Edited by Hent de Vries and Nils F. Schott
Preface and Acknowledgments
Human Alert: Concepts and Practices of Love and Forgiveness, by Hent de Vries and Nils F. Schott
1. Orange Alert, by Haleh Liza Gafori
2. What Love Knows, by Jean-Luc Marion
3. Unpower: An Interview with Hugues Choplin, by Jean-Luc Marion
4. Revenge, Forgiveness, and Love, by Regina M. Schwartz
5. Love and Law: Some Thoughts on Judaism and Calvinism, by Leora Batnitzky
6. "A Mother to All": Love and the Institution of Community in Augustine, by Nils F. Schott
7. Looking Evil in the Eye/I: The Interminable Work of Forgiveness, by Orna Ophir
8. Beyond Right and Wrong: An Exploration of Justice and Forgiveness, by Albert Mason
9. Remarks on Love, by Jacques Derrida
10. To Forgive: The Unforgivable and the Imprescriptible, by Jacques Derrida
11. Thoughts on Love, by Sari Nusseibeh
12. The Passionate Utterance of Love, by Hent de Vries
Suggested Reading
Contributors
Index
One can love and not forgive or out of love decide not to forgive. Or one can forgive but not love, or choose to forgive but not love the ones forgiven. Love and forgiveness follow parallel and largely independent paths, a truth we fail to acknowledge when we pressure others to both love and forgive. Individuals in conflict, sparring social and ethnic groups, warring religious communities, and insecure nations often do not need to pursue love and forgiveness to achieve peace of mind and heart. They need to remain attentive to the needs of others, an alertness that prompts either love or forgiveness to respond.
By reorienting our perception of these enduring phenomena, the contributors to this volume inspire new applications for love and forgiveness in an increasingly globalized and no longer quite secular world. With contributions by the renowned French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, the poet Haleh Liza Gafori, and scholars of religion (Leora Batnitzky, Nils F. Schott, Hent de Vries), psychoanalysis (Albert Mason, Orna Ophir), Islamic and political philosophy (Sari Nusseibeh), and the Bible and literature (Regina Schwartz), this anthology reconstructs the historical and conceptual lineage of love and forgiveness and their fraught relationship over time. By examining how we have used-and misused-these concepts, the authors advance a better understanding of their ability to unite different individuals and emerging groups around a shared engagement for freedom and equality, peace and solidarity.