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A highly analytical and thoughtful compendium of meticulous reasoning
Psyche: Inventions of the Other Volume 1 is the first English-language publication of the essay collection that Professor of Humanities Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) originally published in two volumes in 1998 and 2003. The assembly of essays present Derrida's thinking on a wide assortment of topics including psychoanalysis, theater, translation, literature, representation, racism, and nuclear war. Also present are Derrida's engagement with the ideas of well-known thinkers and writers such as Barthes, Benjamin, de Man, Flaubert, Freud, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, Levinas, and Ponge. "Deliberate self-limitation gives psychoanalysis its only chance as a science. It isolates a context into which external randomness no longer penetrates. Biogenetics is not devoid of randomness and neither is the psyche, but the orders or the random sequences must not communicate or cross over within the same set, at least if one wants to distinguish between orders of calculable necessity. There must be no bastardizing or hybridization, no accidental grafts between these two generalities, genres, or genealogies. But one might ask the author of 'Leonardo,' how is one to eliminate the dice throws of bastardy? Is not the concept of sublimation, like that of the drive, precisely the concept of bastardy?" A highly analytical and thoughtful compendium of meticulous reasoning, and a welcome addition to philosophy shelves and college libraries. ... Read more

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Cryptic and Wonderful
With this collection of subversive essays, Jacques Derrida exploded onto the scene of post-modern philosophy in Europe and the US though he didn't have a doctorate or teaching position at the time. In it, he demonstrates for the first time his conception of `deconstruction,' an apparently inexplicable concept which enables the analysis of `inter-textuality' and `binary-oppositions,' to be revealed. `Writing and Difference,' is of course a difficult text, and analytic philosophers don't even bother with it, though that may be their greatest mistake, for Derrida attempts (and not without success) to demonstrate that the notion of purely objective, enlightened truth seeking is an impossibility. That the essence of thought always operates within a given schema, a given facticity. "Differance," the famous phrase of Derrida, indicates that writing is necessarily primary to speech, we can see the `differ a nce' in text, not phonetically.

The first essay in this collection `Force and Signification,' attempts to apply a philosophical rigour to the analysis of literature, wherein Derrida explains Flaubert, Mallarme, and a number of others. `Cogito and the History of Madness' is an extremely famous essay about Foucault which triggered a feud between the two intellectuals that would never fully be mended. In it, Derrida argues that Foucault's book does not address the Cartesian notion of the Cogito adequately in the History of Madness, and that Foucault ultimately relies on the same principles of the enlightenment while attempting to expose the dynamics of its power simultaneously. The essay (along with violence and Metaphysics) is a perfect example of Derrida's capacity to deconstruct. However, he moves very quickly and without and assistance to the reader. If you have not read the author Derrida is deconstructing he will simply leave you in the dust.

The latter essays in the book deal primarily with Artaud, Freud, Bataille, Hegel, Heidegger, Levi-Strauss, and metaphysics and language generally. The essay on Levi-Strauss (Structure, Sign, and Play) is a particularly damning lecture delivered at Johns Hopkins University and left irreparable damages to the structuralist movement at the time. `Writing and Difference' is an important collection of critical texts for 20th century philosophy, and it should remain an important work for many ages to come.

Reading Derrida....
Begin with essay #10.It's short, it's famous (it launched deconstruction in America), and it's fairly lucid.Then turn to essay #1 for another stunning discussion of the limits of structuralism.

Essay #5 is devoted to structuralism's rival, phenomenology.Just as essay #10 suggested that structuralism can't conceive of a structure with a fluid center, and essay #1 suggested that structuralism tends to impoverish literary texts because it can't account for certain textual energies, this essay insists that Husserl's phenomenology cannot do justice to origins, cannot think genesis.Unhappily, this is a dense and difficult piece of writing.

Next take up essay #9.Derrida is interested here with Hegel's attempt to repress the free play of signification via conceiving philosophy as a totality.Derrida also discusses Bataille's attempt to think the unthought of the Hegelian system, to ascertain what, if anything, can elude such philosophical closure.This is a great essay, but familiarity with Hegel's Master/Slave dialectic is a prerequisite.

If you have read Foucault's MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION, you'll want to read essay #2.Here Derrida attempts to call into question that book's major thesis by arguing that Foucault misreads Descartes.This essay is nicely structured but, for this reviewer at least, not terribly convincing.I also feel that essay #7, on Freud, is not a success.It is so difficult, so tedious, that most readers will cease to care about Derrida's point long before he gets around to making it.

Happily, there are two essays (#6 and #8) dealing with the writings of that fascinating artist/lunatic Antonin Artaud.They are both pretty dazzling, but I suggest taking on #8 first.There are also two rather short, amusing pieces on the Jewish thinker Edmond Jabes (essays #3 and #11).He appears to be something of a kindred spirit to Derrida.

Finish up with essay #4, the longest and most ambitious in this collection.Echoing themes from essay #9, here Derrida takes on the early writings of Emmanuel Levinas and his claim to have stepped outside of metaphysics.It's a demanding, but fascinating piece of writing.

