Jacques Derrida

I think that this thread is being too kind to him, as "these threads" usually are. I think that this may be a reaction against scattergun dislike and distrust of him. I don't find the JD-fest appealing or unpredictable.

but pf is korrekt that i find the following line a bit lame
"derrida says you can never read a text too carefully but i refute that THUS: by not reading derrida CLOSELY AT ALL! hahaha!!"

The Pinefox, are you trying to claim that being good at philosophy is no more useful a guide to the value of the person's political opinions than, say, being good at singing (we all know that musicians are constantly asked for political views)? In its theoretical sense at least, surely politics is a branch of philosophy? (Also, The Pinefox, what do you think of JD on Joyce?)

Maybe the difficulty or obfuscation in his work is a deliberate strategy and part of his meanings - I think taking a meaning from this that when you think you understand something you are probably wrong and it's all more complex than you realise is not to misrepresent some of what he is saying. Also I think he regards the attempts at some pure, rational language for philosophy as inherently impossible. But I think there a whole bunch of philosophical and literary ideas feeding into the way he writes, not just what he writes. Ooh (I found this after writing the above), he says (of metaphysical terms like 'presence') "My intention is to make enigmatic what one thinks one understands by these words."

Some of the debate here about whether his writing is inaccessible, bullshit or just banal reminds me a bit of a good account of the four stages scientific theories can go through, in a transition to being accepted:
1. Nonsense
2. This may be true, but it is of no interest
3. This is true, but unimportant
4. This is obvious

I'm not sure (again responding to The Pinefox) that he thinks we should change our basic assumptions. I think he thinks it's worth teasing them out, and showing where they might not be solid. I haven't come across anything that I recall to suggest that he thinks there are clear and solid foundations we should use instead, just that we should be aware of the limitations or weaknesses of what we have.

A quote from JD re what I was arguing with Momus before logging off: "Undecidables are threatening. They poison the comforting sense that we inhabit a world governed by decidable categories." That's why I thought he was suggesting that the binaries don't always work. I think he very much likes these undecidables, and I do too. (I was thinking at leangth just yesterday about the line from Lola where Ray sings "I'm glad I'm a man, so's my Lola," which I realise is a different kind of thing from what Derrida enthuses about in 'Plato's Pharmacy', say, but it has some things ambiguous and playful and indeterminate in common with JD's most famous neologism, differance (sorry, don't know how to do the accent here).)

There is some truth in a jokey suggestion upthread that summarising any of his views is to misrepresent them. He said that all sentences of the type 'Deconstruction is/is not [X]' "a priori miss the point", so this thread is in trouble! (haha, xposting at its finest)

One other point about his talking about political matters: as a thinker with a huge international reputation (named in a Knowing Me Knowing You episode as the world's top living philosopher, if that isn't Peter Ustinov) his statements carry authority. Since most of what he has chosen to throw that weight behind has been things I believe in (he's spoken for nuclear disarmament and against apartheid, for instance) I am happy with this. I don't think he claims that his ideas or those of deconstruction prove much about these positions (though he has deconstructed the logic of deterrence - again, better at taking apart ideas than building new ones). (I'm less comfy with his stance on feminism, though I think I'd need to do more reading to get just where he is on this - the few statements I've read pull in differing directions.) I've seen interesting suggestions that his long silence on Marxism (until the fall of communism in Europe) was because although his deconstructionist approach could undermine that as well as any other ideology, he wanted not to be on the opposite side.

Enough. As you can tell, he is a thinker who interests me, so I'm keen to poke the thread along a bit, if I can.

but what is the point of making that term 'enigmatic'? Its fine to suggest other meanings (maybe that's what you're saying).

''I'm not sure (again responding to The Pinefox) that he thinks we should change our basic assumptions. I think he thinks it's worth teasing them out, and showing where they might not be solid. I haven't come across anything that I recall to suggest that he thinks there are clear and solid foundations we should use instead, just that we should be aware of the limitations or weaknesses of what we have.''

