"I shall speak of ghost, of flame, and of ashes." Derrida has a flair for tackling different philosophical in unique and roundabout ways. If there can be any "main thesis" to this book (Derrida, I believe would "avoid" such a "thesis" statement) is an in depth and deeply nuanced examination of Heideggars' use of several german words "Geist, geistig, geistlich" and their evolution in his work, including his avoiding using them, over several years. The thread of discussing weaves through Heideggar's ever present idea of "questioning" the "question" and how, insidiously, through various textual operations, Heideggar privileges the "question" [fragen].This includes a look at Heideggar's seminal text Sein und Zeid (known to anglo-philosphers as Being and Time) and even several essays on one of Heideggar's favorite poets Georg Trakl.

In the end, this book is one of Derrida most dense, and "closed" discussions. What I mean by that, is that someone who is not sufficiently versed in Heideggar's philosophy, various emtymological aspects of teh german and french language, Heideggar's relation to Georg Trakl and ultimately the Nazi party, will be easily left out in the cold in this one. Derrida begins with several complicated questions and is ruthless in his close-textual readings and endless re-contextualization of Heideggar's work.

This is his forte. Its just not a great introduction text. Nor even a good intermediate text. Start with Of grammatology. Not Of Spirit. And return to it later with a deeper understanding of Derrida's strategy before tackling this one.

If you read this book, you might notice how one century tends to follow another, but certain problems could crop up, particularly in places which don't define the world quite like we do, philosophically or religiously. I expected to spend a full weekend trying to figure out what this book has to say, but it dropped right into my preconceptions.

Some questions are more unsettling than others, and the question of spirit in Heidegger is worse when Derrida makes it perfectly clear that Heidegger knew how to avoid the question in purely philosophical works, firstly in Sein und Zeit, but treated spirit like a bandwagen that "the leap" (p. 32) would land on for those "in the movement of an authentication or identification which wish themselves to be properly German" (p. 33) in his famous Rectorship Address six years later, in 1933. The key paragraph of that address pictures the Germans, for whom the "will to essence creates for our people its most intimate and extreme world of danger, in other words its true spiritual world." (p. 36) My confusion about this doesn't really start until page 41, where "Spirit is its double." The consideration moves to the Einfuhrung (1935) which "repeats the invocation of spirit launched in the Address. It even relaunches it, explains it, extends it, justifies it, specifies it, surrounds it with unprecedented precautions." (p. 41). What has become a concern for Heidegger is "The darkening of the world implies this destitution of spirit, its dissolution, consuming, its repression, and its misinterpretation. We are attempting at present to elucidate this destitution of spirit from just one perspective, and precisely that of the misinterpretation of spirit. We have said: Europe is caught in a vice between Russia and America, which metaphysically come down to the same thing in regard to their belonging to the world and their relation to spirit." (p. 59). The collapse of German idealism a century earlier was, to Heidegger, the problem of an age "which was not strong enough to remain equal to the grandeur, the breadth, and the original authenticity of this spiritual world, that is, to realize it truly." (p. 60). I dropped a lot of German words from the passages I quoted, and the bracketed "[to the character of their world, or rather to their character-of-world, Weltcharakter]", for the benefit of those who might have thought that he already said that. Plenty of attention is paid to language, but of all the foreign words which might mean spirit, I'm barely aware of how the Latin word spiritus might be sung in church with a different meaning than how German philosophers arrogate about geistliche or Geistigkeit.

Page 63 has a sentence on how the metaphysics of the latter word as well as the Christian value, "a word which will itself thus find itself doubled" form some "profound relationship with what is said twenty years earlier of the darkening of world and spirit." (p. 63). If you are following this, this might be the book for you, if you still want to know, "Heidegger names the demonic. Evidently not the Evil Genius of Descartes . . ." (p. 62).

An open question in the (by now) standard readings of Heidegger is his relation to Geist - spirit. From prescribed avoidance to evangelical inclusion over twenty five years, what motivated this change in Heidegger's pronouncements on spirit?

By following the formations, transformations, presuppositions and destinations of this sea change, Derrida once more opens the question of the question, that famous Heideggerian question or questioning which originates human kind: "Human being is that being which questions the being of its Being."