Derrida all over the place
In the beginning of Jacques Lacan's work "the ethics of psychoanalysis", Lacan speaks of honey that has no natural divisions and is instantly all over the place.Enter Derrida. This was only the second work I had read by Derrida at the time a few years ago and it astounded me.The breadth of commentary, play, and insight in these essays is radical - moving from freud, to foucault, to levi-strauss, to Artaud, to an amasing and important work on Levinas, to writings of his own, and more.This work (is it one or many?) is perhaps Derrida at his most poetical and yet at his most clear.In other works, his knack of writing seeming hieroglyphics makes his ideas extremely difficult to decipher.In this work, however, his play actually opens itself up to what he's doing.Not only that but where his poetics become more analytic, his language is fairly clear and understandable, given a background on the subject (freud, levinas, etc.).In multiple readings through the years this work has proved more and more fruitful and is still one of my favorite works by him (besides possibly the clear and consice Speech Event Context in "Limited Inc.", "Spurs", and "Gift of Death").This is Derrida's insights all over the place - thank God.

the difference that makes the difference
an excellent set of essays that map out derrida's project and a lucid introduction to deconstruction, including the celebrated critique on foucault's 'madness and civilization'. not as involving as 'ofgrammatology' but certainly worth more than his critics make him out to be. ... Read more

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Best Introduction to Derrida
Jacques Derrida is the most significant philosophical figure in what is too blithely referred to as poststructuralist thought. An amazon.com review is not the place to go into a discussion of whether Derrida is "right" or "wrong," but he is indisputably one of the most important postmodern philosophers, and an awareness of his thought, however cursory, is indispensable if you are serious about philosophizing.
Margins of Philosophy is, I believe, the best introduction to Derrida's work, containing some of his most significant and far-reaching essays. Especially worthwhile are White Mythology and Signature, Event, Context. Derrida's thought is far-reaching and wide-ranging (he has even written on a photo-novel of women making love), and Margins of Philosophy represents only his most important thoughts in the realm of philosophy. For his reactions to literature, I recommend Acts of Literature and Dissemination. However, it has been said by Eagleton that deconstruction is like that drunk at the bar who tells the same story every night, and for many (most) people, one volume of Derrida will be a lovely sufficiency.
Derrida can be tough going, even if you are familiar with his antecedents; however, it is far from impossible to understand him. I recommend reading a given essay twice, then going through a third time underlining important parts, then reading it another two times and attempting a paraphrase. If you go through this admittedly arduous procedure, you will find you understand what he is talking about quite well, even if you don't read too much philosophy. Remember: don't give up the first or second time through. The pieces won't start falling together until a bit further down the line.

Metaphors on the Margin
Jacques Derrida has provided us with an important text whose central concern is, arguably, "metaphor". In leaving the reader discover the details of how philosophy exists within the margins of its own discourse, I want to simply and briefly map out a number of, what may be called, "conceptual metaphors", that I have found captivating, intriguing and useful (for my own quest for difference).

To start with, there is "differance", and the reason why it can be treated as a conceptual metaphor is that it cannot be approached directly. As Derrida's interest is in helping us discover 'a new play of opposition, of articulation, of difference' (p. xxviii), namely "differance", we are however precluded from posing, let alone answering, the question "What is differance?". This is because it is 'neither a word nor a concept' (p. 3), has 'neither existence nor essence' (p. 6), is 'irreducibly polysemic' (p. 8), a 'temporisation' and 'spacing' (p. 9), and is that which 'produces differences' (p. 11). It can therefore only be approached metaphorically, in its use as a tool operating on the margins of language and discourse for understanding difference in other authors (especially Hegel) and (of course) Derrida himself!

"Differance" is by far not the only conceptual metaphor in this text: there are additional ones, which are in a way, related to "differance" and thus provide additional clues for getting closer to understanding its purpose and function. In particular, the Hegelian conceptual metaphor "pyramid" (an inspiration for Mark Taylor's text 'Altarity') operating on the margins of signs and difference, in addition to that of "vibration", as the movement of idealisation. Further, there is a useful parallel between de Saussure and Rousseau as regards "language", and an account of its "interweaving" with other threads of experience, a conceptual metaphor found in Husserl. With Benveniste and Aristotle, Derrida deals with the issue of "category" as 'one of the ways for "Being" to say itself or to signify itself' (p. 183) in its relation to "thought". Next, he gives an account of the nature of philosophical text and in discussing Aristotle and Bachelard among other thinkers, explains the role of "metaphor" as 'the manifestation of analogy' (p. 238) in carrying and emitting meaning - hence its important role in the logic of (philosophical) discourse. Finally, in discussing Valery, Derrida tackles the conceptual metaphor of "source" in the sense of origin and grounding.

Overall, although it is a difficult text, it is captivating and must be read several times (ideally in conjunction with the French text) so as to (progressively) discover the multiple nuances and conceptual connections that Derrida is making in a style that decidedly relies on metaphor and différance. It is an important reading for anyone concerned with the notion of difference and its workings through and with language.

Metaphor in the text of philosophy
In the 1980s, White Mythology was required reading for Yale lit-crit majors.It is an incredible tour de force so rich that its overwhelming in the initial read.How was it possible to write this (and how was it possible to translate?)The inescapability of metaphor, metaphor not just in, but constituting the text of philosophy, the false privileging of metaphysics over rhetoric are made stunningly evident -- if not plain -- here.

