The Meaning and Power of Negativity

Book excerpt: Negativity is omnipresent in human life and thinking. Without it, contingency and otherness, subjectivity and power, transcendence and immanence and other manifestations of the pluriform dynamics between signifier, signified and meaning in human life and culture cannot be understood. This volume explores the significance of negativity in Western and Eastern thought in four central areas: in the traditions of negative theology in the West; in the dialectics of negativity in the wake of Hegel and in existential philosophy; in versions of negative dialectics and negative hermeneutics in the 20th century; and in Buddhist thought about emptiness, Korean philosophies of nothingness, and the similarities and differences between the mystical traditions of the East and the West. Together, the four parts outline a panorama of questions, positions, and approaches that must be explored by anyone who wants to address questions of negativity in the context of contemporary philosophical, theological, ethical, and existential challenges.