OK but haven't ppl always tried to re-evaluate assumptions that are thought to be solid? what does 'deconstruction' do that is new here (maybe it might take too long to explain)?

but if you treat it as something to THINK about rather than just throw about it has other implications which are somewhat useful. for example it can mean -- "this thing you hold to be true, treat it as a text, treat your understanding of it as a text, treat other's descriptions and statements about it as text, and now ask how it came to be." which is cool, but assumes you have a good idea of various useful ways to treat texts besides saying "oh look! they're made up!" about them.

He is a critic of philosophy and philosophers and philosophical texts rather than someone making new meanings and ways we should live. With these metaphysical terms, it seems an entirely valid thing to say that the way they are used doesn't properly or completely or unambiguously work.

i suppose by implication treat things a paintings if you are GOOD AT LOOKING.

or like fruit if you LIKE TO EAT!?

Also, since I speak French it seems to me like a rhetorical power-move to be so often using French terms at specific moments rather than translate. On one hand you can certainly use this to point to & mark respect for legitimate critiques of translation. On the other hand you can use it to make a concept that is not new really stand out and seem important because you refuse to translate.

I'm glad that the pinefox's shoulder rubs (without too much salt) against others whom i like.

Jacques Derrida: my opinion of is short in the sense that I would say Habermas is difficult to read and I would also say Lyotard talks about 'le differend'.

I don't much about him is what I'm saying but the sheer force of meme-longevity makes me want too.

What is wrong with being banal? I'm willing to listen.

And an ill typist.

(hence eg rhetoric and dialogue and pedagogy and ______ and ______ are ALWAYS part of the deal, hence whatever)

(i can't help but think that the sheer repetitiveness of some texts in the canon comes from exactly these exchanges. derrida: A. Blount (or whoever): Not really. derrida: etc.etc. (i.e. smart stuff) thus A still stands, etc. unfortunately this tends to be an impediment to progress in thinking. which is to say arguing about A directly is less useful than applying it to B, C, D as desired rather than INVENTING B, C, D for the purpose of refuting A)

is saying something is "beyond language" equiv. to saying it is "beyond comprehension"?

do you not think about eating buffalo wings when you eat them? is that thinking in words? has your lover ever asked you "lower, faster, ah right there" while you eat her out? or has she maybe just moaned in a different pitch of shifted her thighs and is that language too?

no things but in ideas themselves

how much of living as a HUMAN is specifically human?

to some people, talking about this is pointless stuff: these people shouldn't bother talking about it! for others, i.e. Derrida and people who like him, it's loads of fun

so even when you harrumph about it and reach for something untainted bcz isn't that a better version of whatever, it ain't, so better to get used to it and be cool about it

(also the biology, culture etc involved in mastering speaking, latterly reading, writing have a huge presence in society, even when we don't actually think about them or refer to them much...) (a LOT of argts on ilx cd be rephrased as judgments abt level or "quality" of readership, like it carves the world into a hidden class structure)

(and he means language in a v.wide sense there: "text" is - or was at the point he wrote that - his technical term for the generalised sphere of communication, bigger than eg just speech or writing, but DEF - explicitly - including mathematics)

i find the games side to it a bit tiresome, as in the games he seems to enjoy, but i also think he's right not to drop that down to a "mere" set-asideable level, cz it's a big and maybe wrong assumption to make to just decide that the GAMES aspect is an irrelevance and a distortion compared the serious, proper useage... cz that develops later, out of the games...)

(and it's not as if i don't opt for jokes a lot myself)

(one of the things i like abt ilx as a structure is that it allows a tremendous play between extremely difft er ahem "modes of address")

I'm not so sure! Though again may I recommend Blanchot, whom I think is saying "there is nothing without/outside language, nor is there anything at all in language"

an impenetrability that ensures my continued deification in France and elsewhere.

