Abstract

This study examines the function of exaggeration for thinking beyond the current concepts of God and the human. An example of thinking beyond in philosophy is the exaggeration “beyond being” in Plato’s Republic. In the philosophy of religion, generally, we deal with the questions of God. The present study discerns as an instance of thinking beyond the thinking about God and the human. The study aims to develop and demonstrate the critique of exaggeration as an approach to the thinking beyond. The critique of exaggeration locates and examines the point at which thinking goes beyond the subject at hand, which is also the subject of clear and distinct understanding. The study takes the starting point in Jacques Derrida’s Writing and Difference, and Alexander Garcia Düttmann’s philosophical concept of exaggeration for the analysis of exaggeration in René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, George Bataille’s Madame Edwarda, and Antonin Artaud’s To Have Done with the Judgement of God. The study demonstrates the decisive role of exaggeration in the creation of concepts. Finally, the study proposes the critique of exaggeration as the approach to the eccentric, transgressive, and extravagant discourses in philosophy and philosophising in literature, art, and theatre.