Contemporary Philosophical “Faith” without “Belief”: A Case of Jean-Luc Nancy

Titans, Normunds Contemporary Philosophical “Faith” without “Belief”: A Case of Jean-Luc Nancy. [Preprint] (Unpublished)

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Abstract

One of the characteristics of contemporary philosophy, at least in its phenomenological-poststructuralist lineage, is a kind of re/turn to religion. However, this re/turn itself is not properly religious; rather, it represents a “religion without religion”; it is a religion of exit from religion, a religion without belief – as it explores religious themes in a-religious, a-theological modes. At the same time, contemporary philosophy retains a discourse somehow related to “faith”, even if it is a kind of strange “faith”, if one can say so – “faith” in an impossible possibility of some inaccessible alterity opening up within the very limits of infinite finitude of human reason and worldly immanence. It can be deemed faith vis-à-vis religious belief as it is the act of reason relating itself to that which, in it, passes it infinitely, but on a-theological premises, i.e. in the absence of any metaphysical/theological principle, such as “God”, for example.
For exploring the theme of this paper – the contemporary philosophical reflection on “faith” – I will draw upon texts of a French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy. His thinking is especially enlightening in this regard, for he has reflected on the subject of faith particularly, interpreting religious/Christian faith in his own fashion and then recognising these elements of faith in his own thinking when it reaches the very limits of the im/possible. Since Nancy’s understanding of faith cannot be viewed and understood separately from his project of the so-called “deconstruction of Christianity”, before explicating Nancy’s understanding of faith, interpreting it in Lutheran, Spinozian and Kantian terms in contemporary rendering, and also questioning it, I will first lay out and systematise some basic relevant, interrelated themes within this larger context, such as dis-enclosure of metaphysics, dialectic/identity of theism and atheism, auto-deconstruction of Christianity to the sense-of-the-world etc.

Item Type:Preprint
Additional Information:Article on the basis of a presentation at a conference "Philosophy of Religion in Postmodernity" organised by Philosophy of Religion in Northern Europe network, held at MF School of Theology, Oslo, 11-14 March 2010.
Uncontrolled Keywords:Jean-Luc Nancy, a-theology, deconstruction, auto-deconstruction, dis-enclosure, belief, faith, alterity, heterogeneity, metaphysics, monotheism, nothing, theism, absentheism, atheism, polyatheism, onto-a-theology, sense, transimmanence, world, Immanuel Kant, Baruch Spinoza
Subjects:B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BR Christianity
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
Divisions:University of Latvia > F5 Faculty of Theology
ID Code:98
Deposited By: Dr. Normunds Titāns
Deposited On:24 Mar 2010 12:07
Last Modified:06 Feb 2021 14:41

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