Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;This thesis can be divided into three areas that correspond to the objectives of its three sections: To attempt a rapprochement of the philophies of Emmanual Levinas and Jacques Derrida, which will show certain thematic and strategic similarities between them and seek to investigate and articulate the necessity for deconstruction in terms of an ethical demand. To given an extended analysis of the Derridian concept of the closure of metaphysics and develop a theory of clotural reading which, through a commentary upon Derrida's readings of Husserl, Heidegger and Levinas, will seek to explain the structure and function of Derridian deconstruction. To practice clotural reading in two extended analyses of Derrida and Levinas which focus, for the most part, on hitherto neglected texts. In this final section I illuminate the relation between deconstruction and ethics by examining, in turn, Levinas's reading of Derrida and Derrida's reading of Levinas. In short, it is claimed that the 'goal' of deconstruction can best be understood as an ethical injunction provided that the latter is interpreted in a Levinacian manner