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Forgiveness-either needing or wanting to be forgiven, or trying to forgive another-is a near-universal experience and one of endless fascination. This volume mines the work of phenomenologists and the methods of phenomenology to extend and deepen our understanding of these complex experiences.
Interest in the phenomenon of forgiveness continues to grow, as the question of forgiveness for past injustices has become a global issue. Phenomenologists have a special contribution to make to the discussion of forgiveness, both because of the capacity to describe and analyse the richness of first-person experiences of forgiving and being forgiven, and because many of the twentieth-century phenomenologists, such as Arendt, Beauvoir, Fanon, Husserl, Levinas, Ricoeur, Sartre, and Stein, experienced first-hand the trials of war, detention, violence, exile and occupation that tested their power to forgive.
Phenomenology and Forgiveness addresses questions such as whether it is only ethical to forgive in response to apologies and expressions of remorse or whether forgiveness is a gift, whether some acts are unforgiveable, the role of forgiveness in political life, and whether it is possible to forgive ourselves.
List of contents
Introduction: Marguerite La Caze, Situating Forgiveness Within Phenomenology
Part I: Experiences of Forgiveness
1.Shannon Hoff, The Right and the Righteous: Hegel on Confession, Forgiveness, and the Necessary Imperfection of Political Action
2.Nicolas de Warren, For the Love of the World: Redemption and Forgiveness in Arendt
3.Simone Drichel, "A Forgiveness that Remakes the World": Trauma, Vulnerability and Forgiveness in the Work of Emmanuel Levinas
4.Peter Banki, Hyper-Ethical Forgiveness and the Inexpiable
Part II: Paradoxes of Forgiveness
5.Gaëlle Fiasse, Forgiveness in Ricœur
6.Jennifer Ang, Self-Forgiveness in the Gray Zone
7.Antonio Calcagno, Can a Community Forgive? Edith Stein on the Lived Experience of Communal Forgiveness
8.Geoffrey Adelsberg, Collective Forgiveness in the Context of Ongoing Harms
Part III: Ethics and Politics of Forgiveness
9.Matthew Sharpe, Camus and Forgiveness: After the Fall
10.Daniel Brennan, Václav Havel's Call for Forgiveness
11.Karen Pagani, Toward a Heideggerian Approach to the Problem of Political Forgiveness, or The Dignity of a Question
12.Ann V. Murphy, Phenomenology, Crisis, and Repair
About the author
Edited by Marguerite La Caze
Summary
This book develops and demonstrates in depth and breadth the contribution of phenomenologists to understanding forgiveness. Featuring all new material from a diverse mix of philosophical authors, the book will be of interest to students and scholars in both phenomenology and moral psychology
