Who Was Jacques Derrida?: An Intellectual Biography

(Greg DeLong) #1

an essay of over a hundred pages entitled “Limited INC.” The
gap between analytic and Continental philosophy only be-
came wider as a result. As in the case of Derrida’s later ex-
change with the philosopher of hermeneutics Hans-Georg
Gadamer (discussed in the next chapter), the two opposing
sides seemed to be talking past each other.
Derrida’s avoidance of psychological criteria provides an
unexpected key to his battle with Austin. Austin’s philosophy
of ordinary language depends on assessments of character: the
character of situations and of the actors involved in them. As
in the case of Plato, the state of the soul plays (rather surpris-
ingly) a central role in Austin’s thought. If we were all easily ir-
responsible, determined to bend the rules to our own whims,
then ordinary language would bear no weight at all. But it
demonstrably does. In Austin’s vision, when we abide by con-
ventional limits, we do so because these limits tell us who we
are. When our ingenuity succeeds (when an excuse works, for
example) and when it rewards us with thoughtful implication,
it stands apart from the false ingenuity of the merely manipu-
lative, which, like Lysias’s sophistry, is bound to be seen
through sooner or later. There is something truly convincing,
and therefore reliable, about the exemplary excuse, something
that tells of the depth of our lives in language.
Along with Plato and Austin, Nietzsche was a major
figure for Derrida in the early seventies, an influence to be
reckoned with. Whereas Derrida cast the other two as the
champions of logocentric stability, Nietzsche was his inspira-
tion: the daring thinker who put philosophy itself in question.
Nietzsche’s commitment to intellectual adventure proved
indispensable to Derrida. Nearly a hundred years before Der-
rida, Nietzsche had sailed beyond the furthest reaches of ear-
lier thinkers, disclosing new and unprecedented philosophical


164 Plato, Austin, Nietzsche, Freud

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