Weight of Finitude

Ludwig Heyde is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Chair of Metaphysics at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He is the recipient of the 1997 Prix Cardinal Mercier for The Weight of Finitude and the author and editor of numerous books, including De verwerkelijking van de vrijheid and Filosofie en democratie. At the Higher Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, Alexander Harmsen is a doctoral candidate and William Desmond is Director. Harmsen is a sessional lecturer at the University of British Columbia. Desmond is the author of several books published by SUNY Press, including the award winning Being and the Between.

"It is a boon to have this work now available in English, and not only for Hegel scholars or philosophers interested in classical and contemporary responses to God, but for mindful human beings still wondering if we have wings." — from the Foreword by William Desmond

• ForewordBy William Desmond Preface Introduction 1The Absence of the Essential 1.1 An Essenceless World The Reversal of PositionsThe Dominion of WealthComedy and Cynicism 1.2 The Protest of Faith Faith as FlightThe Essencelessness of Faith 1.3 The "Retrieval" of the Essential. The Struggle of the Enlightenment God's DisappearanceThe Unsatisfied Enlightenment 1.4 A One-Dimensional World and a Distant God 2Ways of Thinking toward God 2.1 Faith and Thought FaithThe Experience of Thought 2.2 Enigmatic Contingency Why Something at All... ?An Informational Intermezzo: Concerning Proofs of GodAn Example: Thomas AquinasA Necessary Ground for All That IsThe Decisive Presupposition 2.3 The Actuality of Thought IntermezzoAnselm. Thought and BeingDescartes. Subjectivity and InfinitudeGod as Ground and Measure 2.4 The Experience of Limits and Openness 3An Abyss for Thought 3.1 The Limits of Thought The Decisive Point: Thought and BeingContingencyThe Well-Ordered Cosmos 3.2 The Scope of the Critique It Concerns the Entirety of PhilosophyThe Ideal of Pure ReasonThe Positive Turn 3.3 Kant's Way: The Absoluteness of the Ought The Indisputable Moral "Fact"The Postulate of God's Existence 3.4 The Limits of the Limits Critique of the CritiqueThe Metaphysical Élan 4Auschwitz: The End of an Illusion? 4.1 The Mystery of Evil Beyond Any Concept?The Sting of Moral Evil 4.2 The Mystery of Freedom The Refusal of AdornoKant: Evil and Freedom 4.3 The Rose and the Cross God and EvilEvil Is Not Absolute 5Human Finitude and the Presence of God 5.1 Finitude as Boundary Heidegger: The Desacralisation of the WorldThe Metaphysics of SubjectivityThinking Does Not Merely "Happen" to Us 5.2 The Mystery of God's Presence The Death of GodNietzsche as Child of His TimeHegel: The Absolute Is PresentFinite Transcendence?Philosophy's Claim to Truth Notes Cited Literature About the Author Index