John D. Caputo
Encyclopedia
John D. Caputo is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University
and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University
and the founder of weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction
and theology
.
, his M.A. in 1964 from Villanova University
and his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1968 from Bryn Mawr College
.
, with a particular expertise in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction
. Over the years he has developed a deconstructive hermeneutics he calls radical hermeneutics. Additionally, Caputo has developed a distinctive approach to religion he calls weak theology. Recently, his most important work has been to rebut the charges of relativism
made against deconstruction by showing that deconstruction is organized around the affirmation of certain unconditional ethical and political claims.
Caputo has a special interest in continental approaches to the philosophy of religion. Some of the ideas Caputo investigates in his work include the religion without religion of Jacques Derrida
; the "theological turn" taken in recent French phenomenology by Jean-Luc Marion
and others; the critique of ontotheology
; the dialogue of contemporary philosophy with Augustine of Hippo
and Paul of Tarsus
; and medieval metaphysics
and mysticism
. In the past, Caputo has taught courses on Søren Kierkegaard
, Friedrich Nietzsche
, Edmund Husserl
, Martin Heidegger
, Emmanuel Lévinas
, Gilles Deleuze
, and Jacques Derrida
.
Caputo's book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida has provoked a widespread rereading of Derrida's work and has also sparked considerable interest in deconstruction in theology and religious studies.
in 1993. Caputo was the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion at Syracuse University
, where he taught in both the departments of philosophy and religion from 2004 until his retirement in 2011. He is emeritus professor at both Villanova University and Syracuse University and continues to write and lecture in both the United States and Europe. He is active in the American Philosophical Association, the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy http://www.spep.org and he chairs the board of editors for the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University
Villanova University
Villanova University is a private university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States...
and the founder of weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
and theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
.
Education
Caputo received his B.A. in 1962 from La Salle UniversityLa Salle University
La Salle University is a private, co-educational, Roman Catholic university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. Named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, the school was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. As of 2008 the school has approximately 7,554...
, his M.A. in 1964 from Villanova University
Villanova University
Villanova University is a private university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States...
and his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1968 from Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
.
Work
Caputo is a specialist in contemporary continental philosophyContinental philosophy
Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
, with a particular expertise in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
. Over the years he has developed a deconstructive hermeneutics he calls radical hermeneutics. Additionally, Caputo has developed a distinctive approach to religion he calls weak theology. Recently, his most important work has been to rebut the charges of relativism
Relativism
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....
made against deconstruction by showing that deconstruction is organized around the affirmation of certain unconditional ethical and political claims.
Caputo has a special interest in continental approaches to the philosophy of religion. Some of the ideas Caputo investigates in his work include the religion without religion of Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
; the "theological turn" taken in recent French phenomenology by Jean-Luc Marion
Jean-Luc Marion
Jean-Luc Marion is among the best-known living philosophers in France, former student of Jacques Derrida and one of the leading Catholic thinkers of modern times. Marion's take on the postmodern is informed by his expertise in patristic and mystical theology, phenomenology, and modern philosophy...
and others; the critique of ontotheology
Ontotheology
Ontotheology means the ontology of God and/or the theology of being. It refers to a tradition of philosophical theology first prominent among medieval scholastics, notably Duns Scotus...
; the dialogue of contemporary philosophy with Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
and Paul of Tarsus
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
; and medieval metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
and mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
. In the past, Caputo has taught courses on Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
, Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
, Emmanuel Lévinas
Emmanuel Lévinas
Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...
, Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
, and Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
.
Caputo's book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida has provoked a widespread rereading of Derrida's work and has also sparked considerable interest in deconstruction in theology and religious studies.
Positions held
Caputo taught philosophy at Villanova University from 1968 to 2004. He was appointed the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova UniversityVillanova University
Villanova University is a private university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States...
in 1993. Caputo was the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
, where he taught in both the departments of philosophy and religion from 2004 until his retirement in 2011. He is emeritus professor at both Villanova University and Syracuse University and continues to write and lecture in both the United States and Europe. He is active in the American Philosophical Association, the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy http://www.spep.org and he chairs the board of editors for the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.
Books by Caputo
- (1978) The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (Ohio University Press)
- (1982) Heidegger and Aquinas (Fordham University Press)
- (1986) The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (Fordham University Press paperback with a new "Introduction")
- (1987) Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction and the Hermeneutic Project (Indiana University Press)
- (1993) Against Ethics - Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction (Indiana University Press)
- (1993) Demythologizing Heidegger (Indiana University Press)
- (1997) The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (Indiana University Press)
- (1997) Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, ed./auth. (Fordham University Press)
- (2000) More Radical Hermeneutics: On Not Knowing Who We Are (Indiana University Press)
- (2001) On Religion (Routledge Press)
- (2006) Philosophy and Theology (Abingdon Press)
- (2006) The Weakness of God (Indiana University Press)
- (2007) After the Death of God, with Gianni VattimoGianni VattimoGianteresio Vattimo, also known as Gianni Vattimo is an internationally recognized Italian author, philosopher, and politician. Many of his works have been translated into English.-Biography:...
