In Deference to the Other

Explores the work of Bernard Lonergan in light of contemporary continental thought.

In Deference to the Other brings contemporary continental thought into conversation with that of Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984), the Jesuit philosopher and theologian. This is an opportune moment to open such a dialogue: philosophers and theologians indebted to Lonergan have increasingly found themselves challenged by the insights of thinkers typically dubbed "postmodern," while postmodernists, most notably Jacques Derrida, have begun to ask the "God question." While Lonergan was not a continental philosopher, neither was he an analytic philosopher. Concerned with both epistemology and cognition, his systematic and hermeneutic-like proposals resonate with the concerns of philosophers such as Derrida, Foucault, Levinas, and Kristeva. Contributors to this volume find insight and affiliation between Lonergan's thought and contemporary continental thought in a wide-ranging work that engages the philosophical problems of authenticity, self-appropriation, ethics, and the human subject.

Jim Kanaris is Faculty Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at McGill University and author of Bernard Lonergan's Philosophy of Religion: From Philosophy of God to Philosophy of Religious Studies, also published by SUNY Press. Mark J. Doorley is Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethics and Assistant Director of the Ethics Program at Villanova University. He is the author of The Place of the Heart in Lonergan's Ethics: The Role of Feelings in the Ethical Intentionality Analysis of Bernard Lonergan.