Of Grammatology

Book Description

"One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy." -- J. Hillis Miller, Yale University

Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been considered improper. Thirty years later, the immense influence of Derrida's work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable.

Customer Reviews:

The problematization of writing.......2007-03-30

Derrida's thought is the primary reason why I inevitably feel an urge to put quotation marks around so many of the conceptual labels in my own writing; he initiates a needful misgiving: Do we really know what we are speaking about when we attempt to speak philosophically? Or is our language so subverted, displaced, and otherwise (blindly) ideological that a lot of the theoretical malarkey that academics put forth just seems to beg the age-old questions of knowledge, truth, meaning, etc.? But wait. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Derrida's writing shies away, almost essentially, from authoritative positioning in such matters because his own writing is subject to the same blind alleys and provisionalism that all writing is. In this respect, his writing is always, in a way, winking and playful, but admittedly in an rigorous and sometimes difficult way.

Is this book difficult? Yes, you bet it is! But I assure you that it's is as close to entry-level Derrida as any other book written by him. I first encountered the thinking of Derrida in a very watered-down gloss on his theory in postmodernist primer; this intrigued me to pursue him further, to read such things as Beginner's Guides and Short Introductions (which I definitely recommend to those who have either no prior experience with him or no great familiarity with the other thinkers he addresses in Of Grammatology--Saussure, Rousseau, etc.). Of course, you'll discover that these tidy little intros can be oversimplifying in places, but they at least get you to the general neighborhood before your set out on your own.

Derrida's writing, because of its inherent need for argumentative clarity and rigor, can at times be difficult to decipher; therefore, do not obsess over every sentence; the overall meaning of the argument is much more important and often becomes clearer if you just plow through difficult passages.

Every writing, especially philosophical writing, and even of course Derrida's, is by nature ideological; it works outward from a set of assumptions. There is no other alternative. We cannot start from scratch, from some dreamed-of ground zero where there is no preceding meaning and out of which we may deduce all the truths of the universe. Derrida's ideological vantage is then what appealed to me about him; perhaps never in black and white, but always and everywhere his thinking seems to question authoritative accounts, seeks to expand upon the marginalized element in any discourse, and foregrounds the difficulty in making large and almost mathematical pronouncements in philosophical and other supradisciplinary affairs. These are certain dispositions which align with my own particular perspective, and if they have some resonance with you, and if you come to Derrida having completed a little homework and bringing along a good dose of patience and effort, then you'll likely find this book rewarding as well.

A final note on the opposing opinion: Although there is no one camp of thinkers or philosophers which opposes Derrida's thought for one and only one reason, some of the most vocal of his detractors (and I will temporarily assume their voice here) regard him as a proponent of relativism or an attempted (but miserably failed) assassin of the western philosophical tradition. They are less skeptical of a fundamental faith in the general structures of meaning and in the rudimentary capabilities of the rational mind to attain to some variety of truth, however limited. Also, opponents often regard Derrida as a kind of interloper in the field of philosophy, that he should putter around with his obscurantist games in the narrow field of literary theory where he belongs. Therefore, if Plato, Descartes, and Locke seem like more feasible philosophical pursuits, Derrida probably (1) won't convert you and (2) won't be to your liking. He doesn't put forth a philosophical system, and neither does he assert an epistemological framework, so you won't find the kind of concrete, axiomatical philsophical claims common to pre-modern and early modern philosophy.

Push through it.......2005-01-28

When I first tried to tackle this book I was a first year undergrad philosophy and logic student - I declared Derrida my arche-enemy.
Three years later I am devoted to Derrida.
I eventually managed to push down the frustration (and at times, the blind rage) I felt at reading his stuff and took my time to follow him where he wants to take us.
Derrida is important for thinking, whether or not you agree with what he is saying.
Derrida's greatest lesson is forcing us to look closer, he wants us to pay attention to what is really going on (or at least, to pay attention to other possibilities that may be at work)

A Celebration of Incoherency.......2004-12-24

The importance of Derrida and his movement is monumental - not for the term "deconstructionism" (heard frequently without a clue to its true meaning) but for how he has influenced (Western) society. Derrida, like Marcuse, Chomsky, Foucault and others, has moved from his original study to a broader agenda and, like many intellectuals, considers his mastery of one subject transferrable to another. He managed to survive the embarrassing Paul de Man fiasco and has since wisely avoided mention of the "Hitler in all of us". He has remarked on the authoritarian anti-democratic nature of deconstructionism, treating the subject ironically.

This is, allegedly, a textbook of post-Modern thought on language but reads like a didactic, out-of-focus Proust. The writing is nebulous, self-referential, unreadable. He speaks in Orwellian terms equating opposite qualities and words. It is so ephemeral as to lack certitude and for this very reason many commentators fear definitive statements on the subject. Deconstructionism is, despite all the twaddle, inherently subjective. He muses on expression, anxiety, emotions, signs and existentialism, finding meaning and interpretation where there is none. His popularity rests entirely on academia and like-minded camp followers in the media. I mean, how many Iowans care about the "ultimate" meaning of allusions? The problem with the ouevre is that when taken seriously, it literally make mountains of molehills.

Such as, well, equating fairy tales to S&M sagas, symphonies to invitations to rape, skyscrapers to phallic power trips, signs of "white" recycled paper as racism and stuttering as aggression. Allusions are, in Derrida-speak, fraught with deep meaning. To accomplish this one must divorce words from their sources and stated intent. The critic has been necessarily elevated above the author since only he can provide a "true" meaning. It is so outrageous that few outside of the Ivory Towers give it credence. That would be a mistake. Language is perhaps the most human of all abilities and its interpretation affects our personal and collective consciousness. His method has been called the "language of cultural Marxism" and is a necessary component of modern leftist ideology. At any time I expect Jacques Derrida to announce, like Alan Sokal, that it has all been a collosal joke on both the true believer and the reader.

read poetry - it's better for you.......2004-12-20

While it's certainly true that there will always be a gulf between reality and words, communication between reader and writer is nonetheless very real and potentially profound, thanks in no small part to empathy and the imagination. Deconstructionism, by denying presence and instead proposing unlimited differences between signs, dismisses any connection between readers and writers and turns language into a hermetic system separated from the outside world which is, of course, inhabited by people who read and people who write. This is exactly what makes deconstructionism so empty and hypocritical: It rejects traditional metaphysics while adopting a pseudo-mystical position which regards language as some unstable and solipsistic alien creature independent of everything and everyone.

The perennial postponement of signification.......2004-08-23

Of grammatology is a tour-de-force of Derrida's ideas about reading and writing; it encapsulates his view of de-construction, and his reformulation of such complex issues as phenomenology and structuralism. I have to admit that there were times when I felt that I was just turning the pages. I needed to go back several times just to get a sense of what I had just read. Spivak's introduction is a gem as she makes Derrida more accessible. Reading Derrida places a real strain on the reader because he assumes the reader is well informed and has an academic sense of the writers he engages in like Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For Derrida, structuralists - particularly Levi-Strauss take for granted that speech is more direct than written script. Derrida critiques this sense of logocentrism that privileges the spoken word where the sound and meaning exist side by side. On the other hand, writing for Derrida creates an interstice between the sign and its meaning. Logocentricism and the accompanying phonologism are the seed of Derrida's deconstruction. Derrida sense of grammatology is that it is a soft science, one of writing. In this really complex mélange of engagements by Derrida, he problematizes Saussure's structural linguistics and goes to town on the notion of 'presence' that he feels has dominated the West since the Greeks, down to Heidegger and eventually culminating in the structuralism of Levi-Strauss. The notion of deconstruction is, for the most part attributed to Derrida. Deconstruction feeds into a much larger and more involved intellectual school of thought commonly known as poststructuralism. Postructuralism's genesis appeared with Derrida's exegetical critique on Strauss's the notion of, 'structure.' Taking the Saussure's lead, Levi-Strauss took structuralism into the field of structuralist anthropology - of which Levi-Strauss is said to have pioneered. In Of grammatology, Derrida portrays structuralism as the culmination of a tradition of structuralities, and reduces all to a fixed point of presence. This fixed point is effectively its center - calling for Derrida to move to de-center. To return to the issue of the sign, Derrida sees signs as random, in that they are defined not by essence but by or in comparison to something else. The solidity of the binary opposition between signifier and signified, which binds the sign, cannot be sustained unless we are prepared to grant that there exists some form of transcendental signified which would kill the play of signification. Derrida's analysis compels us to be aware that every signified is also in the position of a signifier. According to Derrida, the meaning of words is really dependent on how they are used. Derrida claims that everything is what it is, based on what it is not, - or difference. In a nutshell, Derrida is positions himself on the notion of the perennial postponement of signification - or "differance" -- or the outcome by which an opposition constantly repeats itself inside each of its component terms. In French, the word is in a liminal space between "to differ" and "to defer," as if saying there is yet one more thing to consider one more difference to account for. Moreover, Derrida seeks to de-construct claims of fixed truths. However, as a caveat, the critique on logocentrism, the practice of deconstruction, is really aimed at language, and to use it within and around other areas without really understanding Derridian de-construction is dangerous.

