William Desmond

Who is William Desmond?

William Desmond is an Irish philosopher who has written on ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and religion. Former president of the Hegel Society of America and the Metaphysical Society of America, Desmond is professor of philosophy at the Higher Institute of Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and also at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. In his trilogy, Being and The Between, Ethics and The Between, and God and The Between, Desmond works out an entirely new and complete metaphysical/ontological philosophical system based on what he calls the potencies of being and the senses of being. His most original contribution in his metaphysics is the notion of the "metaxological", which will be explained below. Desmond's program consists mainly in exploring the senses in which modernity has devalued being and what "to be" and "the good" might mean.