This contribution aims, on the one hand, to present the results of my research on the structures of the free and creative act in Thomas Aquinas’ ethics, on the other hand, to discuss whether Thomas’ metaphysics can be encompassed as ‘open metaphysics’. In such an approach the first cause is not so much the fundamental rule of human acting, but rather the open space of acting itself in the human being, so that he can be causa sui and, hence, free.

In the essay 'Donner la mort' (1992) Jacques Derrida develops a new concept for the philosophical category of the subjectivity. In particular, he crucially connects the genesis of the subject with the experience of the absolute responsibility that, for Derrida, also represents the beginning of the religion itself: the religion comes to light fundamentally as history of the responsibility. The symbol of the absolute responsibility is the biblical figure of Abraham in the shocking pericope of Genesis 22, where God demands (...) the sacrifice of Isaac. This paper aims to analyze the structure of the absolute responsibility as genesis of the subject in Derrida’s reconstruction of the biblical text. The responsibility itself turns out to be the common foundation of those religions that share the figure of Abraham and provides also a base for a philosophy of monotheism. (shrink)