(Columbia University Press) - (2007) How to Read Kierkegaard (Granta; Norton, 2008)
- (2007) Transcendence and Beyond: A Postmodern Inquiry, with Michael J. Scanlon (Indiana University Press)
- (2007) What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (Baker Academic)
Books edited by Caputo
- (1992) Modernity and Its Discontents, ed. (Fordham University Press)
- (1993) Foucault and the Critique of Institutions, ed. (Pennsylvania State University Press)
- (1997) Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, ed./auth.(Fordham University Press)
- (1999) God, the Gift and Postmodernism, ed. (Indiana University Press)
- (2001) The Religious, ed. (Blackwell)
- (2001) Questioning God: Religion and Postmodernism II, ed. (Indiana University Press)
- (2004) Augustine and Postmodernism, ed. (Indiana University Press)
- (2007) Transcendence and Beyond (with Michael Scanlon), ed. (Indiana University Press)
- (2009) St. Paul among the Philosophers (with Linda Alcoff), ed. (Indiana University Press)
- (2011) Feminism, Sexuality and Religion (with Linda Alcoff ), ed. (Indiana University Press)
Books About Caputo
- (2010) Cross and Khora: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo, ed. Neal Deroo and Marko Zlomsic (Wipf and Stock Press)
- (2009) Religion, Metaphysics and the Postmodern: William Desmond and John D. Caputo, by Christopher Ben Simpson (Indiana University Press)
- (2009) Gramática da Esperança: Da Hermenêutica da Transcendência à Hermenêutica Radical, by Ricardo Gil Soeiro (Lisbon: Nova Vega)
- (2002) A Passion for the Impossible: John D. Caputo in Focus, ed. Mark Dooley (SUNY Press)
- (2002) Religion With/Out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo, ed. James OlthuisJames OlthuisJames H. Olthuis is an inter-disciplinary scholar in ethics, hermeneutics, philosophical theology, as well as a theorist and practitioner of psychotherapy of a kind he calls "Relational psychotherapy."-Life:Olthuis studied under H...
(Routledge Press) - (1997) The Very Idea of Radical Hermeneutics, ed. Roy Martinez (Humanities Press)
Interviews with Caputo
- (2010) “John Caputo – Postmodernism and Religion,” with Luke Muehlhauser, Common Sense Atheism, September 15, 2010 (www.commonsenseatheism.com)
- (2010) “John D. Caputo Returns,” Homebrewed Christianity 82, July 2010 (www.homebrewedchristianity.com)
- (2009) “Good Soup and Other Gifts” in With Gifted Thinkers: Conversations With Caputo,Hart, Horner, Kearney, Keller, Rigby, Taylor, Wallace, Westphal (European University Studies: Series 23, Theology, Vol. 896), ed. Mark Manolopoulos (Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Vienna: Peter Lang Pub Inc., 2009), pp. 51-74.
- (2008) "A Theology of Our Desire: A Dialogue with John D. Caputo," Polygraph: An International Journal of Culture and Politics, 19/20 (2008): 159-175.
- (2008) "An Interview with John D. Caputo," Homebrewed Christianity (2008) on line at: http://trippfuller.com/?p=202
- (2007) "From Radical Hermeneutics to the Weakness of God: John D. Caputo in Dialogue with Mark Dooley," ed. Ian Leask, Philosophy Today, 51:2 (Summer, 2007): 216-26. Reprinted in: Cross and Khora: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo, Eds. Neal Deroo and Marko Zlomsic (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010), pp. 327-48.
- (2007) "On the Power of the Powerless," in Gianni Vattimo and John D. Caputo, After the Death of God, ed. Jeffrey Robbins (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 114-60
- (2005) "Emmet Cole Interviews John D. Caputo," The Modern World (May 16, 2005 ) (http://www.themodernword.com/features/interview_caputo.html)
- (2004) "In Praise of Devilish Hermeneutics," in Thinking Otherwise: Critics in Conversation,ed. Julian Humphreys (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), pp. 119-23.
- (2002) "Loosening Philosophy's Tongue: A Conversation with Jack Caputo," with Carl Raschke, Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory, Vol. 3, No. 2 (April, 2002). An on line journal: www.jcrt.org.
- (2001) "What Do I Love When I Love My God?: An Interview with John D. Caputo," with Keith Putt, in Religion With/out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo, ed. James H. Olthuis (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 150-179.
Encyclopedia Entries about Caputo
- (2006) "Caputo, John D.," in A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, ed. John Protevi (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 82-83
- (2005) "Caputo, John D.," in Philosophy of Religion A-Z, ed. Patrick Quinn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p. 43.
- (2001) "Caputo, John D.," in Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, eds. Victor E. Taylor and Charles E. Winquist (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp.46-47.
See also
- American philosophyAmerican philosophyAmerican philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...
- List of American philosophers
- DeconstructionDeconstructionDeconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
- Deconstruction and religion
- List of deconstructionists
- Postmodern ChristianityPostmodern ChristianityPostmodern Christianity is an outlook of Christianity that is closely associated with the body of writings known as postmodern philosophy. Although it is a relatively recent development in the Christian religion, some Christian postmodernists assert that their style of thought has an affinity with...
- Weak theology
- TheopoeticsTheopoeticsTheopoetics is an emerging field of interdisciplinary study, combining elements of poetic analysis, process theology, narrative theology, and postmodern philosophy....
Academic homepage
Online writings
- "After Jacques Derrida Comes the Future", by John D. Caputo
- "For Love of the Things Themselves: Derrida’s Hyper-Realism", by John D. Caputo
- "Jacques Derrida (1930 - 2004)" (pdf), by John D. Caputo
- "Scripture: A Prologue" (pdf), by John D. Caputo
- "Without Sovereignty, Without Being: Unconditionality, the Coming God and Derrida's Democracy to Come" (pdf), by John D. Caputo
- "Theopoetic/theopolitic" (pdf) John D. Caputo and Catherine Keller
'Cross Currents; Winter 2007; V. 57, Iss. 1'