Negative Theology, Derrida and the Critique of Presence: A Poststructuralist Reading of Meister Eckhart

Almond, İan

doi:10.1111/1468-2265.00099

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…On the one hand, insofar as Eckhart categorically denies that any speech or activity is adequate to God, he requires an indeterminacy as rigorous as that of Derrida. On the other hand, it is nonsensical to valorize Derrida in this fashion, for Derrida is clear that the required indeterminacy cannot be attained . Whereas Caputo assumes that Derrida dwells in the pure indeterminacy of a ‘religion without religion’ while Eckhart is sullied by his association with a particular tradition, Derrida acknowledges that determinate affirmations can and should continue .…”

Section: Alterity and Affectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eckhart, Derrida, and The Gift of Love

Newheiser

2012

The Heythrop Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Alterity and Affectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eckhart, Derrida, and The Gift of Love

Newheiser

2012

The Heythrop Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Nudity of theEgo. An Eckhartian Perspective on the Levinas/Derrida Debate on Alterity

Roesner

2016

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present paper examines the Eckhartian motives in Derrida's critique of Levinas’ concept of the “Other”. The focus is put on the Husserlian concept of alter ego that is at the core of the debate between Levinas and Derrida. Against Levinas, Derrida argues that alter is not an epithet that expresses a mere accidental modification of the ego , but an indicator of radical exteriority. Interestingly enough, this position is virtually identical with Meister Eckhart's interpretation of the famous proposition from Exodus 3:14 “I am who I am”. Eckhart claims that the pronoun ego denotes the absolutely simple substance of the uncreated intellect, which can, by definition, never receive any accidental determination whatsoever. The reduplication of the “I am” is by no means tautological, but expresses the intra-divine dynamic of the Father who engenders the Son as his perfect equal and alter ego . This transcendental conception of egoity also governs the relationships between human beings: the ethical encounter with the “Other” requires that we consider them not primarily in their empirical, contingent existence but in the transcendental purity of their indeclinable ego , which is identical with the incessant act in which God knows himself in the Son as his absolutely Other. Thus, Meister Eckhart's approach proves, against Levinas, that it is possible to develop an “egological” philosophy that avoids the pitfalls of a naturalistic and potentially violent ontology of the subject.

show abstract

The impact of `exile' on thought: Plotinus, Derrida and Gnosticism

Rossbach

2007

History of the Human Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the impact of 'exile' -as an individual or collective experience -on how human experience is theorized. The relationship between 'exile' and thought is initially approached historically by looking at the period that Eric Dodds famously called the 'age of anxiety' in late antiquity, i.e. the period between the emperors Aurelius and Constantine. A particular interest is in the dynamics of 'empire' and the concomitant religious ferment as a context in which 'exile', both experientially and symbolically, appears to assume an overbearing significance. Plotinus' narrative of emanation and epistrophe as well as a group of narratives often classified as 'Gnosticism' are juxtaposed as two radical examples of a wider spiritual trend at the time according to which 'exile' could be considered constitutive of human experience. By way of an historical analogy, the insights gained from this study of late antiquity are then used to guide an analysis of the current, 'restless' epoch, in which experiences of displacement and exile on a mass scale undermine traditional notions of belonging, thus reviving the gnostic vision of cosmic reality as an alien, exilic environment. The article concludes with a discussion of Jacques Derrida's work as an example of contemporary gnosticism, in which a 'metaphysics of exile' is presented in the disguise of an 'exile from metaphysics'.

show abstract

Negative Theology, Derrida and the Critique of Presence: A Poststructuralist Reading of Meister Eckhart

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Eckhart, Derrida, and The Gift of Love

Eckhart, Derrida, and The Gift of Love

The Nudity of theEgo. An Eckhartian Perspective on the Levinas/Derrida Debate on Alterity

The impact of `exile' on thought: Plotinus, Derrida and Gnosticism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About