Reading Derrida...
Begin with "Tympan", it's designed to serve as an introduction to the ten essays which follow and, despite a lot of word play, Derrida does mention most of the themes informing this collection (philosophy's attempt to master its domain, Hegel as the philosopher of limits, the threat metaphor poses to philosophical discourse, etc).
Read "Differance" next (it's probably the single most famous thing Derrida has ever written).After declaring the thought of difference to be crucial to our intellectual epoch (he mentions Saussure, Nietzsche, and Freud before taking up Heidegger's notion of ontological difference) Derrida proposes the nonword/nonconcept of "differance" to go them all one better. This is a dazzling essay, but if it leaves you more exhausted than exhilarated, then Derrida just isn't for you.
Essay #2 is a dense and convoluted discussion of the metaphysics of presence in Aristotle and Hegel.Skip this.
Essay #3 is a surprisingly interesting investigation of Hegel's semiology (of all things).Derrida demonstrates that Hegel's disdain for non-phonetic scripts (say, hieroglyphics) is not just a quirk, but is crucial to Hegel's entire philosophical project.
"The Ends Of Man" is a classic example of 1960's French anti-humanism.It's essentially an attempt to rescue Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger from their existentialist interpreters.Another very famous piece (and rightfully so).
Essay #5 is a sort of Cliffs Notes version of OF GRAMMATOLOGY; it deals with the denigration of writing in the thought of Saussure and Rousseau.Very readable.
Essay #6 is all about Husserl's theory of signs and I found it incomprehensible.
Essay #7 concerns itself with to what extent the grammar and syntax of a particular language influences what can be thought in that language.Recommended, despite the opacity of Derrida's criticisms of Benveniste.
"White Mythology" is the longest and most demanding essay in this collection, so leave it for last.I'm not even going to venture a comment on this one.
Essay #9 meanders quite a while before it gets around to illustrating Valery's low opinion of philosophy, so be patient.
The book wraps up with Derrida's notorious reading/misreading of that wonderful little book, HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS.This modest essay launched a feud between Derrida and the American philosopher John Searle.Much ado about nothing, I say.

Interesting but hardly radical
One could open up this review by pointing out that the book being reviewed is not a "coherent" work in the conventional sense of the term but this would be playing into the hands of the deconstructionist.Perhaps it is best to phrase one's comments in such a fashion as to avoid the need for anything more-than-average coherence in a review."The Margins of Philosophy" is an interesting work by this academically controversial author.Generally speaking--and what more can one do in a review--Derrida's readings are heavily influenced by Heidegger's statement that what an author keeps silent is as important as what he states.This is asserted almost immediately in the introduction as Derrida lets us know that what philosophy (and philosophers) have pushed to the margin in their work is very important to explore since its unveiling will de-center the work.Put differently, every writing undercuts itself in the end.In a series of separate, but linked essays, Derrida goes on to demonstrate how this sort of thing happens in Hegel, Saussure, Benveniste, Heidegger, and others.

I am not the first to point out that Derrida is a perceptive, subtle reader with a very keen eye for the hidden details."White Mythology" is an interesting discussion of the role of metaphor in philosophy and its consequences for philosophy.I am also not the first to complain that Derrida's taste for exegesis runs towards the extravagant and excessive.The aforementioned essay spans 65 pages for reasons that otherwise escape me.There is also the more serious problem in Derrida that his keen eye is not keen enough and he is too clever by half in his explication.At one point in the work he connects the greek word for intuiting (ie. seeing with the soul) "theorein" with the desire for death.Strictly speaking this is a conflation of the desire to be a god with the desire to be unconscious (a leftover from the decay of romanticism?).An elementary reading of Plato's Phaedrus makes this clear.His obsession with the "metaphysics of presence" is also a problem for the work, as he hitches his interpretations to this dubious construction and the interpretations ultimately suffer for it.This is not to say that there isn't much of philosophical interest in the work for Derrida gives the reader much to chew on.He reminds us that any serious reading of a text must devote itself scrupulously to the whole of the text and not just to those parts which we think are interesting.Though, perhaps, not the best place to start one's study of Derrida it is certainly worth a serious read if only to understand what some of the shouting is all about. ... Read more

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he is a monolith, but also a man
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. ... Read more

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Book Description
Acts of Literature, compiled in close association with Jacques Derrida, brings together for the first time a number of Derrida's writings on literary texts. The essays discuss literary figures such as Rousseau, Mallarmé, Joyce, Shakespeare, and Kafka, and comprise pieces spanning Derrida's career. The collection now includes a substantial interview with him on questions of literature, deconstruction, politics, feminism and history, and Derek Attridge provides an introductory essay on deconstruction and the question of literature, with suggestions for further reading.
These essays examine the place and operation of literature in Western culture, and are highly original responses to individual literary texts. They highlight Derrida's interest in literature as a significant cultural institution and as a peculiarly challenging form of writing, with inescapable consequences for our thinking about philosophy, politics and ethics.
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A challenge to read
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." ... Read more

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superfluous metaphor
It is strange that a book dedicated to present deconstruction and chora actually "plays" of representing it. Derrida's reading on plato's chora is indeed relevant to architecture. It is not an easy reading, which is typical of many of derrida's writings. Unfortunately, this book becomes yet more difficult to read with this "funny" perfurated edition. Different from Deconstruction, it is not an easy task to interpret the meaning of those holes. They are certainly dispensable.

Try to avoid most of his other books too
Unfortunately, I had to trawl through a good number of his 'books' for a school project. Among them are House of Cards, Diagram Diaries, Barefoot on White-Hot Walls, Giuseppe Terragni, and Eisenman Insideout. They are all terribly self-involved with his semiotic and 'metaphysics' babble. It is only by beholding the vast amount of twaddle he has generated, that I am convinced he truly believes in all this. Despite the painful reading sessions, I think we should simply lie back and feel sorry for him.

MIndless Exchange
As Jacques Derrida becomes more discredited every day, (French intellectuals are rushing to distance themselves from his now seen-to-be-absurd positions) you have to wonder can Eisenman's inevitable fall from the pedestal of fad popularity be far behind.This impossibly arrogant book has all of it's pages punctured by small holes that make a reading impossible.For Eisenman, this childish gimmick, must seem amusing, albeit in a trite, predictable sort of way. But that sort of pride comes with a price.But even Derrida, low as his standards were soon found to be, discontinued further exchanges with Eisenman.As the architectural community likewise finds Eisenman to be the embarrassing soul he always was, you don't want to be one of the few left with this ridiculous volume on your shelf.

