Richard Gerard Kearney

1. Introduction

Richard Gerard Kearney (b. 1954) is an Irish philosopher whose work spans continental philosophy, theology, literary theory, and political thought. He is widely associated with a hermeneutical-phenomenological approach that places imagination, narrative identity, and the ethics of hospitality at the center of philosophical inquiry. Educated in Dublin and Paris under Paul Ricœur, Kearney is often presented as a mediator between French phenomenology and Anglophone debates, especially in Ireland and North America.

Kearney’s writings explore how people and communities make sense of themselves through images and stories, and how these imaginative frameworks shape responses to otherness—from strangers and political enemies to religious others and “monstrous” figures. His accounts of narrative identity emphasize the fragility and revisability of the self, while his reflections on otherness and hospitality investigate ethical relations to those who appear foreign or threatening.

In religious philosophy, Kearney has contributed the influential concept of anatheism—“returning to God after God”—as a post-secular stance between dogmatic belief and reductive atheism. This concerns how the divine may be encountered as a possibility in concrete acts of welcoming the stranger.

Across these themes, Kearney typically combines close readings of philosophical, literary, and biblical texts with attention to contemporary conflicts and practices, particularly in the Irish context. His work is frequently cited in discussions of post-secularism, reconciliation, and intercultural dialogue, where it is seen as offering conceptual tools for navigating pluralism without collapsing into either relativism or fundamentalism.

2. Life and Historical Context

2.1 Early Life and Education

Richard Kearney was born on 7 May 1954 in Cork, Ireland, during a period marked by post-war reconstruction in Europe and simmering tensions on the island of Ireland. He studied philosophy and literature at University College Dublin (UCD), completing a BA and MA in 1976. This dual formation in philosophy and literary studies later underpinned his interest in narrative and poetics.

In the mid-1970s he moved to Paris for doctoral studies under Paul Ricœur at the University of Paris, earning his PhD in 1978. This placed him in the milieu of postwar French thought, alongside ongoing debates about structuralism, phenomenology, Marxism, and emerging post-structuralism.

2.2 Academic Career and Geographic Contexts

Kearney subsequently held teaching and research positions in Ireland and France, and later in the United States, most notably as Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College (from 2003). His professional life thus spans three key intellectual regions: Irish studies, French continental philosophy, and North American theology and cultural theory.

2.3 Historical Events Shaping His Concerns

Kearney’s intellectual trajectory is frequently linked to the Northern Irish Troubles (late 1960s–1998) and the subsequent peace process, which gave urgency to questions of memory, trauma, and reconciliation. At the same time, broader European developments—the Cold War’s end, European Union expansion, and global migration—created contexts in which themes of strangeness, hospitality, and pluralism became salient.

The rise of debates about secularization and the “return of religion” in late 20th- and early 21st-century philosophy forms the backdrop to his later work on anatheism and post-secularism, especially in dialogue with continental thinkers and North American theology.

3. Intellectual Development

3.1 Ricœurian Apprenticeship and Early Hermeneutics

Kearney’s doctoral work with Paul Ricœur shaped his lifelong commitment to hermeneutics, narrative, and phenomenology. Proponents of a “Ricœurian reading” of Kearney emphasize his adoption of:

• A mediating stance between opposing schools (e.g., modern vs. postmodern).
• A focus on narrative configuration of experience.
• A view of interpretation as ethically charged.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, he engaged continental figures such as Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, and Gadamer, often presenting them to Irish and Anglophone audiences.

3.2 European Thought and Irish Public Intellectual

In the 1980s–mid-1990s, Kearney wrote on European intellectual history and Irish culture, developing an intermediary role between continental theory and public debate in Ireland. Interpretive accounts highlight this phase as where his concerns with memory, violence, and reconciliation first become explicit, against the backdrop of the Troubles.

He also began to work systematically on imagination, culminating in The Wake of Imagination and later Poetics of Imagining. These works trace historical “regimes” of imagination (mimetic, productive, utopian, etc.), positioning imagination as a mediating power between realism and constructivism.

