William Desmond
Biography
William Desmond wrote The Gift of Beauty and the Passion of Being, and provided the foreword to Companions in the Between.
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Philosophy
“This is a well-wrought collection of reflections, gathered under the well-informed and judicious editorship of Steven Knepper. Its different contributions offer the reader many insights on an impressive range of themes, handled with due consideration and attentive thoughtfulness. I am much taken with its offering of a diversity of surprising illuminations on matters theological and philosophical, both old and new. Very warmly recommended.”
Arts & Literature
“There is something very heartening about this collection of reflections which diversely brings art back to its familial intimacy with the religious. These two have been long drifting apart, especially since the Enlightenment, but this work is thought-provoking testimony against their divorce. Enabled and gathered under the auspices of the Templeton Foundation, it affirmatively reflects the fertility of the matters at issue. The distinctiveness of art is not lost in the recuperation of this intimacy, nor is the concern of religion with ultimacy diminished. The diverse explorations are wide-ranging, well-informed, and witnesses to impressive scholarship. They are illuminating from both the sides of the aesthetic and the religious, and perhaps most importantly, from the point of view of the challenging intermediation of the two. Impressively brought together under the judicious editing of Christopher Brewer, the work as a whole adds significantly to the Templeton vision.”
Philosophy
“Readers owe a debt of gratitude to Bruce K. Ward for his translation and edition of this book of Aimé Forest. Forest is not well known in the Anglophone world, but he is well worth philosophical introduction, indeed resurrection, not least for his finessed introduction here to the nature of metaphysical thinking. Consent to Being is a work of singular excellence. It calls out the evasions of those who claim to have overcome metaphysics or to be post-metaphysical. It does so by exemplifying the excellences of the true metaphysician: not a Laputan abstractionist, floating high above being, but one whose thought is firmly of the given earth and the gift of being. Mindful of being as showing forth the inexhaustibility of what one might call being’s intimate universality; the book also brings us back to the birth of philosophy as metaphysics. Preceded by an engaging foreword by John Milbank, and an informative introduction by Bruce Ward, the work reads fluently and engagingly. It is a very welcome introduction into contemporary conversation of a thinker who not only talks about metaphysical thinking but embodies in act what it asks of us. Warmly recommended.”
Cynicism and Christianity in Antiquity
Biblical Studies & Commentaries
“Possible relations between Cynicism, Judaism, Jesus, and early Christianity have long been a source of controversy. Goulet-Cazé performs a most welcome task in striving to present the salient issues and scholarship in the most objective and systematic way possible. Her four chapters—on the diversity of Hellenistic and Roman Cynicism, its contacts with contemporary Judaism, its partial similarities with the Jesus movement, and shifting appeal to Christians of later antiquity—are concise, yet precise and finely nuanced. Packed with information and reflection on a wide range of phenomena that on all sides resists easy generalization, Cynicism and Christianity in Antiquity will be essential reading on a difficult topic. It comes highly recommended.”
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“This book is the considered outcome of years of experience of, and reflection on, immigration, from inside and from outside. It is an informed and informative book about one of the most troubling and unsettling happenings of our time. It is instructive on many levels: the legal, the ethical, the political, the religious. Yet it never loses touch with the vulnerable humanity of those caught in the reality and experience of immigration, forced and unforced. The book is very balanced in taking into account the many sides of the crucial issues at stake. I found it to be calm, judicious, wise, compassionate, and Christian in its account and in its judgments. Warmly recommended.”
Theology
“Gift and the Unity of Being ranks among one of the most impressive reflections on the nature of gift, ranging from deep reflection on the nature of birth to the Trinitarian God as the agapeic giver of all that is. It importantly stresses the reciprocity of giving and receiving, with due deference for the disproportion and asymmetry of the divine superiority. This book accomplishes this in both philosophical and theological registers, drawing especially on the work of Luigi Giussani.”
Philosophy
“This informed and informative book is an admirably compact and clear introduction to the essentials of Heidegger's thought. It will be very helpful for the beginner, and for the more advanced reader it offers an honorable critical interpretation. McGrath exhibits a sharp sense for the often-recessed religious preoccupations of Heidegger: out of sight is not quite out of mind, which sometimes leads to convoluted results in Heidegger's expressed thought. For the theological reader this book offers an exemplary critical engagement, attuned to Heidegger's religious equivocality and what remains hidden in the Heideggerian unsaid.”
Matter as an Image of the Good
Philosophy
“Ferdinand Ulrich is a challenging metaphysical and theological thinker whose work is not as well known in the English-speaking world as it should be. Rachel Coleman helps to remedy this situation. This book will significantly advance the reception of his work. She offers us a remarkable exploration of his thought in connection with the metaphysics of creation of both Aquinas and Ulrich. This is a lucid, judicious and illuminating work which is highly recommended.”
Philosophy
“This erudite and lucid work presents an engaging, ambitious, and persuasive defense of the priority of relation over substance. It offers rich resources for those concerned with the contested place of metaphysics and its contemporary renewal, for those interested in the fertile space between metaphysics and theology, and for those engaged with the no less urgent problems of political theology.”
