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"Derrida" redirects here. For the documentary film, see Derrida (film). Derrida is a documentary Film about the Philosopher Jacques Derrida directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman and released
Western Philosophy
20th-century philosophy
Name
Jacques Derrida
Birth July 15, 1930
Death October 8, 2004 (aged 74)
School/tradition Deconstruction
Main interests Philosophy of language · Literary theory · Ethics · Ontology
Notable ideas Deconstruction · Différance · Phallogocentrism
Influenced by Kierkegaard · Blanchot · Foucault · Heidegger · Barthes · Bataille · Husserl · Lévinas · Nietzsche · Saussure · Freud · Marx · Levi-Strauss
Influenced Foucault · de Man · Stiegler · Nancy · Lacoue-Labarthe · Laclau · Butler · Eisenman · Said · Bhabha · Spivak · Caputo · Critchley

Jacques Derrida (pronounced [ʒak dɛʁida][1]) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. Western philosophy is a term that refers to philosophical thinking in the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies See also [[Analytic philosophy]] and [[Continental philosophy]] The 20th century brought with it upheavals that produced a series of conflicting developments within Philosophy Events 1099 - First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 314 - Roman Emperor Licinius is defeated by his colleague Constantine I at the Battle of Cibalae, and loses "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature origins and usage of Language. Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of Literature and of the methods for analyzing literature Ethics is a major branch of Philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life In Philosophy, ontology (from the Greek, genitive: of being (part Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in Différance is a French Neologism coined by Jacques Derrida and homophonous with the word "différence" In Critical theory and Deconstruction, phallogocentrism or phallocentrism is a Neologism coined by Jacques Derrida to refer to Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (ˈsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌɡ̊ɒˀ in Danish Anglicized as;) Maurice Blanchot ( September 22, 1907  &ndash February 20, 2003) was a French Writer, Philosopher, and Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Roland Barthes ( November 12, 1915 &ndash March 25, 1980) (ʀɔlɑ̃ baʀt was a French Literary critic, literary Georges Bataille (ʒɔʀʒ baˈtaj ( September 10, 1897 &ndash July 8, 1962) was a French Writer. Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɛrl April 8 1859 – April 26 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (fɛʁdinɑ̃ də soˈsyːʁ ( November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist Sigmund Freud (ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt born Sigismund Shlomo Freud (May 6 1856 &ndash September 23 1939 was an Austrian Psychiatrist who founded Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Paul de Man ( December 6, 1919 December 21, 1983) was a Belgian -born Deconstructionist literary critic and Bernard Stiegler (born April 1, 1952) is a French Philosopher and Director of the Department of Cultural Development at the Centre Jean-Luc Nancy (born July 26, 1940) is a French philosopher. Nancy's first book published in 1973 was Le titre de la lettre Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe ( March 6, 1940, Tours &ndash January 27 2007, Paris) was a French philosopher Ernesto Laclau (b1935 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine political theorist often described as post-Marxist. Judith Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American Post-structuralist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of Feminism Peter Eisenman (born August 11, 1932 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American architect Edward Wadie Saïd MRSL ( إدوارد وديع سعيد,; 1 November 1935 &ndash 25 September This page is about the critical theorist Homi K Bhabha For the physicist see Homi J Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born February 24 1942) is an Indian Literary critic and theorist. John D Caputo (born October 26 1940) is the Thomas J Watson Professor of Humanities at Syracuse University and the founder of weak theology Simon Critchley (born February 27, 1960) is an English philosopher now teaching in the U Events 1099 - First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 314 - Roman Emperor Licinius is defeated by his colleague Constantine I at the Battle of Cibalae, and loses "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Algeria ( ar [[Arabic]] الجزائر, Al Jaza'ir ælʤæˈzæːʔir Amazigh: ⴷⵥⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer) officially the People's This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in His voluminous work has had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy. Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of Literature and of the methods for analyzing literature Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe His best known work is Of Grammatology. De la grammatologie is a book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, first published in 1967 by Les Éditions de Minuit

Contents

Life

Derrida was born on July 15, 1930, in El-Biar (near Algiers), then French Algeria, into a Sephardic Jewish family, the third of five children. Events 1099 - First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Algiers (الجزائر Algerian Arabic: Dzayer ( (From kabyle pronunciation Kabyle: Ledzayer, Alger) is the Capital and largest This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Algeria ( ar [[Arabic]] الجزائر, Al Jaza'ir ælʤæˈzæːʔir Amazigh: ⴷⵥⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer) officially the People's Sephardi Jews ( Hebrew: ספרדי, Standard Səfardi Tiberian Səp̄arədî; plural PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ His given name was Jackie, though he would later adopt a more "correct" version of his first name. [2] His youth was spent in El-Biar, Algeria.

On the first day of the school year in 1942, Derrida was expelled from his lycée by French administrators implementing anti-Semitic quotas set by the Vichy government. Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism; also rarely known as judeophobia) is the Prejudice against or hostility Vichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944 He secretly skipped school for a year rather than attend the Jewish lycée formed by displaced teachers and students. At this time, as well as taking part in numerous football competitions (he dreamed of becoming a professional player), Derrida read works of philosophers and writers such as Rousseau, Camus, Nietzsche, and Gide. Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a Team sport played between two teams of eleven players and is widely considered Albert Camus ( (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960 was an Algerian born French Author, philosopher, and journalist who won the Nobel prize Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist He began to think seriously about philosophy around 1948 and 1949. He became a boarding student at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, which he did not enjoy. The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (sometimes nicknamed LLG) is a public Secondary school located in Paris, widely regarded as one of the most demanding in Derrida failed his entrance examination twice before finally being admitted to the École Normale Supérieure at the end of the 1951–52 school year. École Normale de Musique de ParisThe École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup’, Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or

On his first day at the École Normale Supérieure Derrida met Louis Althusser, with whom he became friends. Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation altuˡseʁ ( October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He also became friends with Michel Foucault, whose lectures he attended. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. After visiting the Husserl Archive in Leuven, Belgium, he completed his philosophy agrégation on Edmund Husserl. The Higher Institute of Philosophy (ie the faculty of philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven was founded in 1889 by Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier Leuven ( French: Louvain, often used in English German: Löwen) is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those In France, the agrégation is a civil service Competitive examination for some positions in the Public education system Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɛrl April 8 1859 – April 26 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of Derrida received a grant for studies at Harvard University, and in June 1957 married Marguerite Aucouturier in Boston. During the Algerian War of Independence, Derrida asked to teach soldiers' children in lieu of military service, teaching French and English from 1957 to 1959. The Algerian War ( French: Guerre d'Algérie; 1954-1962 also known as Algerian War of Independence, led to Algeria 's independence from French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States