3.3 Imagination, Narrative, and Otherness

From the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, Kearney’s thought consolidated around imagination, narrative identity, and otherness, especially in On Stories and Strangers, Gods and Monsters. Here he reframes selfhood as fragile and storied, while exploring symbolic figures of alterity (strangers, gods, monsters) as mirrors of cultural anxieties and hopes.

3.4 Post-Secular and Anatheist Turn

In the 2000s, Kearney’s work took a more explicitly theological orientation. The God Who May Be and Anatheism articulate a post-secular hermeneutics of religion, engaging debates about the “death of God,” secularization, and the possibilities of faith after critique. Commentators often see this as a shift from primarily literary-political concerns to more explicit philosophy of religion, while retaining his earlier emphases on narrative and hospitality.

3.5 Embodiment and Applied Hospitality

Since the 2010s, Kearney has extended his ideas into embodiment, medical humanities, migration studies, and environmental thought, focusing on concrete practices of hospitality and care. This phase is marked by collaborations across disciplines, and by attempts to translate hermeneutical themes into institutional and social initiatives.

4. Major Works

This section highlights Kearney’s most influential monographs and their central themes, without attempting an exhaustive bibliography.

4.1 Early Work on Imagination

The Wake of Imagination and Poetics of Imagining trace historical shifts from mimetic to productive and utopian conceptions of imagination. Commentators note that these texts provide the groundwork for Kearney’s later focus on narrative and otherness, by framing imagination as the matrix of symbolic worlds.

4.2 Narrative Identity and Otherness

In On Stories, Kearney develops the idea that individuals and communities are constituted through narrative configurations of their lives. Strangers, Gods and Monsters extends this narrative-hermeneutic framework to cultural portrayals of the stranger, examining how stories and images can demonize or humanize others.

4.3 Religion, Limits, and Anatheism

Philosophy at the Limit addresses ethical and aesthetic “borderline” phenomena such as evil and suffering. The God Who May Be and Anatheism then reinterpret the divine in terms of possibility, promise, and hospitality, positioning Kearney as a key figure in post-secular philosophy of religion.

5. Core Ideas: Imagination and Narrative Identity

5.1 Imagination as Mediation

For Kearney, imagination is a mediating power that allows humans to move between:

• Self and other
• Presence and absence
• Actuality and possibility

In works such as The Wake of Imagination and Poetics of Imagining, he traces historical “regimes” of imagination (e.g., mimetic, productive, utopian), arguing that each shapes how societies picture reality and alterity. Proponents of this reading emphasize that imagination is not mere fantasy but a world-disclosing capacity that informs ethics and politics.

"

“Imagination is that creative power which allows us to cross boundaries, to inhabit other worlds, and to envisage what is not yet.”

— Richard Kearney, The Wake of Imagination

Critics sometimes suggest that Kearney’s taxonomy of imaginative regimes risks oversimplifying complex historical transitions. Others note its heuristic value for understanding shifts from classical representation to modern and postmodern image cultures.

5.2 Narrative Identity

Drawing on Ricœur, Kearney argues that human identity is narrative rather than a fixed substance. In On Stories he proposes that individuals and communities are formed through stories they tell about themselves and that others tell about them.

"

“We are, in the end, stories that we tell about ourselves and that others tell about us.”

— Richard Kearney, On Stories

His account distinguishes between:

Narrative weaves these dimensions together, enabling a “configured” self that is both stable and revisable. Supporters view this as a resource for thinking about trauma, reconciliation, and intercultural dialogue, since stories can be retold and reinterpreted. Critics, however, question whether all forms of selfhood are adequately captured by narrative models, pointing to pre-linguistic, affective, or non-narrative dimensions of experience.

5.3 Imagination, Narrative, and Ethics

Kearney links imagination and narrative to ethics by arguing that how we image and story others shapes our moral responses. For him, narrative imagination can foster empathy by enabling people to inhabit perspectives of strangers and marginalized groups, but it can also generate exclusionary myths. This ambivalence sets the stage for his subsequent work on otherness and hospitality.

6. Otherness, Hospitality, and Ethics

6.1 Figures of Otherness

In Strangers, Gods and Monsters, Kearney explores symbolic figures of otherness—the stranger, the divine visitor, the monster—as ways cultures negotiate fears and desires. He suggests that these figures condense ambivalent attitudes toward what is foreign or unknown.

