After seeing the new documentary on Derrida(Nov. 2002) I decided to reconnect with this thinker whose work I studied with great vigor twelve years ago. Coming back to Derrida through On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness was both interesting and enjoyable. In these all too brief essays Derrida addresses two concerns of human rights. The first being the ideas of hospitality and refuge in the contemporary geo-political environment. The second, being the nature, meaning, and limits of forgiveness.
In on Cosmopolitanism he extends the existing call for "cities of refuge" while examining the rights of hospitality as they are(n't) currently allowed to refugees. these movements are part of Derrida's advocating for a new consideration of cosom-politics.
When addressing forgiveness, Derrida argues against the economy of forgiveness that is created whenever forgiveness is called for, insisted upon, or deployed as a way of re-establishing normalcy. That is when the concept is used by a system of political / spiritual exchange. Derrida argues very well that the only things that can be forgiven are those considered unforgivable, and that the right to forgive is owned by specific individuals.
Back in the 1970's and 80s one of the most common attacks launched against post-structural thought in general, and deconstruction in particular was that it lacked political utility, or worse, was apolitical, or even worse, was politically regressive. Many of us at the time felt that such criticisms were both over stated and ill-informed. A book such as this leaves no doubt that post-structural thought and methods are relevant and helpful to progressive politics.
If you are new to Derrida and want to experience deconstruction this is not the book. Derrida's method here is well structured and worth examining, but, it is clearly not an example of the explorations he has undergone elsewhere to examine those elements "always already" present within philosophical texts that undermine in unusual and interesting ways both what and how we understand said texts to mean.

A book like this...a review thereof for whom?
A certain amount of "familiarity" with Jackie's style of writing will probably be necessary to get into these three short essays around (and whatever other prepositions you care to put in) the theme of the name, naming, saving the name, keeping the name safe, and the name's refusal to be called by a name.
The first of the essays is titled "Passions" and is the most fragmented of the three in terms of delivery. A bit taxing, really. By way of introduction, Jack commits an abduction by way of "apophasis" -- a kind of an irony, whereby we deny that we say or do that which we especially say or do (OED) -- to bring about the idea of the passions of secrets: Secrets not by being hidden nor by being shared by a privileged few, but the kind that is open to all, perhaps taking on the form of a non-secret.

The second essay has a little more to sink one's teeth into. The subject is "negative theology" as such, or the (im)possibility thereof. A very penetrating reading of Angelus Silesius' The Cherubinic Wanderer.

The third essay, "Khora" -- non-placeable place, the third genus -- is a reading of Plato's notion of that "mother", "nurse", "the Receiver" that gives place for all that "takes place": A placing, a positing of displacement and differance, a displacement by way of oscillation between two types of oscillation: the double exclusion(neither/nor) and the participation(both this and that).

In short, this collection of essays opens up another (that is to say, the very same) horizon of thinking toward what used to be under the care of religion, and as such can be rewarding reading to those who are already aware of the necessity of reworking the language of absence without resorting to what was once named "mysticism". If Nagarjuna were born into the French language in the 20th century, he'd probably speak like this.

The writing on the back cover says that the last essay will be of particular interest to those in the burgeoning fields of "space studies"(architecture, urbanism, design). Interest? Maybe. Clarity and enlightenment? I wouldn't bet my lunch money on it myself.

positions is a collection of three interviews with derrida, all of which offer a pretty good introduction to his line of thought. this book is a lot better starting point than say, 'of grammatology', its really a lot less intimidating. this is of course because derrida is speaking verbally, 'improvising', and there isnt as much seemingly paradoxical word play. from 'positions' you can get a pretty good idea about what differance, logocentrism, and grammatology are all about. ignore all the criticism of derrida as a reductionist/nihilist who wants to demolish philosophy, he is a brilliant, poetic, innovative man.

