A Man of Little Faith

InA Man of Little Faith the French poet and philosopher Michel Deguy reflects on the loss of religious faith both personally and culturally. Disenchanted not only with the oversimplifications of radical atheism but also with what he sees as an insipid sacralization of art as the influence of religion has waned, Deguy refuses to focus on loss or impossibility. Instead he actively suspends belief, producing a poetic deconstruction that, though resolutely a-theistic, makes a plea for an earthly piety and for the preservation of the relics of religion for the world to come. Two essays by Jean-Luc Nancy and a recent interview with Deguy are included, which reveal the impact and implications of Deguy's ongoing reflection and its significance within his generation of French thought.

Translator’s Notes

Introduction
To Conserve While Leaving Behind: Michael Deguy’s Palinody

A Man of Little Faith

This text is of little faith…

I. Palinody

I will not tell of how “I lost faith”…
There is no transcendent…
If I were a visual artist…
I will reverse a saying of Auguste Comte…
Confiteor
Negligence
The fantasy of forgetting
Cuttings
Paul Valéry’s “to be awake…”
Gift without Exchange
Case of Equality
Love has no why…
Of the Author
Escence
“Super Flumina”
Attached
Poetry is triple
Man is the being who tramps his own transcendence…
“My fellow, my sister…” [mon semblable, ma soeur]
Natives of Eden…
“Everything is full of soul(s)…”…
“Keine Rache mehr”…
“Ecce Homo”
I pause for a moment…
We are in the Fiji Islands…
We are in the Fiji Islands…
Of the Mortal Possessing Speech

II. Notebooks of Disbelief

In Doubt
“Non credo in”
To Mothers
In the imagination…
“The patient breath of the bull”…
Who is God…
Christ
The Incarnate
Why Continue…
Nothing will be destroyed…
Since the body…
The Future of the Illusion
Relics
Of the Holy Family
My Guardian Angel
There are certainly otherjust men in the city…
The Infernal Machine
Metaphysical Meditation
Descartes and Socrates
Enough with the science!…
Literature And The Good
The Common Nothing
The Reproach Made to Kant
“Minima Moralia”
Logic of Double Negation or of Non-Mathematical, Paradoxical Apodicticity

III. Simone Weil From Memory

Life and Death
Of Purity
Attention
Of Contrariety
And Today
Notes On Paradox
Of the Double-Blind
Digression on Analogy
Transcendence
An Aside
Revelation, continued…
Of Religion
Of the End

IV. Jewish Humanity

Peace-With
“All Men Will Be Jewish”

Appendix A: Dublin Interview
Appendix B: Two Essays on Michel Deguy by Jean-Luc Nancy
Deguy The New Year!
To Accompany Michel Deguy

Notes
Index