The two essays which make up this volume. "The Forgetting of Philosophy" and the "The Weight of a Thought" represent a meditation of the changing role of philosophy in a postmodemist context, without the reactive impulse of
returning 10 past configurations of thought. Together these essays represent a distinctive elaboration of many of the themes which have recently occupied the work of Jean-Luc Nancy. Challenging the neomodernist projects of a
"retem" to Enlightenment, Nancy argues that these attempts ignore the true task of philosophy, which is not to manipulate or reactivate past significations, but to expose itself to the essential opening of meaningand to its event. This exposure reveals the finitude of thought. its "weight: to the extent that thought can only take place at the limit of significations at the place where no full appropriation is possible.