If there is any question of whether Krell will be able to forget Heidegger in the midst of the subjects covered in this book, page 138 clearly states, "And, finally, no, we will never be able to be rid of Heidegger's metabolic yet unbudgeable corpse." The most unusual reminder in the great number of items mentioned in this book, related by Krell in reflecting on the family as a guiding thread in a work by Derrida was a Hungarian gangster, spelled Kaiser Sose in this book, who appeared in a movie called "The Usual Suspects" which I recently saw with a family member on a Sunday afternoon. However appropriate that may have been, or crippled, as the case may be, and however dubious any claims of immunity which were made in the movie seemed to me, the sentence which brought this to mind seems especially puzzling. "In the parade of industrious fathers and sons, productive husbands and wives, pious and pure brothers and sisters, and invisible but efficient mothers, in the procession of all the loves and execrations of the family romance, Genet limps along like Kaiser Sose behind a Hegel on the march." (p. 150) This consideration of "love in the family, or in whatever is left of families," (p. 151) is in the chapter before the one devoted to Augustine's Confessions.

In "Violence and Difference" McKenna shows how Girard's theory of violence and sacrifice relates to Derrida's notion of differance. He argues that we can see Derrida's idea of supplementarity as a textual cousin of Girard's thesis of the scapegoat mechanism.

McKenna shows an excellent grasp of both writers work and presents a very good account of theories of victimization. He provides plenty of good examples to illustrate his thesis and ends his study with an exemplary bibliography.

I like this book better than the game hungry hungry hippos. Catch all the marbles as fast as you can, beat your opponents with a slight of the hand!

Derrida has stated that one of the main purposes of his decontructive readings, writing, and ruthless re-contextualization of various philosophical ideas is to minimize the "violence" of various philosophical practices- those ways of speaking, writing, which silently privilege various terms, and ideas and, perhaps unknowingly repress others. Given the other "esoteric" reviews here, its my duty to minimize the "violence" for those people who really want to know about the book, and not about namedropping, three lines of praise.

The Postcard is a "collection" of various love-letters, supposedly burned in a fire, which has left pieces of text missing. Derrida has also included a few essays which he believes continues the analysis begun in the loveletters [envois]. The content of the loveletters covers a broad range of philosophical and personal questions - from philosophy of language - to the relation b/w Socrates and Plato - to personal encounters in (I suppose) Derrida's life as a philosopher. But the over all effect of this - this "re-contextualization" or in other words, this casting of philosophical questions in a format not usually considered "serious" -> love letters... the profundity, the importance, the dissemination of the questions take on a wholly different feel and effect. The feel and effect, of course, is hard to describe, but it is a way of playing with "philosophical sensibilities" -- what is "real" philosophy? What is "serious" philosophy? And what is the meaning of such questions in the most private of all communications - love letters between two intimate lovers.

Of course, in typical Derridean style, he puns, and jokes his way, throwing punchlines out of every page. The envois are not an easy read. They can be tough, and confusing, especially with the 'missing text" which link ideas. The other essays included in The Postcard are equally a tough read, with a very interesting, but treacherous deconstruction of Lacan's analysis of Poe's "The Purloined Letter".

The Postcard can only be understood as continuation of previously examined (Of Grammatology), argued (Limited Inc.), and illustrated (Glas) philosophical strategies employed by Derrida. And yes, Richard Rorty (an american post-enlightenment philosopher) totally misses the boat on this one. While, i believe Derrida is attempting to "play" with various aspects of the philosophical tradition (Derrida is by far the funniest philosopher, since, Nietzsche), The Postcard is merely an new way of asserting those same ideas Derrida laid out in Limited Inc and other books, that conceptual meaning is not fixed but disseminated and deferred [differance] to all possible contextual usages and instantiations.

I know, this is merely one small aspect of Derrida's enterprise. But it is, I believe, the main purpose of The Postcard: to see how the meaning of philosophical questions regarding language, history, and the sequence of events, take on new meanings in the context of lost love lettes-- the same way a Post Card, which never reaches its destination-- takes on new meanings for the unintended third reader.

It took me a long time to crack the Derrida nut. But when I did, I did it with this book. Thus it will always be my favorite philosophical novel by Derrida. When I finished this book I picked up Badiou's book on Deleuze and he said I got everything right, only he said it better than I would have.