Simply Ridiculous
OK.So we all know that Eisenman is architecture's biggest fool, and it is easy to add to the lore of humor about this intellectually pathetic nincompoop, but if you had any doubts about how much of a con-man he really is, this book will dispel such lingering thoughts.Firstly, you have to see past the incredible arrogance of publishing a work that is perforated with holes, eliminating any effective opportunity to read the pages.Eisenman apologists (mostly gullible students, or intellectual wannabe's), will make the most infantile claims about this gimmick, citing it as 'challenging', transgressive' and all the other predictable buzzwords used to justify the rubbish that is written in the name of critical discourse today. Bear in mind too, that Jacques Derrida abandoned all communication with Eisenman when he eventually realised that Eisenman really had nothing of interest to add to contemporary theoretical debate, and admitted that this collaboration was a professional embarrassment.-In truth, the small holes may be the only worthwhile part of this otherwise ridiculous book.

Don't buy this book because of Eisenman
Yes, Peter Eisenman is quite a fool, as the other reviewers' remarks make aptly clear. He does not measure up to Hadid or Libeskind, two architects among many others in an especially stong contemporary field who vie for 'best project' in serious international competitions. No, do not buy this book because of Eisenman -- any more than you would buy any other book because it had his name on it.

But this book was not, thank God, written by one person, which is perhaps why the other reviewers fail to notice what's so special about it. The significant essays in this book are by Jacques Derrida, and what's more they give very elegant, fine philosophical answers to difficult questions that have motivated Derrida's thought since the 60s -- but until this book came out one could only guess at the fuller technical philosophical context of Derrida's thought in, say, Of Grammatology.So skip Eisenman - as even Derrida was forced to do and end his relation with Eisenman shortly after this book came out, when he became irritated with the man's complete vacuousness and inability to comprehend anything remotely theoretical.

In short, strip it of Eisenman, discard the punch-card ballot box look (apparently the publisher is located in Florida?), and take the Derrida. You'll be glad you did. The book merits 5 stars without the BS, but gets about 3 stars due to the cluttered context. ... Read more

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Derrida on Speech-Act Theory
This is Derrida's critique of speech-act theory. The importance of Speech-act theory for linguistics is that it seems to advance beyond referential theories of language by focusing on what language actually does in specific pragmatic contexts. LIMITED INC serves as one of the most concise and clear versions of Derrida's notoriously difficult philosophy or method. Derrida's basic thesis is about language, so this book goes to theheart of his deconstructive project. In essence, he argues that we can never actually say what we mean. Not only that, we can never even mean what we mean. If this is his thesis, then a straightforward exposition of this claim would be obviously self-contradictory; hence Derrida's obscure and elliptical method. In this particular book, he focuses on "iterability"; words can be repeated, and when they are, they never have exactly the same meaning. Furthermore, meaning depends upon context, yet the definition of the context is always arbitrary. Derrida's thesis depends upon the gap between material word and immaterial meaning; the "materiality of the signifier" is the residue or "supplement" which conventional theories of language typically ignore.

The first section, "Signature, Event, Context," is a reprint of an journal article by Derrida which critiques Austin's speech-act theory. In response, John Searle wrote a defense of Austin which attempts to refute Derrida. Since Searle refuses to allow his essay to be reprinted, the editor gives us a three-page summary/paraphrase. The next section is Derrida's long response to Searle, "Limited Inc a b c . . ." The final section is Derrida's answers to some questions posed by Gerald Graff. Possibly the funniest part is "Limited Inc," in which Derrida responds to Searle. While Searle is the model analytic philosopher, always attempting to clarify the issue, Derrida delights in digressions, puns, deliberately provocative claims, and obfuscations. For example, he insists on referring to Searle as "Sarl" for reasons which I shall not attempt to summarize here. It seems rather childish on Derrida's part to refuse to call Searle by his proper name.

The questions raised by Graff in the final section go to the heart of the problems with Derrida's method, and Derrida's answers are for the most part obviously inadequate. Derrida does have a point about the problems with conventional theories of language, but he totally ignores how language actually functions in this world. Speech-act theory does not resolve those problems either. In order to understand language, we need to analyze it in anthropological terms, recognizing that language distinguishes humans from all other animals.

Clearly Put
"Limited Inc." is made up of three sections: "Speech Event Context" as the core (or intro?), "A,B,C..." as a responce to Searl's rediculousness/seriousness, and a last section of which i cannot remember the name but worth the read."Limited Inc." is worth is weight in gold alone in Speech Event Context, as it is Derrida at his most clear and concise, a refreshing change.It discusses the concept of iritability and in many ways sums up much of Derrida's work in writing."A,B,C.." however go to clear up Speech Event Context and take us on a wild ride through Searl's (lack of seriousness/too much seriousness) and go to greath lengths in interesting details.It may be the most amusing/humerous work by derrida simply through his conversationswith Searl.Well worth the read.

Who's serious?
"Let's be serious" Derrida writes. Then four paragraphs later he writes it again. Then several pages later again. What is the effect of this textual trope? It gives the reader the feeling that what Derrida has been writing, reasoning and arguing up to that point has not been "serious". And that means, it can't be philosophy, for philosophy concerns "serious" issues right? But all the while, Derrida continues to address important questions and "serious" arguments put forth by "serious" philosopher John Searle's... so surely he is in fact being serious? Can we be really be certain? Derrida, I think, wants to open up these questions and it is here where his style itself becomes the philosophical question: can we ever really be sure of conceptual serious and non-serious speech acts?

Limited Inc is a collection of three short pieces which encapsulate the famous exchange (or polemic?) b/w the late Austin, Derrida and american philosopher Searle. The first essay is Derrida's critique of Austin's earliest statement of Speech Act theory: "How to do things with Words". The second is Derrida lengthy reply to Searle's criticisms of Derrida's first essay (Searle is the crusader of contemporary Speech Acts.. Mr. Speech Acts, if you will) and the third, and perhaps most insightful is "Afterword" an interview with Derrida several years after the fact, where Derrida reflects on the "violence" of the earlier Searle-Derrida exchange.

