Who Was Jacques Derrida?: An Intellectual Biography

diffe ́rance, he would have enabled us to go beyond phenome- nology: to destroy the privilege granted by phenomenology to the wo ...

essential truths. American Sign Language is presumably less capable than speech of a range of intonations. Saussure would have c ...

again that there is no absolute origin of sense in general. The trace is the differencewhich opens appearance and signifi- catio ...

answer, that the place of the one and of the other must constantly be in movement. If words and con- cepts receive meaning only ...

at key moments in the Grammatologyreveals that he wishes to give the self a role in his theory, even though it does not hold swa ...

writing, which scatters the self, is modified by a Heideggerian description of selfhood as “the subject’s relationship with its ...

from without(exothen,as the Phaedrussays)—the Nambik- wara, who do not know how to write, are good, we are told.” (This is Derri ...

On what basis can anyone make such judgments other than empirical observation? If Derrida has a different hunch about the Nambik ...

In his heated objection to Lévi-Strauss’s praise of the Nambikwara, Derrida may also be giving vent to a resentment of Lévi-Stra ...

written word works to ensure social stratification. He dis- agrees, however, with what he sees as Lévi-Strauss’s narrow, convent ...

properly. For Rousseau, Derrida asserts, writing is “a tragic fa- tality come to prey upon natural innocence” ( 168 ), the na- t ...

ing of philosophical tradition he seeks. Both Nietzsche and Lévinas, instead of merely criticizing philosophical conven- tion, t ...

friendship that would last nearly twenty years, until de Man’s untimely death in 1983. Derrida arrived in New York in October 19 ...

turalism’s death at the very event, the Sciences of Man sympo- sium, that was supposed to celebrate its arrival in America (Sign ...

Derrida himself hardly possesses an explanation of the law against incest. He suggests that this law escapes “traditional concep ...

losophy. Lévi-Strauss makes no claim to the ethical higher ground that Lévinas occupies, so Derrida rejects his empiri- cism. De ...

sors: Sartre and company, the Communist intellectuals of the rue d’Ulm.) In a climactic passage, Derrida champions “the Nietzsch ...

Unlike Lévi-Strauss, whom Derrida derides for his re- liance on empirical facts, Derrida bases himself on philosoph- ical tradit ...

with their attachment to presence. Finally, in the 1990 s, Lévi- nas wins out as Derrida’s favored representative of this realit ...

candidate has various names in his work: writing, différance, and, in “Structure, Sign and Play,” Nietzschean affirmation. Derri ...