God and the Liberation of Reason in French Philosophy - by Stephanie Rumpza & M E Littlejohn (Hardcover)

About the Book

A major reconsideration of contemporary French philosophy's encounter with the question of God, with contributions from leading scholars intervening in recent anglophone reception of the "new" phenomenology.

Book Synopsis

In an age where thinking is too often restricted to its scientific exercise, how better to liberate the full powers of our reason than to engage with the possibility of what exceeds them? What better way to measure our progress beyond modernist metaphysics and the contemporary nihilism it generated than to discuss the question of God?

Written by specialists in French philosophy, the essays in this volume use the question of God to identify problematic metaphysical patterns still carved into our thought as well as to reconstruct new paths for philosophy that open beyond these limitations. Discussing the work of Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Héring, Levinas, Derrida, and others, contributions range across topics including the influence of Neo-Platonic philosophy on theology, the errors of modern rationalism, and phenomenology's interest in religion.

Even when drawing on resources from faith traditions, this French engagement with the question of God defies any simplistic attempt to relegate its efforts to theology; the authors of this volume clearly demonstrate its deeply-embedded relation to the history of thought and its relevance to questions central for the task of philosophy today. With a special attention the work of significant philosophers less known outside of France, this volume promises to deepen the Anglophone reception and understanding of contemporary French philosophy.

Review Quotes

Providing a fresh perspective on recent philosophical developments in France, this exciting collection introduces Anglophone readers not only to a different side of well-known voices in the phenomenological debate around the divine but also highlights a number of important thinkers whose texts are less frequently translated into English. Focused on the question of reason, the collection demonstrates the philosophical rigor at work in contemporary French philosophy. Ably introduced and edited by Rumpza and Littlejohn, this collection will provide a wholly new way of engaging with the crucial work of current thinkers to broaden the field and activity of reason.
Christina M. Gschwandtner, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, USA

This is the most remarkable and comprehensive collection on recent trends in French philosophy of religion since the much-debated publication of Phenomenology and the Theological Turna quarter of a century ago. While the latter volume inspired an at once intense and critical debate, triggered at around the same time by concerns first voiced by Mikel Dufrenne's adamant defense of a resolutely non-theological philosophy, the terrain has significantly shifted since and the need for polemics subsided. From a somewhat greater distance and on second thought, as it were, the name and concept of "God" can be seen as "coming to mind," as Emmanuel Levinas had aptly put it. Moreover, "God" can now be treated as a historical motif and theme, whose semantic, axiological, affective, and imaginative repository allows contemporary thinkers to conceive of philosophical reason not only more deeply and broadly, intensively and extensively, but, thereby, also more freely. Competently selected and lucidly presented, we are in debt to the editors of this state of the art collection of essays for making the most noteworthy contributors to what French phenomenology has currently on offer accessible to a wider reading public for the first time.
Hent de Vries, Paulette Goddard Professor of the Humanities, New York University, USA

About the Author

Stephanie Rumpza is a Researcher in Philosophy at Sorbonne Université, France. She specializes in 20th century continental philosophy, with a special interest in French phenomenology and religion, and is the author of Phenomenology of the Icon: Mediating God in the Image (2023)
M. E. Littlejohn is a Professor of Philosophy at University of New Brunswick, Canada, and Chercheur Invité at Sorbonne Université, France.