So far, all the other readers seem to have missed the point. First, this book is not about anything so feminine and smacking of vulgar Christianity as love and cushy feelings. Derrida says it's a poison pen letter. It's about hate. It may be "between lovers," but it's published for the whole world to admire and appraise, a radically different context than the relationship of husband and wife. Which the careful Derrida-phile will note was handled very carefully, almost cynically, in the Derrida "documentary." (Has there ever been a greater and more hilarious take on oral sex?)

One wag commented that the book is only good for beach-reading. But that misses the serious side of Derrida, which is also the point. Rhetoric can be philosophy. Derrida is one hundred percent hilarious. But he's always pushing the philosophical envelope with his puns. To resort to a distinction that has a pragmatic value even though it utterly lacks any philosophical foundation, the use-mention distinction, when Derrida uses the word 'this,' he also means _that_. (Why does the use-mention distinction make no sense? Because when you say 'horse,' a _horse_ comes out of your mouth. As per Wittgenstein and the Stoics.) It's up to us lesser mortals to tease out the strands and levels until we can produce something as thoroughly competent. And simultaneously beautiful and ugly. Like orgasm.

Which brings us to Lacan. Some say he's a charlatan. And you have to be suspicious of anyone who declares that they're not interested in truth, but falsity. But when the postmodernists say this what they mean is that the truth, which can potentially be known, is in being aware that you actually don't know. The idea goes back to Plato and his early Socratic dialogues. Stated like that, it isn't too far from Kant, who also believed that we can't actually know much, other than that there are stars above and some sort of moral rules within. (Nobody has ever agreed with him on his rules, including his great heir John Rawls.) Derrida doesn't differ much from Lacan. He abandons Oedipus for the same reasons as Deleuze (it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and alienated from real life). But the argument on the postal system only looks different from Lacan's account because Derrida says it is. That he got Lacan to agree with him says something about Derrida's prestige, so there must be something there. (Though Lacan's submission looks suspiciously like he doesn't submit--republishing the Ecrits in an edited down version where the offensive passages have been actively forgotten.) But when Lacan says that a letter always gets to its destination he means that it always misses its destination, because the person it's intended for is going to sometime pass away. ("The living is a species of the dead." Nietzsche.) Which is also Derrida's point. I haven't read Derrida's latest writings on Lacan but apparently there's a whole lot of a rapprochement. In his interviews with Roudinescu, A Quoi Demain, he considers his style to be Lacanian and a lot of his conclusions to be similarly disposed.

Here's hoping the most consistently amusing of the post-Heideggerians remains a liberal individualist. Though it's probably going to be tough for him, given that the Straussists of the Whitehouse talk a similar talk and walk a similar walk. ("Jewgreek is Greekjew.") I believe the fact that Derrida is explicitly against the death penalty is the deciding difference. QED.

