Poetics of the Sensible

In the first English language translation of this classic late 20th-century text within French Catholic thought<i> Poetics of the Sensible</i>brings together insights from Neoplatonism and phenomenology with a distinctive and innovative approach. <br/><br/>Taking a stance within the generative conception of human language represented by continental thinkers such as Humboldt and Herder and powerfully articulated today by Charles Taylor Stanislas Breton<i></i>expands the sense of the poetic-the constructive meaning-bearing capacity that is a core characteristic of humanity-to include the body and its senses phenomenologically intertwined with the world. Defying Heidegger's prohibition on the question of God alongside contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Luc Marion Jean-Louis Chrétien and Emmanuel Falque he boldly writes of God of the angel of the icon and of prayer in a refusal to bracket his religious faith. Against a Neoplatonic backdrop Breton promotes the dense material dimensions of embodied signification as paradoxically harbouring meaning that is greater than that of conceptual abstraction alone. <br/><br/>Illuminating Breton's poetic and allusive discourse <i>Poetics of the Sensible</i>showcases his unique voice in French philosophy phenomenology and the philosophy of religion and is essential reading for scholars and students alike.