1999a). The passion of fac- ticity. Potentialities: Collected essays in Caputo, J. D (1987). Radical hermeneutics: philosophy (pp. 185-204). Stanford, CA: Repetition, deconstruction, and the herme- Stanford University Press. neutic project. Bloomington & Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Agamben, G. (1999b). *S: Hegel’s Absolute and Heidegger’s Ereignis. Potentialities: Caputo, J. D. (2006). Richard Kearney’s en- Collected essays in philosophy (pp. 116- thusiasm. In J. Manoussakis (Ed.), After 137). Stanford, CA: Stanford University God: Richard Kearney and the religious Press. turn in continental philosophy (pp. 309-319). New York, NY: Fordham University Press. Badiou, A. (2008). Conditions. New York, NY: Continuum Press. Caputo, J. D. (2006). The weakness of God: A theology of the event. Bloomington & In- Badiou, A. (2009). Logics of worlds: Being dianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. and event 2. New York, NY: Continuum Press. Changeaux, J-P, & Ricoeur, P. (2000). What makes us think? A neuroscientist and a phi- Bourgeois, P. (1993). The instant and the losopher argue about ethics, human nature, living present: Ricoeur and Derrida reading and the brain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni- Husserl. Philosophy Today, 37(1), 31-37. versity Press.

Bourgeois, P. (1997). Ethics at the limit of Dawkins, R. (2008). The God delusion. reason: Ricoeur and deconstruction. Philos- Boston, MA: Mariner Press. ophy Today, 41(Supplement), 142-151. Derrida, J. (1973). Speech and phenomena Burke, P. (2011). Kearney’s Other: The and other essays on Husserl’s theory of shadow. Philosophy Today, 55(Supplement), signs. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Universi- 65-74. ty Press.

Caputo, J. D. (2011). God, perhaps: The dia- Dooley, M. (2007). Truth, ethics, and narra- critical hermeneutics of God in the work of tive imagination: Kearney and the postmod- Richard Kearney. Philosophy Today. 55 ern challenge. In P. Gratton &J. Manous- (Supplement), 56-64. sakis (Eds.), Traversing the imaginary: Richard Kearney and the postmodern chal- Caputo, J. D. (2010). The possibility of the lenge. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Universi- impossible: A response to Richard Kearney. ty Press.

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Gabriel, M., & Žižek, S. (2009). Mythology, Kearney, R. M. (2011a). What is diacritical madness and laughter: Subjectivity in Ger- hermeneutics? Journal of Applied Herme- man idealism. New York, NY: Continuum neutics, 2(December), 1-14. Press. Lacoste, J-Y. (2004). Experience and the Gedney, M. (2007). After ethics and affec- absolute: Disputed questions on the humani- tivity: Kearney’s hope in the God who may ty of man. New York, NY: Fordham Univer- be. International Journal of Philosophic sity Press. Studies, 15(4), 599-616. Lawlor, L. (1992). Imagination and chance: Hawking, S., & Mlodinow, L. (2010). The The difference between the thought of Ric- grand design. New York, NY: Bantam oeur and Derrida. Albany, NY: SUNY Books. Press.

Ihde, D. (1998). Expanding hermeneutics: Lawlor, L. (2004). Verendlichung (Finitiza- Visualism in science. Evanston, IL: North- tion): The overcoming of metaphysics with western University Press. life. Philosophy Today, 48(4), 399-412.

Ihde, D. (1993). Postphenomenology: Es- Marder, M. (2011). The event of the thing: says in the postmodern context. Evanston, Derrida’s post-deconstructive realism. IL: Northwestern University Press. Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Kearney, R. M. (2010). Anatheism: Return- ing to God after God. New York, NY: Co- Masterson, P. (2008a). Richard Kearney’s lumbia University Press. hermeneutics of otherness. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 34(3), 247-265. Kearney, R. M. (2011a). Eros, diacritical hermeneutics, and the maybe. Philosophy Masterson, P. (2008b). The sense of creation. Today, 55(Supplement), 75-85. London, England: Ashgate.

Kearney, R. M. (2001). The God who may Marion, J-L. (2002a). Being given: Toward be: A hermeneutics of religion. Bloomington A phenomenology of givenness. Stanford, & Indianpolis, IN: Indiana University Press. CA: Stanford University Press.

