Abstract
The “…limits of truth” – this passage, retrieved from Diderot’s Essay on the Life of Seneca, opens Jacques Derrida’s Aporias. With this expression, Derrida is not simply placing his reflection under the tutelage of a philosophical heritage, in this case that of Diderot’s and Seneca’s; but also pointing towards the unsettling, ambiguous and equivocal, nature of this tradition. The unsettling nature of this tradition means, as always for Derrida, the aporetic movement which incessantly punctuates any tradition. We shall see that, for Derrida, our own “Western” philosophical tradition– its concepts, motives, intentions and meanings – is always and already engaged in an aporetic movement, never simply resolving or accomplishing itself, never capable of limiting itself to what it manifests or presents itself as. It is thus persistently and incessantly supplementing its ownmost determinations. We must hence assert from the outset of this essay: Derrida does not, as does Hegel or even, to a certain extent, Heidegger, philosophize from a signified endpoint of metaphysical thought or history.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Derrida, Aporias, tr. T. Dutoit, Stanford, Stanford University Press 1993, p. 1.
- 2.
Derrida, Of Grammatology, tr. G. Spivak, Baltimore, J. Hopkins University Press, 1976, p. 145.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
This is why Derrida states in the opening lines of Chapter I in Of Grammatology : “…it inaugurates the destruction, not the demolition but the de-sedimentation, the deconstruction, of all the significations that have their source in that of the Logos. Particularly the signification of truth. 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…”. (p. 20).
- 5.
Derrida, Of Grammatology, op. cit., p. 4 sq.
- 6.
Derrida, Aporias, op. cit., p. 19.
- 7.
Derrida, Of Grammatology, op. cit., p. 4.
- 8.
Derrida, Aporias, op. cit., p. 78.
- 9.
Ibid., pp. 1–2.
- 10.
Derrida, Glas, tr. J.P. Leavy and R. Rand, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1987.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 226.
- 12.
Derrida, Given Time: The Counterfeit Money, tr. P. Kamuf, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press 1992, p. 22.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
Derrida, Adieu – to Emmanuel Levinas, tr. P.-A Brault and M. Naas, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1997.
- 15.
Derrida, “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority’”, in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, (Eds. D. Cornell, M. Rosenfield and D. G. Carlson, London, Routledge 1992.
References
Derrida 1976. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. Spivak. Baltimore: J. Hopkins University Press.
Derrida. 1987. Glas. Trans. J.P. Leavy and R. Rand. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Derrida. 1992a. Given Time: Counterfeit Money. Trans. P. Kamuf. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Derrida. 1992b. Force of law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority’. In Deconstruction and the possibility of justice, ed. D. Cornell, M. Rosenfield, and D.G. Carlson. London: Routledge.
Derrida. 1993 Aporias. Trans. T. Dutoit. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Derrida. 1997. Adieu – to Emmanuel Levinas. Trans. P.-A Brault and M. Naas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cohen, J., Zagury-Orly, R. (2016). The Future of Deconstruction: Beyond the Impossible. In: Foran, L., Uljée, R. (eds) Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida: The Question of Difference. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 86. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39232-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39232-5_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39230-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39232-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)