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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Mélanie V. Walton explains why the paradoxical search to do justice to the inexpressible is central to Lyotard’s later work. This demonstration places him at the heart of contemporary discussions in ethics and law about justice for those who cannot speak of the harm done to them. She does so on the basis of thorough and original research, with the added brilliant flourish of situating the debate in relation to Neoplatonism and the problems of knowledge of God.” -- James Williams, University of Dundee
“Mélanie Walton’s study goes beyond explaining the nature of a differend, where one idiom finds no access possible to the dominant genres without losing voice, validity, or persuasiveness. Walton moves sedulously through the context and argumentation of Lyotard’s ‘magnus opus’ monument to the task of bearing witness to the inexpressible, into a study of the mystic who developed a negative semantics, an apophatics of ‘God.’ Her exploration of Pseudo-Dionysus reveals his method of naming as an impossible enterprise through which God is ‘named’ all that we could know and yet cannot know of the divinity.” -- Bettina Bergo, Professor of Philosophy, University of Montreal
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: What is the Inexpressible Expression? Chapter One: Witness and Testimony Chapter Two: Contextualizing Jean-François Lyotard Chapter Three: Bearing Witness in The Differend Chapter Four: Contextualizing Pseudo-Dionysius Chapter Five: Bearing Witness in The Divine Names Chapter Six: Silence and Eros Conclusion: The Expression of the Inexpressible Bibliography Index About the Author