Following the war Derrida began a long association with the Tel Quel group of literary and philosophical theorists. Tel Quel (in English "as is" was an Avant-garde Journal for Literature, founded in 1960 in Paris (Éditions du Seuil by At the same time, from 1960 to 1964, Derrida taught philosophy at the Sorbonne, and from 1964 to 1984 at the École Normale Superieure. The historic University of Paris (Université de Paris first appeared in the second half of the 13th century École Normale de Musique de ParisThe École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup’, Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or His wife Marguerite gave birth to their first child, Pierre, in 1963. Beginning with his 1966 lecture at Johns Hopkins University, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", his work assumed international prominence. A second son, Jean, was born in 1967. In the same year, Derrida published his first three books—Writing and Difference, Speech and Phenomena, and Of Grammatology—which would make his name. De la grammatologie is a book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, first published in 1967 by Les Éditions de Minuit

He completed his Thèse d'État in 1980; the work was subsequently published in English translation as "The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations. " In 1983 Derrida collaborated with Ken McMullen on the film Ghost Dance. Ken McMullen (b 31 August 1948, Manchester) is an award-winning Film director and Artist living currently in London. Ghost Dance is a 1983 British film directed by Ken McMullen. This independent film explores the beliefs and myths surrounding the existence of ghosts and Derrida appears in the film as himself and also contributed to the script.

Derrida travelled widely and held a series of visiting and permanent positions. Derrida was director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. The École des hautes études en sciences sociales ( French for " School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences " EHESS) is a French Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city With François Châtelet and others he in 1983 co-founded the Collège international de philosophie (CIPH), an institution intended to provide a location for philosophical research which could not be carried out elsewhere in the academy. François Châtelet (1925&ndash1985 was a historian of Philosophy, Political philosophy and professor in the socratic tradition. The Collège international de philosophie (Ciph located in Paris ' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French He was elected as its first president.

Sylviane Agacinski gave birth to Derrida's third son, Daniel, in 1984. Sylviane Agacinski is a French philosopher and professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS

In 1986 Derrida became Professor of the Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. The University of California Irvine is a public Coeducational Research university situated in Irvine, California. UCI and the Derrida family are currently involved in a legal dispute regarding exactly what materials constitute his archive, part of which was informally bequeathed to the university. [3] He was a regular visiting professor at several other major American universities, including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, New York University, and The New School for Social Research. New York University ( NYU) is a private, Nonsectarian, Coeducational Research University in New York City. This is about the university in New York; for other uses see New School (disambiguation.

Derrida was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the 2001 Adorno-Preis from the University of Frankfurt. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS is an organization dedicated to scholarship and the advancement of learning He was awarded honorary doctorates by Cambridge University, Columbia University, The New School for Social Research, the University of Essex, University of Leuven, and Williams College. The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. This is about the university in New York; for other uses see New School (disambiguation. The University of Essex is a British Campus university located near the town of Colchester, England Williams College is a highly selective private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

In 2002, Derrida appeared in a documentary about himself and his work, entitled Derrida. Derrida is a documentary Film about the Philosopher Jacques Derrida directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman and released

In 2003, Derrida was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which reduced his speaking and travelling engagements. Pancreatic cancer is a malignant tumor of the Pancreas. Each year about 37680 individuals in the United States are diagnosed with this condition and 34290 He died in a Parisian hospital on the evening of October 8, 2004. Events 314 - Roman Emperor Licinius is defeated by his colleague Constantine I at the Battle of Cibalae, and loses "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " [4]

Work

Introduction

Derrida began speaking and writing publicly at a time when the French intellectual scene was experiencing an increasing rift between what could broadly speaking be called "phenomenological" and "structural" approaches to understanding individual and collective life. For the use of structuralism in biology see Structuralism (biology Structuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze For those with a more phenomenological bent, the goal was to understand experience by comprehending and describing its genesis, the process of its emergence from an origin or event. For the structuralists, this was precisely the false problem, and the "depth" of experience could in fact only be an effect of structures which are not themselves experiential. It is in this context that in 1959 Derrida asks the question: must not structure have a genesis, and must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the genesis of something?[5]

In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis. [6] At the same time, in order that there be movement, or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated—complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This originary complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription, or textuality. [7] It is this thought of originary complexity, rather than original purity, which destabilises the thought of both genesis and structure, that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which derive all of its terms, including deconstruction. [8]

Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating all the forms and varieties of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. His way of achieving this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear to what in those texts runs counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways that this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its structuring and destructuring effects. [9]

Early works

At the very beginning of his philosophical career Derrida was concerned to elaborate a critique of the limits of phenomenology. His first lengthy academic manuscript, written as a dissertation for his diplôme d'études supérieures and submitted in 1954, concerned the work of Edmund Husserl. Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɛrl April 8 1859 – April 26 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of [10] In 1962 he published Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction, which contained his own translation of Husserl's essay. Many elements of Derrida's thought were already present in this work. In the interviews collected in Positions (1972), Derrida said: "In this essay the problematic of writing was already in place as such, bound to the irreducible structure of 'deferral' in its relationships to consciousness, presence, science, history and the history of science, the disappearance or delay of the origin, etc. [. . . ] this essay can be read as the other side (recto or verso, as you wish) of Speech and Phenomena. "[11]

Derrida first received major attention outside France with his lecture, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1966 (and subsequently included in Writing and Difference). The conference at which this paper was delivered was concerned with structuralism, then at the peak of its influence in France, but only beginning to gain attention in the United States. For the use of structuralism in biology see Structuralism (biology Structuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Derrida differed from other participants by his lack of explicit commitment to structuralism, having already been critical of the movement. He praised the accomplishments of structuralism but also maintained reservations about its internal limitations, thus leading to the notion that his thought was a form of post-structuralism. Post-structuralism encompasses the intellectual developments of continental philosophers and critical theorists who wrote with tendencies of twentieth-century Near the beginning of the essay, Derrida argued:

(. . . ) the entire history of the concept of structure, before the rupture of which we are speaking, must be thought of as a series of substitutions of centre for centre, as a linked chain of determinations of the centre. Successively, and in a regulated fashion, the centre receives different forms or names. The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies. Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science Metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer" is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects In Rhetoric, metonymy (mɨˈtɒnɨmi is the use of a word for a concept or object associated with the concept/object originally denoted by the word Its matrix [. . . ] is the determination of Being as presence in all senses of this word. Disambiguation For the Wigwam album see Being (album, for spiritual or religious beingness, see Ego (spirituality It could be shown that all the names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the centre have always designated an invariable presence – eidos, archē, telos, energeia, ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject), alētheia, transcendentality, consciousness, God, man, and so forth. Plato 's Theory of Forms asserts that Forms (or Ideas) and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess In the ancient Greek philosophy, arche (ἀρχή is the beginning or the first principle of the world Energeia (grc ἐνέργεια is an important Greek technical term in the works of Aristotle. Ousia () is the Ancient Greek noun formed on the feminine present participle of ( to be) it is analogous to the English participle Heidegger and aletheia It is a significant concept in the study of Philosophy and Epistemology because defining truth as aletheia, instead of

– "Structure, Sign and Play" in Writing and Difference, p. 353.