I give Limited Inc a 5 star rating for simply the addition of "Afterwords". This interview is the (in my experience) clearest statement of Derrida's project of deconstruction-- to lessen the "violence" of philosophical practices and bring them to a new contextual level where they no longer operate undetected. It is also Derrida's first direct response to many of the (I believe) misdirected attacks on deconstruction -- e.g., the much misunderstood phrase "il n'y a pas d'ors text" -- there is nothing outside the text, which Derrida states vehemently, means not that there is no "reality" outside of a text (idealism) but, there is nothing outside of "context".

It is points like this, I believe, which will help clear up a lot of the speculation surrounding Derrida's philosophy *and* politics. Limited Inc, I predict, will be an integral text in bringing Derrida's unique philosophical enterprise its into the Post-Wittgensteinian analytic tradition where it deserves to be studied.

Entertaining
Anyone interested in the philosophy of language will find Derrida's deconstructionist take on J.L. Austin's "How to Do Things With Words" quite interesting, and, at times, enlightening.But the realfun in this book is when Derrida begins to attack John Searle's response toDerrida's take on Austin.He takes off his gloves and really goes afterhim and if anything, you'll be left questioning your assumptions about thematurity levels of renowned academics. ... Read more

Book Description
Few thinkers of the latter half of the twentieth century have so profoundly and radically transformed our understanding of writing and literature as Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Derridian deconstruction remains one of the most powerful intellectual movements of the present century, and Derrida's own innovative writings on literature and philosophy are crucially relevant for any understanding of the future of literature and literary criticism today. Derrida's own manner of writing is complex and challenging and has often been misrepresented or misunderstood. In this book, Leslie Hill provides an accessible introduction to Derrida's writings on literature which presupposes no prior knowledge of Derrida's work. He explores in detail Derrida's relationship to literary theory and criticism, and offers close readings of some of Derrida's best known essays. This introduction will help those coming to Derrida's work for the first time, and suggests further directions to take in studying this hugely influential thinker. ... Read more

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Introduction
This book is an introduction. It has a lot of information regarding Derrida, but you can not expect an introduction to his complex thought.

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Book Description

"One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy." -- J. Hillis Miller, Yale University

Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been considered improper. Thirty years later, the immense influence of Derrida's work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable.

Customer Reviews (27)

The problematization of writing
Derrida's thought is the primary reason why I inevitably feel an urge to put quotation marks around so many of the conceptual labels in my own writing; he initiates a needful misgiving: Do we really know what we are speaking about when we attempt to speak philosophically? Or is our language so subverted, displaced, and otherwise (blindly) ideological that a lot of the theoretical malarkey that academics put forth just seems to beg the age-old questions of knowledge, truth, meaning, etc.? But wait. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Derrida's writing shies away, almost essentially, from authoritative positioning in such matters because his own writing is subject to the same blind alleys and provisionalism that all writing is. In this respect, his writing is always, in a way, winking and playful, but admittedly in an rigorous and sometimes difficult way.

Is this book difficult? Yes, you bet it is! But I assure you that it's is as close to entry-level Derrida as any other book written by him. I first encountered the thinking of Derrida in a very watered-down gloss on his theory in postmodernist primer; this intrigued me to pursue him further, to read such things as Beginner's Guides and Short Introductions (which I definitely recommend to those who have either no prior experience with him or nogreat familiarity with the other thinkers he addresses in Of Grammatology--Saussure, Rousseau, etc.). Of course, you'll discover that these tidy little intros can be oversimplifying in places, but they at least get you to the general neighborhood before your set out on your own.

Derrida's writing, because of its inherent need for argumentative clarity and rigor, can at times be difficult to decipher; therefore, do not obsess over every sentence; the overall meaning of the argument is much more important and often becomes clearer if you just plow through difficult passages.

Every writing, especially philosophical writing, and even of course Derrida's, is by nature ideological; it works outward from a set of assumptions. There is no other alternative. We cannot start from scratch, from some dreamed-of ground zero where there is no preceding meaning and out of which we may deduce all the truths of the universe. Derrida's ideological vantage is then what appealed to me about him; perhaps never in black and white, but always and everywhere his thinking seems to question authoritative accounts, seeks to expand upon the marginalized element in any discourse, and foregrounds the difficulty in making large and almost mathematical pronouncements in philosophical and other supradisciplinary affairs. These are certain dispositions which align with my own particular perspective, and if they have some resonance with you, and if you come to Derrida having completed a little homework and bringing along a good dose of patience and effort, then you'll likely find this book rewarding as well.

A final note on the opposing opinion: Although there is no one camp of thinkers or philosophers which opposes Derrida's thought for one and only one reason, some of the most vocal of his detractors (and I will temporarily assume their voice here) regard him as a proponent of relativism or an attempted (but miserably failed) assassin of the western philosophical tradition. They are less skeptical of a fundamental faith in the general structures of meaning and in the rudimentary capabilities of the rational mind to attain to some variety of truth, however limited. Also, opponents often regard Derrida as a kind of interloper in the field of philosophy, that he should putter around with his obscurantist games in the narrow field of literary theory where he belongs. Therefore, if Plato, Descartes, and Locke seem like more feasible philosophical pursuits, Derrida probably (1) won't convert you and (2) won't be to your liking. He doesn't put forth a philosophical system, and neither does he assert an epistemological framework, so you won't find the kind of concrete, axiomatical philsophical claims common to pre-modern and early modern philosophy.