Derrida gets 2 stars for FINALLY coming around to writing about social and political issues. The book itself is interesting, but the fact of the matter is, it's not good Marxism. He's remained ambiguous even since the 1968 French University protests of 1968. His only discussions of Marx revolved around his critique of Hegel, and I believed he dropped Lenin's name a few times in "Positions". Still, Derrida's entry into Marxism is a disappointing one. While he never claims to be a Marxist, one would expect him to be aware of the basic tenents of Marxism. The problem with Derrida's book is it's fetishism of the spirit. The specter takes precedence over the material. Ultimately, Derrida misses the point of historical materialism completely. History is ALWAYS present...there is no specter. In Marx's view we are always creating our own history, as part of our nature as human beings. Furthermore, Derrida's dialectics in the book is far from dialectical materialism. Despite what he claims to be a thorough reading of the German Ideology, he falls into the same traps of the Young Hegelians Marx critiques. His dialectics posits an a priori state, beyond history, language, and everything. Derrida claims he doesnt but this "presence non-presence" of the specter applies something beyond both the material and memory. Regardless, neither of these options suit Marx. Consciousness (das Basswussein I believe?) is the life-blood of the human being, and her/his existence. It is material in and of itself. There is no to come, it is always in process, always becoming, it is in transition. It is not a state of being as "to" implies...it IS being. Anyone who wants a refutation of Derrida need merely read the "camera obscura" passage of the German Ideology. Furthermore, had Derrida read MORE early Marx, and paid attention to the seminal importance of the "Grundrisse" in linking humanism to the political critique and the economic critique, he might've been more clear on what dialecitcal and historical materialism entail. We see how historical materialism is a humanism. (If anyone notices a similarity to the Sartre essay "Existentialism is a Humanism", kudos...it has a purpose. I think Derrida (and even Marx himself) would've benefited from Sartre's reading of Marx. Anyone who would like a nice concise exposition of that reading that has some familiarity with Marx need only read Sartre's "Search for a Method"). Derrida's clear misreading of Marx will make the book a confusing and misleading read for anyone not already familair with Marx, so I recommend read the Econ./Phil. Manuscripts, Chapters 1, 5, 6, 7, 19, 25 of Capital, , the 1st 15 pages of the Ger. Ideo., and the intro to the Grundrisse and the intro to the Contribution to the Critique of Pol. Econ. or at least SOME of the above writings by Marx. (Another complaint not related to Derrida's reading of Marx is his statement that justice is undeconstructible. Why? The quasi-universal cop out is annoying. Thats a contradiction in terms...I think Derrida needs to stop with the Heideggerian wordplay and make up his mind about foundationalism and deconstruction.) Still, Derrida writes some startlingly beautiful passages about social justice (the part that talks about how "never even the histroy of the world have their been more people starved, killed, and disenfranchised at the hands of a government or should I say empire" or something like that. But flashy rhetoric and Derrida's impeccable, yet esoteric writing style cannot save him from the fact that ultimately his own lack of theoretical grounding, practicality, and activism prevents one from acheiving any praxis from this book. Its merely another interesting exposition of Derrida's thought (mental masturbation). It's a Coney island sideshow...seductive and alluring at first glance, but it looes its luster, interest and shock after repeated visits. Specters of Marx is more frustrating than it is fresh.

In typical Derridian fashion, Derrida circles the subject of Marx, peeking at it directly sometimes, but always speaking of it. "Of" instead of "to" as Politics of Friendship points out. Derrida is haunted, as we all should be. The question is whether or not this is an ethical treatment of the problems brought to bear (a list of 10 - the ten commandments?) in the section entitled "Wears and Tears (Tableau of an agless world)." This is a book about ghosts, about specters (and of course the specter of Marx). His insights are once again profound (yet maybe a bit expected) when he calls the specter that which is neither present nor absent. The specter's call, is of course, ethical, yet Derrida focuses less on this than would be expected. Instead, Derrida is focuses on naming a few of the ghosts that flitter by. This is less a book about politics than about the metaphor of the ghost, which I find unfortunate. However, I did find this a valuable read. Derrida has the ability to break questions wide open with his sharp deconstructive intellect, and this book holds no exceptions. The specter is a figure of the "to come", as well as that which is already here. This book is like the begginging of a spider's web which can be stretched in many directions politically, thus it is certainly applicable and even practical (so maybe he's more Marxist than i give him credit for). If one identifies the system as the ghost, then a large connection has been made which can span many political divides. I recommend this book to any Derrida fan (like myself) and anyone interested in the critique of current politics. The concepts worked out here are a great primer and beginning to the work which must come after, the work "to come". This book is the present of the "to come". Debt, Mouring, and Politics. Read it.

Derrida is definately "not a good Marxist." He is not trapped in the decaying dialectic model, but works his way around, examines the processes, and allows the readers to arrive at their own conclusions. This book is not about Marx, but rather about the specters, their attendant ideological implications, and historicity. If you are looking for a political Derrida, you will not find him here.

Coming out of the Heideggerean tradition of confusing wannabe academics into thinking you know more than they can grasp, Derrida has been stringing his following along for decades, getting into innumerable literary criticism and philosophy and language study classrooms and scaring kids away from what can truly be rewarding fields of study. Certainly his ideas on "differance" and the de-centered center are neat and they are developed out of a broader philosophical tradition. But Derrida's work is the perfect example of why so many people are turned away from philosophical study. Certainly, I am not advocating that everyone break their works down into catch-phrases and self-help books, but there should be a recognition that if the concepts cannot be elucidated in plain language, if the arguments cannot be followed without a strong background in phenomenology and structuralism, then they are of little use. Hume wrote his Enquiry, Kant the "Prolegomena", Sartre delivered his Existentialism & Humanism talk, etc... these were all attempts to make somewhat clear, the ideas entrenched in their dense treatises. That attempt needs to be made. If the work remains solely in the hands of the elite, who have made their way through all of the academic hoops, it grows stale. I think we can already see that happening. Or is it all just a game? A bunch of intellectual posturing? I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt and believe that's not the case. But I'm still waiting for someone to prove it.

