Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project

John D. Caputo

Jan 1988 · Indiana University Press

About this ebook

Radical Hermeneutics forges a closer collaboration between hermeneutics and deconstruction than has previously been attempted. For John D. Caputo, hermeneutics means radical thinking without transcendental justification: attending to the ruptures and irregularities in existence before the metaphysics of presence has a chance to smooth them over. Part One shows how Kierkegaardian repetition and Husserlian constitution are fused in Heidegger's classic of hermeneutic statement, Being and Time. Part Two takes up the radicalization of Husserl's and Heidegger's questioning carried out by Derrida. Here, Caputo urges a more radical reading of Heidegger as well as a more hermeneutic reading of Derrida. Part Three argues that radical thinking is not an exercise in nihilism, as its critics charge, but a renewed vigilance about the gaps and differences inherent in our experience. Caputo projects the possibility of a postmetaphysical conception of rationality, an ethics of dissemination, and a notion of faith liberated from the onto-theo-logic. Radical Hermeneutics addresses the most trenchant issues in recent Continental thought.

About the author

John D. Caputo is Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. He is author of The Weakness of God (IUP, 2006), which won the American Academy of Religion's Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Constructive-Reflective Studies category.