Many philosophers since Hegel have been disturbed by the thought that philosophy inevitably favours sameness over otherness or identity over difference. William Desmond here offers a constructive and positive approach to the problem of difference and otherness. He systematically explores the question of dialectic and otherness by analysing how human desire inevitably seeks immanent wholeness in a manner that opens it to irreducible otherness. In a wide-ranging yet unified discussion, Desmond tackles such issues as the nature of the self, the ambiguous restlessness and inherent power of being revealed by human desire, desire's relation to transcendence, its openness to otherness in agapeic good will and in relation to the sublime as an aesthetic infinitude.

Desire, Dialectic, and Otherness is a remarkable introduction to Desmond's metaxological philosophy. This second edition contains a substantial new preface and an afterword to each chapter in which Desmond reflects on the material from the standpoint of his current thinking.

Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction

Part 1: Intentional Infinitude
1. Desire, Lack, and the Absorbing God
2. Desire and Original Selfness
3. Desire's Infinitude and Wholeness

Part 2: Actual Finitude
4. Desire, Transcendence, and Static Eternity
5. Desire, Knowing, and Otherness
6. Desire, Concreteness, and Being
7. Desire, Otherness, and Infinitude

Part 3: Actual Infinitude
8. Desire and the Absolute Original

Bibliography
Index

• Full List of Contents (PDF, 42 KB)

• Prefaces to the First and Second Editions (PDF, 122 KB)
• Introduction (PDF, 139 KB)

William Desmond is Professor of Philosophy at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven as well as David Cook Visiting Chair in Philosophy at Villanova University.