Life Death and Differance: Philosophies of Life between Hegel and Derrida

The Man “appears” as a being that is always conscious of its death, often accepts it freely and, sometimes, gives it to himself voluntarily. Therefore, the “dialectical” or anthropological philosophy of Hegel is, ultimately, a philosophy of death.

—A. Kojève, Introduction à la lecture de Hegel (1947, 537)

By associating it with sacrifice and, thereby, with the primary theme of representation (in art, in festivals, in performances), I have sought to demonstrate that Hegel’s reaction is fundamental human behavior … it is par excellence the expression endlessly repeated by tradition … it was essential for Hegel to gain consciousness of negativity as such, to capture its horror—here the horror of death—by upholding and by looking the work of death right in the face. Hegel, in this way, is less opposed to those who “recoil” than to those who say: “it is nothing.” He seems to distance himself most from those who react with gaiety.

—G. Bataille, Hegel, Death and Sacrifice (1990, 24)

The Idea, immediate and natural life, relieves, abolishes and preserves, itself, dies in raising itself to the spiritual life. So life develops itself in contradiction and negativity; the metaphor between the two lives is only this movement of relieving negativity. … The same movement in the Encyclopedia, at the end, concerning Sa [absolute Spirit]. The third term returning to immediacy, this return to simplicity being brought about by the relief [rélève: Aufhebung] of difference and mediation, natural life occupies both the end and the beginning. In their ontological sense, the metaphors are always of life; they put rhythm into the imperturbable equality of life, of being, of truth, of filiation: physis. Thus the Hegelian system commands that it be read as a book of life.

—J. Derrida, Glas (1986, 83)

The exergues of my article are three “French” definitions of the Hegelian philosophy, from Kojève, Bataille, and Derrida. To prevent myself and you from being tempted to recognize in those exergues the triadic movement of dialectics, let me remark that what follows is a fourth and longer exergue for a work in progress on Derrida and life, in between science and philosophy.

For Kojève, the Hegelian philosophy would be a philosophy of death; for Derrida, a philosophy of life—or rather, the difference is subtle but decisive—a book of life. Between the two stands Bataille, for whom it would be the philosophical translation of the fundamental attitude of man before death, that is, recoiling.

To grasp the implications of Derrida’s reading—with respect to the legacy of Kojève and Bataille from within the context of the French Hegelianism, and with respect to the Hegelian philosophy, but, above all, from within deconstruction itself—a long detour is required. I will not refer further to Kojève and Bataille, but, keeping in mind their definitions, I hope that, at the end of the detour, it will be clear that not only does Derrida propose a different interpretation of the logic at work in the Hegelian philosophy, but also he brings forth an interpretation that no longer appeals to logic itself or, at least, appeals to another logic. From this perspective, I will focus on the third stake, the one that interests me more, that is, the role that the deconstruction of the Hegelian philosophy of life plays within the development of deconstruction itself, with Hegel, but far beyond him.

I have been working on the question of life in Derrida’s oeuvre for years tracing out a risky hypothesis. This question would be the red thread of deconstruction, more or less hidden, and the genesis and structure of differance should be thought on the basis of it. Furthermore, the very issues of the survival, the auto-immunity, the animal, and, more generally, the interpretation of literature, of psychoanalysis, and of the political would be inscribed in that question.¹

The point of departure of my work is the reading of the unpublished seminar La vie la mort, which Derrida gave in 1975, and whose final part, “To Speculate—on Freud,” was...