God as Otherwise than Being: Toward a Semantics of the Gift

by Calvin O. Schrag

Overview

Speaking as one of the founders of American Continental philosophy, Calvin O. Schrag offers an exceptionally clear, balanced, and informative discussion of a complex questions vexing postmodern currents of philosophical and theological reflection: Does the "death" of the god conceived as a "highest being" in Western, and especially modern, traditions open a new space within which to rethink God in terms of a "gift" or "giving" that would stand beyond the usual spate of metaphysical categories?
Schrag draws with grace, ease, and precision upon the history of Western metaphysics, from Plato and Aristotle through Nietzsche and Heidegger. Most important to his central question of God as "otherwise than Being," however, are such influential post-Heideggerian thinkers as Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida, and Emmanuel Levinas. Schrag's inquiry engages these thinkers at a serious level and also expands recent discussions by relating them to the work of figures hitherto overlooked or underplayed, most notably Paul Tillich.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810119222
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	06/12/2002
Series:	Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
Edition description:	1
Pages:	157
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

CALVIN O. SCHRAG is George Ade Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Purdue University. He published his first book, Existence and Freedom, with Northwestern University Press in 1961 and is the subject of NUP's recently published Calvin O. Schrag and the Task of Philosophy after Postmodernity.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1. God and Being
1. The Problem of Being and the Question about God
2. Beyond Theism and Atheism

Part 2. God and the Gift
3. From Ontology to Ethics
4. From Ethics to the Gift

Works Cited
Index