John D. Caputo

Preliminary Table of Contents:Introduction: Hermeneutics and the SecretPart 1: On Not Knowing Who We Are: Toward a Felicitous Non-Essentialism1. On Not Knowing Who We Are: Madness, Hermeneutics, and the Night of Truth in Foucault2. How to Prepare for the Coming of the Other: Gadamer and Derrida3. Who is Derrida's Zarathustra? Of Fraternity, Friendship, and a Democracy to Come4. Parisian Hermeneutics and Yankee Hermeneutics: The Case of Derrida and RortyPart 2: Passions of Non-Knowledge: Gender, Science, Ethics5. Dreaming of the Innumerable: Derrida, Drucilla Cornell, and the Dance of Gender6. Hermeneutics and the Natural Sciences: Heidegger, Science, and Essentialism7. The End of Ethics: A Non-Guide for the PerplexedPart 3: On the Road to Emmaus: In Defense of Devilish Hermeneutics8. Holy Hermeneutics versus Devilish Hermeneutics: Textuality and the Word of God9. Undecidability and the Empty Tomb: Toward a Hermeneutics of Belief10. The Prayers and Tears of Devilish Hermeneutics: Derrida and Meister EckhartConclusion without ConclusionNotesIndex

Focusing on how various contemporary philosophers develop aspects of this fragmented view of the life world in areas such as madness, friendship, democracy, gender, science, the "end of ethics,religion, and mysticism, this animated study by one of America's leading continental philosophers shakes the foundations of religion and philosophy, even as it gives them new life.