Abstract
Is there an end to organicism? What is the extent of its dominion? While the romanticism of thinkers such as Coleridge and Friedrich Schlegel is characterised by an attempt to expand the jurisdiction of the figure of organicism to all areas of thought and writing, much modern thought has the opposite aim. The restriction — or even downright rejection — of the organism is what is sought. In this chapter I want to scrutinise this alternative strategy, by way of two different readings: the first will focus upon Maurice Blanchot’s early theory of the work of art, and the second will look into Jacques Derrida’s later resistance to organicism and the Western metaphysical tradition. In both, I will be scrutinising — and questioning — the radical nature of a movement that tries to set aside organicism in order to replace it with the alternative, ontotypological figure of the text.
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 subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Georges Bataille, Theory of Religion (translated by Robert Hurley, New York: Zone Books, 1992), 19.
(Heidegger, Der Urprung des Kunstwerkes (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam Jun., 1977), 71).
Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature (translated by Ann Smock, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 125.
Maurice Blanchot, The Sirens’ Song (edited by Gabriel Josipovici, translated by Sacha Rabinovitch, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).
Maurice Blanchot, The Step Not Beyond (translated by Lycette Nelson, New York: State University of New York Press, 1992).
Jacques Derrida, Monolingualism of the Other; or, The Prosthesis of the Origin (translated by Patrick Mensah, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 26–7.
Roland Barthes, ‘From Work to Text’, in Image, Music, Text (edited and translated by Stephen Heath, London: Fontana Press, 1977).
Derrida, ‘Living On / Borderlines’, translated by James Hulbert, 83–4, in Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey H. Hartman and J. Hillis Miller, Deconstruction and Criticism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979).
Jacques Derrida, Dissemination (translated by Barbara Johnson, London: The Athlone Press, 1981), 45.
Jacques Derrida, Positions (translated by Alan Bass, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), 41.
Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference (translated by Alan Bass, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978).
Derrida’s ‘Specters of Marx’: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International (translated by Peggy Kamuf, New York: Routledge, 1994), 91–2.
Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question (translated by Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 12.
Geoff Bennington, ‘Derridabase’, 226, in Bennington and Derrida, Jacques Derrida (translated by Bennington, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993).
Maurice Blanchot, Friendship (translated by Elizabeth Rottenberg, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 291.
Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community (edited by Peter Connor, translated by Peter Connor, Lisa Garbus, Michael Holland and Simona Sawhney, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), xxxviii.
Maurice Blanchot, The Unavowable Community (translated by Pierre Joris, Barrytown: Station Hill Press, 1988), 3.
Jacques Derrida, ‘Remarks on Deconstruction and Pragmatism’, translated by Simon Critchley, 83, in Critchley, Derrida, Ernesto Laclau and Simon Rorty, Deconstruction and Pragmatism (edited by Chantal Mouffe, London: Routledge, 1996).
Michael Sprinker (ed.), Ghostly Demarcations: A Symposium on Jacques Derrida’s ‘Specters of Marx’ (London: Verso, 1999).
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (translated by Paul Patton, London: The Athlone Press, 1994), 263.
Deleuze in The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (translated by Tom Conley, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (translated by Brian Massumi, London: The Athlone Press, 1988), 499.
Derrida, The Work of Mourning (edited by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Gilles Deleuze, Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life (translated by John Rajchman, New York: Zone Books, 2001), 27.
John Protevi in Political Physics: Deleuze, Derrida and the Body Politic (London: The Athlone Press, 2001).
Dietrich von Engelhardt, ‘Vitalism between Science and Philosophy in Germany around 1800’, 170, in Guido Cimino and François Duchesneau (eds.), Vitalisms: From Haller to the Cell Theory (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1997).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2003 Charles I. Armstrong
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Armstrong, C.I. (2003). On the Double: Blanchot, Derrida and the Step Beyond. In: Romantic Organicism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287754_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287754_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-50951-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-28775-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)