Derrida on the Mend

Review

“A book of major intellectual significance.”

(Morton Bloomfield)

“. . . the most comprehensive, insightful, and lucid treatment of the subject I have ever seen.”

(M. H. Abrams)

“. . . not only original and bold, but plausible and extraordinarily illuminating.”

(Paul Ricoeur)

“. . . an important and courageous book.”

(Raimundo Panikkar)

“. . . a truly remarkable book . . . . It is subtle, shrewdly argued, and it brings startlingly fresh perspectives to bear on deconstruction.”

(John H. Nota)

“. . . a brilliant and dynamic cross-cultural analysis of the ambiguity inherent in experienced existence.”

(Frederick J. Streng)

“. . . a truly remarkable book . . . . It is subtle, shrewdly argued, and it brings startlingly fresh perspectives to bear on deconstruction.”

(Cleanth Brooks)

“Magliola’s exposition of Derrida has been acclaimed as the best in English. Indeed, it is the only account I know which brings an alert and independent questioning mind to bear on Derrida’s arguments, a mind which at times seems to play Kierkegaard to Derrida’s Hegel”Japanese Journal of Religious Studies





Product Description

The book has four parts. The first provides a lengthy explication and critique of Derrida, a service still much needed by today's philosophers and literary theorists. The second part locates a recension of Heideggerian thought at a site the author calls centric mysticism. Throughout this section, there are original applications to literature. The third part presents the full-scale analysis of Nagarjunist technique, and then goes on to develop a "differential" Zen contrasting very much with the "centric" Zen of Suzuki. Replete with treatments of Buddhist poetry, it is bound to be of great interest to Buddhologists. The fourth part applies "differentialism" to monotheism and Christian theology and develops a non-entitative trinitarianism, which will revise, it is hoped, contemporary theology significantly. Two appendices, in a concrete way, apply to literary theory and criticism what the author has worked out in the body of the book.

About the Author

Robert Magliola is a professor of comparative literature and English at Purdue University. He earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University with a specialization in philosophical and literary hermeneutics.