Who Was Jacques Derrida?: An Intellectual Biography

Manifesto of the 121 (petition), 26
Mannoni, Octave, 103
Maoism, 156
Mao Zedong, 133 , 138 , 228
Marcus, Ruth, 225
Marcuse, Herbert, 37
Margins of Philosophy, 130 , 135
Marx, Karl, 70 , 97 – 98 , 133 , 228 ,
256 n 5 ; French philosophy and,
165 ; metaphysics and, 229 ;New
Historicism and, 226 – 27
Marxism, 12 , 44 , 69 , 70 , 104 , 114 ;
Derrida’s resurrection of, 213 ;
experience and, 89 .See also
Communism
mathematics, 45 , 46
May 1968 revolt, 65 , 130 – 33 , 137 .See
alsostudent revolutionaries
( 1960 s)
McCarthy, Mary, 197
McKenna, Kristine, 17
meaning, 1 , 59 ; dialogue and, 185 – 86 ;
différance as generator of, 32 , 33 ;
dispersion of, 170 , 180 ;equivo-
cation and, 47 ; ethics and, 247 ;
experience and, 42 ; expression
and, 56 ; free play of, 245 ; literary
experimentalism and, 60 ;logo-
centrism and, 188 ; meaningless
nature of life, 200 , 201 ; memory
and, 108 ; Nietzschean apocalypse
and, 63 ; present moment and, 74 ;
signs and, 83 ; structuralism and,
116 ; time and, 54 – 55 ; uncertainty
and instability of, 2 , 36 , 140 , 153 ;
voice of silence and, 58
Meditations(Descartes), 68 , 162
Memmi, Albert, 16
memory, 106 – 8 , 120 , 150 , 180 , 191 , 243
Meno(Plato), 45

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 30

metaphysics, 1 – 2 , 5 ; analytical phi-

losophy and, 157 ; contingency

and, 37 , 38 ;as disease of Western

culture, 187 ; empirical testing

and, 80 ; ethical relation with oth-

ers and, 126 ; expression and, 74 ;

French academic life and, 89 ;

Hegelian, 31 ; humanism and, 222 ;

Husserl versus Hegel, 12 ; lan-

guage and, 53 ; man as essence,

134 ; as mythos, 99 ; Nietzschean

critique of, 98 ; politics and, 214 ;

religion and, 170 ; Sartre and, 27 ;

speech and, 72 ; transhistorical

assertions of, 30 ; Western system

of, 8 – 9 ; writing as hidden pres-

ence in, 71

metaphysics-skepticism opposition,

12 , 110 , 115 , 188 , 245 ; escape from,

62 , 64 ; Judaism and, 123 ; myths

of psyche and, 2 ; psychology

and, 247

Miller, J. Hillis, 183 , 201 , 224 , 225

Miller, James, 24 , 68

Mitterand, François, 184

modernity, 9 , 97 , 256 n 5

Moran, Dermot, 29

Moses, 110 , 111 , 113 , 114 , 119

Moses and Monotheism(Freud),

109 , 113

Murdoch, Iris, 28

Muslims, 14 , 19 , 25

Nambikwara people, 87 – 91 , 209

Napoleon, 31 , 131

Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 19

nationalism, 39 , 220

nature, 88 , 91 , 92 , 95 , 199

Nausea(Sartre), 25

Index 267