John D. Caputo

John D. Caputo

Full name	John D. Caputo
Born	October 26, 1940 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Deconstruction, phenomenology
Main interests	Hermeneutics, ethics, mysticism, theology
Notable ideas	Weak theology
Influenced by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Lévinas, Derrida
Influenced Richard Kearney, James K.A. Smith, Gianni Vattimo, Merold Westphal

John D. Caputo (born October 26, 1940) is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University and the founder of weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction and theology.

Education

Caputo received his B.A. in 1962 from La Salle University, his M.A. in 1964 from Villanova University and his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1968 from Bryn Mawr College.

Work

Caputo is a specialist in contemporary continental philosophy, with a particular expertise in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Over the years, he has developed a deconstructive hermeneutics that he calls radical hermeneutics. Additionally, Caputo has developed a distinctive approach to religion that he calls weak theology. Recently, his most important work has been to rebut the charges of relativism made against deconstruction by showing that deconstruction is organized around the affirmation of certain unconditional ethical and political claims.

Caputo has a special interest in continental approaches to the philosophy of religion. Some of the ideas Caputo investigates in his work include the religion without religion of Jacques Derrida; the "theological turn" taken in recent French phenomenology by Jean-Luc Marion and others; the critique of ontotheology; the dialogue of contemporary philosophy with Augustine of Hippo and Paul of Tarsus; and medieval metaphysics and mysticism. In the past, Caputo has taught courses on Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Lévinas, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida.

Caputo's book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida has provoked a widespread rereading of Derrida's work and has also sparked considerable interest in deconstruction in theology and religious studies.

Positions held

Caputo taught philosophy at Villanova University from 1968 to 2004. He was appointed the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University in 1993. Caputo was the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, where he taught in both the departments of philosophy and religion from 2004 until his retirement in 2011. He is emeritus professor at both Villanova University and Syracuse University and continues to write and lecture in both the United States and Europe. He is active in the American Philosophical Association, the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy [1] and he chairs the board of editors for the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.

Selection of works

Main article: Bibliography of John D. Caputo

Books by Caputo

• (1978) The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (Ohio University Press)
• (1982) Heidegger and Aquinas (Fordham University Press)
• (1986) The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (Fordham University Press paperback with a new "Introduction")
• (1987) Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction and the Hermeneutic Project (Indiana University Press)
• (1993) Against Ethics - Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction (Indiana University Press)
• (1993) Demythologizing Heidegger (Indiana University Press)
• (1997) The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (Indiana University Press)
• (1997) Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, ed./auth. (Fordham University Press)
• (2000) More Radical Hermeneutics: On Not Knowing Who We Are (Indiana University Press)
• (2001) On Religion (Routledge Press)
• (2006) Philosophy and Theology (Abingdon Press)
• (2006) The Weakness of God (Indiana University Press)
• (2007) After the Death of God, with Gianni Vattimo (Columbia University Press)
• (2007) How to Read Kierkegaard (Granta; Norton, 2008)
• (2007) Transcendence and Beyond: A Postmodern Inquiry, with Michael J. Scanlon (Indiana University Press)
• (2007) What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (Baker Academic)

Books edited by Caputo

• (1992) Modernity and Its Discontents, ed. (Fordham University Press)
• (1993) Foucault and the Critique of Institutions, ed. (Pennsylvania State University Press)
• (1997) Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, ed./auth.(Fordham University Press)
• (1999) God, the Gift and Postmodernism, ed. (Indiana University Press)
• (2001) The Religious, ed. (Blackwell)
• (2001) Questioning God: Religion and Postmodernism II, ed. (Indiana University Press)
• (2004) Augustine and Postmodernism, ed. (Indiana University Press)
• (2007) Transcendence and Beyond (with Michael Scanlon), ed. (Indiana University Press)
• (2009) St. Paul among the Philosophers (with Linda Alcoff), ed. (Indiana University Press)
• (2011) Feminism, Sexuality and Religion (with Linda Alcoff ), ed. (Indiana University Press)