Miguel Llora

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Cryptic and Wonderful
Reading Derrida....
Derrida all over the place
the difference that makes the difference

Writing and Difference
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226143295

Book Description

First published in 1967, Writing and Difference, a collection of Jacques Derrida's essays written between 1959 and 1966, has become a landmark of contemporary French thought. In it we find Derrida at work on his systematic deconstruction of Western metaphysics. The book's first half, which includes the celebrated essay on Descartes and Foucault, shows the development of Derrida's method of deconstruction. In these essays, Derrida demonstrates the traditional nature of some purportedly nontraditional currents of modern thought—one of his main targets being the way in which "structuralism" unwittingly repeats metaphysical concepts in its use of linguistic models.

The second half of the book contains some of Derrida's most compelling analyses of why and how metaphysical thinking must exclude writing from its conception of language, finally showing metaphysics to be constituted by this exclusion. These essays on Artaud, Freud, Bataille, Hegel, and Lévi-Strauss have served as introductions to Derrida's notions of writing and différence—the untranslatable formulation of a nonmetaphysical "concept" that does not exclude writing—for almost a generation of students of literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis.

Writing and Difference reveals the unacknowledged program that makes thought itself possible. In analyzing the contradictions inherent in this program, Derrida foes on to develop new ways of thinking, reading, and writing,—new ways based on the most complete and rigorous understanding of the old ways. Scholars and students from all disciplines will find Writing and Difference an excellent introduction to perhaps the most challenging of contemporary French thinkers—challenging because Derrida questions thought as we know it.

Customer Reviews:

Cryptic and Wonderful.......2007-01-21

With this collection of subversive essays, Jacques Derrida exploded onto the scene of post-modern philosophy in Europe and the US though he didn't have a doctorate or teaching position at the time. In it, he demonstrates for the first time his conception of `deconstruction,' an apparently inexplicable concept which enables the analysis of `inter-textuality' and `binary-oppositions,' to be revealed. `Writing and Difference,' is of course a difficult text, and analytic philosophers don't even bother with it, though that may be their greatest mistake, for Derrida attempts (and not without success) to demonstrate that the notion of purely objective, enlightened truth seeking is an impossibility. That the essence of thought always operates within a given schema, a given facticity. "Differance," the famous phrase of Derrida, indicates that writing is necessarily primary to speech, we can see the `differ a nce' in text, not phonetically.

The first essay in this collection `Force and Signification,' attempts to apply a philosophical rigour to the analysis of literature, wherein Derrida explains Flaubert, Mallarme, and a number of others. `Cogito and the History of Madness' is an extremely famous essay about Foucault which triggered a feud between the two intellectuals that would never fully be mended. In it, Derrida argues that Foucault's book does not address the Cartesian notion of the Cogito adequately in the History of Madness, and that Foucault ultimately relies on the same principles of the enlightenment while attempting to expose the dynamics of its power simultaneously. The essay (along with violence and Metaphysics) is a perfect example of Derrida's capacity to deconstruct. However, he moves very quickly and without and assistance to the reader. If you have not read the author Derrida is deconstructing he will simply leave you in the dust.

The latter essays in the book deal primarily with Artaud, Freud, Bataille, Hegel, Heidegger, Levi-Strauss, and metaphysics and language generally. The essay on Levi-Strauss (Structure, Sign, and Play) is a particularly damning lecture delivered at Johns Hopkins University and left irreparable damages to the structuralist movement at the time. `Writing and Difference' is an important collection of critical texts for 20th century philosophy, and it should remain an important work for many ages to come.

Reading Derrida...........2002-09-02

Begin with essay #10. It's short, it's famous (it launched deconstruction in America), and it's fairly lucid. Then turn to essay #1 for another stunning discussion of the limits of structuralism.

Essay #5 is devoted to structuralism's rival, phenomenology. Just as essay #10 suggested that structuralism can't conceive of a structure with a fluid center, and essay #1 suggested that structuralism tends to impoverish literary texts because it can't account for certain textual energies, this essay insists that Husserl's phenomenology cannot do justice to origins, cannot think genesis. Unhappily, this is a dense and difficult piece of writing.

Next take up essay #9. Derrida is interested here with Hegel's attempt to repress the free play of signification via conceiving philosophy as a totality. Derrida also discusses Bataille's attempt to think the unthought of the Hegelian system, to ascertain what, if anything, can elude such philosophical closure. This is a great essay, but familiarity with Hegel's Master/Slave dialectic is a prerequisite.

If you have read Foucault's MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION, you'll want to read essay #2. Here Derrida attempts to call into question that book's major thesis by arguing that Foucault misreads Descartes. This essay is nicely structured but, for this reviewer at least, not terribly convincing. I also feel that essay #7, on Freud, is not a success. It is so difficult, so tedious, that most readers will cease to care about Derrida's point long before he gets around to making it.

Happily, there are two essays (#6 and #8) dealing with the writings of that fascinating artist/lunatic Antonin Artaud. They are both pretty dazzling, but I suggest taking on #8 first. There are also two rather short, amusing pieces on the Jewish thinker Edmond Jabes (essays #3 and #11). He appears to be something of a kindred spirit to Derrida.

Finish up with essay #4, the longest and most ambitious in this collection. Echoing themes from essay #9, here Derrida takes on the early writings of Emmanuel Levinas and his claim to have stepped outside of metaphysics. It's a demanding, but fascinating piece of writing.

Derrida all over the place.......2001-07-18

In the beginning of Jacques Lacan's work "the ethics of psychoanalysis", Lacan speaks of honey that has no natural divisions and is instantly all over the place. Enter Derrida. This was only the second work I had read by Derrida at the time a few years ago and it astounded me. The breadth of commentary, play, and insight in these essays is radical - moving from freud, to foucault, to levi-strauss, to Artaud, to an amasing and important work on Levinas, to writings of his own, and more. This work (is it one or many?) is perhaps Derrida at his most poetical and yet at his most clear. In other works, his knack of writing seeming hieroglyphics makes his ideas extremely difficult to decipher. In this work, however, his play actually opens itself up to what he's doing. Not only that but where his poetics become more analytic, his language is fairly clear and understandable, given a background on the subject (freud, levinas, etc.). In multiple readings through the years this work has proved more and more fruitful and is still one of my favorite works by him (besides possibly the clear and consice Speech Event Context in "Limited Inc.", "Spurs", and "Gift of Death"). This is Derrida's insights all over the place - thank God.

the difference that makes the difference.......1999-12-22

an excellent set of essays that map out derrida's project and a lucid introduction to deconstruction, including the celebrated critique on foucault's 'madness and civilization'. not as involving as 'of grammatology' but certainly worth more than his critics make him out to be.

Rogues: Two Essays on Reason (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

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Derrida Deconstructs the notion of "Rouge States"

Rogues: Two Essays on Reason (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0804749515
Release Date: 2004-12-13

Book Description

Rogues, published in France under the title Voyous, comprises two major lectures that Derrida delivered in 2002 investigating the foundations of the sovereignty of the nation-state. The term “État voyou” is the French equivalent of “rogue state,” and it is this outlaw designation of certain countries by the leading global powers that Derrida rigorously and exhaustively examines.

Derrida examines the history of the concept of sovereignty, engaging with the work of Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, Schmitt, and others. Against this background, he delineates his understanding of “democracy to come,” which he distinguishes clearly from any kind of regulating ideal or teleological horizon. The idea that democracy will always remain in the future is not a temporal notion. Rather, the phrase would name the coming of the unforeseeable other, the structure of an event beyond calculation and program. Derrida thus aligns this understanding of democracy with the logic he has worked out elsewhere. But it is not just political philosophy that is brought under deconstructive scrutiny here: Derrida provides unflinching and hard-hitting assessments of current political realities, and these essays are highly engaged with events of the post-9/11 world.

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Derrida Deconstructs the notion of "Rouge States".......2006-11-05

If you are in to Derrida, political science, contemporary political philosophy, understanding the contemporary political landscape, and notions of a new Democracy to come - this is a must read.

