A Man of Little Faith

Michel Deguy, Christopher Elson

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781438453583, 9781438453590
• eBook ISBN: 9781438453606
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Deconstruction in Philosophy

In A Man of Little Faith the French poet and philosopher Michel Deguy reflects on the loss of religious faith both personally and culturally. Disenchanted not only with the oversimplifications of radical atheism but also with what he sees as an insipid sacralization of art as the influence of religion has waned, Deguy refuses to focus on loss or impossibility. Instead he actively suspends belief, producing a poetic deconstruction that, though resolutely a-theistic, makes a plea for an earthly piety and for the preservation of the relics of religion for the world to come. Two essays by Jean-Luc Nancy and a recent interview with Deguy are included, which reveal the impact and implications of Deguy's ongoing reflection and its significance within his generation of French thought.

INDEX

A ce qui n’en finit pas (Deguy), xxvi–xxvii, xxxi

Adorno, Theodor, 92–93, 173–74

Afghanistan, 73

Agamben, Giorgio, 143

agnosticism, 6, 139–40, 202n3, 203n1. See also doubt

L’Allégresse pensive (ed. Rueff), xviii, 189–99

amnesia, 22, 121, 128. See also memory

anastasis, 196–98

Anaxamander, 20

angels, 77, 138

animism, 41, 42, 163

anthropogenesis, 13

anthropology, negative, 130–31, 204n5

anthropomorphism, xxxi–xxxii, 6, 41, 106

apocope, xxx–xxxi

Apollinaire, Guillaume, xi, xxii, 60, 85, 206n14

Arcimboldo, Giuseppe, 43

Arendt, Hannah, 155, 156; on Auden, 19; on evil, 121; Heidegger’s correspondence with, 47; on Jewishness, 128, 138; on judgment, 5; and Weil, 103

Aristotle, xxiv, 47, 91, 208n15

Armenian genocide, 143

Arrêts fréquents (Deguy), xxxvi–xxvii

Artaud, Antonin, 52

atheism, xliii(n44), 6, 73, 139–40

attention, 59, 92, 103, 136, 203n1

Auden, W. H., 19

Aufhebung (“overcoming”), xxxv, 74, 142

Augustine of Hippo, 79–80, 209n11

Auschwitz. See Holocaust

Auster, Paul, xxi

Bacquey, Stéphane, 186n2

Badinter, Elisabeth, 159

Baldridge, Wilson, xxii, 187n31

Barthes, Roland, 53

Bataille, Georges, 182

Baudelaire, Charles, xi, xxii–xxiii, 34, 79, 152; piety of, xxxvii–xxxix, 202n3; “A une passante,” 65, 202n4; “La Beauté,” 23; “Une Charogne,” 15, 202n4; “Duellum,” 7, 20, 202n4;...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Translator’s Notes
• Introduction To Conserve While Leaving Behind: Michel Deguy’s Palinody
• A Man of Little Faith
• I. Palinody
• II. Notebooks of Disbelief
• III. Simone Weil From Memory
• IV. Jewish Humanity
• Appendix A: Dublin Interview
• Appendix B: Two Essays on Michel Deguy by Jean-Luc Nancy
• Notes
• Index
• Back Cover