In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

2 THE BECOMING POSSIBLE OF THE IMPOSSIBLE: AN INTERVIEW WITH JACQUES DERRIDA MARK DOOLEY JD–Jacques Derrida; MD–Mark Dooley MD: You once remarked that Jack Caputo reads you the way you love to be read. Why is that so? JD: I have many reasons for saying this. Firstly, he reads me the way I not only enjoy being read, but also in the way I strive to read others—that is, in a way which is generous to the extent that it tries to credit the text and the other as much as possible, not in order to incorporate, replace, or to identify with the other, but to “countersign” the text, so to speak. This involves approving and affirming the text, not complacently or dogmatically, but in and through the gesture of saying “yes” to the text. What I love in Jack Caputo is this willingness to say “yes,” as well as his willingness to countersign and to try and understand what he reads. He does this without giving up his own demanding rigor, his own culture and memory, as well as his singular relation to other texts that I don’t know. So even when he is apparently reading me I learn from him because he illuminates my text with his own culture and insight. To take an example, because he knows the work of many theologians, such as Meister Eckhart, Luther, and Kierkegaard, better than I do, he is able to write his own text according to his own trajectory and his own desire without, at the same time, betraying me. So that is why I don’t really consider him simply as a commentator or interpreter . It is another kind of gesture. 21 MD: He’s doing something new. . . . JD: He is doing something new that, in turn, enriches my own text and gives it a wider scope. From a narcissistic point of view, I like being read in this way. Caputo sends me back an image of me and my texts that, of course, I enjoy. I would not, however, be so pleased if his text was not original in a certain way, if it was not very different from mine. For example, his book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, helps me to understand how deconstruction is indebted, on the one hand, to Heidegger, and, on the other hand, to the Lutheran tradition. In so doing, it helps me understand what is Christian and what is not Christian in my own text. This I could do only through Caputo, which is why he is for me a teacher in a certain way. It is very precious to be read by someone that I benefit from reading in my own turn, which is to say, that in reading him I am not simply looking at the reflection of my text in his. We write very different texts. No one will be surprised when I say that we have very different histories, very different backgrounds. It is not only a question of language and religion, but also our training is very different . Consequently, this encounter between Jack and myself is all the more surprising and, for me, a stroke of luck. Another reason why I am so grateful for his writings is because when he reads my texts, which is especially the case throughout Prayers and Tears, he is the first one, and so far the only one, to bring the most philosophical and theoretical of my writings together with those which are most autobiographical . As some recent texts show, the two are for me sometimes indistinguishable . Jack has both the generosity and the competence to read these texts together, to pay attention to the philosophemes, so to speak, which are sometimes buried, sometimes embodied in an argument, as well as to the most idiomatic and singular references. He pays attention to tiny details which are very significant for me, and he is the only one who really pays attention to significant motifs, details, metonymies, or subtle tropes and connections, which, as far as I can say, go unnoticed even by my most generous readers, my most friendly readers. These are the reasons why I am so grateful. MD: From Radical Hermeneutics, his first major book to deal with issues raised in your work, to The Prayers and Tears Of Jacques Derrida, Jack Caputo has tried to highlight an ethico-religious impulse which he sees at the heart of your ideas. How do you react...

Share