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52 two On Forgiveness A Roundtable Discussion with Jacques Derrida Moderated by Richard Kearney Richard Kearney: I am going to ask each speaker to pose a question to Jacques Derrida on the theme of forgiveness and, in so doing, to try to keep the discussion as informal and conversational as possible. Kevin Hart: Jacques, I wonder if I might get things going by reminding you of a phrase which you used two or three times last night. You use the locution, ‘‘forgiveness, if there is such a thing.’’ I think I know why you use that prudent phrasing. You explained the other night that there is a relation between forgiveness and the figure of the impossible: Forgiveness, if there is such a thing, would exceed the economy of the philosophical. However, I would like to know if you could imagine the circumstance that you have stepped outside the economy of philosophy, that you stand on that non-place you have evoked so often, would there ever be forgiveness? From that vantage point is there such a thing as forgiveness? If there is such a thing, what would it be? What circumstances , what constraints, could one imagine that would give us forgiveness? Jacques Derrida: It so happens that I often and regularly use this phrase, s’il y en a, ‘‘if there is such a thing,’’ not only for forgiveness but for a number of related concepts, or quasi-concepts—for the gift, hospitality, and so on. What I On Forgiveness 53 mean by this is that when an impossible something happens or becomes possible as impossible, then the criteria provided by what you call the economy of philosophy should become unavailable. When I say ‘‘if there is such a thing,’’ I do not mean that I doubt the possible occurrence of such a thing. I mean that, if forgiveness happens, then this experience should not become the object of a sentence of the kind ‘‘S is p,’’ ‘‘this is, this presents itself as forgiveness ,’’ because forgiveness should not present itself. If it happens, it should not be in the form of something present. I have said the same thing for the gift. So as soon as I am sure that I forgive, for example—I cannot be sure that the other forgives—if I say that I know that I forgive, if I say, lightly, ‘‘I forgive you,’’ this sentence in the present, with a verb in the present tense, is absolutely the destruction of forgiveness. That is because it implies that I am able to forgive, that I have the power to forgive, the sovereign power to forgive, which introduces me into the scene of the economy of exchange. You have to recognize that I forgive you, and this is recognizable, which is, of course, the beginning of the destruction of what forgiveness should be. This means that forgiveness should exceed the very category of presence and, of course, of objectivity, of anything that could become the object of a theoretical statement; there is no theoretical statement about forgiveness. Each time I make a theoretical statement about the event of forgiveness I am sure that I miss it. Even more than that, the consciousness or the selfconsciousness of the forgiver, as well as of the one who is forgiven, has the same effects. That is, if I am conscious that I forgive, then I not only recognize myself but I thank myself, or I am waiting for the other to thank me, which is already the reinscription of forgiveness into an economy of exchange and hence the annihilation of forgiveness. So if forgiveness happens, if it happens, it should exceed the order of presence, the order of being, the order of consciousness , and happen in the night. The night is its element. Now then, I come back to the most difficult question, these themes which I try to explore again and again. What, then, regulates my use of the word forgiveness? What should forgiveness mean, if it is not something of that sort? Well, here I must say I do not know. I have no knowledge of this. I can know what is inscribed in the concept of forgiveness that I inherit, so I work on this heritage. I found the word and the concept, and a certain number of conflicts surrounding the concept in our tradition, in a number of traditions. This can be the object of knowledge, and from within this possible knowledge, I discover...

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