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

431 8 Derrida The step “outside philosophy” is much more difficult to conceive than is generally imagined by those who think they made it long ago with cavalier ease, and who in general are swallowed up in metaphysics in the entire body of discourse which they claim to have disengaged from it. (Derrida, WD 284) In the beginning, in principle, was the post, and I will never get over it. (Derrida, PC 29) Jacques Derrida is certainly the most misunderstood and casually misconstrued philosopher of recent times, and the thinker who has provoked the strongest reactions across the analytic-continental divide. He presently holds the dubious position, occupied before him at various times by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, of being the poster child for everything that’s wrong with continental thought, if not Western civilization as a whole. Such certainly is the verdict rendered by nineteen philosophers, including Quine, in a highly unorthodox protest of Cambridge’s plan to award Derrida an honorary degree. Characterizing their view as how Derrida appears “in the eyes of philosophers,” or at least “certainly among those working in leading departments of philosophy throughout the world,” they assert that his writings consist of “tricks and gimmicks. . . . His works employ a written style that defies comprehension. . . . Where coherent assertions are being made at all, these are either false or trivial.” The conclusion is that his work as a whole amounts to “little more than semiintelligible attacks upon the values of reason, truth, and scholarship” (Derrida, PoI 420–21). Derrida often comments on the irony that these criticisms (which he has suffered throughout his career) frequently commit the very sins they attribute to him (see Davis and Schleifer 1994, 334; Derrida, Ltd 153). In particular, he is accused of contempt for responsible scholarship and careful reading by people who have barely read a page of his books, who jus- tify their accusations by attributing to him views that are explicitly denied in his books, supported by quotes that do not appear in them, as in fact occurs in the Cambridge letter (see Derrida, PoI 404). This reaches its zenith in Searle’s astonishing criticism that “Derrida’s eccentric reading of the history of Western philosophy, a reading according to which philosophers are supposed to be roundly condemning writing, while privileging spoken language, is not grounded on an actual reading of the texts of the leading figures in the philosophical tradition.”1 Eccentric no doubt, but if any major figure has ever read the texts of the tradition, it is Derrida (see Cavell 1995, 70). His writings are certainly difficult, and they demand considerable knowledge of the history of philosophy if one is to appreciate their finer points, but why should he not be forgiven the difficulty that inevitably accompanies any kind of specialization? Why isn’t he entitled to expect the appropriate effort and background from his readers, two factors conspicuously lacking in those most passionate in their denunciation? A similar complaint that high-level symbolic logic, much less theoretical physics, made no sense to an unschooled student would not be taken seriously , yet the most advanced continental philosophy of the second half of the twentieth century must be immediately intelligible to those untrained in the tradition (see Derrida, PoI 115–16, 176–77). Searle’s “Reply to Derrida ” (1977) demonstrates how little effort Searle had put into his reading since, as Derrida easily shows in Limited Inc, Searle repeatedly uses Derrida ’s own arguments to attack him (see Derrida, Ltd 46–47, 98). One reason for the difficulty of Derrida’s writing, especially for analytic readers, is that, like all of the continental figures I have discussed, Derrida is taking part in a larger conversation that loses a great deal for those unfamiliar with what he is responding to. Deconstruction takes this tendency even farther in its version of the Empirical Directive, in that philosophical texts form its essential subjects of study.2 Deconstruction is “intentional ” in that there is no such thing as deconstruction as such, only deconstruction of particular texts: “Nothing is less lonely and thinkable on its own. . . . ‘Deconstruction’ would always go with, together with something else” (Royle 2000, 282; see also Derrida, Ltd 141; Staten 1986, 31). Thus, the less familiar one is with these works, the more obscure Derrida’s readings will be (although his deconstructions are meant to render these works and figures unfamiliar). Despite the common impression that he appeared out of nowhere or...

Share