A Period of Withdrawal 1968 187
were crucial if he was to have any chance of being understood: ‘I’m
convinced that addressing “the man in the street” directly means not
being understood by him, or anyone at all, or in any case producing
only paltry eff ects.’^3
For now, at all events, Derrida was far from addressing the man in
the street. While he was active in the early months of 1968, he spoke
only in very specialized contexts. On 16 January, he spoke at Jean
Hyppolite’s seminar at the Collège de France: his paper was called
‘The pit and the pyramid: An introduction to Hegel’s semiology’.
This text, later reprinted in Margins of Philosophy, was the sole trace
of the thesis subject that he had registered a few months earlier.
Hyppolite was still Derrida’s faithful ally in academia, as this elo-
quent letter proves: it was written in support of Derrida’s inclusion
in ‘the list of those qualifi ed to teach in higher education’:
When I fi rst met M. Derrida, at the École Normale, where he
was my student, I had the impression, which is not that fre-
quent, of having come across a real, authentic philosopher. I
felt, in spite of the diffi culties and sometimes the obscurities of
his research (on Husserl), that I could have confi dence in him.
This confi dence has not been belied, but I did not know how
successful his fi rst works were going to be, even though he had
done nothing to curry favour, and made no concessions – for
which I congratulate him. [.. .] The main thesis, which I am
supervising, could have been written on the basis of his work on
Husserl, but J. Derrida asked me if he could discuss the subject
in Hegel. When one supervises such a philosopher, one can
only let him make the running. [.. .] J. Derrida’s work exists;
his inclusion in the list of those qualifi ed to teach in higher
education will acknowledge its existence and his qualities as a
philosopher and a teacher. I am more than favourable to it: I
have no reservations in recommending him.^41968 marked the start of Derrida’s journeyings: he was already
starting to be a frequent traveller. On 25 January, he took the train
for Zurich together with Gérard Genette and Jean-Pierre Vernant,
for a conference organized by Paul de Man as a sort of continua-
tion of the Baltimore conference. Genette was to remember vividly
the night he had to spend with Derrida, during this brief stay in
Switzerland:
De Man had put everyone up in a delightful hotel in the old
city, but for lack of space he had crammed Jacques and me
together in the same twin-bed room. [.. .] It was at lights-out