In reading any Derrida analytique, one is made aware all over again of the many echos surrounding every voice, every attempt to speak. This is particularly poignant with regard to Heidegger, and Derrida does not gloss over the German's naziism as much as trace the hubris of his fallen state.

Is there a conclusion? There is no conclusion. It's enough to keep talking...not to interrupt.

It's really difficult to describe Daniel Libeskind's works when he doesn't profess himself to be an architect & yet, claiming that he's not a non-architect either. So, what is he? Anyway, his work is very abstract & cerebral. Daniel is a very eclectic & talented individual, with degrees in music, mathematics, architecture & upon submitting his pieces for competitions, he actually used music sheet! Then, he questioned if the outcome of the competitions was decided by a panel of jury, & was that the rite thing to do. In many instances, readers might feel that we're getting somewhere in understanding his works & subsequently, a curveball would be thrown & we would end up just as confused as when we first started. Suffice to say that he's an urban planner, looking at the overall picture, believes in evolution of designs which would benefit future generations. He argued that his high profile work for the connection between the Berlin Museum & the Jewish Museum might be nicknamed "zigzag" but in actuality, in real life, its presence conveys something otherwise. If readers could look beyond his supposedly desconstructive work, he's in fact a traditionalist & a realist. Daniel is forever arguing with himself & there's nothing more enjoyable to him than engaging in discussions. I wish that there were more pictures of his works but most of them were taken in a hurry, or that they were pictures of models. There were also descriptions of some kinds of his modern art works & sculptures (or machines)? The writings at the end of the book is intensive reading, but there's undeniable of Daniel's depth & it's about time someone of his calibre racks up the architecture world with his avant-garde thinking. Other projects worth reading here are Alexanderplatz, Berlin; The Spiral: Extension to the Victoria & Albert Museum; Jewish Community Centre & Synagogue, Duisburg; & so forth. Not for the faint-hearted but highly recommended.

Fans, just for fans,ONLY for those who had a previous approach to libeskind's work. (results as to much for first-timers) advanced desconstruction followers will feel satisfied of owning this piece. The "plus" comes in the writings, the way they are writen is pure and simple "congruence" something worth to be digested.

Some things that I have previously written about fools were undoubtedly reinforced by my earlier attempt to gain something from this book. Now that I have returned to this book with all the seriousness that creative intellectual labor demands when it is not in a good mood, my concern is with a portion of Chapter 4, "The Phantom Friend Returning (in the name of `Democracy')" stated most concisely on pages 81-82, "with neither consciousness nor memory of its compulsive droning" being applied to "what has become the real structure of the political ~ . . . the marks and the discourse that give it form ~ to allow us to speak of them in such a way today, seriously and solemnly?" Whatever is being discussed here is leading to a German thinker on page 83: "This tradition takes on systematic form in the work of Carl Schmitt." The flip side of things is actually the case. "As soon as war is possible, it is taking place, . . . in a society of combat, in a community presently at war, since it can present itself to itself, as such, only in reference to this possible war." (p. 86) "The concept of the enemy is . . . the very concept of the political." (p. 86)

Perhaps this is only serious in a sense in which psychosis might be considered serious, or a political professional might be considered engaged in something like the practice of law, or a majority of the Supreme Court might think that people shouldn't count... because their wishes and desires will prevent them from maintaining any hard and fast rules about how they are counting. This is about the same as the democratic principles for friendship which are the topic of this book. Comedians might have predicted that if a presidency were to go, either to a guy that they thought was too smart, or to the dumb guy, the law ought to prefer the dumb guy anyway, because the law is like comedy, playing to the same audience. It might not always be right, but the audience always gets the jokes about the dumb guy. Derrida is not providing an index or bibliography with this work, just notes at the end of the chapters, so it wasn't easy for me to find comic elements of this book to pursue. I think he is fond of more troubling aspects of reality, like TRAGIC WAYS OF KILLING A WOMAN by Nicole Loraux and the usual Greek philosophers. As far as my concerns about the war on drugs, he provides some reasons for thinking that with the powers of high altitude herbicide spraying available today, we are capable of destroying much more of Columbia for each opium user here at home than back when Nietzsche was taking opium. When Derrida wrote this book, he might not have been thinking that the United States would be doing that by now, but it must be true.