Kearney, R. M. (2002). On stories. New Marion, J-L. (2002b). In excess: Studies of York, NY: Routledge Press. saturated phenomena. New York, NY: Fordham University Press. Kearney, R. M. (2003). Strangers, gods, and monsters: Interpreting otherness. New York, Marion, J-L. (2007). The erotic phenomenon. NY: Routledge Press. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Kearney, R .M. & Taylor, J. (Eds.). (2011). Hosting the stranger: Between religions. Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science: With New York, NY : Continuum Press. a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

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Purcell, S. (2010). After hermeneutics? Notes Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continen- tal Philosophy, 14(2), 160-179. 1 See for example (Dawkins 2008), and (Hawking & Mlodinow 2010). Purcell, S. (2011). On idealism and infinity: Two paths to the ontological turn. Radical 2 There is, of course, considerable disagree- Philosophy Review, 14(1), 49-66. ment concerning whether or not these specific thinkers ought to be included in this Purcell, S. (2012). Two paths to infinite tradition, and if so, to what extent. I men- thought: Alain Badiou and Jacques Derrida tion the matter here only because these on the question of the whole. Cosmos and thinkers have at various points been under- History: The Journal of Natural and Social stood to partake of that tradition, and be- Philosophy, 8(1), 179-203. cause they serve an illustrative purpose as a result. Ricoeur, P. (1967). The symbolism of evil. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 3 For the specific places where these thinkers endorse a sense of radical finitude, see Ricoeur, P. (1972). Nabert on act and sign. the following. For Agamben see his (1999a) In D. Ihde (Ed.), The conflict of interpreta- and (1999b). Heidegger’s commitment to tions (pp. 211-222). Evanston, IL: North- finitude is well-known. For what is one of western University Press. the clearest essays on the character of his commitment see (Lawlor, 2004), and for a Ricoeur, P. (1991). From text to action: Es- book-length study, one might look to (Stam- says in hermeneutics II. Evanston, IL: baugh, 1992). For Žižek’s straightforward Northwestern University Press. commitment to finitude, see especially the “Introduction” to the co-authored (Gabriel & Ricoeur, P. (2004). Memory, history, forget- Žižek, 2009). For the character of Badiou’s ting. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago infinite thought, likely the best essays are Press. included in (Badiou, 2008). For the way in which Ricoeur and Kearney are committed Ricoeur, P. (2005). The course of recogni- to infinite thought, clearly it is the point of tion. Harvard, MA: University of Harvard the present essay to make this case. Press. 4 Patrick Masterson, for example, has criti- Ricoeur, P. (2006). On translation. New cized Kearney’s thought from a more tradi- York, NY: Routledge Press. tional, metaphysical side in (Masterson, 2008a; 2008b). This criticism deserves Stambaugh, J. (1992). The finitude of being. more consideration than it receives in the Albany, NY: SUNY Press. present essay, but it seems to me to be less serious than the Derridean critique, since it Taylor, C. (1975). Hegel. New York, NY: does not entirely to share the aim of over- Cambridge University Press. coming the metaphysics of presence. To my mind, then, while it is a form of criticism, it is not entirely an immanent one.

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5 Lawlor makes a careful argument through- Heideggerian-esque work see (Lacoste, out the whole work, but the concluding 2004). Marion outlines his account of satu- chapter crystalizes what he takes to be the rated phenomena in (2002a) and updates it significant difference between the thinkers. in (2002b) and (2007).

6 It should be noted that Caputo is here as- suming the traditional understanding of He- gel, as one finds exposited in Charles Tay- lor’s account (Taylor, 1975). On this understanding, Hegel is the metaphysician par excellence, and so most culpable for con- tributing to the problem of nihilism.

7 At least they seem to me to be warranted under the ordinary construals of Derrida on events, such as one finds in Caputo (1987, 2010) or Marder (2011). For a possible con- strual that might work given Badiou’s recent criticisms, see Purcell (2012).

8 See Purcell (2010) and (2011).

9 In his exchange with Changeaux, Ricoeur seems to leave open the possibility that scientific occurrences just happen, though the sense of those occurrences is something that humans must process. See (Changeaux & Ricoeur, 2000, p. 4).

10 I am not the first to suggest that Kearney’s position is committed to a fundamental ethical moment. For another, more detailed account of Kearney’s commitment to ethics, see (Gedney, 2007).

11 Kearney has recently underscored this point in a recent essay, writing” “[i[n contrast to deconstructive sans-savoir, diacritical hermeneutics practices a certain savoir, which goes beyond Derrida’s maxim of ‘reading in the dark’” (Kearney, 2011a, p. 4).

12 For Caputo’s Derridean-inspired work on the philosophy of religion see: (Caputo, 1997, 2006). For Jean-Yves Lacoste’s