The effect of Derrida's paper was such that by the time the conference proceedings were published in 1970, the title of the collection had become The Structuralist Controversy. The conference was also where he met Paul de Man, who would be a close friend and source of great controversy, as well as where he first met the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, with whose work Derrida enjoyed a mixed relationship. Paul de Man ( December 6, 1919 December 21, 1983) was a Belgian -born Deconstructionist literary critic and Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (French ʒak lakɑ̃ ( April 13, 1901 &ndash September 9, 1981) was a French Psychoanalyst

1967–1972

Derrida's interests traversed disciplinary boundaries, and his knowledge of a wide array of diverse material was reflected in the three collections of work published in 1967: Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, and Speech and Phenomena. De la grammatologie is a book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, first published in 1967 by Les Éditions de Minuit [12] These three books contained readings of the work of many philosophers and authors, including Husserl, linguist de Saussure, Heidegger, Rousseau, Lévinas, Hegel, Foucault, Bataille, Descartes, anthropologist Lévi-Strauss, paleontologist Leroi-Gourhan, psychoanalyst Freud, and writers such as Jabès and Artaud. Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɛrl April 8 1859 – April 26 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of Ferdinand de Saussure (fɛʁdinɑ̃ də soˈsyːʁ ( November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Georges Bataille (ʒɔʀʒ baˈtaj ( September 10, 1897 &ndash July 8, 1962) was a French Writer. Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. André Leroi-Gourhan ( August 25, 1911 &ndash February 19, 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, Sigmund Freud (ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt born Sigismund Shlomo Freud (May 6 1856 &ndash September 23 1939 was an Austrian Psychiatrist who founded Edmond Jabès ( Cairo, 1912 &ndash Paris, January 2 1991 was a Jewish writer and poet and one of the best known literary figures to write in French after Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud ( September 4, 1896, in Marseille – March 4, 1948 in Derrida frequently acknowledged his debt to Husserl and Heidegger, and stated that without them he would have not said a single word. [13][14] Among the questions asked in these essays are "What is 'meaning,' what are its historical relationships to what is purportedly identified under the rubric 'voice' as a value of presence, presence of the object, presence of meaning to consciousness, self-presence in so called living speech and in self-consciousness?"[15]

This collection of three books published in 1967 elaborated Derrida's theoretical framework. Derrida attempts to approach the very heart of the Western intellectual tradition, characterizing this tradition as "a search for a transcendental being that serves as the origin or guarantor of meaning. The Western canon is a term used to denote a canon of books and more widely music and art, that has been the most influential in " The attempt to "ground the meaning relations constitutive of the world in an instance that itself lies outside all relationality" was referred to by Heidegger as "logocentrism," and Derrida argues that the philosophical enterprise is essentially logocentric[16], and that this is a paradigm inherited from Judaism and Hellenism. In Critical theory and Deconstruction, logocentrism is a phrase coined by the German philosopher Ludwig Klages in the 1920s to refer to the perceived tendency The word paradigm ( Greek:παράδειγμα (paradigmacomposite from para- and the verb δείχνυμι "to show" as a whole -roughly- meaning "example" Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה Yehudah, " Judah " in Hebrew יַהֲדוּת Yahedut [17] He in turn describes logocentrism as phallocratic, patriarchal and masculinist. Patriarchy is the structuring of Society on the basis of Family units where fathers have primary responsibility for the welfare of hence authority over Masculism (or Masculinism) has two contrasting meanings When used by self-identified masculists the term refers to social theories, Political movements [17][18]

Derrida contributed to "the understanding of certain deeply hidden philosophical presuppositions and prejudices in Western culture"[17], arguing that the whole philosophical tradition rests on arbitrary dichotomous categories (such as sacred/profane, sign/signifier, mind/body), and that any text contains implicit hierarchies, "by which an order is imposed on reality and by which a subtle repression is exercised, as these hierarchies exclude, subordinate, and hide the various potential meanings. Western culture (sometimes equated with Western Civilization) are terms which are used to refer to Cultures of European origin The Dichotomy between the sacred and the Profane has been identified by French Sociologist Émile Durkheim as the Course in General Linguistics ( Cours de linguistique générale) is the influential book compiled by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye The mind-body Dichotomy is the view that " mental " phenomena are in some respects "non- physical " (distinct from the Body "[16] Derrida refers to his procedure for uncovering and unsettling these dichotomies as deconstruction. Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in

The next five years of lectures and essay-length work were gathered into two 1972 collections, Dissemination and Margins of Philosophy, and in the same year a collection of interviews, entitled Positions, was also published.

1972–1980

Starting in 1972, Derrida produced on average more than a book per year. Derrida continued to produce important works, such as Glas and The Post-Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond.

A sequence of encounters with analytical philosophy is collected in Limited, Inc. Analytic philosophy (sometimes analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of Philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century Derrida wrote "Signature Event Context," an essay on J. L. Austin, in the early 1970s; following an aggressive critique of this text by John Searle, Derrida wrote a long (and no less aggressive) defense of his earlier argument. John Langshaw Austin ( March 26, 1911 – February 8, 1960) was a British philosopher of language, born in Lancaster and John Rogers Searle (born July 31 1932 in Denver Colorado) is an American Philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University

Derrida received increasing attention in the United States after 1972. For a considerable period, however, Derrida's work influenced American literary critics and theorists much than it did philosophers. [16][19]

Of Spirit

On March 14, 1987, Derrida presented at the CIPH conference titled "Heidegger: Open Questions" a lecture which was published in October 1987 as Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question. It follows the shifting role of Geist (spirit) through Heidegger's work, noting that, in 1927, "spirit" was one of the philosophical terms that Heidegger set his sights on dismantling. But with his Nazi political engagement in 1933, Heidegger came out as a champion of the "German Spirit," and only withdrew from an exalting interpretation of the term in 1952. Derrida's book reconnects in a number of respects with his long engagement of Heidegger (such as "The Ends of Man" in Margins of Philosophy and the essays marked under the heading Geschlecht). Derrida reconsiders three other fundamental and recurring elements of Heideggerian philosophy: the distinction between human and animal, technology, and the privilege of questioning as the essence of philosophy.

