William Desmond 
The William Desmond Reader 

Known especially for his original system of metaphysics in a trilogy of books published between 1995 and 2008, and for his scholarship on Hegel, William Desmond has left his mark on the philosophy of religion, ethics, and aesthetics.
The William Desmond Reader provides for the first time in a single book a point of entry into his original and constructive philosophy, including carefully chosen selections of his works that introduce the key ideas, perspectives, and contributions of his philosophy as a whole. Also featured is an original essay by Desmond himself reflecting synthetically on the topics covered, as well as an interview by Richard Kearney.

Table of Content

Foreword by John Caputo

Acknowledgments

Introduction

List of William Desmond’s Works




Part I. Metaphysics and Philosophy


The Fourfold Way

Transcendences

The Truth of Metaphysics

What Is Metaphysical Thinking?

Metaphysics and Dialectic

The Metaxological

The Idiocy of Being

Agapeic Mind



Part II. Ethics and Ethos



Autonomy and Freedom

The Potencies of the Ethical

Metaxological Ethics




Part III. Religion and the Philosophy of God


Agapeic Origin

Breaking the Silence

Godlessness

Beyond Godlessness

Hegel’s Counterfeit Double

God and the Metaxological Way

God and Hyperbole

God beyond the Whole

God Being Over-Being: A Metaphysical Canto




Part IV. Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art


Being Aesthetic

Being at a Loss: On Philosophy and the Tragic

Art and Transcendence




Part V. Retrospections and Reflections


Wording the Between

“Two Thinks at a Distance”: An Interview with William Desmond by Richard Kearney on 9 January 2011



Index

About the author

Christopher Ben Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Lincoln Christian University. He is the author of
Religion, Metaphysics, and the Postmodern: William Desmond and John D. Caputo and
The Truth is the Way: Kierkegaard’s Theologia Viatorum.