Derrida's latest book continues what has been pecieved as an 'ethical turn' in deconstruction, intiated with 1994's "Spectres of Marx," and the subesquent rich contribution of 'deconstructionists' to political and moral thinking. However, Derrida himself contends that his entire project would have been unthinkable without some form of Marxism, and I share emphatically the view of Critchley, Laclau et al that questions of ethics and politics lie at the heart of the deconstructive enterprise. It is such a reading that gives this latest text a crucial location in the most contempoarary of politics. And those who contend that Derrida's (and the continental tradtion's legacy in general) has nothing 'practical,' 'useful' to say about the conduct of states and peoples in something called the 'real world,' need only refer to the Middle East situation, and the endlessly shifting notions of 'friends' and 'enemies' in that region to begin to grasp the paradoxical importance of Aristotle's strange address, inverted by Nietzsche, "O my friends, there are no friends," around which Derrida constructs his arguments. Where do the boundairies of friendship lie - is not our closest friend also, as Nietzsche suggested long ago, also our greatest enemy? Throughout the years of the Cold War, such questions may have seemed irrelevant, facticious. For those of us in the West, it was US and them, the USSR, the Warsaw Pact. Complicated though the transactions may have been, it was between two concretely opposed and finished blocs. Today the questions are rarley so simple - is the US a friend, to those in Britain? But which US - for it is surely now not an homogenous entity if it ever was. And which Russia do we hold dear? The collsape of stable relasionships between states of the world precipates a collaspe of recognition and identification within these states, via which we exist as political beings. Derrida's book is not the truth of friends, but in myraid different ways explores the legacy in various philosophical traditions of the dicotomy friend / enemey, and opens new and vital interpretations of our contempoarary state.

I'm used to reading philosophy, but I might be too dark and dour to comment on this kind of book. Given an ambiguous situation, I have major problems seeing how it might have anything to do with me. Even if comedy was an art form, I might not be funny, or even meaningful, or in any way like this book. Considering the impossible situations that I have imagined myself in, as in: If Nam was a joke, I was the straight man; this book seems to be another instance in which the main routine is like a popular, major comedy, which you don't see me laughing at. How could I be sure that there is something here as funny as a video of the routine, "Who's on first?" I still only see the questions, and the fact that Who's wife sometimes comes down and picks up his check for him doesn't make it any clearer to me.

This is not the first book by or about Jacques Derrida that I have tried to read. An interview, "This Strange Institution Called Literature" (pp. 33-75) establishes that it is possible for the editor, Derek Attridge, and J.D. to talk to each other about literature and philosophy, though few people might be aware of what J.D. means by "Anamnesis would be risky here, because I'd like to escape my own stereotypes." (p. 34). Forgetting about Nam (Nam amnesia?) might be risky for me, because I have so many things that I always consider Namlike in their stupidity to remind me, but J.D. was actually saying that recollecting his past would be risky. Anyone who thinks ought to be able to escape his prior conditions or convictions, and it's much easier if no one remembers what they are.

There are only a few mentions of Nietzsche in this book, and the index says they are on pages 9, 26n, 34, 37, 39, 81, 287, 293, 326n, but I say they are on pp. 9, 26n, 35, 37, etc. and also in the title of the essay, "Rhetoric of Persuasion (Nietzsche)" by Paul de Man, and its conclusion: "This by no means resolves the problem of the relationship between literature and philosophy in Nietzsche, but it at least establishes a somewhat more reliable point of `reference' from which to ask the question." (p. 327).