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Best Introduction to Derrida
Metaphors on the Margin
Metaphor in the text of philosophy
Reading Derrida...
Interesting but hardly radical

Margins of Philosophy
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226143260

Book Description

"In this densely imbricated volume Derrida pursues his devoted, relentless dismantling of the philosophical tradition, the tradition of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger—each dealt with in one or more of the essays. There are essays too on linguistics (Saussure, Benveniste, Austin) and on the nature of metaphor ("White Mythology"), the latter with important implications for literary theory. Derrida is fully in control of a dazzling stylistic register in this book—a source of true illumination for those prepared to follow his arduous path. Bass is a superb translator and annotator. His notes on the multilingual allusions and puns are a great service."—Alexander Gelley, Library Journal

Customer Reviews:

Best Introduction to Derrida.......2005-12-27

Jacques Derrida is the most significant philosophical figure in what is too blithely referred to as poststructuralist thought. An amazon.com review is not the place to go into a discussion of whether Derrida is "right" or "wrong," but he is indisputably one of the most important postmodern philosophers, and an awareness of his thought, however cursory, is indispensable if you are serious about philosophizing.
Margins of Philosophy is, I believe, the best introduction to Derrida's work, containing some of his most significant and far-reaching essays. Especially worthwhile are White Mythology and Signature, Event, Context. Derrida's thought is far-reaching and wide-ranging (he has even written on a photo-novel of women making love), and Margins of Philosophy represents only his most important thoughts in the realm of philosophy. For his reactions to literature, I recommend Acts of Literature and Dissemination. However, it has been said by Eagleton that deconstruction is like that drunk at the bar who tells the same story every night, and for many (most) people, one volume of Derrida will be a lovely sufficiency.
Derrida can be tough going, even if you are familiar with his antecedents; however, it is far from impossible to understand him. I recommend reading a given essay twice, then going through a third time underlining important parts, then reading it another two times and attempting a paraphrase. If you go through this admittedly arduous procedure, you will find you understand what he is talking about quite well, even if you don't read too much philosophy. Remember: don't give up the first or second time through. The pieces won't start falling together until a bit further down the line.

Metaphors on the Margin.......2004-07-26

Jacques Derrida has provided us with an important text whose central concern is, arguably, "metaphor". In leaving the reader discover the details of how philosophy exists within the margins of its own discourse, I want to simply and briefly map out a number of, what may be called, "conceptual metaphors", that I have found captivating, intriguing and useful (for my own quest for difference).

To start with, there is "differance", and the reason why it can be treated as a conceptual metaphor is that it cannot be approached directly. As Derrida's interest is in helping us discover 'a new play of opposition, of articulation, of difference' (p. xxviii), namely "differance", we are however precluded from posing, let alone answering, the question "What is differance?". This is because it is 'neither a word nor a concept' (p. 3), has 'neither existence nor essence' (p. 6), is 'irreducibly polysemic' (p. 8), a 'temporisation' and 'spacing' (p. 9), and is that which 'produces differences' (p. 11). It can therefore only be approached metaphorically, in its use as a tool operating on the margins of language and discourse for understanding difference in other authors (especially Hegel) and (of course) Derrida himself!

"Differance" is by far not the only conceptual metaphor in this text: there are additional ones, which are in a way, related to "differance" and thus provide additional clues for getting closer to understanding its purpose and function. In particular, the Hegelian conceptual metaphor "pyramid" (an inspiration for Mark Taylor's text 'Altarity') operating on the margins of signs and difference, in addition to that of "vibration", as the movement of idealisation. Further, there is a useful parallel between de Saussure and Rousseau as regards "language", and an account of its "interweaving" with other threads of experience, a conceptual metaphor found in Husserl. With Benveniste and Aristotle, Derrida deals with the issue of "category" as 'one of the ways for "Being" to say itself or to signify itself' (p. 183) in its relation to "thought". Next, he gives an account of the nature of philosophical text and in discussing Aristotle and Bachelard among other thinkers, explains the role of "metaphor" as 'the manifestation of analogy' (p. 238) in carrying and emitting meaning - hence its important role in the logic of (philosophical) discourse. Finally, in discussing Valery, Derrida tackles the conceptual metaphor of "source" in the sense of origin and grounding.

Overall, although it is a difficult text, it is captivating and must be read several times (ideally in conjunction with the French text) so as to (progressively) discover the multiple nuances and conceptual connections that Derrida is making in a style that decidedly relies on metaphor and différance. It is an important reading for anyone concerned with the notion of difference and its workings through and with language.

Metaphor in the text of philosophy.......2003-09-19

In the 1980s, White Mythology was required reading for Yale lit-crit majors. It is an incredible tour de force so rich that its overwhelming in the initial read. How was it possible to write this (and how was it possible to translate?) The inescapability of metaphor, metaphor not just in, but constituting the text of philosophy, the false privileging of metaphysics over rhetoric are made stunningly evident -- if not plain -- here.

Reading Derrida..........2003-01-31

Begin with "Tympan", it's designed to serve as an introduction to the ten essays which follow and, despite a lot of word play, Derrida does mention most of the themes informing this collection (philosophy's attempt to master its domain, Hegel as the philosopher of limits, the threat metaphor poses to philosophical discourse, etc).
Read "Differance" next (it's probably the single most famous thing Derrida has ever written). After declaring the thought of difference to be crucial to our intellectual epoch (he mentions Saussure, Nietzsche, and Freud before taking up Heidegger's notion of ontological difference) Derrida proposes the nonword/nonconcept of "differance" to go them all one better. This is a dazzling essay, but if it leaves you more exhausted than exhilarated, then Derrida just isn't for you.
Essay #2 is a dense and convoluted discussion of the metaphysics of presence in Aristotle and Hegel. Skip this.
Essay #3 is a surprisingly interesting investigation of Hegel's semiology (of all things). Derrida demonstrates that Hegel's disdain for non-phonetic scripts (say, hieroglyphics) is not just a quirk, but is crucial to Hegel's entire philosophical project.
"The Ends Of Man" is a classic example of 1960's French anti-humanism. It's essentially an attempt to rescue Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger from their existentialist interpreters. Another very famous piece (and rightfully so).
Essay #5 is a sort of Cliffs Notes version of OF GRAMMATOLOGY; it deals with the denigration of writing in the thought of Saussure and Rousseau. Very readable.
Essay #6 is all about Husserl's theory of signs and I found it incomprehensible.
Essay #7 concerns itself with to what extent the grammar and syntax of a particular language influences what can be thought in that language. Recommended, despite the opacity of Derrida's criticisms of Benveniste.
"White Mythology" is the longest and most demanding essay in this collection, so leave it for last. I'm not even going to venture a comment on this one.
Essay #9 meanders quite a while before it gets around to illustrating Valery's low opinion of philosophy, so be patient.
The book wraps up with Derrida's notorious reading/misreading of that wonderful little book, HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS. This modest essay launched a feud between Derrida and the American philosopher John Searle. Much ado about nothing, I say.

Interesting but hardly radical.......2002-01-16

One could open up this review by pointing out that the book being reviewed is not a "coherent" work in the conventional sense of the term but this would be playing into the hands of the deconstructionist. Perhaps it is best to phrase one's comments in such a fashion as to avoid the need for anything more-than-average coherence in a review. "The Margins of Philosophy" is an interesting work by this academically controversial author. Generally speaking--and what more can one do in a review--Derrida's readings are heavily influenced by Heidegger's statement that what an author keeps silent is as important as what he states. This is asserted almost immediately in the introduction as Derrida lets us know that what philosophy (and philosophers) have pushed to the margin in their work is very important to explore since its unveiling will de-center the work. Put differently, every writing undercuts itself in the end. In a series of separate, but linked essays, Derrida goes on to demonstrate how this sort of thing happens in Hegel, Saussure, Benveniste, Heidegger, and others.

I am not the first to point out that Derrida is a perceptive, subtle reader with a very keen eye for the hidden details. "White Mythology" is an interesting discussion of the role of metaphor in philosophy and its consequences for philosophy. I am also not the first to complain that Derrida's taste for exegesis runs towards the extravagant and excessive. The aforementioned essay spans 65 pages for reasons that otherwise escape me. There is also the more serious problem in Derrida that his keen eye is not keen enough and he is too clever by half in his explication. At one point in the work he connects the greek word for intuiting (ie. seeing with the soul) "theorein" with the desire for death. Strictly speaking this is a conflation of the desire to be a god with the desire to be unconscious (a leftover from the decay of romanticism?). An elementary reading of Plato's Phaedrus makes this clear. His obsession with the "metaphysics of presence" is also a problem for the work, as he hitches his interpretations to this dubious construction and the interpretations ultimately suffer for it. This is not to say that there isn't much of philosophical interest in the work for Derrida gives the reader much to chew on. He reminds us that any serious reading of a text must devote itself scrupulously to the whole of the text and not just to those parts which we think are interesting. Though, perhaps, not the best place to start one's study of Derrida it is certainly worth a serious read if only to understand what some of the shouting is all about.

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Repetition is bequeathed; the legacy repeated...

The first time is still best

Hungry Hungry Hippos

A book which can only be read among *other* books.