Point of information — Derrida’s reputation in France is not in any way comparable to its status in Britain or the US (both in terms of good and bad things said about him). This is an important point, because so much of the problems in discussing Derrida do genuinely stem from the difficulty of translation between different contexts — never impossible, but never to be taken for granted. Like the assumed demand that a ‘philosopher’ should have something - what? Useful - to say about a ‘major event’.

That language strategy could be dramatically counterproductive, though (turning off more people than it turns on, too easy to make fun of, etc.). It seems counterintuitive to deliberately make something more complex, just to stop people in their tracks. I do find the language to be a stumbling block.

This is a really interesting comment. If it is counterintuitive to make something complex, then surely all philosophy is counterintuitive? But the assumption that this is done for effect - deliberately to obfuscate or to provoke - seems odd. I mean, why ask a philosopher about something if you want the same answer a journalist, or a politician, or a bloke in a pub, might give? Putting things in ‘simple’ terms is often the easiest way to a) obscure complications which are just there, whether we admit or not and b) apply a kind of rhetorical force to the situation: e.g. asking someone whether they believe in freedom really means ‘take one of these two reductively established positions so I know whether to shoot you or not’. So a) there’s nothing wrong as such with making things complex and b) what are you afraid of? Derrida’s response is (on one level) ‘I can’t answer the question you have posed in those terms because so many of them seem to me extremely obscure, so let me show you what I think needs to be clarified before we can begin’. i.e. Derrida is seeking to CLARIFY, but that necessarily involves making things more complex.

But there’s another assumption, which is that Derrida should respond in your language, rather than his. Isn’t that a slightly strange demand? i.e. you’re asking why these damn foreigners can’t speak your language. (Even that’s a philosophical foreigner rather than a literal foreigner). [Mark makes a similar point, I discover reading the remainder of the thread] If you were to pick up one of Derrida’s essays on Husserl, or Heidegger, would you say ‘that bastard hasn’t written a beginner’s guide to Husserl, he’s written a complex text which I’d have to know a certain amount about philosophy, and about Husserl, to get something out of’? Yes, the specific genre here is that of an interview, but the context is unclear - Derrida is trying, as Foucault did, and as others have, to present his work in a non-technical context. (Although in the second extract he recalls some of Schmitt’s arguments). But this doesn’t mean not asking technical questions, or using technical language. If you want Derrida’s response to something, this is how he thinks! And yes that’s a calculated risk - not everyone is going to have the patience to take the time to explore why he’s asking these questions, and in this way (as this thread proves!). But that’s his risk. The response that ‘I can’t be bothered to read something difficult like Derrida’s work’ is at least an honest one.

mark, what about the stuff he says on war between states (or classical war) vs. civil war (or partisan war) and now international terrorism? this must be relevant to your rights-based constitutions thread. although i don't think it's a problem with the choice of political philosophy as much as the way they are used to justify actions. or maybe this is the problem derrida is talking about: terrorism has made it necessary to make explicit a philosophy for international law

What Derrida is saying is something like: 1) Schmitt distinguishes between ‘classical war between states’ and ‘partisan war which breaks those rules’; 2) this is a useful distinction and it’s the kind of technical clarification we need to try and understand and describe the world better; 3) but this is never going to be *enough* because 4) the real world already deconstructs such oppositions - Bush has declared war (as if the US was a state making war in the classical sense) but against an enemy who does not fit into traditional categories; 5) so a CRITICAL reading of Schmitt would need to accept that the real world is messier than the theoretical or abstract world view and work out how to continue the kind of project he’s interested in while taking account for those elements of messy reality which frustrate such a project. Now, as the Pinefox observes as smartly as ever, this may be banal - but most of what we can say on such a topic is banal. It’s not an attempt to develop a new theory of terrorism, or of international law, as such: in fact Derrida advances very little under his own name, describing instead what a critical reading of Schmitt *might* achieve (but might not). But again, this is an interview not a full-blown philosophical essay. If you’re interested in his reading of Schmitt, there’s plenty in Politics of Friendship, although strictly speaking that’s a series of seminar sessions, not a philosophical essay (not that it’s not philosophical). Being clear about the status of these texts, and of what Derrida says is important because it presents what he’s doing as offering starting points for your own responses, he’s not telling you what to think, but making suggestions as to how you might begin to think, if you stop expecting the world to offer you easy answers.