Proponents hold that Kearney’s typology illuminates how myths, literature, and media shape public perceptions of migrants, enemies, or religious others. Some critics argue that the broad use of such figures can blur important sociopolitical distinctions.

6.2 Ethics of Hospitality

Kearney advances an ethics of hospitality which draws on biblical narratives, Levinasian responsibility, and Ricœurian hermeneutics. For him, ethical life centers on the decision to welcome or reject the stranger. Hospitality involves:

• Recognizing the stranger as a bearer of possible truth or transformation.
• Balancing unconditional openness with practical discernment (e.g., justice, security, finite resources).
• Acknowledging the vulnerability of both host and guest.

"

“To host the stranger is to host the possibility of a God who comes in the guise of the least of our brothers and sisters.”

— Richard Kearney, The God Who May Be

Advocates highlight the political relevance of this ethic for migration, asylum, and post-conflict reconciliation. Critics contend that the language of hospitality may reinscribe asymmetries of power (host vs. guest) or underplay structural injustices.

6.3 Ethics, Imagination, and Narrative

Kearney links hospitality to imaginative narrative: ethical decisions depend on the stories hosts and guests tell about one another. He maintains that re-narrating enemies as neighbors can open pathways to reconciliation, while demonizing narratives yield “monsters.” This integration of ethics, imagination, and narrative provides a conceptual bridge to his religious thought on anatheism.

7. Anatheism and Post-Secular Religion

7.1 Concept of Anatheism

Kearney coins anatheism (from Greek ana = again; theos = God) to describe a “return to God after God”. In Anatheism: Returning to God after God, he presents it as a post-secular stance that comes after:

• The critique of traditional metaphysical theism (e.g., Nietzsche’s “death of God”).
• The rise of reductive atheism and secularism.

Anatheism is neither a simple revival of pre-critical belief nor straightforward unbelief, but a second, fragile faith marked by humility, doubt, and hospitality to the possibility of the divine.

"

“Anatheism is about returning to God after God – after the death of the God of metaphysical certitude and ideological possession.”

— Richard Kearney, Anatheism

7.2 Hospitality and the Divine Stranger

Central to anatheism is the motif of encountering a divine stranger, often illustrated through biblical and literary narratives (e.g., Abraham’s visitors, Emmaus, Dostoevsky). Kearney interprets these as paradigmatic “threshold encounters” where the subject must decide whether to welcome or refuse an ambiguous presence that may bear a sacred dimension.

Supporters argue that this model:

• Respects secular critique by rejecting dogmatic certitude.
• Reopens space for religious experience as ethical encounter.
• Facilitates interreligious dialogue by emphasizing hospitality over doctrinal fixity.

7.3 Post-Secular Positioning and Critiques

Kearney’s anatheism is frequently situated within post-secular thought alongside figures who revisit religion after secularization debates. Comparative studies note similarities and contrasts with Derrida’s “religion without religion,” Caputo’s weak theology, and Habermas’s post-secular public sphere.

Critics raise several concerns:

• Some theists consider anatheism too tentative, diluting doctrinal commitments.
• Some secular or atheist thinkers view it as a disguised re-sacralization.
• Others question whether “after God” language overstates the reach of secular critique beyond specific Western contexts.

Nonetheless, anatheism is widely discussed as a distinctive contribution to contemporary philosophy of religion.

8. Methodology: Phenomenology and Hermeneutics

8.1 Hermeneutics as Ethical Interpretation

Kearney’s primary methodological orientation is hermeneutical-phenomenological. From Ricœur he inherits the idea that interpretation is both an epistemic and ethical practice. Hermeneutics, for Kearney, involves:

• Interpreting texts, symbols, and narratives.
• Acknowledging the otherness of what is interpreted.
• Engaging in dialogue that may transform both interpreter and interpreted.

He emphasizes that interpretation never yields a final, totalizing grasp of meaning:

"

“There is no final story that can close the book on meaning; interpretation remains an open-ended responsibility.”

— Richard Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters (paraphrased theme)

8.2 Phenomenology of Lived Experience

Kearney complements hermeneutics with phenomenology, focusing on how phenomena—imaginative images, narratives, religious encounters—appear in lived experience. He draws on Husserlian description, Heideggerian being-in-the-world, and Levinasian alterity, but filters these through Ricœur’s interpretive lens.

