This monograph examines how social change and philosophical crisis in the 1980s created the conditions for the return of religion to contemporary French intellectual life. It highlights a critical conjuncture in recent French history when religion was revitalised in French secularism as an expression of individual identity.
Author(s): Enda McCaffrey
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 256
Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 6
Introduction......Page 8
Part I: History and Context......Page 18
1 The Return of Religion in France......Page 20
Esprit: a history of religious engagement......Page 24
The paradox of secularisation......Page 35
From modernity to postmodernity: a critical overview......Page 38
Laïcité and democracy......Page 44
Régis Debray: 'teaching religion is not religious teaching'......Page 46
2 Theology and Sexual Ethics......Page 55
Post-secular France......Page 58
Catholic sexual ethics......Page 60
The politics of gay marriage in France......Page 67
Ethics and theology in post-secular France......Page 75
From secularism to post-secularism......Page 87
'L'anthropologie du croire': De Certeau, Gauchet and Hervieu-Léger......Page 92
A philosophy of secularisation......Page 100
Being as Event......Page 102
Vattimo's belief: a philosophy of actuality......Page 104
Vattimo and the Vatican: a literal difference......Page 106
Vattimo and Foucault......Page 110
Part II: Philosophy and Concepts......Page 118
4 The Postmetaphysical......Page 120
Philosophy and theology: a brief history......Page 124
The 'concept' of God......Page 133
The phenomenological breakthrough? Jean-Luc Marion and the concept of 'givenness'......Page 143
Phenomenology as affective transcendence: a Lévinas reading......Page 149
Who comes after the subject?......Page 155
Michel Henry: 'truth of the world' versus 'truth of life'......Page 168
Phenomenological life......Page 174
Ipseity and transcendental life......Page 176
The radically immanent self......Page 179
The 'I'/'Me'......Page 181
Ethics and the other......Page 183
6 'Broken Cogito' and Textual Subjectivity......Page 188
Faith, truth and philosophy: the case of Paul Ricoeur......Page 191
Hermeneutics of the self and faith texts......Page 203
Oneself as another......Page 215
7 Posteventality......Page 221
Alain Badiou's Saint Paul: the event and universalism......Page 223
The divided subject......Page 231
Jean-François Lyotard: a phenomenology of the event......Page 240
Lyotard's subject: a phenomenology of the flesh......Page 245
A semiotics of the event......Page 248
Conclusion......Page 255
Notes......Page 258
Bibliography......Page 280
C......Page 286
E......Page 287
G......Page 288
L......Page 289
O......Page 290
R......Page 291
T......Page 292
W......Page 293
