atheism
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What is a theological concept? Part 4: Jean-Luc Nancy’s “something in Christianity deeper than Christianity”
In the previous post I explored Nancy’s reading of Badiou’s interruption of the mytheme by the matheme as a theological moment in Badiou’s thought. But what about Nancy himself? Does his own atheism—for atheist he indeed professes to be, providing that atheism is understood in a way that avoids the Christmas projection—avoid theological concepts? In
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The Return of Religion, Kettle Logic, and the Secular Dilemma
At this year’s Australasian Society of Continental Philosophy conference I had the pleasure of responding to Gregg Lambert’s new book Return Statements: The Return of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy. I chose to focus on the very idea of the “return of religion”, its multiple senses, and their potential conflicts. The paper is downloadable from academia.edu and
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Difficult Atheism reviewed in Derrida Today
The latest issue of Derrida Today includes a review of my Difficult Atheism by Christina Smerick. You can read the whole review online for free here. Watkin’s thesis is bold and unapologetic, and shapes the path of his reading and thinking with intense focus. His main concern, bordering on a battle cry, is that the ground gained by atheism
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Talk in Melbourne on Aug 5 – Varieties of Contemporary Atheism: Badiou, Nancy, Meillassoux
On August 5 at 11am I will have the pleasure of speaking at the Melbourne University of Divinity philosophy seminar on the subject “Varieties of Contemporary Atheism: Badiou, Nancy, Meillassoux”. The talk seeks to synthesise and develop some of the main lines of thinking from Difficult Atheism and to open the argument of the book to
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Third Derrida Podcast: Derrida, Atheism and Theology
The third of the podcasts on Derrida and Reformed theology has now been released. The first considered questions of metaphysics and the second focused on Derrida’s ethics; this final podcast discusses Derrida’s engagement with theological themes. I begin by discussing Derrida’s cautious affirmation that “I rightly pass for an atheist”, and try to dismantle the myth that, for
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New review of Difficult Atheism at Marx and Philosophy
Over at Marx&Philosophy, Bryan Cooke (whom I had the pleasure of meeting at last year’s Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy conference) has posted a review of Difficult Atheism. The opening paragraph gives a flavour of the review’s tone and also of Bryan’s style, which, for all the right reasons, is best left undescribed: Christopher Watkin’s
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Review of Difficult Atheism in The Heythrop Journal
A new review of my Difficult Atheism has just been published in The Heythrop Journal 55:4 (2014): 755-756. Here is the final paragraph, in which the reviewer (Dane Neufeld of Wycliffe College, Toronto) sums up both his commendation of, and reservation about, the book: Difficult Atheism is a challenging read but the difficulty of the
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My review of Hollis Phelps Alain Badiou Between Theology and Anti-Theology published in French Studies
My review of Hollis Phelps’ Alain Badiou: Between Theology and Anti-Theology has just been published in French Studies. It is available in fulltext and PDF.
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Of ornitheology
How do we decide if a particular philosophy is covertly theological? One all-too-common response to this question boils down to little more than a theological bird-watching expedition in which we don our binoculars, pick up our guide books and descend upon an unsuspecting article or book in the hope of catching sight of a Lesser Spotted Miracle
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Paul Ricoeur in Dialogue with Theology and Religious Studies
In September I will have the great pleasure of taking part in a symposium at the University of Lund, Sweden, entitled “Paul Ricœur in Dialogue with Theology and Religious Studies.” In addition to looking forward to hearing what is set to be a fantastic array of papers, I hope to be able to contribute something to
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Quentin Meillassoux, divine inexistence and split rationality
With a new issue of Analecta Hermeneutica just out there has been some discussion this past week of Peter Gratton’s article on Meillassoux’s ontology of divine inexistence (here, here and here, with some reaction on Gratton’s own blog, Philosophy in a time of error). The discussion put me in mind of a paper I gave way