Forgiveness

Philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch has only recently begun to receive his due from the English-speaking world, thanks in part to discussions of his thought by Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Lévinas, and Paul Ricoeur. His international readers have long valued his unique, interdisciplinary approach to philosophy's greatest questions and his highly readable writing style. Originally published in 1967, Le Pardon, or Forgiveness, is one of Jankélévitch's most influential works. In it, he characterizes the ultimate ethical act of forgiving as behaving toward the perpetrator as if he or she had never committed the action, rather than merely forgetting or rationalizing it-a controversial notion when considering events as heinous as the Holocaust. Like so many of Jankélévitch's works, Forgiveness transcends standard treatments of moral problems, not simply generating a treatise on one subject but incorporating discussions of topics such as free will, giving, creativity, and temporality. Translator Andrew Kelley masterfully captures Jankélévitch's melodic prose and, in a substantive introduction, reviews his life and intellectual contributions. Forgiveness is an essential part of that legacy, and this indispensable English translation provides key tools for understanding one of the great Western philosophers of the twentieth century.

Author: Vladimir Jankélévitch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 02/27/2013
Pages: 204
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9780226045658

About the Author
Vladimir Jankélévitch (1903-85) held the Chair in Moral Philosophy at the Sorbonne from 1951 to 1978. He was the author of more than twenty books on philosophy and music, including the recently translated Music and the Ineffable. Andrew Kelley is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois. He is also the translator of Josef Popper-Lynkeus's The Individual and the Value of Human Life.