Religion

Jacques Derrida's contribution to this seminar which was held in 1994 on the island of Capri is the essay entitled "Faith and Knowledge." What is particularly interesting about this keynote address is Derrida's neologism "globalatinization" which he defines as "this strange alliance of Christianity, as the experience of the death of God, and tele-technoscientific capitalism." There is talk of religion and digitality, airborn pilgrimages to Mecca, Jerusalem and its three monotheisms watched over by the heavenly and monstrous glance of CNN, a Pope versed in televisual rhetoric, miracles transmitted live followed by commercials, and lastly the televisual diplomacy of the Dalai Lama. Because Capri is an island not far from Rome, Derrida also has some interesting things to say about religion in the Mediterranean and the Levant, as well as the Promised Land and the desert. This essay is particularly opaque and beautiful and it would definitely help the reader if he or she is familiar with Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (Being And Time) as well as Beitrage zur Philosophie (Contributions to Philosophy), as JD name drops the great German philosopher's ideas here and there throughout this essay. This is definitely good beach reading.

Derrida and Vattimo's collection of essays given on the Isle of Capri truly shows how even postmodern philosophy must still come front-and-center with the question of religion. As postmodernity brings an end to the metaphysics that made God undesirable, a different type of God, a God of Life (as Unamuno would call it) must be dealt with anew. Derrida, Vattimo, Gadamar, Vitiello, Trias and others discuss the role of religion in an age that claims to be so removed from it.My personal impression of the book is that Derrida reveals the type of religious issues that he offered us in his _Circumfessions_ and is wonderfully explicated in John Caputo's _Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida_. Vitiello's essay "Toward a Topology of the Religious" is insightful and necessary (if only Nietzsche could have read it!).

Derrida misses out on the spiritual dimension in this book--although other authors have pointed out similarities between Derrida's thought and that of Nagarjuna. Especially helpful are Powell's "Derrida for Beginners," and Coward's Derrida and Negative Theology."

RELIGION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS. DERRIDA FALLS SHORT OF EXPLAINING THE NEED FOR RELIGION AND TRANSCENDENCE, BUT AS USUALLY HE IS FASCINATING AND DIFFICULT.