Taking on the Tradition: Jacques Derrida and the Legacies of Deconstruction

Michael Naas

Published by Stanford University Press 2003

Taking on the Tradition

Jacques Derrida and the Legacies of Deconstruction

Michael Naas

In the series Cultural Memory in the Present

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503619920

Overview
Contents

About this book

Taking on the Tradition focuses on how the work of Jacques Derrida has helped us rethink and rework the themes of tradition, legacy, and inheritance in the Western philosophical tradition. It concentrates not only on such themes in the work of Derrida but also on his own gestures with regard to these themes—that is, on the performativity of Derrida's texts. The book thus uses Derrida's understanding of speech act theory to reread his own work. The book consists in a series of close readings of Derrida's texts to demonstrate that the claims he makes in his work cannot be fully understood without considering the way he makes those claims. The book considers Derrida's relation to the Greek philosophical tradition and to his immediate predecessors in the French philosophical tradition, as well as his own legacy within the contemporary scene. Part I examines Derrida's analyses of Plato and Aristotle on the themes of writing and metaphor. Part II looks at themes of donation, inheritance, pedagogy, and influence in relation to Derrida's readings of the works of Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and Jean-Pierre Vernant. Part III considers the promises and legacies of Derrida's work on autobiography, friendship, and hospitality, themes Derrida has recently taken up in his readings of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, and Emmanuel Levinas. In the Conclusion, the author analyzes what Derrida has recently called a "messianicity without messianism" and shows how Derrida develops two different notions of the future and of legacy: one that always determines a horizon for the donation and reception of any legacy or tradition, and one that leaves open a radically unknown and unknowable future for that legacy and tradition.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Signing Off on Tradition Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
PART I: GREEK GIFTS
1 A Given Take The Platonic Reception of Plato in the Pharmacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2 Given Time for a Detour The Abyssal Gift of ''Khōra" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
3 Stumping the Sun The Odyssey of Metaphor in "White Mythology" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
PART II: FRENCH RECEPTIONS
4 Derrida's Watch/Foucault's Pendulum A Final Impetus to the Cogito Debate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
5 Lacunae Divining Derrida's Sources Through "Telepathy" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
6 The Phenomenon in Question Violence, Metaphysics, and the Levinasian Third Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
PART III: "OUR" LEGACIES
7 Better Believing It Translating Skepticism in Memoirs of the Blind ( cowritten with Pascale-Anne Brault) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
8 Just a Turn Away Apostrophe and the Politics of Friendship Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
9 Hospitality as an Open Question Deconstruction's Welcome Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Conclusion Passing on the Mantle: Elijah's Glas and the Second Coming of Dr. John Alexander Dowie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	170
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 248

eBook

Published: January 21, 2022
ISBN: 9781503619920