Metaphysics and the Modern World
Philosophy
“This book worthily complements Donald Verene's Moral Philosophy and the Modern World. Reading these works of Verene has a restorative effect in a philosophical sense. We find an invigorating witness to a properly measured confidence in the vocation of philosophy. This current book does not disappoint one on this score. Against often thoughtless rejections and misconceived critiques of metaphysics, this book renews the ancient and ever new perplexities of philosophy. It does this by mindful engagement with a group of great thinkers, ancient and modern, who have been companions in Verene's own participation in the long conversation of the philosophical tradition. An impressive work, seeking the knowledge of 'things human and divine.' Very highly recommended.”
Moral Philosophy and the Modern World
Philosophy
“Verene brings to life the truthfulness of an ancient and constant wisdom, lighting up more perennial perspectives on things human and divine, as well as current ethical perplexities about terrorism, psycho-sociopathy, and the technological person. The work singularly embodies the ideal held in highest regard by Renaissance Italian humanism, and of which Verene himself is a great admirer: 'la sapienza che parla,' or 'wisdom speaking.'”
Philosophy
“I warmly recommend Todd Ohara’s impressive exploration of radical apophasis in connection with the works of Plotinus and Dionysius. It explores these thinkers in their likeness and unlikeness, with special reference to the internal logic of negation at work in their metaphysical and theological thought. The work is engaging, lucid, and insightful. It has many excellences. It will be of interest to analytically oriented thinkers who value lucidity and precision in their studies. The specialist scholars will be satisfied and challenged. The work is well laid out with a fitting structure. It will give much food for thought to those perplexed by the fundamental perplexities of metaphysics and theology. It is not bewitched by the Heideggerian framing of the Western tradition and in an illuminating way it will release the reader to approach anew the treasury of metaphysical-theological richness locked away by the spell of that framing.”
Reimagining the Analogia Entis
Theology
“This excellent book is the perfect complement to the recent appearance of Erich Przywara’s Analogia Entis in its first English translation. Gonzales has a superb knowledge of Przywara and makes a convincing case for the relevance and continued importance of Przywara’s thought to current debates. An impressively thoughtful and indispensable contribution, very highly recommended.”
Theology
“An intriguing and well-composed study. . . . Boulter focuses on the early work of Ratzinger on St. Bonaventure, making a persuasive case that this work was a groundbreaking exploration of the highest order. The theme at issue and its multiple dimensions—namely, the logos in history—recalls St. Augustine’s City of God. Boulter draws Bonaventure and Ratzinger into a living conversation that illuminates both in remarkable and thought-provoking ways. Warmly recommended.”
Philosophy
“Paul Tyson has written an impressive essay on Christian metaphysics. He is aware of the widespread charges against Platonism, metaphysics, and Christianity but he addresses them with a balanced combination of sound common sense, theological acumen, and philosophical finesse. He shows how Christian Platonism is richly concerned with the things of reality we know, while yet seeing them in the light of a wisdom that is more than human. His thoughtful voice is both accessible and penetrating and the human wisdom of the author shines through. Warmly recommended.”
Theology
“The scholarship is impressive, historically speaking, while systematically speaking, we are offered sustained insight into the issues at stake. It is erudite and wisely steady, and full of lucid thoughtfulness (I commend his reflections on evil and the grotesque, as well as those on reverence). An excellent book: very warmly recommended.”
Theology
“"This is a marvellous collection of well-organized essays by perhaps the most thought-provoking theologian of the moment. They display an impressive range, are full of surprises, and are elegantly and engagingly written. They will confirm John Milbank's reputation as one of the most accomplished and singular of theologians currently writing.”
Theology
“I warmly recommend Brendon Sammon's impressive contribution to theological aesthetics. The work is engaging, lucid, insightful, and well laid out in fitting structure. It importantly responds to the surprising lack of full treatment of beauty as a divine name. Informed about Greek philosophical sources, it offers a rich narration of beauty as a divine name in the work of Dionysius and Aquinas, also impressively bringing to our attention the crucial place of Dionysius in the thought of Aquinas. Sammon recuperates the metaphysical-theological dimensions of beauty, while not being inattentive to more 'aesthetic' treatments in the post-Kantian mode. The ambiguity he detects in Greek treatments as oscillating between the spiritual and material he sees as more fittingly resolved in the Christian thought of Dionysius and Aquinas where justice can be done to the truth of beauty as a middle between the spiritual and the material, a saturated between. An admirable debut by Sammon with a significant contribution to the field of theological aesthetics.”
Philosophy
“This is a work marked by impressive erudition and steady, lucid thoughtfulness about the nature of freedom as perfection . . . Schindler looks to some of the great thinkers of classical German philosophy: Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel in particular. The result is a very engaging and illuminating defense of a richer notion of freedom. The scholarship is impressively informed on the historical side, matched on the systematic side with sustained insight into the issues at stake.”
NOTE: Only includes books currently in our catalog; not necessarily a complete list.
Desire, Dialectic, and Otherness
Philosophy
The Gift of Beauty and the Passion of Being
Philosophy
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