Abstract
This collection of masterly essays has grown out of a lasting concern of the author: the intermediations among art, religion and philosophy. While two of his earlier volumes treated of the interconnection of art and philosophy (Art, Origins, Otherness: Between Art and Philosophy, 2003) and the interface between religion and philosophy (Is There a Sabbath for Thought? Between Religion and Philosophy, 2005) respectively, essays in this current volume focus on the remaining link within the triad as the plurivocal passage between art/the aesthetic and religion. Inspired by Hegel, William Desmond sees art, religion and philosophy as ultimate forms of human reflection, however—against Hegel and his triadic sublation of these three in the unity of the concept—he argues for their essentially irreducible character in the ultimate quest for meaning concerning the human condition. What connects art, religion and philosophy is not a hierarchical ascent, but their common and equal permeability, a shared openness to what Desmond famously coins throughout his philosophical oeuvre the original porosity of being. Such porosity is ‘metaxological’ in disclosing a space of the between (Greek metaxu) where the surplus of ‘saturated equivocities’ cannot be converted univocally or without remainder to the language of any of these ultimate discourses.
Each of the nine essays/chapters addresses issues which are of great interest, beyond metaphysics, for both philosophical and theological anthropology. The first essay (bearing the book’s title) explores the hidden metaphysical presumptions underlying the current guarded attitude to beauty and an often obsessive fascination by the ugly: a predominant stress on human autonomy and self-determination which downplays a more original receptivity; an overemphasis on human creative power as opposed to an original source of giving; the ugly as a counterfeit double of beauty (and as parasitic on the good). One finds here fascinating passages on hell in beauty and beauty in hell.
The second chapter investigates the relationship between accounts of beauty and conceptions of life as having in common ‘transience’ and ‘surfacing.’ Both life and beauty can only be known by living participation and by being attentive to the ‘shine on things’ on the surface since they intermediate pre-given non-objectifiable depths. One can learn here about the dangers of modern inverted Platonism, an inverted use of Plato’s analogy of the cave, where the higher transcendence of the outer light is substituted by the lower (and controversially counterfeit) transcendence of going ever deeper into the darkness of the underground.
The third chapter further develops the notion of the ‘shine on things’ and highlights the intimate interconnection between beauty, goodness and the order of creation. One is presented a beautifully argued account of how the notion of givenness (an original donation of the possibility of order and beauty) rejected by modernity (either scientistically or deconstructively) has resulted in a consequent blindness to the metaphysical significance of all there is (‘the shine on things’), and a diminished feel for the beauty of creation which, in turn, has enfeebled our sense of the goodness of creation as given. Over against the currently fashionable notion of radical evil, Desmond insists on the metaphysical importance of the ‘radical good’ and re-opens our eyes to ways the ‘shine on things’ is ultimately from God.
The fourth chapter engages with problems of the soul and the self, disclosing the inherent dangers in the modern one-sided language of ‘soul-less selving’ which lays too much stress on autonomous determinability and overlooks the essentially plurivocal over-determinacy of the traditionally indispensable notion of soul as surplus and a threshold between ‘life and the beyond of this life.’ The chapter seeks to re-connect self and soul and restore non-conceptual ‘music’ to the soul beyond univocal positive knowledge of a simple immortal substance.
Each of the following three chapters considers the thought of particular philosophers. Chapter Five examines Schopenhauer’s metaphysics as paradigmatic of the modern fascination with the dark origin, the omnipresent hell of the underground and the overemphasis on a vehement will to life. What Desmond registers in Schopenhauer’s project is a strange disharmony between his appreciation of the gift of beauty and his metaphysical insensitivity to the gift of the generosity of being. Chapter Six is a tribute to fellow metaphysician Paul Weiss’s philosophy of human creativity and a constructively critical correction of Weiss’s ontology, which Desmond sees as too teleologically focusing on self-realization and being forgetful of the primary dynamis that enables all forms of creativity. Searching an interpretative key to Stanley Cavell’s philosophy in chapter seven, Desmond reveals its covert connections with German philosophy and the more overt influence of German Romanticism and pinpoints the twin tendencies of the curious modern migration of a feel for transcendence and redemption from the religious to the arts.
The eighth chapter is devoted to a theme rarely discussed by philosophers: the relations of philosophy and theatre. The chapter insightfully guides one through the world of drama and all the aspects of the ‘between-space’ of dramatic performance, meditating also on the importance of the companioning power to which the book is dedicated.
The last chapter gives an intriguing account of the metaphysical significance of the ‘idiot wisdom’ of laughter (and weeping) and their essentially embodied character as elemental affirmations of life, together with their ethical dimensions of which a good sense of humour is an indispensable component.
Finally, the appendix contains a conversation between Steven Knepper and the author, offering further insight into Desmond’s main concerns, sources of inspiration (in philosophy as well as the arts) and the general shape of his thought. The volume delights readers with the beauty of a richly poetic style and the elegance of argument coupled with playful wit. The essays are in constant dialogue with works of art and biblical literature and last, but not least, their recurrent themes offer ample food for thought for theological anthropology concerning the grandeur and finiteness of the human condition, the reality of the fall and the beauty of grace, the indispensable wisdom of the body as well as the learned metaxological nescience of the soul, and what Desmond terms the non-easily-graspable ‘intimate’ nature of the real goodness of creation.