The Implications of Immanence: Toward a New Concept of Life

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments I would like to thank my students and colleagues in the Philosophy Department at the University of Memphis. My thanks, in particular, to all the graduate students who have participated in three of my recent graduate seminars: ‘‘Foucault’s Early Thought up to Discipline and Punish’’ (Spring 2002), ‘‘Merleau-Ponty’s Later Thought’’ (Spring 2004), and ‘‘The Problem of Vision in Recent French Thought’’ (Fall 2004). I must single out Cheri Carr, who edited all of the essays, provided research for many of them, and shared with me many insights concerning the content. The contribution of certain students was particularly important to me: Bryan Bannon, Erinn Gilson , David Gougelet, Marda Kaiser, Heath Massey, John Nale, and David Scott. By accident (it seems) the other continental philosophy faculty at the University of Memphis have also been working on the concept of life; so I must thank Robert Bernasconi and Mary Beth Mader for their kind support of my work and for sharing their own insights with me. It is hard for me to imagine writing these essays in an environment different from the one in the Philosophy Department at Memphis. Conversations over the past few years with friends (conversations in person, through e-mail, over the telephone, or by means of reading or hearing their work) have been important for the development of the ideas presented in this volume: Keith Ansell Pearson, Gary Aylesworth , Renaud Barbaras, Miguel de Beistegui, Rudolf Bernet, Conix stantin Boundas, John D. Caputo, Mauro Carbone, Edward S. Casey, Ion Copoeru, Françoise Dastur, Helen Fielding, Linda Fisher, Rodolphe Gasché, Peter Gathje, Galen Johnson, Thomas Khurana, Gary Madison, William McNeil, David Morris, Valentine Moulard, Michael Naas, Thomas Nenon, John Russon, Kas Saghafi, Gary Shapiro, Hugh J. Silverman, Jenny Slatman, Daniel Smith, Ted Toadvine, and Rudi Visker. In particular, I must thank Fred Evans and John Protevi for their kind comments on an earlier draft of this book. Brien Karas proofread the manuscript and made the index. I am very grateful to Helen Tartar, who showed interest in this book from the start and who devoted a lot of time and effort to its publication. As always, I must thank finally Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor for her support. The essays were written between the spring of 2003 and the autumn of 2005; all have been revised for this book. ‘‘‘Verstellung’ (‘Misplacement’): Completions of Immanence’’ first appeared in The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 36, no. 2 (May 2005): 220–29. I would like to thank Ulrich Haase, the editor of The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, for allowing me to reprint the essay here. The essay was written for a ‘‘book session’’ on my Derrida and Husserl (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002) at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, which took place on November 6, 2003, in Boston, Massachusetts. Commentators on Derrida and Husserl were Professors James Mensch of Saint Francis Xavier University and Burt Hopkins of Seattle University. Mensch’s essay can be found in The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 36, no. 2 (May 2005): 208–19; Hopkins’s essay appears in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 12, no. 2 (2004): 197–218. The version of the essay found here is revised in order to respond to Joshua Kates’s critical review of Derrida and Husserl in Husserl Studies 21 (2005): 55– 64. Placing this essay first is intended to indicate that one can find a continuous path from Derrida and Husserl to The Implications of Immanence. ‘‘With My Hand over My Heart, Looking You Right in the Eyes, I Promise Myself to You . . . : Reflections on Derrida’s Interpretation of Husserl’’ was first published in Husserl and the Logic of Experience, ed. Gary Banham (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), pp. 255– x Acknowledgments 74. I would like to thank Gary Banham and Palgrave MacMillan for allowing me to reprint the essay here. ‘‘‘For the Creation Waits with Eager Longing for the Revelation’: From the Deconstruction of Metaphysics to the Deconstruction of Christianity in Derrida’’ first appeared in a Derrida memorial issue of Epochē. I would like to thank Kas Saghafi, Pleshette DeArmitt, and Walter Brogan for allowing me to reprint the essay here. ‘‘Eschatology and Positivism: The Critique of Phenomenology in Derrida and Foucault’’ first appeared in Bulletin de la Société Américaine de Philosophie de la Langue Française 14, no...