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This edited collection explores the problem of violence from the vantage point of meaning. Taking up the ambiguity of the word ‘meaning’, the chapters analyse the manner in which violence affects and in some cases constitutes the meaningful structure of our lifeworld, on individual, social, religious and conceptual levels. The relationship between violence and meaning is multifaceted, and is thus investigated from a variety of different perspectives within the continental tradition of philosophy, including phenomenology, post-structuralism, critical theory andpsychoanalysis. Divided into four parts, the volume explores diverging meanings of the concept of violence, as well as transcendent or religious violence- a form of violence that takes place between humanity and the divine world. Going on to investigate instances of immanent and secular violence, which occur at the level of the group, community or society, the book concludes with an exploration of violence and meaning on the individual level: violence at the level of the self, or between particular persons. With its focus on the manifold of relations between violence and meaning, as well as its four part focus on conceptual, transcendent, immanent and individual violence, the book is both multi-directional and multi-layered.

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Violence as metaphor

Roodt Vasti

3-26

Violence and essentialism?

Lauwaert Lode

27-37

The temporality of violence

Ó Murchadha Felix

41-58

Reflections on the meanings of religious violence

Staudigl Michael

59-90

The violence of the singular

Cools Arthur

91-109

Is violence inescapable?

Alvis Jason

111-133

The double meanings of violence

Lawtoo Nidesh

137-165

The last second, or eternity

Symons Stéphane; Castelein Tammy

167-188

Torturous violence

Heuslein Jeremy

191-215

Oppressed by shame

Bergoffen Debra

217-238

Forming the individual

Rae Gavin

239-265