Between System and Poetics

This is the first book-length examination of the work of an important contemporary thinker in the continental tradition, William Desmond. His thought is a new, post-modern way of articulating what he calls the ’between’. Rooted in Plato and Augustine, and advancing through a confrontation with Hegel and Nietzsche, Desmond rejects facile scepticism and wins through to a strikingly original and powerfully searching articulation of the human. The present volume contains essays on Desmond’s work both by emerging scholars and by well-established thinkers. It also contains a specially written essay on the practices of philosophy by Desmond himself. Contents: Introduction, Thomas A.F. Kelly. Part I William Desmond on Philosophy: Between system and poetics: on the practices of philosophy, William Desmond. Part II Desmond and Irish Philosophy: Transcendence and intelligibility, Garrett Barden. Part III Reading Desmond: Metaxological metaphysics and idiotic style: the 'conceptual persona' of William Desmond, Jere O'Neill Surber; Repetition: Desmond's new science, Cyril O'Regan. Part IV Desmond and Metaphysics: William Desmond's overcoming of the overcoming of metaphysics, James L. Marsh; What shines between: the metaxu of light, Catherine J.C. Pickstock. Part V Desmond, Love and the Good: An archaeological ethics: Augustine, Desmond and digging back to the agapeic origin, Renée Ryan; The equivocity of freedom and the suffering of being: the call of the good and the finesse of other forms, Jason J. Howard; A world of values in cones and planes, Miles Smit. Part VI Desmond on Eros: Eros, power and justice: William Desmond and his others, James McGuirk; Plurivocal Eros: a metaxological reading of Plato's Symposium, Duston Moore. Part VII Desmond and God: Maybe not, maybe: William Desmond on God, Richard Kearney. Part VIII Reading with Desmond: Strangely out of place: Phaedrus 227a-230e, Ian Leask. Part IX Desmond, the Arts and the Environment: Glissando: life, gift and the between, John Milbank; All things shining: Desmond's metaxological metaphysics and The Thin Red Line, Christopher Ben Simpson; Towards a metaxological ethics of architecture, John Hymers; Towards a metaxological hermeneutics of plants and animals, Peter Scheers; A bibliography of William Desmond's works; Index.