Ontologies of Violence

Abstract

This dissertation critically examines the ontological and epistemological significance of the concept of violence in French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s essay “Violence and Metaphysics” (Chapter 1), dialogues between Mennonite philosophical theologians who represent the Radical Reformation and John Milbank’s Radical Orthodoxy (Chapter 2), and the Death and the Displacement of Beauty trilogy by feminist philosopher of religion Grace Jantzen (Chapter 3). Although Derrida, Jantzen, and certain Mennonite philosophical theologians approach the problem of violence with very different concerns and frames of reference, each understand violence to have a distinctly ontological and epistemological character, while also suggesting that ontology and epistemology themselves are profoundly vulnerable to charges of violence. In Derrida’s essay “Violence and Metaphysics” language itself is imbricated in violence, and in their responses to John Milbank, Mennonite philosophical theologians Peter C. Blum and Chris K. Huebner situate their work both with and against Derrida’s supposed “ontology of violence” as they apply Christian pacifism to epistemology and seek to articulate an “ontology of peace.” In her late work in the Death and the Displacement of Beauty project, Grace Jantzen develops an epistemology that is similar to that of Blum and Huebner, while critiquing what she understands to be Derrida’s equivocation of linguistic with physical violence, all as part of her argument that the cultural habitus of the west is founded on an obsession with death that violently displaces natality with mortality. In bringing together these three sources, this dissertation uses “violence” as a diagnostic concept to assess the priorities and values of its users. Considering violence to be defined by the violation of value-laden boundaries, this study of three ontologies of violence interprets and critiques the values that Derrida’s deconstruction, philosophical Mennonite pacifism, and Jantzen’s critique of displacement seek to further and protect against violation.