Mimetic Reflections: A Study in Hermeneutics, Theology, and Ethics

by William Schweiker

This book argues that a basic problem in thinking about understanding, temporality, and selfhood is due to “imitative” modes of thought found in much traditional Western philosophy and theology. Given this, the book examines the complex role that “image” and “imitation” play in understanding and its world of meaning, the import of language and narrative for configuring human temporality, and the existence of self. The author’s contention is that when critically understood, mimesis, with its roots in performative enactment, holds resources for reconsidering these basic dimensions of human life beyond imitative paradigms of thought.

Genres: Philosophy

267 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

William Schweiker is the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chicago. Born in Des Moines, Iowa (1953) he holds degrees from Simpson College, Duke University and also the University of Chicago. Besides teaching at Chicago, he has also been guest professor at Uppsala University and the University of Heidelberg. Schweiker´s writings engage theological and ethical questions attentive to global dynamics, comparative religious ethics, the history of ethics, and hermeneutical philosophy. Schweiker has published five books, numerous articles and award-winning essays, as well as edited and contributed to six volumes, including A Companion to Religious Ethics (2004), a comprehensive and innovative work in the field of comparative religious ethics. He has a forthcoming book on Christian faith and new humanisms and is also currently working on a volume Religious Ethics: An Introduction. On-going research is for a book on theological ethics and the integrity of life.