Gary Banham

In this article I seek to address the way that Jean-Luc Nancy's project of the ‘deconstruction of Christianity’ relates to the understanding of what might be meant by ‘Christian art’. In the process of looking at Nancy's treatment of some signal ‘Christian’ scenes I describe some ways in which the motif of ‘touching’ arises as significant for how Nancy addresses the possibility of ‘alienation from the world’, a possibility that he takes to be central to the self-deconstructive potential of ‘Christianity’. Subsequently the topic of the distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ is related to how Derrida understands the notion of the ‘messianic’ and I conclude with a suggestion concerning how the plurality of ‘deconstructions’ might complicate the question of what is meant by the view that the ‘deconstruction of Christianity’ is itself a ‘Christian’ project.

This piece presents an account of Kant's notion of provisional right and connects this conception to his defence of two principles of publicity. The argument is to the effect that understanding the notion of provisional right will enable us to comprehend the Kantian picture of the state of nature, the basis of the transition from such a state to the civil condition and also his treatment of international right. The paper also presents the sketch of a Kantian theory of normatively justified institutions.