Books About Caputo

• (2010) Cross and Khora: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo, ed. Neal Deroo and Marko Zlomsic (Wipf and Stock Press)
• (2009) Religion, Metaphysics and the Postmodern: William Desmond and John D. Caputo, by Christopher Ben Simpson (Indiana University Press)
• (2009) Gramática da Esperança: Da Hermenêutica da Transcendência à Hermenêutica Radical, by Ricardo Gil Soeiro (Lisbon: Nova Vega)
• (2002) A Passion for the Impossible: John D. Caputo in Focus, ed. Mark Dooley (SUNY Press)
• (2002) Religion With/Out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo, ed. James Olthuis (Routledge Press)
• (1997) The Very Idea of Radical Hermeneutics, ed. Roy Martinez (Humanities Press)

Interviews with Caputo

• (2010) “John Caputo – Postmodernism and Religion,” with Luke Muehlhauser, Common Sense Atheism, September 15, 2010 (www.commonsenseatheism.com)
• (2010) “John D. Caputo Returns,” Homebrewed Christianity 82, July 2010 (www.homebrewedchristianity.com)
• (2009) “Good Soup and Other Gifts” in With Gifted Thinkers: Conversations With Caputo,Hart, Horner, Kearney, Keller, Rigby, Taylor, Wallace, Westphal (European University Studies: Series 23, Theology, Vol. 896), ed. Mark Manolopoulos (Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Vienna: Peter Lang Pub Inc., 2009), pp. 51-74.
• (2008) "A Theology of Our Desire: A Dialogue with John D. Caputo," Polygraph: An International Journal of Culture and Politics, 19/20 (2008): 159-175.
• (2008) "An Interview with John D. Caputo," Homebrewed Christianity (2008) on line at: http://trippfuller.com/?p=202
• (2007) "From Radical Hermeneutics to the Weakness of God: John D. Caputo in Dialogue with Mark Dooley," ed. Ian Leask, Philosophy Today, 51:2 (Summer, 2007): 216-26. Reprinted in: Cross and Khora: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo, Eds. Neal Deroo and Marko Zlomsic (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010), pp. 327-48.
• (2007) "On the Power of the Powerless," in Gianni Vattimo and John D. Caputo, After the Death of God, ed. Jeffrey Robbins (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 114-60
• (2005) "Emmet Cole Interviews John D. Caputo," The Modern World (May 16, 2005 ) (http://www.themodernword.com/features/interview_caputo.html)
• (2004) "In Praise of Devilish Hermeneutics," in Thinking Otherwise: Critics in Conversation,ed. Julian Humphreys (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), pp. 119-23.
• (2002) "Loosening Philosophy's Tongue: A Conversation with Jack Caputo," with Carl Raschke, Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory, Vol. 3, No. 2 (April, 2002). An on line journal: www.jcrt.org.
• (2001) "What Do I Love When I Love My God?: An Interview with John D. Caputo," with Keith Putt, in Religion With/out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo, ed. James H. Olthuis (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 150-179.

Encyclopedia Entries about Caputo

• (2006) "Caputo, John D.," in A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, ed. John Protevi (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 82-83
• (2005) "Caputo, John D.," in Philosophy of Religion A-Z, ed. Patrick Quinn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p. 43.
• (2001) "Caputo, John D.," in Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, eds. Victor E. Taylor and Charles E. Winquist (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp.46-47.

Journal articles and book chapters

• See John D. Caputo Bibliography

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers
• Deconstruction
• Deconstruction and religion
• List of deconstructionists
• Postmodern Christianity
• Weak theology
• Theopoetics

External links

Academic homepage

• John D. Caputo's webpage at Syracuse University

Online writings

• "After Jacques Derrida Comes the Future", by John D. Caputo
• "For Love of the Things Themselves: Derrida’s Hyper-Realism", by John D. Caputo
• "Jacques Derrida (1930 - 2004)" (pdf), by John D. Caputo
• "Scripture: A Prologue" (pdf), by John D. Caputo
• "Without Sovereignty, Without Being: Unconditionality, the Coming God and Derrida's Democracy to Come" (pdf), by John D. Caputo
• "Theopoetic/theopolitic" (pdf) John D. Caputo and Catherine Keller
  'Cross Currents; Winter 2007; V. 57, Iss. 1'

Interviews

• Interview with Carl Raschke
• Interview with The Modern World