A book which can only be read among *other* books.

The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Margins of Philosophy

Positions

Writing and Difference

Of Grammatology

Dissemination

ASIN: 0226143228

Book Description

17 November 1979

You were reading a somewhat retro loveletter, the last in history. But you have not yet received it. Yes, its lack or excess of address prepares it to fall into all hands: a post card, an open letter in which the secret appears, but indecipherably.

What does a post card want to say to you? On what conditions is it possible? Its destination traverses you, you no longer know who you are. At the very instant when from its address it interpellates, you, uniquely you, instead of reaching you it divides you or sets you aside, occasionally overlooks you. And you love and you do not love, it makes of you what you wish, it takes you, it leaves you, it gives you.

On the other side of the card, look, a proposition is made to you, S and p, Socrates and plato. For once the former seems to write, and with his other hand he is even scratching. But what is Plato doing with his outstretched finger in his back? While you occupy yourself with turning it around in every direction, it is the picture that turns you around like a letter, in advance it deciphers you, it preoccupies space, it procures your words and gestures, all the bodies that you believe you invent in order to determine its outline. You find yourself, you, yourself, on its path.

The thick support of the card, a book heavy and light, is also the specter of this scene, the analysis between Socrates and Plato, on the program of several others. Like the soothsayer, a "fortune-telling book" watches over and speculates on that-which-must-happen, on what it indeed might mean to happen, to arrive, to have to happen or arrive, to let or to make happen or arrive, to destine, to address, to send, to legate, to inherit, etc., if it all still signifies, between here and there, the near and the far, da und fort, the one or the other.

You situate the subject of the book: between the posts and the analytic movement, the pleasure principle and the history of telecommunications, the post card and the purloined letter, in a word the transference from Socrates to Freud, and beyond. This satire of epistolary literature had to be farci, stuffed with addresses, postal codes, crypted missives, anonymous letters, all of it confided to so many modes, genres, and tones. In it I also abuse dates, signatures, titles or references, language itself.

J. D.

"With The Post Card, as with Glas, Derrida appears more as writer than as philosopher. Or we could say that here, in what is in part a mock epistolary novel (the long section is called "Envois," roughly, "dispatches" ), he stages his writing more overtly than in the scholarly works. . . . The Post Card also contains a series of self-reflective essays, largely focused on Freud, in which Derrida is beautifully lucid and direct."—Alexander Gelley, Library Journal

Customer Reviews:

Repetition is bequeathed; the legacy repeated..........2007-02-13

Contrary to the reviews thus far reported in regards to this "work in the traditions of Finnegans Wake," i would reccomend reading this book to all who are interested in Derrida's philosophy of ethics. Herein we may find ephemerally expounded glimpses at Postmodernism's notions of continuity and of the legacy of ideas: a gift which we neccessarely both receive and reinscribe - "What is tragic is not the possibility but the neccessity of repetition" (Writing and Difference). Many Derrida readers have shied away from this text because of its disparate and fragmented stuttering...Don't if you have patience to listen read this treasure. It is a pastiche, a montage and a rebus. An exquisite rendition on tradition and inheritance, on presence and absence. A reminder to never stop giving and giving and giving because the most ethical one can be is through the dissemination of ideas, the transformation of the recurring within which each becomes a relative of all and none. Finnegans Wake approximates the same themes with Vico's philosophy of history as an addendum. By the way Vico was an avid reader of the Cabbala...Only Walter Benjamin can better inspire the re-visions that we need for a tragic becoming tragic. This book is extremely personal and one of Richard Rorty's favorites I might add...he was not very fond of the early Derrida...Rorty understands Derrida as only Caputo and Bennington have...This is our modern day Novalis, we may dream of dreaming our dreams!

The first time is still best.......2003-06-01

It took me a long time to crack the Derrida nut. But when I did, I did it with this book. Thus it will always be my favorite philosophical novel by Derrida. When I finished this book I picked up Badiou's book on Deleuze and he said I got everything right, only he said it better than I would have.

So far, all the other readers seem to have missed the point. First, this book is not about anything so feminine and smacking of vulgar Christianity as love and cushy feelings. Derrida says it's a poison pen letter. It's about hate. It may be "between lovers," but it's published for the whole world to admire and appraise, a radically different context than the relationship of husband and wife. Which the careful Derrida-phile will note was handled very carefully, almost cynically, in the Derrida "documentary." (Has there ever been a greater and more hilarious take on oral sex?)

One wag commented that the book is only good for beach-reading. But that misses the serious side of Derrida, which is also the point. Rhetoric can be philosophy. Derrida is one hundred percent hilarious. But he's always pushing the philosophical envelope with his puns. To resort to a distinction that has a pragmatic value even though it utterly lacks any philosophical foundation, the use-mention distinction, when Derrida uses the word 'this,' he also means _that_. (Why does the use-mention distinction make no sense? Because when you say 'horse,' a _horse_ comes out of your mouth. As per Wittgenstein and the Stoics.) It's up to us lesser mortals to tease out the strands and levels until we can produce something as thoroughly competent. And simultaneously beautiful and ugly. Like orgasm.

Which brings us to Lacan. Some say he's a charlatan. And you have to be suspicious of anyone who declares that they're not interested in truth, but falsity. But when the postmodernists say this what they mean is that the truth, which can potentially be known, is in being aware that you actually don't know. The idea goes back to Plato and his early Socratic dialogues. Stated like that, it isn't too far from Kant, who also believed that we can't actually know much, other than that there are stars above and some sort of moral rules within. (Nobody has ever agreed with him on his rules, including his great heir John Rawls.) Derrida doesn't differ much from Lacan. He abandons Oedipus for the same reasons as Deleuze (it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and alienated from real life). But the argument on the postal system only looks different from Lacan's account because Derrida says it is. That he got Lacan to agree with him says something about Derrida's prestige, so there must be something there. (Though Lacan's submission looks suspiciously like he doesn't submit--republishing the Ecrits in an edited down version where the offensive passages have been actively forgotten.) But when Lacan says that a letter always gets to its destination he means that it always misses its destination, because the person it's intended for is going to sometime pass away. ("The living is a species of the dead." Nietzsche.) Which is also Derrida's point. I haven't read Derrida's latest writings on Lacan but apparently there's a whole lot of a rapprochement. In his interviews with Roudinescu, A Quoi Demain, he considers his style to be Lacanian and a lot of his conclusions to be similarly disposed.

Here's hoping the most consistently amusing of the post-Heideggerians remains a liberal individualist. Though it's probably going to be tough for him, given that the Straussists of the Whitehouse talk a similar talk and walk a similar walk. ("Jewgreek is Greekjew.") I believe the fact that Derrida is explicitly against the death penalty is the deciding difference. QED.

Hungry Hungry Hippos.......2002-12-10

I like this book better than the game hungry hungry hippos. Catch all the marbles as fast as you can, beat your opponents with a slight of the hand!

A book which can only be read among *other* books........2000-12-27

Derrida has stated that one of the main purposes of his decontructive readings, writing, and ruthless re-contextualization of various philosophical ideas is to minimize the "violence" of various philosophical practices- those ways of speaking, writing, which silently privilege various terms, and ideas and, perhaps unknowingly repress others. Given the other "esoteric" reviews here, its my duty to minimize the "violence" for those people who really want to know about the book, and not about namedropping, three lines of praise.

The Postcard is a "collection" of various love-letters, supposedly burned in a fire, which has left pieces of text missing. Derrida has also included a few essays which he believes continues the analysis begun in the loveletters [envois]. The content of the loveletters covers a broad range of philosophical and personal questions - from philosophy of language - to the relation b/w Socrates and Plato - to personal encounters in (I suppose) Derrida's life as a philosopher. But the over all effect of this - this "re-contextualization" or in other words, this casting of philosophical questions in a format not usually considered "serious" -> love letters... the profundity, the importance, the dissemination of the questions take on a wholly different feel and effect. The feel and effect, of course, is hard to describe, but it is a way of playing with "philosophical sensibilities" -- what is "real" philosophy? What is "serious" philosophy? And what is the meaning of such questions in the most private of all communications - love letters between two intimate lovers.

Of course, in typical Derridean style, he puns, and jokes his way, throwing punchlines out of every page. The envois are not an easy read. They can be tough, and confusing, especially with the 'missing text" which link ideas. The other essays included in The Postcard are equally a tough read, with a very interesting, but treacherous deconstruction of Lacan's analysis of Poe's "The Purloined Letter".

The Postcard can only be understood as continuation of previously examined (Of Grammatology), argued (Limited Inc.), and illustrated (Glas) philosophical strategies employed by Derrida. And yes, Richard Rorty (an american post-enlightenment philosopher) totally misses the boat on this one. While, i believe Derrida is attempting to "play" with various aspects of the philosophical tradition (Derrida is by far the funniest philosopher, since, Nietzsche), The Postcard is merely an new way of asserting those same ideas Derrida laid out in Limited Inc and other books, that conceptual meaning is not fixed but disseminated and deferred [differance] to all possible contextual usages and instantiations.

