Jacques Derrida remains a touchpoint in contemporary philosophy, though often as a denegatory, even derisory, figure – nihilist, relativist, postmodernist, obscurantist.
None of these terms touches what makes Derrida such an important thinker. This course is designed as an introduction, to orient us so that we can engage with his work more honestly and philosophically.
The course, a survey of the whole sequence of his publications, will work through a number of Derrida’s key concerns: writing and the deconstruction of Western metaphysics, metaphor and translation, ethics and alterity, politics and autoimmunity.
First lecture. Introducing Derrida and deconstruction
After providing a brief biographical sketch, this lecture will present a broad overview of what deconstruction means for Derrida. We will consider the breakthrough deconstruction of Husserl from Speech and Phenomena, and the way Derrida parlays the commitments of Saussurean linguistics into the theory of the trace, gram or différance.
Readings
- “Deconstruction and the Other” (1984)
- “Semiology and Grammatology,” Positions (1981), pp. 15-36
Second lecture. Texts, contexts, signatures, events
The second lecture will focus on Derrida's essay 'Signature Event Context'. Not only does this essay provide a summary account of the problems faced by all attempts to ground a metaphysics of presence, it also provides us with a way of properly understanding the infamous assertion made in Of Grammatology: 'there is nothing outside of the text'. Reading this text will also give us a way to understand the paradoxical relationship between singularity and repetition that is found throughout Derrida's work.
Readings
- “Signature Event Context,” Margins of Philosophy (1982), pp. 307-30
- Extract from Of Grammatology (1974), pp. 6-15
Third lecture. Philosophy, translation, literature and architecture
The third lecture concerns Derrida's account of the relationship between philosophy and art; our focus will be specifically on literature, painting and architecture. In the first hour, we will approach the question of philosophy's relationship with literature via detours on metaphor and translation. In the second hour, we'll take up The Truth in Painting, and the analysis of Peter Eisenman's Parc de la Villette in Paris.
- “This Strange Institution Called Literature” (interview, 1989)
- "Point de foie - maintenant l'architecture" (1985)
- Extract from “The Double Session,” in Dissemination (1981), pp. 184-93
- Extract from “Violence and Metaphysics,” in Writing and Difference (1978), pp. 91-2
Fourth lecture. Ethics, beginning from the Other
From the start, Derrida's writing is concerned with alterity and the insistence of the Other in every formation of the Same. In this lecture, we'll consider the nature of this ongoing engagement. The starting point will be the remarks on ethnocentrism that open Of Grammatology. We will then touch on a number of key places where the figure of the Other plays a central role in Derrida's work, before turning to the paradoxes of hospitality.
Our focus in the second hour will be the important text 'Force of Law', which presents three aporiae that attend the possibility of justice and being just.
- “Pas d’hospitalité”, On Hospitality (2000)
- "Force of Law: 'The Mystical Foundations of Authority'" (1992)
Fifth lecture. Democracy to come
This final lecture will focus on politics, and specifically the idea of democracy. We will begin by discussing Spectres of Marx, which constitutes a lengthy engagement with Marx's work. We will then turn to discuss three elements that surround the democratic political ideal: sovereignty, the death penalty, and the function of autoimmunity.
- Extract from Spectres of Marx (1994)
- Extract from Rogues (2005)
Difficulty: Intermediate. While this course is an introduction, Derrida's work is challenging. Patience with his work is rewarded, but it is also demanded.