138 Derrida 1963–1983
‘essential that an article on Levinas should appear in Critique before
too long’.^36 He took this opportunity to tell Derrida that he set great
store by his collaboration and that all his plans for 1964 would be
welcomed with open arms.
Derrida discussed this ‘monster’ text with Deguy, mulling over
the possibility of cutting it down without ruining it. But the sacri-
fi ces he would need to agree to would be huge. On 30 January, he
abandoned the idea of publishing his study in Critique, hoping that
Piel would not be cross: ‘Let me take this opportunity to tell you
what a privilege it is to be able to collaborate with Critique and that
I feel it is a real honour that the Editor has been so welcoming.’^37
In the end, it was Jean Wahl who agreed to publish ‘Violence and
metaphysics: an essay on the thought of Emmanuel Levinas’ in two
issues of the Revue de métaphysique et de morale.
This essay, even more than ‘Force and signifi cation’, begins in
a grandiose, magisterial tone, completely diff erent from a critical
review. In the fi rst pages, in fact, the focus is not on Levinas, but on
philosophy as such:
That philosophy died yesterday, since Hegel or Marx, Nietzsche,
or Heidegger – and philosophy should still wander toward the
meaning of its death – or that it has always lived knowing itself
to be dying [.. .]; that philosophy died one day, within history,
or that it has always fed on its own agony, on the violent way
it opens history by opposing itself to non-philosophy [.. .]; that
beyond the death, or dying nature, of philosophy, perhaps even
because of it, thought still has a future, or even, as is said today,
is still entirely to come because of what philosophy has held in
store; or, more strangely still, that the future itself has a future- all these are unanswerable questions.^38
Thereupon, Derrida embarks on what he tells us is a ‘very partial’
reading of the work of Emmanuel Levinas, especially the encoun-
ter it stages between ‘two historical speeches’ (or ‘discourses’*),
‘Hebraism and Hel lenism’. The remarks seem quite modest: ‘First
of all, in the style of commentary, we will try to remain faith-
ful to the themes and audacities of a thought – and this despite
several parentheses and notes which will enclose our perplexity.’
And Derrida insists on the diffi culty of such a project: because the
‘stylistic gestures (especially in Totality and Infi nity) can less than
ever be distinguished from intention’, he fears ‘the prosaic disem-
bodiment into conceptual frameworks that is the fi rst violence of all
commentary’.^39
- The French is paroles. – Tr.