A book which can only be read among *other* books........2000-12-27

I know, this is merely one small aspect of Derrida's enterprise. But it is, I believe, the main purpose of The Postcard: to see how the meaning of philosophical questions regarding language, history, and the sequence of events, take on new meanings in the context of lost love lettes-- the same way a Post Card, which never reaches its destination-- takes on new meanings for the unintended third reader.

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This made my head spin!

Controlled form triumphs over historical substance

Barbara Johnson provides an erudite translation.

An Admittedly Limited Perspective

Masterful translation of a masterwork

Dissemination
Jacques Derrida
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The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond

ASIN: 0226143341

Book Description

"The English version of Dissemination [is] an able translation by Barbara Johnson . . . . Derrida's central contention is that language is haunted by dispersal, absence, loss, the risk of unmeaning, a risk which is starkly embodied in all writing. The distinction between philosophy and literature therefore becomes of secondary importance. Philosophy vainly attempts to control the irrecoverable dissemination of its own meaning, it strives—against the grain of language—to offer a sober revelation of truth. Literature—on the other hand—flaunts its own meretriciousness, abandons itself to the Dionysiac play of language. In Dissemination—more than any previous work—Derrida joins in the revelry, weaving a complex pattern of puns, verbal echoes and allusions, intended to 'deconstruct' both the pretension of criticism to tell the truth about literature, and the pretension of philosophy to the literature of truth."—Peter Dews, New Statesman

Customer Reviews:

This made my head spin!.......2002-04-17

This book was cool man! It's like forget everything because nothing exists, right? I think the only other time I had this much fun was when I whooped Gabe's arse in Power Stone 2.

Controlled form triumphs over historical substance.......2001-07-25

In regard to the two seminal essays that make up the 100 or so pages of "Plato's Pharmacy" - these are reprints of articles published in the late 1960s, and presumably based on research dating back even earlier.

The historical research behind these essays has not stood up well. Let me say it another way. Much of it is wrong.

For example, a portion of the essay's argument rests on the notion that, for the Greeks, "pharmakon" signified remedy or poison. This is true, it did, but "pharmakon" also could mean painters pigment, perfume, magical talisman (both medical or non-medical, as for example for spell-casting) or intoxicant. A couple of notes and an aside or two in the essay hint at this, but this just begs the question.

The Greek understanding of "pharmakon" continually blurred the understanding of these functions, unlike the strict deliniations of our modern categories. Perfumes were frequently added to wines, making them, on occasion, poisons, to give just one example. A little digging will turn up Nicander's work, which documents all sorts of strange and sometimes deadly combinations of drug administration in the ancient world. Derrida's analysis is not up to the task.

This blurring of the meaning of "pharmakon" is constantly present in Plato. Even the Republic's "noble lie" is described by Plato as a pharmakon. So what is it? A remedy? A poison? Makeup to disguise the lack of democracy? Drug for the masses? How could Derrida not discuss this? Rather incredible that he missed the chance, in an essay that is in part preoccupied with truth, or meaning, or some such.

"Plato's Pharmacy," ironically, with its emphasis on a false "remedy" vs. "poison" dichotomy, reproduces the Western, binary, "logocentric" reasoning that deconstruction supposededly circumvents, evades, folds back upon itself, or whatever. For anyone who has followed developments in cultural anthropology, the history of pharmacology, ancient medicine, midwifery, religious sacrements, and the like, "Plato's Pharmacy" cannot but produce a mix of mirth and annoyance. The Phaedrus, the Platonic dialogue discussed throughout most of "Plato's Pharmacy", is permeated with language and allusions drawn from the Eleusian Mysteries, yet Derrida doesn't even mention this as I recall, nor does he comment on the "potion" celebrants drank at Eleusis, called the "kykeon" - now believed to have contained ergot of barley, a substance similar to LSD-25. I'd recommend reading The Road to Eleusis - Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, if you want the proper contextual background to Plato's "pharmacological" Phaedrus.

"Plato's Pharmacy" may be a classic of deconstructionist methodological form, but any connection with Plato's world, or the substance of Plato's thought, is at best tenuous, and certainly suspect.

[Post-script: I see more people are leafing through this work since the author's recent death; the death of an author is no reason to change one's opinion about "Plato's Pharmacy."]

Barbara Johnson provides an erudite translation........2001-04-18

Reading most of Jacques Dierrda's body of work is a task akin to Chinese water torture. Dierrda's project is to debunk the foundation of Western philosophy by subverting it's classic texts. Dierrida uses deconstructive readings of these texts to point out logical flaws, indeterminate meanings and self referrential errors which call into question all that we understand about the structuralist notion of the relationship of the self to the other. In short, Dierrda may be the most radical thinker in modern history, because the success of his project would leave western civilization in the lurch. If Plato was wrong, then all we have learned from the beginning of philosophy is rendered useless. Barbara Johnson's translation of this difficult text is the best grip on Dierrda's project that I have ever read. Stay away from other intrepetations of Derrida, Johnson's translation is elegant and erudite.

An Admittedly Limited Perspective.......2000-05-01

My experience with this book is mostly limited to "Plato's Pharmacy," so my comments apply primarily to that essay, even though the book very much has structure as a whole. This is a nice introduction to Derrida, though still a very difficult read. If nothing else, the text that Derrida is "rereading" (Plato's Phaedrus, mostly) is short, though deep, and might well have been read previously by someone interested in philosophy. This spares the reader the trouble of engaging a new and difficult text merely as a preliminary to reading Derrida. And since Plato's Pharmacy is a reasonably short, though challenging, essay, it gives the reader the opportunity to finish a mostly self-contained piece by Derrida quickly enough so as not to have totally forgotten what was being discussed in the first place. Plato's Pharmacy revolves around Derrida's central questions about language and meaning. At the same time, it is recognized in the world of Platonic philosophy as an important interpretation (I have a significant interest in Plato, and found it fascinating as a commentary). So, while I am far from being well-read in Derrida, I recommend this book a challenging, interesting, and relatively accessible starting point.

Masterful translation of a masterwork.......2000-04-26

Where Derrida is concerned, the translator must be of equal worth to the superlative standards of the text. One of the reasons the man is considerd so hard to read is that he exploits ambiguity and wordplay in (his native) language to its fullest extent. For Barbara Johnson, the complexity of the french is not an obstacle, but allows her to search out parallel plays in english that mimic those in the original at the same time that they add their own nuances to this amazingly rich work. Understanding Derrida is important, but equally important is understanding what he is *not* - particularly when it comes to his philosophical method. This work helps to show clearly what a high regard he holds for the texts he "re-reads", and his particular use of the methods of deconstruction. For those new to Derrida, I recommend reading this work in conjunction with _Derrida for Beginners_ by Jim Powell, published by Writers and Readers press in New York. Powell's book helps you keep your bearings amongst the many twists and turns of _Dissemintation_.

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A must have for deconstruction aesthetics
Very interesting book

The Truth in Painting
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226143244

Book Description

"The four essays in this volume constitute Derrida's most explicit and sustained reflection on the art work as pictorial artifact, a reflection partly by way of philosophical aesthetics (Kant, Heidegger), partly by way of a commentary on art works and art scholarship (Van Gogh, Adami, Titus-Carmel). The illustrations are excellent, and the translators, who clearly see their work as both a rendering and a transformation, add yet another dimension to this richly layered composition. Indispensable to collections emphasizing art criticism and aesthetics."—Alexander Gelley, Library Journal

Customer Reviews:

A must have for deconstruction aesthetics.......2007-05-12

A reading of Adami's reading of Derrida's Glas. Fantastic book. Recommended to those who want a new view of painting, art, and history in general.

Very interesting book.......2007-03-15

Derrida has a very complicated way of writing : it is not easy avoiding metaphors, the verb to be, the 'I'. Especially when the subject is art, beacause it is exactly the realm of the aesthetic, the subjective, the presence. This, I think, is one of his most difficult texts.
This book sets to investigate the multiple questions that develop in the presence of Cezanne's proposal : Cezanne's aim is to tell the truth in painting.
What is the relation between truth anda beauty, language and image, philosophy and art? Derrida investigates those in two large chapters called 'Parergon' and 'Van Gogh boots'.

The Gift of Death (Religion and Postmodernism Series)

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Read On
Responsibility?
RESUMPTION
The Father of Deconstruction Reconstructed
This book seems like Jacques being Jacques.

The Gift of Death (Religion and Postmodernism Series)
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226143066

Book Description

In The Gift of Death, Jacques Derrida's most sustained consideration of religion to date, he continues to explore questions introduced in Given Time about the limits of the rational and responsible that one reaches in granting or accepting death, whether by sacrifice, murder, execution, or suicide. Derrida analyzes Patocka's Heretical Essays on the History of Philosophy and develops and compares his ideas to the works of Heidegger, Levinas, and Kierkegaard.

A major work, The Gift of Death resonates with much of Derrida's earlier writing and will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, philosophy, and literary criticism, along with scholars of ethics and religion.

"The Gift of Death is Derrida's long-awaited deconstruction of the foundations of the project of a philosophical ethics, and it will long be regarded as one of the most significant of his many writings."—Choice

"An important contribution to the critical study of ethics that commends itself to philosophers, social scientists, scholars of relgion . . . [and those] made curious by the controversy that so often attends Derrida."—Booklist

"Derrida stares death in the face in this dense but rewarding inquiry. . . . Provocative."—Publishers Weekly

Customer Reviews:

Read On.......2004-12-29

I started to give a review in "deconstructionist" fashion - blather on about architecture surpassing old notions of "in" and "our", of reason giving way to the Neitzhien Uberwill, of absurd interpretations of text, relative yet "ultimate" truth and the unholy trinity of angst, subconscienceness and desire.
I was afraid, though, that it would be taken seriously by students (quote unquote) of post-modern "thought".

The danger of deconstructionism is undeniable. When literature and music are culturally interpreted, ethics are situational, when one speaks of slavery as freedom or humanity as inhumanity, we are lost in a sea of intellectual flotsam. The personal connections to fascism - Heidegger, Paul de Man, Blanchot, Bataille - can be overlooked. The intellectual similarities can't: The supremacy of will (Nietzsche) over reason and logic ("homogenising"), an obsession with emotion and political discourse, the celebration of the group over the individual (identity politics) and the idea that truth is what the critic, dictator or prophet says it is. Deconstructionism is, needless to say, popular among folks favoring modern "intellectual" movements with fuzzy tenets.

Here, he speaks to us eliptically (of course) as he partakes in the familiar one step forward - two steps backward approach. But if one follows Deconstructionism, why can't HIS writings be interpreted as an S&M fantasy or a desire to be a Greek Orthodox priest in drag? How do we know what he really means since he suggests that we often write exactly opposite of what we mean?. He writes of God, death, solitude, life and sacrifice BUT in a new voice of existentialism and doubt. He employs vague, self-defined and self-referential terms which effectively shield him from serious study.

Derrida, for all his rampant explicating, gets hot under the collar when his own words undergo the deconstruction challenge. Few have questioned his writings since (1) many are impossible to understand and (2) they may or may not mean what they say. What began as a new approach to literature has evolved into the language of intellectual totalitarianism. No one denies his extensive knowledge of Western literature; what galls are the bewieldering interpretations and his ironic attempt at building a new ethos based on syllogism. As another reviewer stated, take it slow, read several times, search for meaning even when there is none.

Responsibility?.......2004-11-02

Deconstruction is a deceptively useful philosophical device. However, this usefulness is severely limited. Deconstruction can present no positive conclusions. All it can do is show the fallibility of any attempt at such certain knowledge, primarily by exposing the inadequacy of language, a faculty so intimately connected with understanding. As a skeptic, I personally find deconstuction to be very pleasing. However, I am constantly annoyed by Derrida's insistance on frequently ignoring this aspect of his process. As a philosopher, I suppose the inclination to make some sort of positive assertion could be irresitible. I love the "play" and the analysis, but the attempt at ethical conclusions leaves me cold.

In "The Gift of Death," Derrida uses the story of Abraham and Isaac to distinguish between an absolute responsibility to "the other" from the typical ethical, "known" responsibility. I have never understood why it is that philosophers use this parable and others to decipher ethical realities. How much truth can one expect to extract from a fictional story? However, the idea that originary responsibility is always irresponsible is intriguing. Derrida proposes that Abraham's responsibility to God, the other, takes precedence over his lesser responsibilty to his son. And yet, later he makes the assertion that every other is an absolute other, making all responsibility absolute.

All of this emphasis on otherness ultimately leads to a kind of ethical paralysis, but Derrida does not acknowledge this. Throughout history, small differences have been blown up into impenetrable divisions. Racism, homophobia, sexism, ethnicity, nationality, religion, all the institutions that Deconstruction usually attacks are fully supported by these "irresponsible" ethical conclusions.

As I said before, the analysis reads like poetry and there are some very interesting ideas here. Derrida is frustrating, but worthwhile. I recommend this as well as "Writing and Difference."

RESUMPTION.......2004-10-16

I write not long after the passing of Jacques Derrida. He was a man of questions and flights of powerfully intellectual fancy. He changed how the world looks at literature.

I will not clang the bells and start up the chorus of "ding-dong Derrida's dead" that might be expected from a Christian reader of the man's work (if anyone expected Derrida to have such readers--we are inexcusably few).

Instead, I will say that in Derrida, and in this set of essays, his look into Kierkegaard in particular, I have found a kindred seeker after truth, if not a kindred professor of it.

Jacques is now with the undeconstructable--both the source, fulfillment, and, in most cases, the negation of all his observations and questions. He is with the pure ineffable which choses to speak to and through the failable.

The very mention of such belies most of Derrida's work.

The certainty that springs from his work's invalidation gives me peace that the seeker has at last found, that Jacques Derrida is now fully and forever constructed.

His work is over, but his true life--as with all the lives of those who seek and ask--has resumed an ancient, intended course.

Rest in freedom and fulfillment, Mr Derrida.

The Father of Deconstruction Reconstructed.......2001-08-18

You can give someone life--or you can put someone to death. But you cannot "give" someone their own death. Death is a "gift" because it insures our irreplaceableness in God's eyes; it is ours and ours alone. No one can die in my place no more than I can die in theirs. Our willingness to acknowledge this relationship with our own deaths (which above all requires "responsibility," a term Derrida seems to prefer to "faith") in turn unites us with God and the self, with the giver and the receiver.

I'll admit I hadn't expected a deconstructionist to use terms like "absolute," "transcendant," "God," "self"--in profusion and in earnest. But perhaps Derrida has sufficiently exposed the instability, metaphoric basis and deceptive play of language to be able to employ it without qualifiers, disclaimers, and tedious textual self-referentiality. As is his custom, he represents his own work as a critique of others' works--Plato's "Phaedo," Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals," Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling," and the contemporary, politically executed Polish philosopher Jan Potocka. While he establishes his distance from Plato and Nietzsche, his re-visioning of Kierkegaard offers new angles without questioning or challenging the great Dane's existential reading of the Abraham-Isaac story. And his alignment with Potocka is so complete as to suggest more an apologia than a critique of the latter's work. Add to these texts numerous references to Heidegger and to both the Old and New Testaments as well as to stories by Poe and Hawthorne, and you'll have some idea of how richly allusive, not to mention dense, Derrida's discourse can be, even in a brief work such as this.

The primary requisite for reading "The Gift of Death" is some knowledge of its precursor, "Fear and Trembling." Like Kierkegaard, Derrida defines religion as access to the responsibility of a free self, which in turn is defined as a relationship consciously and secretly experienced by the individual subject who sees him or herself in the gaze of God. Truth is separated from Socrates' truth by its interiority, by its replacement of reason, ethics, and aesthetics with the sheer horror of the abyss. Compared to Kierkegaard, however, Derrida's account is less romantic, less inspiring, more disturbing. The leap of faith involves not a sacrifice of Isaac but of oneself, a secret and senseless meeting with one's own death. Derrida interprets the absence of woman in the Abraham and Bartleby stories as proof that the "knight of faith's" quest is not the "tragic hero's". Instead, it is beyond all knowledge, a confrontation with the abyss that marks the Absolute singularity of the self. (This latter observation is reminiscent of Marlowe's inability, or unwillingness, in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," to share the "truth" of Kurtz' final words, "The horror, the horror," with Kurtz' fiance.)

In the latter part of his critique, Derrida offers a paradoxical criticism of the technological, modern age. Far from becoming quantified or de-naturalized, we have returned to the demonic and orgiastic from which religion arose. Modern man has fallen into inauthenticity, becoming not a self or person but assuming the mask of a "role." Present-day democracy, in turn, is not about the equality of individuals but of roles. Hence the importance of discovering and accepting the gift of death that determines human uniqueness. Responsibility is the criterion; freedom is the result.

This is a work not to be read quickly or only once. Derrida moves slowly, taking two steps backward before moving one step forward, but his method insures the communication of his meanings. If it's any inducement to the reader, I would suggest that the fourth and final chapter, "Tout autre est tout autre," is anticlimactic and unhelpful. By then the attentive reader will already have located the gift.

This book seems like Jacques being Jacques........1998-05-20

Derrida, as usual, is able to tease apart the conventional ways of thinking--in this case about the (im)possibility of ethics--and force us to think in a completely different way. I might disagree with his analysis of the ramifications of the ethical gesture explicated in Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling," but i can't say old Jack didn't make me think.

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Derrida Not Dead Another Death
A Significant Philosophical / Religious Touchstone

Acts of Religion
Jacques Derrida , Gil Anidjar , and Ecole Des Hautes Etudes
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0415924014

Book Description

Is there, today," asks Jacques Derrida, "another 'question of religion'?" Derrida's writings on religion situate and raise anew questions of tradition, faith, and sacredness and their relation to philosophy and political culture. He has amply testified to his growing up in an Algerian Jewish, French-speaking family, to the complex impact of a certain Christianity on his surroundings and himself, and to his being deeply affected by religious persecution. Religion has made demands on Derrida, and, in turn, the study of religion has benefited greatly from his extensive philosophical contributions to the field.

Acts of Religion brings together for the first time Derrida's key writings on religion, along with two new essays translated by Gil Anidjar that appear here for the first time in any language. These eight texts are organized around the secret holding of links between the personal, the political, and the theological. In these texts, Derrida's reflections on religion span from negative theology to the limits of reason and to hospitality.

Acts of Religion will serve as an excellent introduction to Derrida's remarkable contribution to religious studies.

Customer Reviews:

Derrida Not Dead Another Death.......2006-08-03

Derrida, who passed away on Oct 10 2004. His last thoughts were to his dearly departed friend, Giles de Leuze. Most of you know that the Oxford philosophical committee wanted to reject him for an honorary award, because they considered his "work" "useless". It is precisely because of Derrida that one was able to question and in this subtle work he traces the steps of "Igmar", who was a religious fanatic who existed in 700 AD with a large following in Persia. Devotees were said to wrap used loin clothes around their head and weep to an ancient statue which was later discovered to be a sign post.

A Significant Philosophical / Religious Touchstone.......2005-10-24

This collection of Derrida's essays is impressive for its scope and intellectual utility. The writings cover a wide range of Derrida's various themes and modes from his more poetic and challenging 'A Silkworm of One's Own', to 'Faith and Knowledge' that consists of a long series of point emanating from his reading of Kant's essay Religion at the Limits of Reason Alone; to 'Force of Law' a text constructed from the transcript of a spoken address and a written text, that together elaborate the affinity between, or the possibility of deconstruction and Justice, or deconstruction as justice if you like.

Acts of Religion: A title that those familiar with Derrida's work may find questionable. After all he was open about his relation to religion, "[it is] foreign to me . . . My atheism develops in the churches, all the churches . . ." Yet, the word 'acts' suggests an interiority, that Derrida participates within religion. But these essays are often conspicuous for the way they are able to address religion, even to use scripture, in a way that avoids just this type of interiority. Derrida's great distance from religion, its institutions, and from faith, will be evident to any reader who approaches the text from a point of view informed by religious practice. This is not a criticism by any means for Derrida's writings are seriously engaged with, perhaps even enchanted by philosophical themes that are essential to religion. Thus, these texts will be most appreciated by readers whose point of view is dynamic enough to encompass both post-structural thought, and their own personal faith. For such readers these essays suggest a project, a re-reading and re-engagement with religious texts that is of value exactly for its distance from the a priori that our religious affiliations ask us bring to the reading of scripture.

I found 'Force of Law' to be of particular benefit in this regard. It addresses the conditions of possibility of justice, its relation to deconstruction, to enforcement and to the founding violence that institutes the law in a way that has two distinct trajectories.

The first is indeed religious, in that it offers a frame of reference with which to challenge the institutionalized notions of God's law, justice, and agency found in Christianity, and other monotheisms. For this challenge to take the form of a violence in which secular philosophy is used to "disprove" or "discredit" religious faith would miss the point. Rather, 'Force of Law' offers the reader a way of examining the ways that political ideology is often conflated with religious ideology, or a way of facing (not without some fear) the difficulties and inconsistencies found in religious interpretations / constructions of law and justice found in sacred texts.

The second trajectory is societal and significant to where we find ourselves in America today. Events occurring now (in 2005) show that America is indeed in something of a crisis: judicial, religious, and in terms of human rights. The level of public discourse concerning the appointing of new justices to the Supreme Court, and judicial interpretive methodology is painfully low, and seems to be divorced from or ignorant of the potentials of justice. Religion in America today is more a matter of politics than of our experience of the Devine, or comitment to the highest ethical/spiritual ideals. Human rights in regards to international immigration, the treatment of prisoners of war, and civilians in military conflict have been seriously undermined. By pointing to this obvious crisis, I don't want to overstate this collection's direct political appeal, Derrida is often working in a realm that confounds the desire for simple pragmatics, although a few essays such as 'Taking a Stand for Algeria' and 'Hospitality' certainly have a political drive.

In the end Acts of Religion is a complex, and rewarding philosophical text. I believe it offers a place of refuge to intellectuals involved in both post-structural and religious thought, who are looking to be challenged by a thinker working across a broad range of themes that are both very old and yet still significant today. Its is Derrida's gift to present them in a vital and energetic manner.

Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, The Work of Mourning & the New International (Routledge Classics)

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A few extra comments...
Addressing Some Basic Misconceptions About Derrida's Work
Deconstructing Deconstructionism
hidden in the depths of words, nothing comes
An Amazing Work

Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, The Work of Mourning & the New International (Routledge Classics)
Jacques Derrida
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415389577

Book Description

Written in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and within the context of a critique of a "new world order" that proclaims the death of Marx and Marxism, Jacques Derrida undertakes a reading of Marx's "spectropoetics" -- his obsession with ghosts, specters and spirits. Derrida argues that there is more than one spirit of Marx and that it is the responsibility of his heirs -- we are all heirs of Marx -- to sift through the possible legacies, the possible spirits, reaffirming one and not the other. He leads beyond the deafening disavowal of Marx today, a disavowal he sees as an attempt to exorcise Marx's ghost.
Specters of Marx represents renowned philosopher Jacques Derrida's first major work on Marx and his definitive entry into social and political philosophy.

Customer Reviews:

A few extra comments..........2007-07-09

The pro-Derrida and anti-Derrida standpoints are well represented in these reviews; however, there is a more important point that has not been made. I read this work much like Nietzsche's Zarathustra, meaning that its significance remains to be seen--for now to come. Now, take that as "post-structuralist obscurantism" all you want. I will shoot back just as Derrida did a hundred times: You have not read enough and you clearly do not understand his project.

With that being said, this is not even really a work on Marxism, historical materialism, or even "social" movements, per se. I read this work as affirming the undying desire for emancipation and uncovering the limits of the Marxist/leftist movements and how they are treated within academia. Marx is used as one example among many possible, just as he uses Fukuyama. I would also disagree with the previous reviewer and say that the more I read it, the more elucidating, exciting, and emancipatory this text became. This text is about infinite responsibility, inheritance, and creating "a new opening of event-ness."

I'll close with a quote from Jean Birmbaum who writes, "It is here that we find again the theme of transmission, of legacy, the 'politics of memory, of inheritance, and of generations' that is sought in Derrida's Specters of Marx, on the horizon of an obligation to justice and an endless responsibility before 'the ghosts of those who are not yet born or who are already dead.'"

Addressing Some Basic Misconceptions About Derrida's Work.......2007-01-17

Reading this book will help dispel (or at least nuance) two criticisms that are often addressed to Jacques Derrida's work. The first is that the brand of philosophy that he promotes under the name of deconstruction is irretrievably obscure and that it constitutes a refutation of the notion of objective truth as well as an attack on the Western canon of literary works. The second is that Derrida cultivates a radical posture that is detached from the realities of the day and unashamedly leftist, as the reference to an outmoded Marx would suggest.

Let us first address the accusation of obscurity. Nobody expects philosophy to be easy, and readers who have no experience of reading theoretical texts may have difficulties with this one. I must confess that there are times when I could not follow the author's line of reasoning, and I may have skipped a few paragraphs here and there, but on the whole I did not find this book unduly abstruse or recondite--and I consider myself an average reader, with only a distant background in modern philosophy. I will leave to the reader to judge for himself whether the puns and neologisms that are introduced in the book (hauntology, spectropolitics) or taken up from previous works (differance) are just pedantic wordplays or if on the contrary they do add value and enrich meaning. But at least one should give them a chance to speak for themselves, and place them in their own discursive context.

People often identify deconstruction with an attack on past scholarly traditions or a dismantling of literary texts--in other words, a rejection of the works of "dead white males". This is certainly not the case with Jacques Derrida. He is a scholar moulded in the classical tradition and whose commerce with the canon of Western philosophy and classic literature is steeped with respect and familiarity.

His reference to Shakespeare throughout this essay about Marx's legacy easily proves this point. Bringing together these two authors is not totally out of place: Marx evokes the Bard more than once in his work, in particular in The German Ideology. More to the point, the playwright and the revolutionary share a common interest for ghosts, allowing Derrida to explore this theme by finding echoes between Hamlet and the Communist Manifesto. In both cases everything begins with a ghost, from expecting an apparition. "A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of Communism": thus begins Marx's Manifesto. According to Derrida, this metaphor is not fortuitous: "Marx, writes Derrida, lived more than others in the frequentation of specters... He loved the figure of the ghost, he detested it, he called it to witness his contestation, he was haunted by it, harassed, besieged, obsessed by it."

Shakespeare, for one, knew how to handle ghosts. He understood that it took a scholar to bring a spirit to the stage and to extract knowledge from a ghost. "Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio," admonishes Marcellus in the first scene of Shakespeare's play. This is the sentence by which Derrida choses to close his essay, having recalled that "they are always there, specters, even if they do not exist, even if they are no longer, even if they are not yet. They give us to rethink the 'there' as soon as we open our mouths, even at a colloquium and especially when one speaks there in a foreign language."

Both the book's explicit and incipit deal with the issue of translation, a subject that Derrida revisits time and again in his work. As he notes, the epigraph from Hamlet that opens this essay, "the time is out of joint," has been rendered in various ways by French translators, referring to a time or a world that is all at once disjointed, disadjusted, disharmonic, discorded or dishonored and unjust. "This is the stroke of genius, the insignia trait of spirit, the signature of the thing 'Shakespeare': to authorize each one of the translations, to make them possible and intelligible without ever being reductible to them." According to Derrida, translation is not something that is added to a text afterwards and from the outside. A text bears within itself its own translation, it is open to layers upon layers of interpretation and its limits, where it starts and where it ends, cannot therefore be determined unequivocally.

Likewise, Derrida uses the polyphony of the word spirit, which can also mean "specter" (as do the words "Geist" in German or "esprit" in French) to construct a phenomenology of the ghost, what he calls an "hauntology" or a reflection on how the spirit makes its apparition as a phenomenon. Among other words that are drawn in for their multiplicity of meanings are the French noun "le revenant" (the one who comes back, the ghost), the German expression "es spukt" (it spooks, there are specters around) or the English verb "to conjure" (to beseech, to conspire, to raise a spirit). As Derrida demonstrates, this constellation of meaning around the word "spirit" finds echoes in the authors that Marx criticizes (Hegel, Max Stirner), the ones who criticizes Marx (Valery, Blanchot) or, surprisingly, those who don't (Freud, who also had his ghosts).

What about the accusation of radicalism and aloofness? Derrida certainly gives ammunition to those conservatives critics who consider deconstruction as being equivalent to Marxism. As he acknowledges, "deconstruction would have been impossible and unthinkable in a pre-Marxist space." For him, Marx is to be ranked among the great classics of modern thinking, perhaps alongside Nietzsche and Freud: "Upon rereading the Manifesto and a few other great works of Marx, I said to myself that I know of few texts in the philosophical tradition, perhaps none, whose lessons seemed more urgent today... It will always be a fault not to read and reread and discuss Marx. We no longer have any excuse, only alibis, for turning away from this responsibility."

Upon closer scrutiny, however, Derrida takes some distances with the Marxist dogma, pointing out that Marx himself resented being called a Marxist. He doesn't fully subscribe to "the concept of social class by means of which Marx so often determined the forces that are fighting for control of the hegemony." As he points out, Communist regimes drew the political consequences of Marx "at the cost of millions and millions of supplementary ghosts who will keep on protesting in us." He could have gone further along that line. But even though he shies away from addressing the issue squarely, Derrida reminds us that the specter of communism indeed turned half of Europe into a world of wraith, of chimeras and hallucinations. The communist specter made all reality ghostly. Marx's obsession with ghosts turned out to be prophetic, and Derrida's book allows us to reread him from that angle.

Deconstructing Deconstructionism.......2006-01-22

Cluttered phraseology, erratic prepositions, dizzying suppositions and a tendency towards compulsive terminologicalism seem to be the hallmark of Derrida's work. The deconstructionist tact in Specters of Marx has resulted in a collection of nearly incomprehensible thoughts, taking the shape of misguided, a-structural and often unintelligible sentences. The book does not seem to have a beginning, middle or end, nor does it seem to carry themes from what chapter to the next (except for the repeated allusions to spirits, ghosts, specters, haunts, spuks, etc.). With all of that being said, I know that this is Derrida's point, to deconstruct language from its privileged space that it inhabits, to disassemble text brick by brick and to break apart the philosophical mortar until there is no foundation left to build upon. However, this raises a few flags for me. From where does Derrida derive the authority, or the power to give voice to the deconstructive effort? Doesn't the process of de-privileging a text require authority from which to speak from? Does Derrida's elite position as a pol-literati allow him some privileged vantage to see things more clearly than others? Granting him that he might hold this position (for the purposes of argument) wouldn't it behoove him to make his writings more accessible, to the masses and academia alike? Considering my relative nascence to Derrida's nonlinearity, and to his verbosity, maybe I am missing the point (in fact I truly believe that I am missing the point). I will admit however, that the excessive neologisms, the confused waywardness, and the aberrant writing of Derrida may be artistic, and sometimes charming. I have found the reading of Derrida useful in that it helps me understand that writing or other texts may best be understood if they are removed from their privileged pedestal, that writing is just a representation of reality, a simulacra of simulacra which may have no meaning by itself. But at the same time, I found Specters of Marx frustrating to read. There were several times in this book where I read a sentence, or a paragraph, or a several pages and had absolutely no idea what it is I just read. If you enjoy postmodern deconstructivist literature then this book is for you; if you prefer to read something that makes some sense, I suggest you stay away!

hidden in the depths of words, nothing comes.......2004-09-25

If you come to "Spectres" expecting find some new insight, some vision to see into Marx, and the canonical texts, as "The German Ideology",Derrida cannot help you or the cause of illumination.Your eyes have grown old and weary trying to find where this light may reside,the epistemic. In fact only history itself and the correlations of whatever exists are there waiting for that, to interpret,to re-absorb to find/locate a new context, a new air to breath, or do we need to purchase that as well, as we now do with water;or as in South America today the turn to the Left away from the hardened corruption hardened with the New York Banks. But now the time from the bottom upwards can see itslef, time again will give it content; and Derrida will not be there,he cannot be there for his help, his aid is filled with contengencies, and reservations in these regards you come away from this work wondering where and what does it strike?, what resonance does it proclaim?; for long ago he(Derrida) found activism to be an end to itself,for itself although Derrida's voice for the dispossessed has seldom lent itself to the cause of Palestine.Why erect barriers?He has forgotten the face of prejudice? Yes or No?He speaks about his childhood and the prejudice he suffered, but then extend this in time, to aid the living,or do we simply forget? where Derrida can you have done this? So conceptual borders and barriers and vocal mantras are erected all the same over time, over place he didn't have although we seldom see this time in concrete form.
These were tail-end Lectures on the demise of an Ideology again the late Fifties also proclaimed an end to ideology,it is an uncomfortable word now with the demise and threat of Soviet Communism, Fukayama's neat little ode to ideology now forgotten itself. The purpose of Derrida is to create, to create concepts,fusions, fidelities, and areas where he can escape that is the line of productive value, and his language does have its illuminations and points of curiosity. It is not a place to build however,to foster ties with, it is a though secluded,yet not altogether hostile; nor does Derrida's work set a continuation that would let you see some other place certainly not within the dirty vagaries and betrayed ambience of politics.Although following ancient thought all is politics, wherever it may interface with the human spirit.We then see on this "Spectres" what is not here. We have known something is rotten in Denamrk to fill in this void with Hamlet, and what "spectre" still roams the earth is all bound to human hunger, human greed, to erecting Walls yet again, to predestine another series of hypocrisies, where again Derrida's voice fails to look. He may look but he keeps his words, his textures inside. Being outward has more definition and committment, and Derrida's work betrays him, for we only need to look at his words. In the end we are given structures, neatly persuasive, to avoid facing the lives of those dispossessed, those who cannot now breath the air freely, nor have the aid of medical service, or not knowing where I will be tommorrow with friends,in friendship with whom? Friendship is proximity, so proximity to the "spectre" cannot be found here in words.

An Amazing Work.......2001-08-12

Derrida is definately "not a good Marxist." He is not trapped in the decaying dialectic model, but works his way around, examines the processes, and allows the readers to arrive at their own conclusions. This book is not about Marx, but rather about the specters, their attendant ideological implications, and historicity. If you are looking for a political Derrida, you will not find him here.

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