There is a chapter of this book on "Before the Law" by Kafka. In addition to thoroughly explaining everything in that short work, there are a number of suggestions, like "Under these conditions literature can play the law, repeating it while diverting or circumventing it." (p. 216). Those who are not familiar with Kafka might underestimate how much this book attempts to make the law seem less practical than Chapter 9 of THE TRIAL. "This entire chapter is a prodigious scene of Talmudic exegesis, concerning `Before the Law,' between the priest and K. It would take hours to study the grain of it, its ins and outs." (p. 217). Then J.D. offers an explanation, but then starts talking about Prague and "my officially appointed lawyer told me: . . . `Don't take this too tragically, live it as a literary experience.' And when I said that I had never seen the drugs that were supposed to have been discovered in my suitcase before the customs officers themselves saw them, the prosecutor replied: `That's what all drug traffickers say.'" (p. 218). The priest is called, "a kind of Saint Paul, the Paul of the Epistle to the Romans who speaks according to the law, of the law and against the law." (p. 219). Closer to the end, "'You are the prison chaplain,' said K." (p. 220).

Chapter 10, "From Shibboleth for Paul Celan" (pp. 370-413) is dated Seattle, 1984. Much of the discussion is of the German words used in Celan's poems. My favorite first line is of the poem, IN EINS, "Dreizehnter Feber. Im Herzmund" which is translated: "In One, Thirteenth of February. In the heart's mouth" (p. 397). It appears again on page 399, with the second line, and a discussion of "Shibboleth, this word I have called Hebrew, is found, as you know, in a whole family of languages: Phoenician, Judaeo-Aramaic, Syriac. It is traversed by a multiplicity of meanings: river, stream, ear of grain, olive-twig. But beyond these meanings, it acquired the value of a password."

What I want to say I am certain I will not achieve in the space of an online review. That being said, I think this work was important because in it Derrida admits with qualification to Rorty's charges that he (Derrida) is sentimental and believes in happiness. This may come as a shock to some Derrideans. Those who use Derrida's writings and reception to shake and destroy are missing the responsibility issue in the debate. It is unfortunate that deconstruction has been described so often in the popular media as anti-humanist, because now only purblind graduate students read him and I can't convince any of my friends who are in the practice of yessing life to read and live with him.

Norris offers an acute survey of Derrida's deconstructive project and tools. He also argues in Derrida's defense that American scholars who read Derrida as a proponent of a Barthe-like free-for-all are mistaken. The arguments are clear, and the text is relatively easy reading.

This book is a very worthwhile read...if not for the interesting investigation of Derrida's work, but as a great reminder of the importance of philosophy in the future. Philosophy remains necessarily political and it may only be in philosophy that we can try to organize the future.

Ms. Howells' account of Derrida's development and the philosophical roots of deconstruction renders his writings understandable for those not well-versed in the continental tradition, while not at the expense of over-simplification or distortion. However, the truth is that when it comes to Derrida there are no conclusive answers, which is precisely his point about the Western philosophical project. Ms. Howells explains Derridean notions such as the infamous differance, the trace, etc... in lucid prose and does not gloss over the slippery and nuanced character of his fundamental insights. She gives a well-reasoned account of Derrida's critiques of Husserl and Sausure, which is essential for understanding the geneology of Derrida's claims about meaning and his challenge to the metaphysical tradition. Although Christopher Norris and Jonathan Culler have also written digestible introductory texts, they are now outdated. Ms. Howells also discusses Derrida's ethical and political interests and addresses the influence of Levinas on his thinking. This is a good place to start for those who are tired of the facile dismissals of Derrida (by people who either have not read the primary texts, or misunderstood them). After this book you may want to consider "Radical Hermeneutics" by John Caputo which deals with Derrida at a greater philosophical depth.

Derrida contributes to the form of focus with his unveiling of new philosophical concepts. In this book, the sum lata dumo is further evaluated, a common theme in meso-contructionist ethics. Derrida argues that all life began in one of two categories, the "racha" which has all of life including insects and the "dena" which only includes those things with palpable cognitive abilties such as crickets and hamsters. This book is dense and tough going but it is definately a continuation of all Derrida's plasmatic themes.

This is an excellent collection of essays on Derrida's relevance for Feminist theory . . . ranging from an early piece by Spivak (1980) to articles published for the first time right here. It also includes Derrida's "Choreographies" interview, which is pretty essential reading for anyone interested in JD an feminism. As most of the contributers point out, Derrida's usefulness for feminist theory and politics has long been debated. But since this is the case, why didn't Holland include a few more negative appraisals? There are plenty of interesting CRITICAL interpretations of JD by feminists as well . . .