Utopia of Understanding

Donatella Ester Di Cesare is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and of Jewish Philosophy at the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano. She is the author of many books, including Grammatica dei tempi messianici; Gadamer; and Ermeneutica della finitezza. Niall Keane is Assistant Lecturer in Philosophy at Mary Immaculate College and the translator of Mauro Carbone's An Unprecedented Deformation: Marcel Proust and the Sensible Ideas, also published by SUNY Press.

• Preface1. Being and Language in Philosophical HermeneuticsPhilosophical Hermeneutics and the Linguistic TurnWhich "Turn"?From Heidegger to Gadamer: Language as Dwelling, Refuge, Shelter, Exile"The History of a Comma"Gadamer’s Self-InterpretationUnderstanding as Middle Term and MediationLanguage and LinguisticalitySearching for the "Right" Word"Being" Twice: The Speculative Passage from Being to Being-LanguageThe Universal "There" of the WordSelf-Overcoming: The Movement of HermeneuticsThe Understanding of Being: Hermeneutics Facing OntologyThe A-Metaphysical Dimension of Philosophical HermeneuticsA Philosophy of Infinite Finitude2. The Hermeneutic Understanding of LanguageHeidegger and Derivativeness of AssertionAristotle’s LessonHermeneutics Between Semantic Lógos and Apophantic LógosThe Logic of Linguistic PraxisAs if "assertions fall from the sky…" The Analytic ArtificeAssertion, Method, and the Power of TechnologyThe Tribunal of AssertionsHermeneía: From the Said to the Un-SaidSpeculum: The Speculative Movement of LanuageBeyond Hegel: The Dialectic of Finite and InfiniteThe Truth of the WordThe Hermeneutic Listening to Language3. Translation and Redemption"…one shall no longer understand the lip of the otherI." BabelLanguages in the Diaspora"Love without Demands": Translation in the Age of RomanticismFrom the Original to the Originary: On HeideggerGiving Voice to the Foreign Voice: The Translation of the TorahThe Dialogue of Languages: On Benjamin"Pure Language" and Messianic Silence4. Exiled in the Mother Tongue"Exile" in the Jewish Tradition"How Much Home Does One Man Need?"Exile from the Land, Exile from the LanguageOn the Mother TongueIn the Firmament of Rosenzweig: The Holy Language and the Language of the GuestIf German is the Language of Origin"What Remains? The Mother Tongue Remains": On Hannah ArendtMy Language Which is of the Other: Derrida and MonolingualismLanguage Forbids OwnershipThe Exile of Language5. The Dialogue of PoetryPaul Celan as a Witness to Hermeneutic DialogueThe Everyday Word and the Poetic WordPoetizing and Interpreting"Your irrefutable witness"Your I and My Thou: The Universality of PoetryThe Flow of Dialogue and the Crystal of PoetryThe "Soul’s Refrain"6. Understanding Between Hermeneutics and DeconstructionParis 1981: An "Improbable Debate"Hermeneutics and Deconstruction: Which Difference?Derrida and Hermeneutics: Plaidoyer for InterruptionGadamer and Deconstruction: "…at the beginning of a dialogue"On the Language of Metaphysics and on Language in GeneralThe Being-for-the-Other of LanguageWanting to Say, Wanting to Understand"Comprendre c’est égaler"? On NietzscheUnderstanding is Understanding DifferentlyOn Accord and DiscordHeidelberg 2003: Starting from that Interruption"The world is gone…" Dialogue after DeathThinking, Carrying, TranslatingThe Blessing of the Hand, the Blessing of the PoemStars and Constellations7. Utopia of UnderstandingU-topia, Topia, Utopia: On Gustav LandauerCelan, Poetry and the "Revolution of the Breath"Breaking the Silence: Voice and the Absolute VocativeJanuary 20. The Date and the Circumcised WordSpeaking Ever-Yet?The Language-GrilleStraitening, Anguish, Anxiety: On the Limit-SituationThe Other of the Limit, the Limit of the Other: The You is the Lever of the IUnderstanding to live, Living to Understand: AuschwitzÁtopos. The Out of Place of the StrangerThe Tent of Encounter"…The Language That Wandered With Us"The Time of the PromiseNorth of the FutureThe Word of ConspiracyIndex

"It is not an exaggeration to claim that Di Cesare's Utopia of Understanding represents a consequential and pioneering program of research within the philosophical study of hermeneutics." — Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews