Authors

Renee Köhler Ryan, University of Notre Dame AustraliaFollow

An Archaeological Ethics: Augustine, Desmond, and Digging Back to the Agapeic Origin

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2007

Abstract

This essay traces some Augustinian resonances within William Desmond's thought, particularly regarding the relation between metaxological ethos and its agapeic origin.¹ Desmond is perhaps most explicit in his invocation of Augustine in his Introduction to Desire, Dialectic and Otherness: An Essay on Origins,² a work which he there describes as 'an Augustinian odyssey, embarked on in the wake of Hegel'. Like Augustine, he says he wishes 'to do justice to the self-knowledge of desire and its openness to others, without falling into unacceptable dualism' (DD, 13-14). In effect this means that Desmond wants to steer away from a sense of the origin as static, as set apart both from us and the created order.

Comments

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Staff and Students of the University of Notre Dame Australia may access the full text of this chapter here

Between system and poetics: William Desmond and philosophy after dialectic may be accessed from the publisher here

Between system and poetics: William Desmond and philosophy after dialectic may be accessed as a Google Book from the National Library of Australia here

Recommended Citation

Köhler Ryan, R. (2007). An archaeological ethics: Augustine, Desmond, and digging back to the agapeic origin. In T. A. F. Kelly (ed.), Between system and poetics: Themes in the work of William Desmond, (pp. 125-137). Abingdon, UK: Ashgate Publishing.