Listening for Kierkegaardian echoes in Lyotard: the paradox of faith and Lyotard's ethical turn

This paper seeks to discern the Kierkegaardian echoes present in the writings of the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. While these thinkers share a number of commonalities such as their resistance to categorisation and their imaginative and complex writing styles, Lyotard's engagement w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of philosophy and theology
Authors: Li, Elizabeth ca. 20./21. Jh. (Author) ; Crabtree, Katie ca. 20./21. Jh. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Taylor & Francis [2019]
In: International journal of philosophy and theology
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Lyotard, Jean-François 1924-1998 / Kierkegaard, Søren 1813-1855 / Faith / Paradox / Ethics
IxTheo Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
CB Christian life; spirituality
NCA Ethics
TJ Modern history
TK Recent history
VA Philosophy
Further subjects:B Ethics
B Kierkegaard
B paradox of faith
B Lyotard
B differend
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:This paper seeks to discern the Kierkegaardian echoes present in the writings of the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. While these thinkers share a number of commonalities such as their resistance to categorisation and their imaginative and complex writing styles, Lyotard's engagement with Kierkegaard has been largely dismissed as inconsequential. However, a modest yet consistent device invoked by Lyotard is Kierkegaard's paradox of faith from Fear and Trembling. While these references to Kierkegaard read as terse blips in Lyotard's texts, this paper argues that the Kierkegaardian echoes that can be heard in Lyotard's writings are crucial for a deeper understanding of Lyotard's ethical turn. Rather than being insignificant, Lyotard's direct as well as second-hand engagement with Kierkegaard has profound effects on his philosophy of the differend. By exploring Lyotard's enigmatic, yet brief appeals to the paradox of faith, this paper shows that Lyotard strikes a chord with Kierkegaard by using the paradox of faith as an intertextual reference to a critique of Hegelian mediation and for discussing the ethical dilemmas inherent to one of the most shocking and incomprehensible events of the twentieth century, Auschwitz.
ISSN:2169-2335
Contains:Enthalten in: International journal of philosophy and theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2018.1542611