Against Autoimmune Self-Sacrifice: Religiosity, Messianicity, and Violence in Derrida’s “Faith and Knowledge” and in Classical Rabbinic Judaism
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Authors
Weiss, Daniel H
Publication Date
2021-12-31Journal Title
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
ISSN
2544-302X
Publisher
University of Warsaw
Volume
5
Issue
3
Pages
23-34
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
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Weiss, D. H. (2021). Against Autoimmune Self-Sacrifice: Religiosity, Messianicity, and Violence in Derrida’s “Faith and Knowledge” and in Classical Rabbinic Judaism. Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 5 (3), 23-34. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2021.0025
Abstract
In this essay, I argue that a comparison of Derrida’s “Faith and Knowledge” to the texts and thought of classical rabbinic Judaism can illuminate new conceptual connections among the different elements of Derrida’s thought. Both Derrida and the rabbinic texts can be viewed as affirming a type of “holding back” and “allowing the other to be,” stances which Derrida links to “religiosity” and to “messianicity beyond all messianism.” Moreover, the rabbinic texts appear to avoid the “autoimmune” reaction that Derrida sees as stemming from many sacrificial and self-sacrificial logics in which the self is problematically sacrificed in order to preserve the “unscathed” other. In addition, the rabbinic texts’ stance concerning divine authorization for war and capital punishment help to illuminate Derrida’s claim that the ostensibly “secular” wars of modern states are in fact better understood as “wars of religion.”
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2021.0025
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/336278
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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