John D. Caputo
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John D. Caputo, American Continental philosopher. Born 1940, received his B.A. in 1962 from LaSalle University, his M.A. in 1964 from Villanova University and his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1968 from Bryn Mawr College. His dissertation was entitled "The Development of the Concept of Grund in Heidegger's Thought."
Caputo is best known for his work on the borderlines between deconstruction as articulated by Jacques Derrida and religious theory, a line of inquiry he calls the "continental philosophy of religion." Having begun his work in Heidegger and the notion of "ontotheology" (and the possibilities for overcoming it), Caputo migrated toward Derrida and deconstruction. In Derrida he has explored the idea that -- despite characterizations to the opposite -- deconstruction ultimately affirms that which is undeconstructible. Within this theme, Caputo's writings circle such proposals as "religion without religion," the "messianic," and the "to come." Unleashing such ideas on philosophy, religion, and the work of theology, Caputo and his deconstructive tendencies have been criticized for supposedly undermining or relativizing these disciplinary efforts.
Caputo taught in the Department of Philosophy at Villanova University until 2004, when he became the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Humanities at Syracuse University, where he teaches in both the departments of philosophy and religion. He is active in the American Philosophical Association (http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/), the American Academy of Religion (http://www.aarweb.org), and chairs the board of editors for the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (http://www.jcrt.org).
Bibliography
- Heidegger and Aquinas (1982)
- The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (1986)
- Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction and the Hermeneutic Project (1987)
- Modernity and Its Discontents, ed. (1992)
- Against Ethics - Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction (1993)
- Demythologizing Heidegger (1993)
- Foucault and the Critique of Institutions, ed. (1993)
- The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (1997)
- Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, ed./auth. (1997)
- God, the Gift and Postmodernism, ed. (1999)
- More Radical Hermeneutics: On Not Knowing Who We Are (2000)
- On Religion (2001)
- The Religious, ed. (2001)
- Questioning God: Religion and Postmodernism II, ed. (2001)
- Augustine and Postmodernism, ed. (2004)