Key methodological moves include:

8.3 Limits, Critique, and Mediation

In Philosophy at the Limit, Kearney examines phenomena (evil, trauma, sublime) that strain representation, suggesting that hermeneutics must recognize its own limits. This has led commentators to describe his method as a “critical hermeneutics” attentive to:

• The excess of experience over conceptual grasp.
• The ethical risks of interpretive appropriation.

Supporters praise this approach for mediating between deconstructive suspicion and constructive retrieval. Critics sometimes argue that Kearney’s mediating posture risks blurring sharp theoretical conflicts, or that his reliance on narrative may neglect non-discursive dimensions of experience. Nevertheless, his methodological synthesis underpins his treatments of imagination, hospitality, and anatheism.

9. Impact on Philosophy, Theology, and Cultural Studies

9.1 Continental Philosophy and Hermeneutics

Kearney has influenced continental philosophy by extending Ricœurian hermeneutics into areas such as otherness, hospitality, and post-secular religion. Scholars in phenomenology and hermeneutics cite his work for:

• Systematic integration of imagination into ethical and political philosophy.
• Development of narrative identity in dialogue with trauma and reconciliation studies.
• Elaboration of a critical yet constructive approach to religion.

Some commentators see Kearney as part of a shift from linguistic and textual emphases in late-20th-century theory to renewed attention to lived, storied experience.

9.2 Theology and Philosophy of Religion

In theology and religious studies, Kearney’s notions of anatheism and the God who may be have been widely discussed. They have influenced:

• Work in political theology and weak theology.
• Interfaith and interreligious dialogue projects.
• Reflections on post-secularity in Christian, Jewish, and broader theistic contexts.

Theologians sympathetic to his approach use his concepts to articulate humble, dialogical forms of belief, while critics from more confessional positions debate whether his proposals remain compatible with traditional doctrines.

9.3 Cultural, Literary, and Peace Studies

Kearney’s analyses of narrative and otherness have been taken up in literary theory, cultural studies, and peace/conflict studies. Applications include:

• Reading literary texts and films through the lens of strangers, gods, and monsters.
• Using narrative identity and imaginative empathy in reconciliation and restorative justice contexts.
• Informing debates on migration, hospitality, and representation of refugees.

In Irish studies, his role as interpreter of European thought for local debates has been noted, particularly regarding memory and the Troubles. Some scholars, however, argue that more attention could be paid to economic and material dimensions alongside his focus on narrative and imagination. Overall, his impact is often characterized as cross-disciplinary, providing conceptual tools that travel across academic and public contexts.

10. Engagements with Irish Politics and Reconciliation

10.1 Public Intellectual during the Troubles

During the 1980s and 1990s, Kearney acted as a public intellectual in Ireland, contributing essays, interviews, and edited volumes that engaged with the Northern Irish conflict. He interpreted the Troubles through a hermeneutic lens, emphasizing:

• Competing historical narratives (e.g., colonial, nationalist, unionist).
• The role of memory and myth in sustaining violence.
• The need for imaginative re-narration of identities.

Commentators often credit him with helping to bring continental philosophy—Ricœur, Levinas, Derrida—into conversation with Irish political realities.

10.2 Narrative, Memory, and Reconciliation

Kearney has argued that political reconciliation requires reframing stories about the past rather than simply erasing them. Drawing on his work on narrative identity, he stresses:

• Distinguishing between forgiving and forgetting.
• Allowing multiple, sometimes conflicting, narratives to coexist.
• Creating spaces where former antagonists can share stories.

In applied contexts, aspects of his thought have informed dialogue initiatives and academic programs on peace and conflict, though the degree of direct policy influence is debated.

10.3 Hospitality and the Post-Agreement Context

After the Good Friday Agreement (1998), Kearney’s emphasis on hospitality to the stranger gained renewed relevance. He has linked hospitality to:

• Welcoming former enemies as political partners.
• Addressing new forms of otherness, such as migrants in Ireland.
• Cultivating practices of listening and hosting in civic and religious institutions.