Arguably one of the most convtroversial philosophers within the Continental tradigion, Derrida's work either heralds a revolution in philosophy or its utter destruction.

Derrida cites two important pedigrees (as the title suggests): Husserl and (tacitly) de Saussure.

Using the "course in general linguistics" of de Saussure, Derrida notes a certain degree of freedom, a "jeu," between the words-as-symbols and the thought contents they produce. Exploiting de Saussure's note that the relation between the sign and the mental content is arbitrary, Derrida questions the validity of any text (where the notion of text includes, but is not limited to, books, magazines, commercials, art, sex).

Derrida sees behind any "text" its entire recursive history, the weight of all the words, the mental experience of the reader.

At the point he considers the reader's experience he starts to deal with phenomenology - the study proposed and defined by Husserl himself in his Vienna and Paris lectures. A short definition might be that Phenomenology is the study of how man mentally relates to the objects of his experience(I admit, debatably so).

This book proposes Derrida's famous example of "différance" and its effect upon the Gallically trained ear and mind. So if you want to seem witty and "with-it" this introductory tome shall suffice.

As far as my own deconstruction / critique of the work. As an introductory work it is dense. Derrida is often criticized for losing himself in intellectual crevices, being prolix, and employing poor stylistics. These are not unmerited. Yet for the reader who wishes to move beyond the fashionability of tossing "deconstructionist" out at cocktail parties, this is a must read. It is certainly part of the 20th century canon.

My own conclusions are mixed. In his later works Derrida becomes truly absurd, laughable, silly, and occasionally brilliant. Yet his work never fails to move its readers either to agree that he is either an idiot, a bad writer, or that philosophy as we know it has long been dead. Perhaps like a Socratic gadfly, Derrida is moving us to an entire gestalt shift vis-à-vis our relationship with philosophy and social institutions.

A solid background of Kant/Hegel, as well as a familiarity with lingustics (the aforementioned course in general lingustics of de Saussure) greatly ease the difficulty in penetrating his work.

Derrida, for all the supposed density of his writing, is a simplifier. Deconstruction owes much of its popularity (in America) to the fact that it says: philosophy is not all that complicated, just see how the inside and outside collapse into one another and you can tear any text at its seams. Derrida follows the same procedure with poor old Edmund: the entirety of the LU shamble if Husserl is unable to maintain the integrity of silent thought, in which no Anzeichen point toward anything. Unlike the canals on Mars, which may point to intelligent life, silent thought is unmediated and not supplemented (to use a Deriddaism) by a sign. The collapse (or rending) of inside and outside by the supplement mark the presence of absence: the word, a mere supplement to the presence of silent thought, separates and joins the "life" and "presence" of consciousness with absence, repetition, and death.

I don't like this book as it didn't help me with my home work and Miss Rogers told me off. I wanted to correct my grammar which weren't very good but Derrida did not help me he was talking difficult stuff.

While my grammar was attacked however, Miss Rogers did concede my principal point, which was that Derrida, having constructed his own metanarrative, is as susceptible to wilful misinterpretation through the prism of other metanarratives as he inflicts on others. Moreover, in some of Derrida's earlier essays, he specifically attacks Heidegger for misunderstanding what he means when accounting for his own form of deconstruction. Yet it seems to me - and surely to most? - that the central tenet of deconstruction is this: that authorial intent cannot be guaranteed as ultimate meaning; and that ultimate meaning does not exist. Vive la differance? Or does he need a kick up the arche?

Miss Rogers gave me a B- for anyone interested.

While this book offers up some interesting concepts, I find that much of it is borrowed from earlier philosophical explorations. Derrida's work is an attempt to link language, and the use thereof, to epistemology, but it is an epistemology that is underdeveloped. The concept that everything is "text" is really nothing new. The classical (Aristotelian) idea that thought is built upon two things 1) simple apprehension 2) judgement depends upon the use of language to function properly. I "signify" and then make judgements upon my signification.