Push through it
When I first tried to tackle this book I was a first year undergrad philosophy and logic student - I declared Derrida my arche-enemy.
Three years later I am devoted to Derrida.
I eventually managed to push down the frustration (and at times, the blind rage) I felt at reading his stuff and took my time to follow him where he wants to take us.
Derrida is important for thinking, whether or not you agree with what he is saying.
Derrida's greatest lesson is forcing us to look closer, he wants us to pay attention to what is really going on (or at least, to pay attention to other possibilities that may be at work)

A Celebration of Incoherency
The importance of Derrida and his movement is monumental - not for the term "deconstructionism" (heard frequently without a clue to its true meaning) but for how he has influenced (Western) society. Derrida, like Marcuse, Chomsky, Foucault and others, has moved from his original study to a broader agenda and, like many intellectuals, considers his mastery of one subject transferrable to another.He managed to survive the embarrassing Paul de Man fiasco and has since wisely avoided mention of the "Hitler in all of us".He has remarked on the authoritarian anti-democratic nature of deconstructionism, treating the subject ironically.

This is, allegedly, a textbook of post-Modern thought on language but reads like a didactic, out-of-focus Proust. The writing isnebulous, self-referential, unreadable. He speaks in Orwellian terms equating opposite qualities and words. It is so ephemeral as to lack certitude and for this very reason many commentators fear definitive statements on the subject. Deconstructionism is, despite all the twaddle, inherently subjective. He muses on expression, anxiety, emotions, signs and existentialism, finding meaning and interpretation where there is none. His popularity rests entirely on academia and like-minded camp followers in the media. I mean, how many Iowans care about the "ultimate" meaning of allusions? The problem with the ouevre is thatwhen taken seriously, it literally make mountains of molehills.

Such as, well, equating fairy tales to S&M sagas, symphonies to invitations to rape, skyscrapers to phallic power trips, signs of "white" recycled paper as racism and stuttering as aggression. Allusions are, in Derrida-speak, fraught with deep meaning. To accomplish this one must divorce words from their sources and stated intent. The critic has been necessarily elevated above theauthor since only he can provide a "true"meaning. It is so outrageous that few outside of the Ivory Towers give it credence. That would be a mistake. Language is perhaps the most human of all abilities and its interpretation affects our personal and collective consciousness. His method has been called the "language of cultural Marxism" and is a necessary component of modern leftist ideology.At any time I expect Jacques Derrida to announce, like Alan Sokal, that it has all been a collosal joke on both the true believer and the reader.

read poetry - it's better for you
While it's certainly true that there will always be a gulf between reality and words, communication between reader and writer is nonetheless very real and potentially profound, thanks in no small part to empathy and the imagination. Deconstructionism, by denying presence and instead proposing unlimited differences between signs, dismisses any connection between readers and writers and turns language into a hermetic system separated from the outside world which is, of course, inhabited by people who read and people who write. This is exactly what makes deconstructionism so empty and hypocritical: It rejects traditional metaphysics while adopting a pseudo-mystical position which regards language as some unstable and solipsistic alien creature independent of everything and everyone.

The perennial postponement of signification
Of grammatology is a tour-de-force of Derrida's ideas about reading and writing; it encapsulates his view of de-construction, and his reformulation of such complex issues as phenomenology and structuralism.I have to admit that there were times when I felt that I was just turning the pages. I needed to go back several times just to get a sense of what I had just read. Spivak's introduction is a gem as she makes Derrida more accessible.Reading Derrida places a real strain on the reader because he assumes the reader is well informed and has an academic sense of the writers he engages in like Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.For Derrida, structuralists - particularly Levi-Strauss take for granted that speech is more direct than written script.Derrida critiques this sense of logocentrism that privileges the spoken word where the sound and meaning exist side by side. On the other hand, writing for Derrida creates an interstice between the sign and its meaning.Logocentricism and the accompanying phonologism are the seed of Derrida's deconstruction. Derrida sense of grammatology is that it is a soft science, one of writing. In this really complex mélange of engagements by Derrida, he problematizes Saussure's structural linguistics and goes to town on the notion of 'presence' that he feels has dominated the West since the Greeks, down to Heidegger and eventually culminating in the structuralism of Levi-Strauss.The notion of deconstruction is, for the most part attributed to Derrida. Deconstruction feeds into a much larger and more involved intellectual school of thought commonly known as poststructuralism.Postructuralism's genesis appeared with Derrida's exegetical critique on Strauss's the notion of, 'structure.' Taking the Saussure's lead, Levi-Strauss took structuralism into the field of structuralist anthropology - of which Levi-Strauss is said to have pioneered. In Of grammatology, Derrida portrays structuralism as the culmination of a tradition of structuralities, and reduces all to a fixed point of presence. This fixed point is effectively its center - calling for Derrida to move to de-center.To return to the issue of the sign, Derrida sees signs as random, in that they are defined not by essence but by or in comparison to something else.The solidity of the binary opposition between signifier and signified, which binds the sign, cannot be sustained unless we are prepared to grant that there exists some form of transcendental signified which would kill the play of signification. Derrida's analysis compels us to be aware that every signified is also in the position of a signifier.According to Derrida, the meaning of words is really dependent on how they are used.Derrida claims that everything is what it is, based on what it is not, - or difference.In a nutshell, Derrida is positions himself on the notion of the perennial postponement of signification - or "differance" -- or the outcome by which an opposition constantly repeats itself inside each of its component terms. In French, the word is in a liminal space between "to differ" and "to defer," as if saying there is yet one more thing to consider one more difference to account for.Moreover, Derrida seeks to de-construct claims of fixed truths. However, as a caveat, the critique on logocentrism, the practice of deconstruction, is really aimed at language, and to use it within and around other areas without really understanding Derridian de-construction is dangerous.