does Derrida believe in MONADS

I don’t know much about the term Monads - I take it to come from a Leibnizian / Spinozan (?) type philosophical discourse. Derrida has not written anything I can think of on Spinoza - most of his work is either on classical philosophy, some medieval thinkers, and on post-Kantian writings. But if you wanted me to guess, the answer would be NO, because singularity is always fractured or contaminated in his work, the One is always more or less than one, never whole and complete in itself. i.e. like many post-Hegelian thinkers, identity is always relational. (But see remarks on dates later)

It would cheer me a tad if on... "threads like this", people who like Derrida would sometimes take more sceptical positions re. him, and perhaps even vice versa.
I find the JD fandom and perhaps the JD critique brigade typecast. There is perhaps too much nervy reactive anger, if that word is not too strong, and a sense that battle must be joined. I doubt that it need be.

I kind of agree with the Pinefox here, although he probably has me down as a member of the Derrida fanclub. It tends to depend on the context - I can often disagree with Derrida, and have done in public forums, but in other cases, like here, I think sympathetic clarification is the more effective strategy. It tends to be far too easy to knock someone’s position rather than trying to see their point of view from inside. Once you do that, it tends to become harder to attack it - so it might be a good rule of thumb to do this with whatever you read, or indeed whoever you’re arguing with.

I think it's the way that binaries do work that concerns Derrida. He's not a mechanic fixing broken ones. He's showing how, although they're necessary, binaries necessarily create all sorts of ghosts which 'haunt' our thinking, semi-visible. Which makes him not so much a 'ghost buster' as a spiritualist, teasing words from his ouija board.

This is quite a neat statement of Derrida’s aims I think. But I would certainly add that he’s very interested in some of the political consequences of ignoring the ghosts and pretending they’re not there. Making the ghosts appear is part of his project, trying to act out possible attempts to reckon with the ghosts, and finding a way of thinking about the ghosts which doesn’t (because it can’t) claim to have adequately banished them or factored them in, is another.

'All sentences of the type "deconstruction is X" or "deconstruction is not X" a priori miss the point.'

This perhaps not so helpful. Is it from the letter to a Japanese friend? (Could check but books are upstairs!). If so it occurs in the context of a discussion which does try to find ways to talk about deconstruction - so Derrida is not just throwing up his hands and going ‘oh it’s all so difficult / intrinsically undefinable (which verges on a kind of mysticism). And given he has regularly produced sentences of that type, it would be a funny kind of thing to say, were it not for the fact that there is always context - so a word, a sentence, a whole book, is never complete in itself. The same might be said of any event - and we’re bordering here on what he says about 11/9. To name an event - to cite it in discussion say - is always to limit it, by setting borders and parameters around it. Obviously this is what we do all the time, and there’s nothing intrinsically *wrong* about it, but it has certain effects, not least that it means we’re always having to forget or exclude things in order to handle the concepts we use to interpret the world, just as we often forget that those concepts are only concepts (and then elevate them into abstract terms which can be used to label good and bad, right and wrong).

I don't know how much Derrida hates slogans, no matter how much he may protest - "there is nothing outside the text" is the "Just Do It" of Critical Theory

But certainly at the time of writing Derrida never knew what was going to happen to that phrase (for example its translation into other languages), and by God it’s buried in a long and dense text. He has always insisted that the word ‘deconstruction’, just for example, was never intended to introduce some kind of manifesto. If subsequent events made it convenient to use that word as a kind of shorthand, and to take positions around it so be it - but obviously the fate of a word can never be determined by one person, and in this as in other things Derrida has responded to what happens elsewhere.

