The Motif of the Messianic : Law, Life, and Writing in Agamben's Reading of Derrida

Law -- Philosophy and infancy -- Paradigms and signatures -- Agamben, Aristotle, and Bartleby -- Agamben's Messianic -- Life -- Life after death -- Derrida and Agamben on theology -- Writing -- Khra and contingency -- The supplement of halo The Motif of the Messianic is the first sustained commentary on Giorgio Agamben's use of the messianic, with a view of his polemical relationship to Jacques Derrida. Arthur Willemse explains Agamben's move beyond Derrida by way of his critical intervention in the Aristotelian concept of potentiality and the ensuing transformation of the role of theology and theist assumptions within philosophy. Willemse argues that it is not the case that Agamben announces the redundancy of theology, but instead he revitalizes it by changing its focus the realm of the sacred toward the realm of the profane. Book jacket The Motif of the Messianic is the first sustained commentary on Giorgio Agamben's use of the messianic, with a view of his polemical relationship to Jacques Derrida. Arthur Willemse explains Agamben's move beyond Derrida by way of his critical intervention in the Aristotelian concept of potentiality and the ensuing transformation of the role of theology and theist assumptions within philosophy. Willemse argues that it is not the case that Agamben announces the redundancy of theology, but instead he revitalizes it by changing its focus from the realm of the sacred toward the realm of the profane. This book explores the relationship between the works of Agamben and Jacques Derrida. Arthur Willemse explains how Agamben's thought renders Derridean terminology inoperative-by suspending the suspense of signification. He argues that this is Agamben's way of undoing a theological structure of thought that philosophy has unknowingly appropriated.