Of Spirit is an important contribution to the long debate on Heidegger's Nazism and appeared at the same time as the French publication of a book by an unknown Chilean writer, Victor Farías, who charged that Heidegger's philosophy amounted to a wholehearted endorsement of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) faction. Chile, officially the Republic of Chile ( Spanish:) is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow Coastal strip wedged between the Victor Farías is a Chilean historian who has studied Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the presence of Nazis in Chile and the Chilean left The, abbreviated SA, ( German for "Assault detachment" or "Assault section" usually translated as " stormtroop(ers Derrida responded to Farías in an interview, "Heidegger, the Philosopher's Hell" and a subsequent article, "Comment donner raison? How to Concede, with Reasons?" He noted that Farías was a weak reader of Heidegger's thought, adding that much of the evidence Farías and his supporters touted as new had long been known within the philosophical community.

But Of Spirit was also one of Derrida's first publications on the relationship between philosophy and nationalism, on which he had been teaching in the mid-1980s. This strand of questions would become increasingly important in his later work.

1990s: political and ethical themes

Some have argued that Derrida's work took a "political turn" around 1994, heralded by the publication of Specters of Marx and Politics of Friendship. Spectres de Marx l'état de la dette le travail du deuil et la nouvelle Internationale is a 1993 book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida first published Others, however, including Derrida himself, have argued that much of the philosophical work done in his "political turn" can be dated to earlier essays.

Those who argue Derrida engaged in an "ethical turn" refer to works such as The Gift of Death as evidence that he began more directly applying deconstruction to the relationship between ethics and religion. In this work, Derrida interprets passages from the Bible, particularly on Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac,[20][21] and from Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Abraham ( Ashkenazi   Avrohom or Avruhom; ابراهيم, {{Unicode|Ibrāhīm}}; Ge'ez: The Binding of Isaac, in Genesis, is a story from the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (ˈsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌɡ̊ɒˀ in Danish Anglicized as;) Fear and Trembling (original Danish title Frygt og Bæven) is an influential philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard, published in Derrida's contemporary readings of Emmanuel Lévinas, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Jan Patočka, on themes such as law, justice, responsibility, and friendship, had a significant impact on fields beyond philosophy. Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist Carl Schmitt ( July 11 1888 April 7 1985) was a German Jurist, Political theorist, and professor of Law Jan Patočka ( June 1 1907 - March 13 1977) is considered one of the most important contributors to Czech philosophical Phenomenology Derrida delivered a eulogy at Lévinas' funeral, later published as Adieu à Emmanuel Lévinas, an appreciation and exploration of Levinas's moral philosophy. Here, Derrida followed Bracha L. Ettinger's interpretation of Lévinas' notion of femininity and transformed his own earlier reading of this subject accordingly. Bracha L Ettinger (born 1951 also known as Bracha Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, Hebrew ברכה אטינגר, ברכה ליכטנברג-אטינגר [22]

Derrida did not move away from readings of literature; indeed, he continued to write extensively on Maurice Blanchot, Paul Celan, and others. Maurice Blanchot ( September 22, 1907  &ndash February 20, 2003) was a French Writer, Philosopher, and Paul Celan (ˈpaʊl tseˈlaːn November 23, 1920 – approximately April 20, 1970) was the most frequently used Pseudonym of

Criticisms of Derrida's work

A broad overview of the history of Derrida's reception, covering the period until the publication of Specters of Marx (1994), is given in The Reception of Derrida: Translation and Transformation (2006).

Lack of philosophical clarity

Though Derrida addressed the American Philosophical Association on several occasions and was highly regarded by contemporary philosophers like Richard Rorty, Alexander Nehamas,[23] and Stanley Cavell, his work has been regarded by other Anglophone philosophers, such as John Searle and W. V. Quine, as pseudophilosophy or sophistry. Richard McKay Rorty (October 4 1931 - June 8 2007 was an American Philosopher. Alexander Nehamas (born 1946 is Professor of Philosophy and Edmund N Stanley Louis Cavell (born September 1, 1926) is an American Philosopher. John Rogers Searle (born July 31 1932 in Denver Colorado) is an American Philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25 1908 Akron, Ohio &ndash December 25 2000 (known to intimates as "Van" The orthodox understanding of pseudophilosophy is any idea or system that masquerades itself as Philosophy while significantly failing to meet the high intellectual standards John Searle, a frequent critic of Derrida dating back to their exchange on speech act theory in Limited Inc (where Derrida strongly accused Searle of intentionally misreading and misrepresenting him), exemplified this view in his comments on deconstruction in the New York Review of Books, February 2, 1994 [3], for example:

. John Rogers Searle (born July 31 1932 in Denver Colorado) is an American Philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University Speech act is a technical term in Linguistics and the Philosophy of language. Limited Inc is a book by Jacques Derrida, containing two essays and an interview The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semimonthly Magazine on Literature, Culture, and current . . anyone who reads deconstructive texts with an open mind is likely to be struck by the same phenomena that initially surprised me: the low level of philosophical argumentation, the deliberate obscurantism of the prose, the wildly exaggerated claims, and the constant striving to give the appearance of profundity by making claims that seem paradoxical, but under analysis often turn out to be silly or trivial.

Foucault who is often considered as Derrida's contemporary, also revealed his dissatisfaction of Derrida's style of writing in a conversation with Searle. According to Foucault, Derrida practices the method of obscurantisme terroriste (terrorism of obscurantism) [24]. Searle quotes Foucault's explanation of the term as the following:

He writes so obscurely you can't tell what he's saying, that's the obscurantism part, and then when you criticize him, he can always say, "You didn't understand me; you're an idiot. " That's the terrorism part.

A controversy surrounding Derrida's work in philosophy and as a philosopher arose when the University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary doctorate, despite opposition from members of its philosophy faculty and a letter of protest signed by eighteen professors from other institutions, including W. V. Quine, David Armstrong, Ruth Barcan Marcus, and René Thom. The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25 1908 Akron, Ohio &ndash December 25 2000 (known to intimates as "Van" David Malet Armstrong (born July 8, 1926) often D M Armstrong, is an Australian Philosopher. Ruth Barcan Marcus (born 1921 in Bronx New York) is the American Philosopher and Logician after whom René Thom ( September 2, 1923 – October 25, 2002) was a French Mathematician. In their letter they claimed that Derrida's work "does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigor" and described Derrida's philosophy as being composed of "tricks and gimmicks similar to those of the Dadaists. For other meanings see Dada (disambiguation DaDa is a Concept album by Alice Cooper, released " The letter also stated that "Academic status based on what seems to us to be little more than semi-intelligible attacks upon the values of reason, truth, and scholarship is not, we submit, sufficient grounds for the awarding of an honorary degree in a distinguished university. "[25]

Intentional obfuscation

Noam Chomsky has expressed the view that Derrida uses "pretentious rhetoric" to obscure the simplicity of his ideas. Avram Noam Chomsky (noʊm ˈtʃɑmski born December 7 1928 is an American linguist, Philosopher, cognitive scientist, Political [26] He groups Derrida within a broader category of the Parisian intellectual community which he has criticized for, on his view, acting as an elite power structure for the well educated through "difficult writing" and obscurantism. Obfuscation is the concealment of meaning in Communication, making it Confusing and harder to Interpret. Obscurantism (from the Latin obscurans, "darkening" is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known [26] Chomsky has indicated that he may simply be incapable of understanding Derrida, but he is suspicious of this possibility. [26]

Emir Rodríguez Monegal famously derided Derrida, alleging an obfuscated recycling of the ideas of Borges (from essays and tales such as "La fruición literaria" (1928), "Elementos de preceptiva" (1933), "Pierre Menard" (1939), "Tlön" (1940), "Kafka y sus precursores" (1951)[27]), opening his article with:[28]

I've always found it difficult to read Derrida. Emir ( 28 July 1921 &ndash 14 November 1985) was a Uruguayan scholar Literary critic, and editor of Latin Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote (original Spanish title Pierre Menard autor del Quijote) is a Short story by Argentine Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius is a Short story by the 20th century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Not so much for the density of his thought and the heavy, redundant, and repetitive style in which it is developed, but for an entirely circumstantial reason. Educated in Borges's thought from the age of fifteen, I must admit that many of Derrida's novelties struck me as being rather tautological. I could not understand why he took so long in arriving at the same luminous perspectives which Borges had opened up years earlier. His famed "deconstruction" impressed me for its technical precision and the infinite seduction of its textual sleights-of-hand, but it was all too familiar to me: I had experienced it in Borges avant la lettre.

– Emir Rodríguez Monegal, from "Borges and Derrida. Emir ( 28 July 1921 &ndash 14 November 1985) was a Uruguayan scholar Literary critic, and editor of Latin Apothecaries" (translation of "Borges y Derrida: boticarios", 1985), in Borges and His Succesors. The Borgian Impact on Literature and the Arts. , 1990, p. 128

Critical obituaries of Derrida were published in The New York Times ("Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74") and The Economist[4]. The Economist is an English-language weekly news and International affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London Both of these obituaries were criticised by academics supportive of Derrida; other obituaries were less critical.

In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty argues that Derrida (especially in his book, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond) purposefully uses words that cannot be defined (e. Contingency Irony and Solidarity (1989 written by American Philosopher Richard Rorty, is based on two sets of lectures given at Richard McKay Rorty (October 4 1931 - June 8 2007 was an American Philosopher. g. Différance), and uses previously definable words in contexts diverse enough to make understanding impossible, so that the reader will never be able to contextualize Derrida's literary self. Différance is a French Neologism coined by Jacques Derrida and homophonous with the word "différence" Rorty, however, argues that this intentional obfuscation is philosophically grounded. According to Rorty, this technique precludes any metaphysical accounts of Derrida's work. And since his work itself ostensibly contains no metaphysics, Derrida has consequently escaped metaphysics altogether. [29]

Charges of nihilism

Some critics charge that the deconstructive project is "nihilistic". Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing is a philosophical position that argues that Existence is without objective meaning Purpose They claim Derrida's writing attempts to undermine the ethical and intellectual norms vital to the academy, if not Western civilization itself. Derrida is accused of creating a blend of extreme skepticism and solipsism that effectively denies the possibility of knowledge and meaning, which these critics believe is harmful. For a general discussion of skepticism see Skepticism. Philosophical skepticism (from Greek σκέψις - skepsis meaning Solipsism ( Latin: solus, alone + ipse, self is the philosophical idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists

Derrida, however, felt that deconstruction was enlivening, productive, and affirmative, and that it does not "undermine" norms but rather places them within contexts that reveal their developmental and effective features.

Perhaps most persistent among these critics is Richard Wolin, who has argued that Derrida's work, as well as that of Derrida's major inspirations (e. Richard Wolin is an Intellectual historian. He is Distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center where he has worked since g. , Bataille, Blanchot, Lévinas, Heidegger, Nietzsche), leads to a corrosive nihilism. Georges Bataille (ʒɔʀʒ baˈtaj ( September 10, 1897 &ndash July 8, 1962) was a French Writer. Maurice Blanchot ( September 22, 1907  &ndash February 20, 2003) was a French Writer, Philosopher, and Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist For example, Wolin argues that the "deconstructive gesture of overturning and reinscription ends up by threatening to efface many of the essential differences between Nazism and non-Nazism" [30]. When Wolin published a Derrida interview on Heidegger in the first edition of The Heidegger Controversy, Derrida argued that the interview was an intentionally malicious mistranslation, which was "demonstrably execrable" and "weak, simplistic, and compulsively aggressive". As French law requires the consent of an author to translations and this consent was not given, Derrida insisted that the interview not appear in any subsequent editions or reprints. Columbia University Press subsequently refused to offer reprints or new editions. Later editions of The Heidegger Controversy by MIT Press also omitted the Derrida interview. The matter achieved public exposure owing to a friendly review of Wolin's book by Thomas Sheehan that appeared in the New York Review of Books, in which Sheehan characterised Derrida's protests as an imposition of censorship. The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semimonthly Magazine on Literature, Culture, and current Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable harmful or sensitive as determined by a censor It was followed by an exchange of letters. [5], [6]. Derrida in turn responded, in somewhat acerbic fashion, to Sheehan and Wolin, in "The Work of Intellectuals and the Press (The Bad Example: How the New York Review of Books and Company do Business)," which was published in the book Points. . . .

Politics

Derrida engaged with many political issues, movements, and debates:

Beyond these explicit political interventions, however, Derrida was engaged in rethinking politics and the political itself, within and beyond philosophy. Derrida insisted that a distinct political undertone pervades his texts since the very beginning of his career. Nevertheless, the attempt to understand the political implications of notions of responsibility, reason of state, the other, decision, sovereignty, Europe, friendship, difference, faith, and so on, became much more marked from the early 1990s on. The Reason of State (Italian Della Ragion di Stato) is a work of political philosophy by Italian Jesuit Giovanni Botero. Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself By 2000, theorizing "democracy to come," and thinking the limitations of existing democracies, had become important concerns.

Derrida and his peers

Derrida's philosophical friends, allies, and students included Paul de Man, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Blanchot, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Sarah Kofman, Hélène Cixous, Bernard Stiegler, Alexander García Düttmann, Geoffrey Bennington, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Paul de Man ( December 6, 1919 December 21, 1983) was a Belgian -born Deconstructionist literary critic and Jean-François Lyotard (ʒɑ̃ fʀɑ̃swa ljɔˈtaʀ August 10 1924 April 21 1998) was a French philosopher and literary Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation altuˡseʁ ( October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. Maurice Blanchot ( September 22, 1907  &ndash February 20, 2003) was a French Writer, Philosopher, and Gilles Deleuze ( (January 18 1925 &ndash November 4 1995 was a French philosopher of the late 20th century Jean-Luc Nancy (born July 26, 1940) is a French philosopher. Nancy's first book published in 1973 was Le titre de la lettre Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe ( March 6, 1940, Tours &ndash January 27 2007, Paris) was a French philosopher Sarah Kofman ( September 14, 1934 &ndash October 15, 1994) was a French Philosopher. Hélène Cixous (born June 5 1937) is a Professor, French feminist Writer, Poet, Playwright, philosopher Bernard Stiegler (born April 1, 1952) is a French Philosopher and Director of the Department of Cultural Development at the Centre Geoffrey Bennington (born 1956 is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature Emory University, as well as a member of the International Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born February 24 1942) is an Indian Literary critic and theorist.

Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe

Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe were among Derrida's first students in France and went on to become well-known and important philosophers in their own right. Jean-Luc Nancy (born July 26, 1940) is a French philosopher. Nancy's first book published in 1973 was Le titre de la lettre Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe ( March 6, 1940, Tours &ndash January 27 2007, Paris) was a French philosopher Despite their considerable differences of subject, and often also of method, they continued their close interaction with each other and with Derrida, from the early 1970s.

Derrida wrote on both of them, including a long book on Nancy: Le Toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy (On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy, 2005).

Paul de Man

Main article: Paul de Man

Derrida's most prominent friendship in intellectual life was with Paul de Man, which began with their meeting at Johns Hopkins University and continued until de Man's death in 1983. Paul de Man ( December 6, 1919 December 21, 1983) was a Belgian -born Deconstructionist literary critic and De Man provided a somewhat different approach to deconstruction, and his readings of literary and philosophical texts were crucial in the training of a generation of readers.

Shortly after de Man's death, Derrida authored a book Memoires: pour Paul de Man and in 1988 wrote an article in the journal Critical Inquiry called "Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War". Inquiry''''' is a Peer-reviewed journal in the Humanities published out of the University of Chicago Press. "Like the Sound. . . " became cause for controversy, because shortly before Derrida published his piece, it had been discovered by the Belgian literary critic Ortwin de Graef that long before his academic career in the US, de Man had written almost two-hundred essays in a pro-Nazi newspaper during the German occupation of Belgium, including several that were explicitly antisemitic.

Derrida's essay is a defense of de Man. Derrida argues, in the main, that one cannot define all of de Man's work in light of a few newspaper articles written in de Man's early twenties. Rather, any claims about de Man's work are to be considered in light of the entire body of his scholarship. The most controversial portion of the article is a relatively short section of analysis where Derrida deconstructs de Man's essays, suggesting alternative meanings to various phrases and propositions. Critics have read this section of the essay as a weak attempt to minimize the antisemitic character of de Man's writing. This "deconstruction" of de Man's work led to a flurry of responses that, along with Derrida's own reply, nearly filled a subsequent issue of Critical Inquiry. Inquiry''''' is a Peer-reviewed journal in the Humanities published out of the University of Chicago Press. What makes this controversy more unusual is that in other contexts Derrida spoke out strongly against antisemitism and, in the 1960s, broke with the Heidegger disciple Jean Beaufret over a phrase of Beaufret's that Derrida (and, after him, Maurice Blanchot) interpreted as antisemitic. Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Jean Beaufret (1907 &ndash 1982 was a French Philosopher and Germanist tremendously influential in the reception of Martin Heidegger's work

Derrida's translators

Geoffrey Bennington, Avital Ronell and Samuel Weber belong to a group of Derrida translators. Geoffrey Bennington (born 1956 is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature Emory University, as well as a member of the International Avital Ronell is Professor of German comparative literature and English at New York University, where she directs the Research in Trauma and Violence project and has also Many of these are esteemed thinkers in their own right, with whom Derrida worked in a collaborative arrangement, allowing his prolific output to be translated into English in a timely fashion.

Having started as a student of de Man, Gayatri Spivak took on the translation of Of Grammatology early in her career and has since revised it into a second edition. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born February 24 1942) is an Indian Literary critic and theorist. Alan Bass was responsible for several early translations; Bennington and Peggy Kamuf have continued to produce translations of his work for nearly twenty years. Peggy Kamuf (born 1947 is the Marion Frances Chevalier Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. In recent years, a number of translations have appeared by Michael Naas (also a Derrida scholar) and Pascale-Anne Brault.

With Bennington, Derrida undertook the challenge published as Jacques Derrida, an arrangement in which Bennington attempted to provide a systematic explication of Derrida's work (called the "Derridabase") using the top two-thirds of every page, while Derrida was given the finished copy of every Bennington chapter and the bottom third of every page in which to show how deconstruction exceeded Bennington's account (this was called the "Circumfession"). Derrida seems to have viewed Bennington in particular as a kind of rabbinical explicator, noting at the end of the "Applied Derrida" conference, held at the University of Luton in 1995 that: "everything has been said and, as usual, Geoff Bennington has said everything before I have even opened my mouth. I have the challenge of trying to be unpredictable after him, which is impossible. . . so I'll try to pretend to be unpredictable after Geoff. Once again. "

Relationships and mourning

Derrida's relationship with many of his contemporaries was marked by disagreements and rifts. For example, Derrida's criticism of Foucault in the essay "Cogito and the History of Madness" (from Writing and Difference), first given as a lecture which Foucault attended, caused a rift between the two men that was never fully mended. Others, like Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot, found in his critical engagement with their work an invitation for further discussion.

Whatever the outcome of these discussions, Derrida was often left in the unappealing position of too often having the opportunity for the last word, as he outlived many of his peers. Death and mourning are foundational to the analysis which led Derrida to his understanding of inheritance, interpretation, and responsibility. Beginning with "The Deaths of Roland Barthes" in 1981, Derrida produced a series of texts on mourning and memory occasioned by the loss of his friends and colleagues, many of them new engagements with their work. Memoires for Paul de Man, a book-length lecture series presented first at Yale and then at Irvine as Derrida's Wellek Lecture, followed in 1986, with a revision in 1989 that included "Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War". Ultimately fourteen essays were collected into The Work of Mourning, which was expanded in the French edition Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde (literally, The end of the world, unique each time) to include essays dedicated to Gérard Granel and Maurice Blanchot. Gérard Granel (1930 &ndash November 10, 2000) was a French philosopher and translator.

References

  1. ^ Jacques Derrida Dies; Deconstructionist Philosopher, accessed August 2, 2007.
  2. ^ Obituary in The Guardian, accessed August 2, 2007.
  3. ^ "The Chronicle of Higher Education", July 20, 2007, accessed August 1, 2007.
  4. ^ Deconstruction icon Derrida dies, accessed August 2, 2007.
  5. ^ Jacques Derrida, "'Genesis' and 'Structure' and Phenomenology," in Writing and Difference (London: Routledge, 1978), paper originally delivered in 1959 at Cerisy-la-Salle, and originally published in Gandillac, Goldmann & Piaget (eds. ), Genèse et structure (The Hague: Morton, 1964), p. 167:

    All these formulations have been possible thanks to the initial distinction between different irreducible types of genesis and structure: worldly genesis and transcendental genesis, empirical structure, eidetic structure, and transcendental structure. To ask oneself the following historico-semantic question: "What does the notion of genesis in general, on whose basis the Husserlian diffraction could come forth and be understood, mean, and what has it always meant? What does the notion of structure in general, on whose basis Husserl operates and operates distinctions between empirical, eidetic, and transcendental dimensions mean, and what has it always meant throughout its displacements? And what is the historico-semantic relationship between genesis and structure in general?" is not only simply to ask a prior linguistic question. It is to ask the question about the unity of the historical ground on whose basis a transcendental reduction is possible and is motivated by itself. It is to ask the question about the unity of the world from which transcendental freedom releases itself, in order to make the origin of this unity appear.

  6. ^ If in 1959 Derrida was addressing this question of genesis and structure to Husserl, that is, to phenomenology, then in "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (also in Writing and Difference, and see below), he addresses these same questions to Lévi-Strauss and the structuralists. This is clear from the very first line of the paper (p. 278):

    Perhaps something has occurred in the history of the concept of structure that could be called an "event," if this loaded word did not entail a meaning which it is precisely the function of structural—or structuralist—thought to reduce or to suspect.

    Between the two papers is staked Derrida's philosophical ground, if not indeed his step beyond or outside philosophy.
  7. ^ Cf. , Derrida, Positions (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 95–6:

    If the alterity of the other is posed, that is, only posed, does it not amount to the same, for example in the form of the "constituted object" or of the "informed product" invested with meaning, etc. ? From this point of view, I would even say that the alterity of the other inscribes in this relationship that which in no case can be "posed. " Inscription, as I would define it in this respect, is not a simple position: it is rather that by means of which every position is of itself confounded (différance): inscription, mark, text and not only thesis or theme-inscription of the thesis.

    On the phrase "default of origin" as applied to Derrida's work, cf. , Bernard Stiegler, "Derrida and Technology: Fidelity at the Limits of Deconstruction and the Prosthesis of Faith," in Tom Cohen (ed. Bernard Stiegler (born April 1, 1952) is a French Philosopher and Director of the Department of Cultural Development at the Centre ) Jacques Derrida and the Humanities (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Stiegler understands Derrida's thinking of textuality and inscription in terms of a thinking of originary technicity, and in this context speaks of "the originary default of origin that arche-writing constitutes" (p. 239). See also Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). Technics and Time 1 The Fault of Epimetheus ( French: La technique et le temps 1 La faute d'Épiméthée) is a book by the French philosopher
  8. ^ On this destabilisation of both "genesis" and "structure," cf. , Rodolphe Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. Rodolphe Gasché (born 1937 holds the Eugenio Donato Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Buffalo, State University of New York 146:

    It is an opening that is structural, or the structurality of an opening. Yet each of these concepts excludes the other. It is thus as little a structure as it is an opening; it is as little static as it is genetic, as little structural as it is historical. It can be understood neither from a genetic nor from a structuralist and taxonomic point of view, nor from a combination of both points of view.

    And note that this complexity of the origin is thus not only spatial but temporal, which is why différance is a matter not only of difference but of delay or deferral. One way in which this question is raised in relation to Husserl is thus the question of the possibility of a phenomenology of history, which Derrida raises in Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction (1962).
  9. ^ Cf. , Rodolphe Gasché, "Infrastructures and Systematicity," in John Sallis (ed. John Sallis (born 1938) is an American Philosopher. He is currently the Frederick J ), Deconstruction and Philosophy (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 3–4:

    One of the more persistent misunderstandings that has thus far forestalled a productive debate with Derrida's philosophical thought is the assumption, shared by many philosophers as well as literary critics, that within that thought just anything is possible. Derrida's philosophy is more often than not construed as a license for arbitrary free play in flagrant disregard of all established rules of argumentation, traditional requirements of thought, and ethical standards binding upon the interpretative community. Undoubtedly, some of the works of Derrida may not have been entirely innocent in this respect, and may have contributed, however obliquely, to fostering to some extent that very misconception. But deconstruction which for many has come to designate the content and style of Derrida's thinking, reveals to even a superficial examination, a well-ordered procedure, a step-by-step type of argumentation based on an acute awareness of level-distinctions, a marked thoroughness and regularity. [. . . ] Deconstruction must be understood, we contend, as the attempt to "account," in a certain manner, for a heterogeneous variety or manifold of nonlogical contradictions and discursive equalities of all sorts that continues to haunt and fissure even the successful development of philosophical arguments and their systematic exposition.

  10. ^ The dissertation was eventually published in 1990 with the title Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl. English translation: The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy (2003).
  11. ^ Positions p. 5.
  12. ^ In Positions (Eng. 1981, pp. 4-5) Derrida stated, "[Speech and Phenomena] is perhaps the essay which I like most. Doubtless I could have bound it as a long note to one or the other of the other two works. Of Grammatology refers to it and economizes its development. But in a classical philosophical architecture, Speech. . . would come first: in it is posed, at a point which appears juridically decisive for reasons that I cannot explain here, the question of the privilege of the voice and of phonetic writing in their relationship to the entire history of the West, such as this history can be represented by the history of metaphysics and metaphysics in its most modern, critical and vigilant form: Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. "
  13. ^ See interviews collected in Positions (Eng. 1981)
  14. ^ On the influence of Heidegger, Derrida claims in his "Letter to a Japanese Friend" (Derrida and différance, eds. Différance is a French Neologism coined by Jacques Derrida and homophonous with the word "différence" Robert Bernasconi and David Wood) that the word "déconstruction" was his attempt both to translate and re-appropriate for his own ends the Heideggerian terms Destruktion and Abbau, via a word from the French language, the varied senses of which seemed consistent with his requirements. Robert L Bernasconi (born 1950 is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Philosophy at the University of Memphis. David Wood (born 1946, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England) is professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. This relationship with the Heideggerian term was chosen over the Nietzschean term "demolition," as Derrida shared Heidegger's interest in renovating philosophy.
  15. ^ Positions [1972] p. 5.
  16. ^ a b c Lamont '87, pp. 590, 602-606 (Lamont, Michele How to Become a Dominant French Philosopher: The Case of Jacques Derrida. [1] American Journal of Sociology, Vol. Established in 1895, the American Journal of Sociology (AJS is the oldest scholarly journal of Sociology in the United States. 93, No. 3 [Nov. , 1987])
  17. ^ a b c Wayne A. Borody (1998) pp. 3, 5 Figuring the Phallogocentric Argument with Respect to the Classical Greek Philosophical Tradition Nebula: A Netzine of the Arts and Science, Vol. 13 (pp. 1-27).
  18. ^ Hélène Cixous, Catherine Clément [1975] La jeune née
  19. ^ Sven Ove Hansson Philosophical Schools - Editorial From Theoria vol. Hélène Cixous (born June 5 1937) is a Professor, French feminist Writer, Poet, Playwright, philosopher 72, Part 1 (2006).
  20. ^ Jack Reynolds, Jonathan Roffe (2004) Understanding Derrida p. 49
  21. ^ Gift of Death, pp. 57-72
  22. ^ B. L. Ettinger in conversation with Emmanuel Lévinas,"Que dirait Eurydice?"/ "What would Eurydice Say?" (1991-93). Reprinted to coincide with Kabinet exhibition at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Paris: BLE Atelier, 1997. This is a reprint of Le féminin est cette différence inouïe (Livre d'artiste, 1994) and it includes the text of Time is the Breath of the Spirit, MOMA, Oxford, 1993. Reprinted in Athena: Philosophical Studies. Vol. 2, 2006.
  23. ^ "Truth and Consequences: How to Understand Jacques Derrida," The New Republic 197:14 (October 5, 1987)
  24. ^ “Reality Principles: An Interview with John R. Searle. ” Reason. com February 2000 12 May 2008 <http://www.reason.com/news/show/27599.html>
  25. ^ Barry Smith et al. , "Open letter against Derrida receiving an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University," The Times [London], May 9, 1992. [2]
  26. ^ a b c Chomsky, Noam (1995). "Rationality/Science". Z Papers Special Issue. “I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. ” 
  27. ^ Rodríguez Monegal, Emir (1955). Emir ( 28 July 1921 &ndash 14 November 1985) was a Uruguayan scholar Literary critic, and editor of Latin "Borges: Teoría y práctica: Vanidad de la crítica literaria" (Spanish). Emir Rodríguez Monegal website (from Número 27, December 1955, p. 125–157). Archivo de Prensa. edu. uy. Archived from the original on 2007-05-27. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 927 - Simeon the Great, Tsar of Bulgaria, dies 1120 - Richard III of Capua is anointed
  28. ^ Rodríguez Monegal, Emir (1985). Emir ( 28 July 1921 &ndash 14 November 1985) was a Uruguayan scholar Literary critic, and editor of Latin "Borges y Derrida: boticarios" (Spanish). Emir Rodríguez Monegal website (from Montevideo: Maldoror 21, 1985, p. 123–132). Archivo de Prensa. edu. uy. Archived from the original on 2007-10-17. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 539 BC - King Cyrus The Great of Persia marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost On p. 123:

    Siempre me ha resultado difícil leer a Derrida. No tanto por la densidad de su pensamiento y el estilo moroso, redundante, repetitivo en que éste aparece desarrollado, sino por una causa completamente circunstancial. Educado en el pensamiento de Borges desde los quince años, muchas de las novedades de Derrida me han parecido algo tautológicas. No podía entender cómo tardaba tanto en llegar a las luminosas perspectivas que Borges había abierto hacía ya tantos años. La famosa "desconstrucción" me impresionaba por su rigor técnico y la infinita seducción de su espejo textual pero me era familiar: la había practicado en Borges avant la lettre.

  29. ^ Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-521-36781-6. Ch. 6: "From ironist theory to private allusions: Derrida"
  30. ^ Richard Wolin, Preface to the MIT press edition: Note on a missing text. In R. Wolin(Ed. ) The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1993, p xiii. ISBN 0-262-73101-0

Bibliography

An extensive online bibliography can be found at this site. The compilation, copyrighted by Peter Krapp, is still in progress, but all major works are listed, sorted by title or by year of publication. See also: Jacques Derrida Bibliography. The following is a Bibliography of works by Jacques Derrida. The precise chronology of Derrida's work is difficult as many of his books are not monographs but collections

Selected translations

Works on Derrida

Introductory works

Other works

See also

External links


Archival Collections

Online texts and excerpts

Interviews

About

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Persondata
NAME Derrida, Jacques
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Algerian philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 15 July 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH El-Biar, Algeria
DATE OF DEATH 8 October 2004
PLACE OF DEATH Paris, France
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