Derrida is the 20th century nominalist -still in rebellion over whether or not things have meaning in and of themselves -that labels we create can denote "essence". Problems with insisting that a system of binary oppositions (black / white) is the foundation by which we reason are apparent when we consider terms which have no opposite. "Being" the opposite of which is "Non-being" for instance. This is not a binary, this is a negation. Therefore, much of deconstruction is inherently illogical. Could even Derrida maintain that we can only know the world equivocally and nothing can be known univocally?

The issue with Derrida is the problem that many modern philosophers and academics struggle with today -the problem of "specialization." Derrida's most effective arguments arise within the sphere of linguistics. If viewed from a different perspective, such as that of Logic or Epistemology, many of his assertions appear absurd. This led the French philosopher, along with many of his followers (especially in the US) to denounce traditional metaphysics, and to proclaim the invalidity of prior reasoning. Such an approach is problematic to say the least. If I were to create my own mathematics, I doubt I would be taken seriously.

If we consider this a work of linguistics, however, we can gain much from it. While far too complex to summarize here, Derrida's ideas should be taken into consideration, even if his prose (and again, this has much to do with translation) is convoluted. After reading Derrida for an hour, I often find myself picking up a work from Ortega or Marias, just to see the dramatic difference between philosophers who can write, and those who cannot.

Other works on linguistics and philosophy that are useful, include those by John of St. Thomas, and Francis Suarez. You will gain more from these two individuals than you will from Derrida.

In the context of Derrida's early project - to provide a critique of the foundational human science - linguistics - Of Grammatology is an essential book. In it he develops ideas about "writing" and about the "trace", ideas which illuminate much about the modern science of linguistics. His work is an astringent when applied to other more "analytical" philosophers of language (e.g. John Searle).

Derrida's writing style may seem difficult at first, until one realizes that it embodies two other important ideas - play and undecideability. Of Grammatology is not exactly a book of philosophy, and not exactly a book on linguistics, and not exactly a literary work but one which rests uneasily among these three disciplines. By not drawing conclusions, by keeping in play many concepts at once, Derrida manages to provide provocative ideas on mental representations while at the same time instantiating these ideas in the ebb and flow of the work itself.

Because of its kalidescopic style, the book can be read for the pure enjoyment of a rambunctious entertainment, and as an important philosophical text, and as a satire, and as profoundly serious.

As the academic furor over "decontruction" dies down, Derrida's work perhaps can begun to be read for its human importance. Those who value an insistent questioning will find a champion here.

Derrida, the renowned French postmodernist and author of, among other things, "Writing and Difference", is at it again in his latest effort, "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas." His work is designed to cast great doubt on the classical notions of truth, reality, meaning, and knowledge. The goal is reprehensible, but Derrida can usually pull it off. "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas" is thus a major disappointment to all those fans of outmoded deconstructionist French philosophers. The book suffers from being far too personal, and lacks detail. Anecdotes abound, but they are, in toto, not particularly interesting or helpful ones, mostly along the lines of childhood vacations to the beach and the like. As for the few attempts Derrida makes to actually deal with PHILOSOPHY, detail is sorely lacking. When a reader comes upon phrases like "the hermeneutics of orangutans," he/she really deserves to have some idea what the author is talking about. Sometimes you just want to read about eschatalogical polemics or signifier/signified interrelations, but you won't find that here. Seen in this, or any other light, "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas" falls pancake-flat. Spend your money on something that makes sense to somebody other than the author. I am sad now and it is Jaques Derrida's fault.

Contrary to an above reviewer of this book, Derrida's project is not "designed to cast great doubt on the classical notions of truth, reality, meaning, and knowledge." Especially not in Derrida's writings of the last 15 years, following his so-called "ethical" or "religious" turn. This volume includes two essays, "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas" and "A Word of Welcome." The former is the eulogy Derrida gave at Levinas's burial, and the latter is an excellent analaysis of Levinas's ethics in the terms of "hospitality." Valuable for anyone interested in Levinas, recent developments in ethics, or Derrida's later philosophy.