Jacques Derrida
شنبه, ۲۴ اسفند ۱۳۹۲، ۱۲:۵۹ ب.ظ
Derrida
, Jacques
(
–
)
1930
2004
French
philosopher
and one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century, Derrida is best known as the originator of deconstruction . A prodigious talent and prolific author, Derrida is generally regarded (not uncontroversially, it has to be said) as one of the most important philosophers of all time. Certainly if notoriety can be used as a measure, there can be no doubting his importance. Yet unlike his peers and , his influence is largely confined (with notable exceptions, of course) to literature departments and the handful of philosophy departments admitting the possibility of a ‘continental philosophy’. Born in Algeria, Derrida began his preparation for university at a lycée there but his education was interrupted because of the restrictions on Jews imposed by the Vichy government. He moved to Paris in
, where he attended the prestigious
before entering the École Normale Supérieure (where his tutors included and
). On his second attempt, he passed his agrégation in
. Between
and
, in lieu of military service, Derrida taught English and French at a lycée in Le Mans. He returned to Paris in
to a position as an assistant lecturer at the Sorbonne. In
he was given a full lectureship at his alma mater, the École Normale Supérieure, and remained there until
, when he was made Directeur d'études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. From onwards, Derrida held regular visiting appointments at Johns Hopkins University, Yale, SUNY Buffalo, and the University of California at Irvine. Derrida rose to international fame on the strength of a talk he gave in
at a conference in Baltimore criticizing , ‘La structure, le signe et le jeu dans le discourse sciences humaines’, translated as ‘Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences’ (
), which is generally credited as the founding moment of post-structuralism. The following year, a watershed year for Derrida, saw the publication of three books, each one destined to become a landmark in the field,
), translated as
),
), translated as
), and
) translated as
), the last of them containing the instantly infamous phrase by which Derrida's thought would become known: ‘il n'y a pas de hors-texte’ (there is nothing outside the text). Read by his detractors as evidence of his nihilism, it is generally thought to mean that there is no higher authority that can be appealed to in order to decide the meaning of a text. As Derrida helpfully explains in the useful collection of interviews,
), translated as ), these three works—
)—announced at once a project (the critique of logocentrism ) and a method (deconstruction). By logocentrism he means the idealism of language philosophy which always assumes that both speech and writing can only be thought by presupposing an exterior and abstract form of language he designates as logos. Although the word deconstruction has passed into popular parlance, its meaning is both more complex and subtle than its various appropriations have tended to present. Simplifying a great deal, it can usefully be understood as a practice of reading interested in articulating the operative elements of a text, concept, or idea in their full complexity, paying particular attention to the peculiar paradoxes of mutual interdependencies. For example, in his late work on the notion of ‘forgiveness’ Derrida argues that it is only the unforgivable that can truly be forgiven because it is only the unforgivable that meets the demand of that which can be forgiven, his point being that if something can be forgiven that forgiveness is in a sense given in advance and therefore not really in need of forgiveness, which by rights should only be given after the fact. At the core of deconstruction is Derrida's notion—he explicitly says it isn't a concept—of Différance, which is at once the means of doing deconstruction and an example of it. In a widely read essay, entitled simply ‘Différance ’ (
), Derrida explains that the term is spelled the way it is to bring together two senses of the verb to differ, which as Derrida reads it means both to defer and to identify the different. This he explains is the basic condition of the sign—the sign stands for a thing that is absent, so in a sense it defers contact with that thing; by the same token, the sign is by definition different from that which it signifies. Différance is the origin of difference itself, but inasmuch as the very notion renders problematic the very idea of an origin (as Derrida points out) it is better thought of as a condition or state of affairs that manifests itself as ‘play’, a word Derrida uses in its full range of senses from the ludic to the performative to the architectural. Différance has been enormously influential in literary studies, where it has been used to license a microscopic or ‘playful’ form of close reading that to the uninitiated can seem quite laboured. The best known exponents of this are the members of the so-called Yale School of Deconstruction. But it also has to be said that Derrida made his name with a combative ‘take-no-prisoners' style of argumentation from which not even his friends were spared, as
(the first of Derrida's many scalps) discovered in
when his former student presented an excoriating critique of his theory. Sometimes, as was the case with his book-length eulogy for his friend
,
), his combative style could be turned to defensive purposes as well. Probably his most consequential work in this latter respect is
), translated as
), which, as argued in his review of it, functioned both to renew and more importantly re-legitimate critical interest in Marx in France and elsewhere. It also offered a stirring riposte to 's celebration of neo-liberalism. In the last decade of his life, Derrida turned increasingly to political questions, endeavouring to map out an ethics of hospitality he called Cosmopolitanism.
1949
Lycée
Louis-le-Grand
Michel
Foucault
1956
1957
1959
1960
1964
1983
1966
1966
1978
La Voix et la Phénomène
( 1967
Speech and Phenomena
( 1973
L'Écriture et la difference
( 1967
Writing and Difference
( 1978
De la Grammatologie
( 1967
Of Grammatology
( 1976
Positions
( 1972
Positions
( 1981
Voix et la Phénomène
, L'Écriture et la difference
, and De la Grammatologie
( 1967
1968
Michel
Foucault
1963
Folie et déraison
in a public lecture Foucault himself attended. Other notable scalps include , who got into a spirited debate with Derrida over speech actPaul
de Man
Mémoires, pour Paul de Man
( 1988
Spectres de Marx
( 1993
Spectres of Marx
( 1994
