Religion and Violence Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida

Does violence inevitably shadow our ethico-political engagements and decisions, including our understandings of identity, whether collective or individual? Questions that touch upon ethics and politics can greatly benefit from being rephrased in terms borrowed from the arsenal of religious and theological figures, because the association of such figures with a certain violence keeps moralism, whether in the form of fideism or humanism, at bay. Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida's careful posing of such questions and rearticulations pioneers new modalities for systematic engagement with religion and philosophy alike.

"Religion and Violence continues de Vries's reexamination of the place of philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion in the major texts of continental philosophy. Both subjects are transformed as de Vries meticulously unpacks the major texts of the post-Kantian philosophical tradition, unfolding in effect a new history of the afterlife of theology."--Choice

"A rich text with many insightful readings . . . Hent de Vries is an excellent philosopher and scholar."--Lasse Thomassen, Philosophy in Review/Comptes rendus philosophiques

"Demonstrates with rich erudition how the Derridian programmatic can shed light on the 'religious' dimension of philosophical and ethical strategies that seek to address violence."--Thomas E. Reynolds, Journal of Religion

"Here Hent de Vries deals with some of the most difficult authors?Kant, Kierkegaard, Benjamin, Levinas, and?throughout?Jacques Derrida, as well as with some of the most difficult issues in philosophy (not to say in political and personal life) there are, and the result is a rich, rewarding, and extremely important book."--Hilary Putnam, Harvard University

"Hent de Vries counters the reductions of ethics to morality (and to moralism) by offering a capacious understanding of error as essential to the ethical turn. This book reverberates with intellectual complexity and intensity."--Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley