Chapter

Introduction: The Question of Writing: Being Written

January 2019

In book: Heidegger with Derrida (pp.1-8)

Authors:

Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design

Heidegger and Derrida; the deconstructive enterprise; logocentrism and Heidegger’s metaphysics; Derrida’s stance vis-à-vis Heidegger’s logocentrism; writing and its denigration; writing in the broad sense (ontological writing); writing as contamination of presence, Being, and the aletheic space; Heidegger and Plato; the notion of the proper; writing as contamination of the proper.

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Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand

Chapter

May 2017

Jacques Derrida

Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Article

Jan 1967

Jacques Derrida

Article

Derrida's Chinese Prejudice

December 2008 · Cultural Critique

Sean Meighoo

The program of deconstruction that is mounted in Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology—and already the problem of reading is raised, for as Spivak tells us in the preface to her English translation, the term "deconstruction" did not appear in the earliest published version of the first part of Grammatology, the Heideggerian term "destruction" marking its appearance in advance—this program of ... [Show full abstract] deconstruction includes a critique of ethnocentrism. I might have even said that the critique of ethnocentrism is not merely "accidental" but absolutely "essential" to the program of deconstruction, were it not for the suspicion that deconstruction casts on all such philosophemes. The very first sentences of Grammatology—and again the problem of reading is raised, for I am provisionally excluding from the text of Grammatology itself the author's preface and the "triple exergue," as well as the supplementary materials provided by the translator and the press—its very first sentences call attention to "the ethnocentrism which, everywhere and always, ha[s] controlled the concept of writing," and to "what [Derrida calls] logocentrism: the metaphysics of phonetic writing . . . which [is] fundamentally . . . nothing but the most original and powerful ethnocentrism" (3; emphasis in original). On this twofold charge of ethnocentrism and logocentrism, Derrida indicts "the history of (the only) metaphysics, which has, in spite of all differences, not only from Plato to Hegel . . . but also, beyond these apparent limits, from the pre-Socratics to Heidegger, always assigned the origin of truth in general to the logos" (3; emphasis in original), or to trace this history by a somewhat more apocryphal genealogy, "from Plato to Saussure" (70), "from the Phaedrus to the Course in General Linguistics" (103). This metaphysical tradition is characterized in its entirety by "the debasement of writing, and its repression outside 'full' speech" (3). Derrida summarizes for us the dominance of logocentrism within this tradition to which, he argues, both ontology and linguistics adhere: All the metaphysical determinations of truth, and even the one beyond metaphysical onto-theology that Heidegger reminds us of, are more or less immediately inseparable from the instance of the logos, or of a reason thought within the lineage of the logos, in whatever sense it is understood: in the pre-Socratic or the philosophical sense, in the sense of God's infinite understanding or in the anthropological sense, in the pre-Hegelian or the post-Hegelian sense. Within this logos, the original and essential link to the phonè has never been broken . . . As has been more or less implicitly determined, the essence of the phonè would be immediately proximate to that which within "thought" as logos relates to "meaning," produces it, receives it, speaks it, "composes" it . . . [T]he voice is closest to the signified, whether it is determined strictly as sense (thought or lived) or more loosely as thing. All signifiers, and first and foremost the written signifier, are derivative with regard to what would wed the voice indissolubly to the mind or to the thought of the signified sense, indeed to the thing itself . . . The written signifier is always technical and representative. It has no constitutive meaning. This derivation is the very origin of the notion of the "signifier." The notion of the sign always implies within itself the distinction between signifier and signified, even if, as Saussure argues, they are distinguished simply as the two faces of one and the same leaf. This notion remains therefore within the heritage of that logocentrism which is also a phonocentrism: absolute proximity of voice and being, of voice and the meaning of being, of voice and the ideality of meaning. The history of metaphysics, then, constitutes a "historico-metaphysical epoch" (4, 6), the "epoch of onto-theology" or the "epoch of the logos" (12) as much as it does the "age of the sign" (14). Furthermore, Derrida argues that the very concept of history is metaphysical, insofar as it is complicit with the metaphysical concept of knowledge. "[The concept of istoria is] profoundly related to [the concept of epistémè] in spite of the dissociation or opposition which has distinguished one from the other during one phase of their common progress. History and knowledge, istoria and epistém...

Article

Full-text available

Avita ronell: French connexion

June 2011 · Alea Estudos Neolatinos

Jérémie Marjorel

The spectacular style of philosopher American Avital Ronell, inspired by the performative devices of Derrida, is good in the service of an authentic philosophic thought. She proceeds less by deconstruction of the fence of the western metaphysics than by secret connections and short circuit which electrify networks of unnoticed senses at fundamental authors, since Plato until Blanchot by way of ... [Show full abstract] Flaubert, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

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Chapter

Heidegger’s Uses of Plato and the History of Philosophy

January 2005

Tom Rockmore

It is sobering to realize, since so much in philosophy depends on interpreting written texts, those of our contemporaries as well as those written by philosophers who on occasion lived long ago, that, after some two and a half thousand years of debate, there is still no generally accepted view about how to read and to appropriate philosophical writings. This theme is confused and confusing. We ... [Show full abstract] can distinguish rival claims about textual interpretation as subjective or objective according whether it is believed we can get it right about what the text really or in fact says. Those who think that textual interpretation is subjective hold that there is no hope of making an objective claim, since meanings are not discovered, uncovered, or revealed in the text but rather "imported" into it, that interpretation and the interpretive disciplines do not yield knowledge, or at least not rigorous knowledge, that there is no such thing as valid interpretation since all interpretations are "valid;" and that there is no way to bring the openended interpretive debate to an end.1 On the contrary, those who think interpretation is objective believe that objective interpretive claims are routinely made, that meanings are discovered, uncovered, or revealed in the text but not "imported" into it, that under proper conditions interpretation and the interpretive disciplines do yield (rigorous) knowledge, that there are valid (and invalid) interpretations, and that the interpretive debate can be and in practice normally is brought to an end (see, e.g., Hirsch 1967). The view that interpretation yields knowledge beyond the endless interpretive debate is widely held in the cognitive disciplines, including the various sciences but even in aesthetics. This issue cuts across doctrinal boundaries separating, for instance, continental and analytic philosophers. Within analytic philosophy, this point can be illustrated by a difference in perspective between W. V. Quine and Donald Davidson. Quine's view of the indeterminacy of translation, which yields the inference that interpretation is always indeterminate, hence not determinate (1960, 26-79), is opposed by Davidson's idea that through a process of triangulation we come ever closer to what is really there (2001, 123-34). Those who hold that interpretation yields (rigorous) knowledge often take a strong, or metaphysical realist, line. The term "realism" is used in many different ways. By metaphysical realism I will understand the widespread view, with roots in early Greek philosophy, that there is a mind-independent external world which, under appropriate conditions, can be known as it is (see Devitt 1997). Stephen Weinberg, for instance, thinks that unless science uncovers the structure of the real world, it is not worth doing (1999, 49). Similarly, Monroe Beardsley (1982) holds that the aesthetic features of an artwork are independent of our perception of them. Martin Heidegger holds a similarly metaphysical realist view of textual interpretation. His view separates him from his disciples Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Derrida apparently holds the extreme antisemantic view that, since any reference can always be "deconstructed," definite reference is never possible. Gadamer, like G. W. F. Hegel, holds the more moderate position that interpretation, while perspectival, depends on the views that prevail at a given time and place, hence on the historical moment. This comparison leads to the idea that we read texts differently at different times, but can never discover what is there beyond interpretation. Heidegger holds a more extreme view. He believes that under appropriate conditions, we can and indeed must go beyond whatever view is, so to speak, in the air at a given historical moment to determine meanings that are in the text in independence of what different readers say about it. Heidegger offers an outstanding illustration of the metaphysical realist view of interpretation. The early Heidegger believes that interpretation yields valid claims to know in determining meanings independent of the interpreter. According to Heidegger, we can go back behind the later Western philosophical tradition to grasp the problem of the meaning of being as it was originally raised in ancient Greek philosophy. Yet it is not clear that we can reliably claim to grasp meanings that are in the text in independence of interpretation, nor that we can go back behind the interpretive tradition, nor even that we can recover problems, doctrines, theories, or ideas as they were originally raised at some earlier time. Accordingly, this paper will utilize Heidegger's different Plato interpretations as an example of the nature and limits of a metaphysical realist approach to the philosophical tradition. I will be arguing against Heidegger's goal of recovering the question of being as it was originally raised as implausible in principle and inconsistent in fact with his actual practice. I will further be arguing in favor of the plausibility of a very different, "constructivist" approach to the philosophical tradition.

Article

Ethics and the other: Recovering genuine encounter through a reinterpretation of Heidegger

Matthew Harrison Kleiner

Questions about ethics have dominated postmodern philosophy and post-postmodern philosophy. Ethics ultimately has something to do with encountering other persons and responding to them. While the possibility of genuinely encountering others is typically assumed by those who don't practice philosophy for a living, post-Kantian philosophy renders this basic experience problematic. Are other people ... [Show full abstract] the sorts of beings that can be encountered or, daringly, are they 'beyond being'? Postmodern philosophers like Derrida prefer to talk about others as being 'beyond being' or beyond any horizon of comprehension. Resultant of this is the so-called negative ethics of radical alterity or ethics of impossibility. We are called to radical responsibility but, since the other is beyond comprehension, we are in a condition of radical ignorance with respect to the others to whom we must respond. ^ This ethics of alterity has always struck me as phenomenologically deficient; it simply fails to really articulate our moral experience with others. With that in mind, I wanted to explore another point of view. Though notable postmodern philosophers of alterity like Derrida owe a great debt of gratitude to Heidegger, Heidegger (particularly the "later" Heidegger) has rarely been brought to bear on the question of encountering others in an ethical relationship. In part, this stems from the view that Heidegger is himself caught up in the metaphysics of presence (another way of saying the other is not encountered) that postmodern philosophers are so eager to deconstruct. ^ The aim of this work is to bring the later Heidegger into this discussion, to re-interpret him back from the metaphysics of presence and into the conversation about our ethical encounter with others. To do this, I first explain and explore the problems and deficiencies of the ethics of alterity. To set the stage for Heidegger's entry into the conversation, I then show that Derrida is wrong to suppose that Heidegger is a foe instead of an ally regarding the metaphysics of presence. I then move to a careful reading of a various later Heideggerian works, read as a "path" to what Heidegger hopes to be a new kind of thinking. After exploring Heidegger's development of a new thinking which I call an "alethiology", I show that his thought can be fruitful for reflections on our ethical encounters with others and with moral philosophy in general. In particular, I draw a connection between alethiology and Aristotle's understanding of phronesis. Ultimately I argue that Heidegger recognizes, with Derrida and others, the ultimate "groundlessness" of ethics without succumbing to the negative ethics of radical alterity.^

Article

Waiting for Godot: A Deconstructive Study

July 2015

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) is the most eminent French philosopher and literary theorist of deconstruction. He challenges the logo-centric Western tradition of the metaphysics of presence, which has been dominant from Plato's " Phaedrus " until Edmund Husserl's " Origin of Geometry " in Western philosophy. His trend-breaking theory of deconstruction attacks the metaphysical presuppositions of ... [Show full abstract] Western philosophy, ethics, culture, politics and literature. It may give a new meaning and perspective to Samuel Beckett's " Waiting for Godot " , which has always been a focal point for the world's literary critics. They have applied various theories to it, but this paper tries to scrutinize the different facets of the play from Derridean deconstructive theory. Applying Derridean deconstructive hermeneutics to the text of the play under discussion, the author of this paper introduces a new portrait of the personages of the play. The study will retrace the pathways of Western tradition of the metaphysics of presence and its compelling influences, which have proved to be the inhibiting and fossilizing deadlocks of aporia of meaning and authoritative structures of human thought to explore the new horizons. In its concluding mode, the study exposes preventive stumbling aporic blocks of centralized structure of the minds of characters in the given play.

Article

Music Education in the Sign of Deconstruction

October 2008 · Philosophy of Music Education Review

Petter Dyndahl

In this article, the aim is to address different forms of relationship between deconstruction, as coined by Jacques Derrida, and research perspectives on music education. Deconstruction represents a radical departure from Western ontology from Plato onward and its essentialistic notions of the metaphysics of presence. Instead, Derrida claims that signs, as well as texts, are decentered, that is, ... [Show full abstract] they are continually altering meaning in relation to other signs or texts, being in constant motion. Simultaneously, signs and texts, as well as existence and experience, constitute themselves by binary oppositions, like nature/culture, content/form, original/copy, internal/external, empirical/ theoretical, and so on. Derrida argues that such differences are not inherent, but are instead socially produced and hierarchical mechanisms for providing systematic priority to one aspect of the dualism to the neglect of the other. Consequently, the ethical interest of music education research, from a deconstructive perspective, would be to expose what is marginalized in musical schooling, upbringing, and socialization. In that case, deconstruction might also be able to rectify some of its destructive reputation.

Article

The Greatness of the New-Found Night A Review of A. Staley Groves' Imaginality: Conversant and Escha...

Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei

Imaginality - Conversant and Eschaton by A. (Adam) Staley Groves ap- peared at the recently founded Atropos Press in their "Think Media: EGS Media Philosophy Series." The aim of the "Think Media" series is to provide a survey of the output of both the MA and PhD programs at the European Graduate school, and Imaginality comprises an extended version of Staley Groves's Master The- sis, supervised ... [Show full abstract] by philosopher Wolfgang Schirmacher. The main aim of the enterprise that philosopher-poet Staley Groves is un- dertaking in this work is - and I can of course only say this with many necessary precautions in place, and with as much truthfulness toward the surface that I am listening into - to think a metaphysics without, and perhaps beyond, meta- physics. I take metaphysics here to denote, in the line of Heidegger and Derrida, the whole history and practice of Western philosophy from Plato to Husserl.

Chapter

An immense power: The three phenomenological insights supporting Derridean deconstruction

July 2018

L. Lawlor

Derrida's idea of deconstruction stems from three phenomenological insights: (1) the insight into the experience of others; (2) the insight into the role of documentation for knowledge; and (3) the insight into temporalization. But the chapter argues that there is a fourth phenomenological insight, the insight in the endless expansion of reduction. It is this fourth insight that leads to the idea ... [Show full abstract] of power, an immense power. The repeatability of experience implies a potency that goes to infinity. The chapter looks at all of Derrida's major writings on Husserl: The Introduction to The Origin of Geometry; "Violence and Metaphysics"; Voice and Phenomenon; and Touching-Jean-Luc Nancy.

Chapter

Play and Messianicity: The Question of Time and History in Derrida's Deconstruction

January 2015

Françoise Dastur

The questions of time and history, which were explicitly at the center of Heidegger's thought since its beginning, have constituted in a more latent and implicit way the kernel of Derrida's deconstruction. Derrida himself considered this chapter, which is an “Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl's Phenomenology” as the subtitle states, as coming first since it deals with a decisive ... [Show full abstract] point: the question of the privilege given to self-presence is called living speech. It was quite important for Derrida, since, as he stressed in Of Grammatology, Heidegger crossed out there the word “Being,” an “erasure” considered by Derrida as the last writing of the epoch of ontotheology, the metaphysics of presence, and logocentrism. Derrida explains here that “the messianic eschatology” from which Levinas draws his inspiration does not refer to a theology, a mysticism, or a religion, but is based on the very nature of experience.

Article

Plato's Deconstruction of Derrida

April 1996 · Telos

Catherine Pickstock

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates recognizes sophism's threat to civic life and warns against the nihilistic consequences of its severing of ontology from transcendence. In so doing, he attacks the earliest foreshadowing of contemporary secular modernity or postmodernity. In defense of the latter, Jacques Derrida has tried to show how Socrates' critique falters over the issues of speech and writing. ... [Show full abstract] Socrates' preference for the former, claims Derrida, is a defence of “metaphysical presence.” Once this preference is deconstructed, his entire case collapses and an even more radical sophistry triumphs. Socrates' preference for speech over writing, however, is not a defense of “metaphysical presence” but the opposite: an attack on presence.

Chapter

Euporia : On the Limits, Horizons and Possibilities of Critique (or: On Reconstruction)

November 2016

Raymond Aaron Younis

Purpose-Theoretical reconstruction for the sake of deeper and clearer understanding of an important theme in classical philosophy (aporia/euporia) Methodology/approach-Logical critique (and reconstruction); aporetic and euporetic logic. Findings-Using key texts by Plato and Aristotle on aporia and euporia, I attempt to show that Derrida's, and more broadly deconstructive, readings are problematic ... [Show full abstract] and require careful and critical reconsideration. Research limitations-A full account of aporia in the work of Derrida is beyond the scope of the paper-so too is a full account of aporia and euporia in the works of Plato and Aristotle. Practical implications-The paper has important implications in terms of our reading and interpretation of important classical texts such as Aristotle's Metaphysics. Originality/value-The paper builds on important research by philosophers like Matthews and on the nature and role of aporia in classical philosophy, just as it extends the author's own critique of deconstructive appropriations of aporia. It argues for the importance of reconstructing our understanding of aporetic and euporetic thinking in order to see it more clearly especially in its classical forms, contexts and frameworks. © 2017 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

Chapter

Conclusion: The Ghost of Metaphysics: Being Written

January 2019

Dror Pimentel

Disclosure as preservation of concealment; falsity is a fundamental aspect of truth; the originary status of contamination; Being’s fate: the necessity of the metaphysical ob-ject, writing, and technology; Heidegger’s anticipation of Derrida’s supplement: metaphysics as a trace of Being’s forgotten meaning; Heidegger’s belief that ultimately, Being will disclose itself as a simple signified; ... [Show full abstract] logocentric narrative of Being’s loss and fall; irreconcilability of writing and Being; two kinds of Being, of presence, of writing, of consciousness, of man, of nations; persistence of the proper/improper divide in Heidegger’s thought; Heidegger’s conception of proper presence and consciousness inverts the Platonic–traditional metaphysical conception; affinity between Nietzschean and Heideggerian attempts to transgress metaphysics; Heidegger shares Plato’s dream of pure presence; preservation of purity entails expulsion of the Other; Derrida’s deconstruction of propriety; the ethical imperative to acknowledge originary contamination.

Introduction: The Question of Writing: Being Written

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