Miguel Llora ... Read more

Book Description
At the time of his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida was arguably the most influential and the most controversial thinker in contemporary philosophy. Deconstruction, the movement that he founded, has received as much criticism as admiration and provoked one of the most contentious philosophical debates of the twentieth century. Jacques Derrida: A Biography offers for the first time a complete biographical overview of this important philosopher, drawing on Derrida's own accounts of his life as well as the narratives of friends and colleagues. Powell explores Derrida's early life in Algeria, his higher education in Paris and his development as a thinker. Jacques Derrida: A Biography provides an essential and engaging account of this major philosopher's remarkable life and work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Good intention, bad execution
Badly written: "Derrida was never restrained in print about what he saw as the shortcomings of his contemporaries in the efforts they made to embody their ideals." (p. 35).
Not a biography as much as a sketchy summary of Derrida's works. The "biographer" didn't have access to Derrida's private papers (correspondence, etc).

best i have read!
Derrida's biography may not only face scorn from those who do not admire him, but also from those who expect a biography to mimic Derrida's so difficult books. Given the hatred Derrida's work faces in his life and death, a half-way step towards reconciliation with resistance to deconstruction, such as this book is, is of supreme benefit.



To my mind, this biography offers a good introduction to Derrida's thought and life. It gives to the uninitiated the first step toward Derrida. It consistently invites the reader to actually read Derrida's works, and therefore, even where its own readings are partial and too brief, they point to the importance and the meaning of Derrida's works.



If there are readers who wish to learn about Derrida and modern philosophy, and about much besides, including the question of what the meaning of life is, and what thinking is, then I do not know of a better book with which to begin. I also think it will be a good antidote to the over-enthusiasm of those who think that Derrida's revolution has already happened, and that it needs no further efforts. Derrida's work requires those willing to go their own way, and not simply to mimic Derrida's style and his frame of mind.



The more widely this book is read, the more it will be possible to see and hear philosophy being done in the present day in a relevant way.

A Trace of Jackie
For anyone interested in Derrida, the man; for anyone new to Derrida's thinking and finding it difficult (this book will help clear things up for you); for anyone who wishes to read aninteresting biography about a philosopher with an a strong impact academic institutions during his own life time - this is book is it. I found Powell's monograph well-written, interesting and insightful.

Excellent book
I enjoyed this book, a good clear introduction to Derrida's life and work.
A good insite into Philosophy.
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Book Description

Customer Reviews (18)

Postmodern situations, postmodern ideas
As Borradori states in his introduction, 'Both [Habermas and Derrida] hold that terrorism is an elusive concept that exposes the global political arena to imminent dangers as well as future challenges.'I think that this sums up what many people feel about the war on terrorism - unlike conflicts such as World War I and World War II, or even the more vaguely defined Cold War or Vietnam war, this is a war where there the front-line can be anywhere and nowhere, where the enemies can be anyone and no one, and where the tactics, strategies, motives and hoped-for achievables are so far removed from what traditional political and military methodology deals with that it requires a paradigm shift in our thinking.'While the Cold War was characterized by the possibility of balance between two superpowers, it is impossible to build a balance with terrorism because the threat does not come from a state but from incalculable forces and incalculable responsibilities.'

As is typical of Derrida, he sees the relationship between terrorism and communication to be paramount.(I was first exposed to Derrida in theology classes, dealing with the postmodern predicament of looking for meaning in language and behind language in ways that make sense).It is perhaps ironic that the term that springs to mind most when contemplating Derrida is 'deconstruction', which is, in often a dramatically literal sense, what terrorism also hopes to achieve.'The intellectual grounding of Derrida's deconstruction owes much to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century lineage constituted by Nietzsche, Heidegger and Freud.For Derrida, many of the principles to which the Western tradition has attributed universal validity do not capture what we all share or even hope for.'This becomes all the more problematic when dealing with those outside the Western tradition, such as occurred in Vietnam, Korea, and now in the war on terror.

For Derrida, communication is not simply political.'Derrida engaged the themes of terror as a psychological and metaphysical state as well as terrorism as a political category.'This draws upon philosophical ideas that can reinterpret the events in various ways, as plays out in various media outlets even to this day.But the events of 9/11 for Derrida are not surprising.'Was 9/11 truly unpredictable?Not for Derrida.... The kind of attack that the terrorists launched in 2001 had already been prefigured in detail by the technocinematic culture of our days.'

Habermas also sees communication as a critical element.One issue for Habermas is the speed of modern mass communication - it 'works in the interest of those who select and distribute the information rather than those who receive it.Habermas suggests that the pressure of thinking and evaluating data quickly has a political import, because it facilitates an experience of politics based on the persona of the actors rather than the ideas that each of them defends.' Habermas' theory of communicative action, including its idea of violence as distorted communication, shows the importance of perception, understanding, critical analysis and response.

'Habermas understands modernity to be a change in belief attitude rather than a coherent body of beliefs.A belief attitude indicates the way in which we believe rather than what we believe in.Thus, fundamentalism has less to do with any specific text or religious dogma and more to do with the modality of belief.'This fits in many ways when one commentator I read recently who discussed the overall state of Muslim theology, expressing the understanding that the Muslims have never gone through a period of Reformation as Christendom did, nor have Muslims come to embrace the idea of a society and nation-state separate from religious.Indeed, we can hear echoes of this latter idea in political speech in America, often from groups that can be described as (and often embrace the term) fundamentalist.This will continue to be an issue in the war on terror.

