Between Faith and Belief
Toward a Contemporary Phenomenology of Religious Life
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A contemporary philosophy of religion that offers a phenomenology of love.
Description
What is to be done at the end of metaphysics? Joeri Schrijvers's contemporary philosophy of religion takes up this question, originally posed by Reiner Schürmann and central to continental philosophy. The book navigates the work of thinkers who have addressed such metaphysical concerns, including Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jean-Luc Marion, Peter Sloterdijk, Ludwig Binswanger, Jacques Derrida, and more recently John D. Caputo, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, and Martin Hägglund. Notably, Schrijvers engages both those who would deconstruct Christianity and those who remain within this tradition, offering an option that is "between:" between Christianity and atheism, between progressive and conservative, between faith and belief. Ultimately, Schrijvers confronts the end of metaphysics with a phenomenology of love and community, arguing for the radical primacy of togetherness.
Joeri Schrijvers is Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He is the author of Ontotheological Turnings? The Decentering of the Modern Subject in Recent French Phenomenology, also published by SUNY Press.
Reviews
"…Between Faith and Belief is a book well worth reading and pondering over, regardless of where you fit on the spectrum of metaphysical and post-metaphysical thinking. Some may find his reading of Nancy to be too narrow, or perhaps think his critique of Caputo too quickly dismisses the important concepts Caputo builds through a 'religion without a religion' and his use of deconstruction. Regardless, they will find in this work, at the very least, a good sparring partner. " — International Journal of Philosophical Studies
"This book is a reliable guide to a series of ongoing debates in Continental thought that have seemed for some time to be at an impasse … Schrijvers' fine work navigates this impasse with precision and fairness, and thereby gives us a path forward for maintaining embodied religious practice in our world today. " — Horizons
"This is a necessary, timely and excellent contribution in the field of philosophy of religion. " — South African Journal of Philosophy
"…well written and thought provoking. [Schrijvers] has written an important work tracing the influences and developments of a group of contemporary thinkers and their position on whether ontology can be understood without a theological origin. " — Phenomenological Reviews
"This is an enchanting study … Most originally and thoroughly, Schrijvers turns philosophy into love … an intriguing introduction into contemporary thought. " — Modern Theology
". ..a richly intricate and rewarding book. " — International Journal of Philosophy and Theology
". ..a helpful foundation for future works about faith and belief or contemporary phenomenologies of religious life. " — Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory
"Joeri Schrijvers's book is a tour de force, ranging over a wide spectrum of contemporary thinkers in order to negotiate the distance between religion and religionlessness, God and Godlessness, ontotheology and its overcoming. The result is a nuanced and careful study that repays close study. " — John D. Caputo, Syracuse University
"Among the many lusters of Joeri Schrijvers's Between Faith and Belief is a beautiful recovery of Ludwig Binswanger's phenomenology of love. Discussion of postmetaphysical theology is arid without philosophically informed and creative talk of love, and Binswanger's is a voice that has been missing from the conversation for far too long. To put Binswanger into dialogue with Caputo and Nancy, in particular, is at once fascinating and nourishing. " — Kevin Hart, University of Virginia