The civic religion of social hope: A reply to Simon Critchley

Philosophy and Social Criticism 27 (5):35-58 (2001)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This article attempts to respond to Simon Critchley's claim in a recent debate with Richard Rorty, that the latter, by not fully recognizing its indebtedness to Levinas, misunderstands the political import of the work of Jacques Derrida. I maintain, pace Critchley, that trying to push the Derrida-Levinas connection too far will not only further compound Rorty's view of Derrida as a thinker devoid of political efficacy, but that it will moreover serve to obscure the significant differences which exist between Levinas and Derrida - differences which cannot be overlooked in any serious discussion of the two thinkers in question. In the second half, I try to convince Critchley that what separates Derrida from Levinas is precisely what hooks him up with Rorty at a political level. Both, I argue, are committed to a civic religion of social hope. In so doing, I try to convince Rorty that his caricature of Derrida as a private writer without political consequence, ought now to be seriously reconsidered. Key Words: community • Critchley • democracy • Derrida • ethics • justice • law • Levinas • politics • religion • Rorty • sentiment • singularity • social hope

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,388

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
122 (#182,492)

6 months
13 (#197,488)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

The Confessing Animal in Foucault and Wittgenstein.Bob Plant - 2006 - Journal of Religious Ethics 34 (4):533-559.
Lévinas, Derrida and the Ethics and Politics of Reproduction.Mihail Evans - 2017 - Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 48 (1):44-62.
Richard Rorty, Homo Academicus Politicus.Loren Goldman - 2019 - Analyse & Kritik 41 (1):31-70.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references