While continuing to explore questions introduced in "Given Time" such as the possibility, or impossibility, of giving and the economic and anthropological nature of gifts, this work focuses on the notion of responsibility and the ultimate gifts of life and death. Jacques Derrida divides the book into four parts, which deal respectively with: the development of the notion of responsibility in the Platonic and Christian traditions; the relation between sacrifice and mortality; the contemporary meaning of the story of Abraham and Isaac; and the relation between religious ideology and economic rationality. The texts under discussion include the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as writings from Patocka, Heidegger, Levinas and Kierkegaard. Derrida's main concern is with the meaning of moral and ethical responsibility in Western religion and philosophy. He questions the limits of the rational and the responsible that is reached in granting or accepting death, whether by sacrifice, murder, execution or suicide. Beginning with a discussion of Patocka's "Heretical Essays on the History of Philosophy", Derrida develops Patocka's ideas concerning the sacred and responsibility through comparisons with the works of Heidegger, Levinas and Kierkegaard. Derrida's treatment of Kierkegaard makes clear that the two philosophers share some of the same concerns. He then undertakes a reading of Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling", comparing and contrasting his own conception of responsibility with that of Kierkegaard, and extending and deepening his recent accounts of the gift and sacrifice. For Derrida, the very possibility of sacrifice, especially the ultimate sacrifice of one's own life for the sake of another, comes into question.

雅克•德里达（1930—2004），20世纪后半期最重要的法国哲学家之一，曾任教于巴黎高等师范学校、巴黎社会科学高等研究院、加州大学人文学院等，并创建国际哲学学院。他开创了解构的思想方法，成为后结构主义的主要代表，其理论动摇了传统人文科学的基础，也是各种后现代思潮最重要的理论起点之一。20世纪90年代前后，德里达越来越关注当代政治和伦理论题，在研讨班和著作中进行更富有现实意味的解构实践，引起了广泛持久的探讨和争论。

王钦，毕业于美国纽约大学比较文学系，哲学博士，现为北京大学国际批评理论研究中心博士后。译著有《新自由主义简史》、《根本恶》（合译）、《野性唯物主义》（主译）等。