Another issue for Habermas will be the issue of nation-state vs. international organisation power.'Habermas is convinced that what separates the present moment from a full transition to cosmopolitanism is not only a theoretical matter but a practical one, too, for the decisions of the international community need to be respected. ... Unfortunately, the power differential between national and international authorities threatens to weaken the legitimacy of any military intervention and to retool police action as war.'This has been true not just in the twentieth century, but previously as well.The Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, and the United Nations have all failed to have power to counter the superpowers of their times; alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact relied heavily on one particular partner.

For both Derrida and Habermas, the war on terror is not as simple as Arab vs. West, Muslim against Christian/post-Christian society, or particular nations against one another.Perhaps had this been written after the recent situation with the Dubai acquisition of American ports being stopped, they would have pointed out that once again, our definitions and communicative premises fail - how does one balance the idea that foreign ownership of ports is unwise with the fact that few are concerned when British, Canadian, Australian or Norwegian firms do the same?There is a lack of definition about it all, even when all the words we use, to bring about clarity.The war on terror might be the quintessential post-modern situation.

Great, thought-provoking
It's a privilege to hear what these two minds have to say about our times, especially because their styles of thinking and the way they articulate today's problems are so divergent.

A most noble endeavour
Although the section dedicated to Habermas is brief and Derrida is allowed to make a more dynamic impact, Borradori knows very well what she is doing, and ensures that the end relult is that they both complement each other. These two thinkers might occupy opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to a whole host of issues, but "Philosophy in a Time of Terror" is not about who is right and who is wrong or about the reader choosing his/her favourite.
Habermas lays much of the groundwork, reminding us of the relevance of the Enlightenment, championing notions of the public sphere and communicative action. Reason, rationality and discourse have been, and always will be, essential components of any society wishing to realise the Enlightenment ideal. Just as philosophy was vital at the time of the Enlightenment, so too is it needed today in helping us come to terms with terrorism and in conceptualising a future which re-addresses the notion of citizenship, bestowing upon it a global and cosmopolitan character.
Derrida gets to work on much of what Habermas proposes, questioning received wisdom and conceptual systems through his own deconstructive methods. Focusing on 9/11 as an "event" and putting his own spin on globalization, we are invited to temporarily suspend belief and look at things from a more unfamiliar angle. Yes, some of Derrida's points are questionable, overblown and occasionally ridiculous, but his concerns have much in common with those of Habermas: how to realise a world society where primacy is given to international law and the religious undercurrents of political rhetoric are abandoned once and for all,dangerous as they all too often are.

This book is a reminder to us all of the role played by philosophy in shaping our present and a call for a return to philosophical reflection in order to forge a sustainable future for everybody. It's a start, and credit is due to Habermas, Derrida and of course Borradori for their collaboration. The world may well be awash with pragmatism (much of it needed admittedly) but there has to be a degree of reflexivity if we are going to avoid a groundhog day scenario. I mean, we're all idealists at heart, aren't we?

A Philosophy left on the table....
The main issues I have with this book are:
1. the dialogue with Habermas is way too short. I don't know if he was on a time line, but, it is just as he is gathering a full head of steam that everything ends, and what he has to say and to subject to thoughtful consideration is profoundly worth mulling over deeply. I kept wishing Borradori would continue to probe further with Habermas. He is the foremost thinker in Germany since Heidegger and is as creatively determined to tackle this issue of terrorism as anyone could aspire to. He goes after the issues with a passion and a commitment. Perhaps there will be more from him in his own write in the future.
2. Derrida likes to hear himself talk and see himself write. The foremost exponent of Thesaurus Philosophy, Derrida does not so much hermeneutically deconstruct as blather on, much like a Michael Palin riff in Monty Python. Read the opening pages of the dialogue with Derrida, and then go watch Palin in THE CONCERT FOR GEORGE HARRISON, and I dare you to deconstruct the difference. I keep expecting Derrida to launch into the Lumberjack Song. He gets to the meat of the issue but then becomes obsessed with his own vocabulary, like the boring uncle at family gatherings. You would think there would be more drive from somone who experienced the sort of childhood and coming of age that he did, but, like so many other French thinkers, he seems to fall in love with the way words roll off.
3. Borradori comes up short with Habrmas and doesn't cut off or focus Derrida enough. Too much of her post dialogue analyses is reiiterative.
That's a pity on many fronts, because there is a significant trail to be traced from Kant through Hegel and into the Twentieth Century about the nature of peace, government and the fact that as Kant observed this is a bloody small planet and we need to figure out how we are all going to live on it without resorting to the criminality of these past centuries. Habermas is clearly focused on such questions. Derrida can clearly see the need to come to terms with them. A more disciplined interviewer might have made this the tome it could have been. God knows we need it.

But Read Truth and Justification
Amazon has really hyped this one for folks with my categories of interest and as a dialogue with supporting essays I found the relative closeness I felt with Habermas and Derrida interesting. The views of both in a discourse over the tragedy of 9/11 were close enough to the reader to touch. The discussion was in my living room. As one who normally reads Habermas for philosophical wisdom and has grown to avoid reading Derrida whenever possible -- what a difference! -- to avoid a loss of wisdom -- I felt this book was far more interview and less philosophy for some reason. The words were smaller than usual. The sentences shorter. There is the tie in with Europe's past of course. There is also the clear note that most American's are missing the bigger picture -- the European picture especially.

Reading this book was the better part of an evening in many ways. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (7)

A meditation on language and culture
"Monolingualism of the Other; or, The Prosthesis of Origin," by Jacques Derrida, is a compelling blend of autobiographical material and cultural criticism. Originally published in French in 1996, the text has been translated into English by Patrick Mensah. According to a note at the beginning of the book, a shorter, different version of the text was delivered orally at a colloquium at the Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1992.

In the book, Derrida reflects on his past as an Algerian Jew living under French colonialism. He raises questions about language politics, pe