Since this smacks of the apologetics Pinefox is fed up with , maybe I should add that I think Derrida has deliberately used forms of sloganeering in certain places, and a number of times I wish he hadn’t or wouldn’t. But on the one hand Derrida is being told (again this thread is typical) ‘put it in manifestos, in words of one syllable I can repeat or disagree with’ and on the other ‘don’t reduce things to buzz-words and slogans’. The guy’s only human.

his statements carry authority. Since most of what he has chosen to throw that weight behind has been things I believe in (he's spoken for nuclear disarmament and against apartheid, for instance) I am happy with this.

Martin is I think talking absolute sense here. If Derrida doesn’t have an obvious position on ‘feminism’ (although I think it’s fairly clear, depends what exactly you’d be looking for) it’s because he knows that ‘feminism’ is such a disputed and complicated term, that there are plenty of feminists he might agree with and plenty he would have little common ground with: he would almost certainly, and I think I’ve seen him do this, insist that we can only talk about ‘feminisms’ in the plural (as we can only really talk about ‘deconstructions’ in the plural). Derrida was for a long time very unhappy with the public and supposedly authoritative position he was expected to take, and so there are few interviews and only a couple of photographs of him before the mid-to-late seventies. After his involvement in debates surrounding the teaching of philosophy in France, Derrida appears to have become more open to taking public stances. Again, that was his decision, and we can say we think it was right or wrong, but we cannot a priori quibble with his right to make his own decision on that.

it seems to me it calls for an infinite regress of re-evaluation - rather than propose a standard for obtaining truth (like pragmatism for instance) it simply proposes a method for undermining all possible conclusions! its a useful tool but not something you can live by

I like to think that accepting that any decision you make is always provisional, and that you might like to look back and say well that was wrong (or right), is a possible way to live. It would mean never assuming that you were right and someone else was wrong, but would mean you were prepared to act as if you were right when you judged the situation to call for that. In fact, it’s pretty much what we do the whole time isn’t it? Since the re-evaluation would be infinite, deconstruction would never be something you could actually ‘live’: but you might be able to live more or less deconstructively (i.e. more or less taking the apparently ‘given’ or ‘natural’ for granted). This may also sound banal: but the specificity of Derrida’s project, for example, lies in the kind of questions he asks to the specific texts, ideas, events that he considers. Examined carefully, the results may not be so banal - in fact, obviously they’re not, or we wouldn’t have all this fuss to deal with. (Not sure I’ve explained that very well)

"there is nothing outside the text"

Trouble is that this isn’t really about ‘texts’ in any obvious way. In the essay it’s from ‘text’ has become something like an improved term for what Heidegger calls ‘Being’ i.e. ?the world; ?language; ?everything. Difference being that Derrida wants to insist that anything we might care to investigate will have the same characteristics as a text (ie in being resistant to final determination, being totally pinned down to an unequivocal meaning (i.e. translation into another context / discourse / language / paraphrase). The fact that ‘Being’ can be translated into ‘text’ itself acting out the inherent destabilisation of even such terms which seek to identify fundamental concepts.

So it’s not quite enough to say that Derrida’s work is about texts, or even about language. In a couple of places he describes deconstruction as being whatever happens to happen, or happens not to happen: i.e. if we could talk about (but by definition we can’t) it would be everything which is and everything which isn’t. But these aren’t the best terms to use to look at what he does. What I mean is, deconstruction is about events not language or texts. (Footnote: this is the starting point for some of my own research, in which I argue that you can understand political events, usefully, as being deconstruction in progress, if you look at them a certain way, and that this opens up issues which other ways of looking at them ignore.)

i.e. it might be easier to think of Derrida in the Kantian or phenomenological traditions, but really pushing the problem of how do we ever have access to ‘things’ to what’s out there to its limits, rather than as a ‘it’s all language games’ or discourse theory type of guy.