The Motif of the Messianic: Law, Life, and Writing in Agamben's Reading of Derrida

by Abdul-Rahmaan I. Muhammad

Overview

This book explores the relationship between the works of Agamben and Jacques Derrida. Arthur Willemse explains how Agamben’s thought renders Derridean terminology inoperative—by suspending the suspense of signification. He argues that this is Agamben’s way of undoing a theological structure of thought that philosophy has unknowingly appropriated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498544122
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	12/13/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	441 KB

About the Author

Arthur Willemse earned his PhD in philosophy at the University of Sussex.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Part I Law 1

1 Philosophy and Infancy 3

2 Paradigms and Signatures 25

3 Agamben, Aristotle, and Bartleby 37

4 Agamben's Messianic 53

Part II Life 67

5 Life after Death 69

6 Derrida and Agamben on Theology 83

Part III Writing 103

7 Khora and Contingency 105

8 The Supplement of Halo 117

Bibliography 141

Index 151

About the Author 155

Editorial Reviews

In The Motif of the Messianic, Arthur Willemse stages a much-needed, original dialogue between Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida on the question of the messianic. Willemse convincingly argues that the basic ingredients of such a dialogue are to be found in Agamben’s and Derrida’s reflections on law, life and writing. Thus, this important book shows how a reflection on the messianic goes to the heart of the philosophical commitments of present-day continental thought.

Gert-Jan van der Heiden