Supporters see his work as offering a rich conceptual vocabulary for post-conflict societies navigating memory and diversity. Critics, particularly from more materialist or postcolonial perspectives, suggest that his focus on narrative and hospitality may not fully address structural inequalities or geopolitical dimensions of the conflict. Nonetheless, his engagement is frequently cited in discussions of the intellectual responses to the Troubles and their aftermath.

11. Criticisms and Debates

11.1 Narrative Identity and Non-Narrative Selfhood

While Kearney’s account of narrative identity is widely cited, some philosophers and psychologists question whether selfhood is always or primarily narrative. Critics argue that:

• Pre-linguistic, affective, or embodied dimensions may escape narrative capture.
• Situations of trauma or severe disruption can resist coherent storytelling.

Defenders respond that Kearney treats narrative as a regulative ideal or hermeneutic frame, not as an exhaustive description of all aspects of subjectivity.

11.2 Hospitality and Power Asymmetries

Feminist, postcolonial, and critical theorists have scrutinized Kearney’s ethics of hospitality. Concerns include:

• The host–guest model potentially reinforcing hierarchies of power.
• Insufficient attention to legal, economic, and institutional structures that shape migration and asylum.
• Risks of “moralizing” structural injustices as matters of personal generosity.

Supporters maintain that Kearney’s later work increasingly addresses institutional and political dimensions, though assessments differ on how far this goes.

11.3 Anatheism and Theological Adequacy

The concept of anatheism has prompted debate among theologians and philosophers of religion:

• Some confessional theologians claim it weakens doctrinal content, turning God into a mere possibility or ethical symbol.
• Certain secular critics see anatheism as a covert re-introduction of metaphysics under postmodern language.
• Comparative scholars question how universal the “after God” narrative is beyond Western Christian contexts.

Kearney and sympathetic interpreters reply that anatheism aims to respect pluralism and critique while still acknowledging experiences many describe as religious.

11.4 Methodological Mediation

Kearney’s mediating stance—seeking middle paths between modern and postmodern, theism and atheism, realism and constructivism—has been both praised and criticized. Some view this as a strength, fostering dialogue; others argue that it can:

• Smooth over sharp theoretical disagreements.
• Lead to positions perceived as under-specified or “in-between” without decisive commitments.

These debates continue to shape the reception of his work across philosophy, theology, and cultural studies.

12. Legacy and Historical Significance

12.1 Position within Contemporary Continental Thought

Kearney is commonly situated within the Ricœurian branch of continental philosophy, emphasizing hermeneutics, narrative, and ethics. His historical significance is often framed in terms of:

• Extending hermeneutics into new domains (otherness, hospitality, post-secular religion).
• Providing a systematic, historically informed account of imagination.
• Articulating a distinctive response to the “death of God” debates through anatheism.

While not usually associated with a single “school,” his work connects phenomenology, theology, and literary theory in ways that have influenced multiple fields.

12.2 Cross-Disciplinary Influence

Kearney’s ideas have traveled beyond philosophy into theology, literary and cultural studies, peace studies, and medical humanities. His concepts of narrative identity and hospitality are used in discussions of:

• Reconciliation and transitional justice.
• Interreligious and intercultural dialogue.
• Care practices and relational understandings of the self.

This cross-disciplinary reach contributes to his reputation as a bridge-builder between theoretical reflection and practical concerns.

12.3 Place in Irish and European Intellectual History

Within Irish intellectual history, Kearney is noted for introducing and interpreting continental philosophy in a local context marked by conflict and transformation. His engagement with the Troubles and the peace process situates him among thinkers who sought to connect philosophical hermeneutics with concrete political realities.

In a broader European frame, he is part of the postwar generation grappling with memory, violence, and secularization. His work participates in the ongoing re-evaluation of religion’s role in public life, contributing a specifically hermeneutical and narrative-based perspective.

12.4 Ongoing Reception

Kearney’s legacy remains open-ended, as his later work on embodiment, environmental concerns, and practical hospitality continues to evolve. Scholars debate the long-term impact of his key notions—imagination, narrative identity, hospitality, anatheism—but there is broad agreement that he has played a significant role in shaping conversations at the intersection of phenomenology, ethics, and post-secular thought.