Derrida has read, with passion and admiration, the philosophical tradition. But his reading is transformation and reinvention – Deconstruction. This is what the contributions gathered in this volume led by Mr. Crépon and F. Worms in their diversity.
The affixing of the name of “ Derida ” has “ The tradition of philosophy “May mean that through a reading style to which the name of” deconstruction “, Jacques Derrida will have announced another way of thinking, another writing ; But also, that this announcement is readable through the philosophers he will have read or “ deconstructed “As figures of” Metaphysics of presence ». In their diversity, the contributions collected in this volume (and from a conference organized at theENS Paris in October 2005) avoid the too simple alternative between rupture and continuity, to emphasize the way in which Derrida settled in the structure of the hierarchical oppositions of metaphysics (sensitive/intelligible, material/spiritual, living/non -living, word/writing, etc.) in order to subvert them by revealing the work of meaning, an implicit or unconscious production conceptual systems. Following the guiding thread of this report, the main themes of Derridian thought are discussed: trace, diffrance, messianism, spectrality, responsibility, desert. Two landmarks make it possible to shed light on Derrida’s relationship to tradition: the need for presupposing the identity and archaeo-teleological unity of the philosophical tradition to deploy it in a story (D. Kambouchner) ; The possibility of an invention of idioms, based on the link between deconstruction and translation (M. Crépon). If Derrida identifies tradition, it does not leave it intact, it transforms it, reinvents it, and this, with each reading. Perhaps there is more than a philosophical tradition ? Perhaps, in each reinvention act, Derrida is it, each time, “ there ” tradition »» ? It is one of the lines of reflection suggested by a conference whose analyzes, in their wealth and meticulousness, do not be summarized. We will just sketch a topography of the different reading strategies.
Small topography of reading strategies
To put it in the language of Derrida: the tradition of philosophy is the trace of philosophy. On the trace – in a non -derridian manner – three predicates will be attributed: the trace is announced, openness to an unexpected future, not programmed. The trace is revelation, in the aftermath mode, of the previous mutations that the past tramled in secret. And therefore, the trace presents itself as a game of difference, as a delay and delay, time or delay of the work of meaning – in the “ philosophical tradition “, This work affects the system of metaphysical oppositions. The conference contributions are distributed according to these three predicates. Where the emphasis is placed on the announcement (Crépon, Moses, Nancy, Badiou, Macherey), appears all the power of destabilization of the “ deconstruction »: In the derida report to translation, which makes any terminological invention in philosophy a translation (intra-lingual) and any translation (intra or extra-lingual) an idiomatic invention (Crépon) ; in the derida report to ontology, which makes its writing a “ run down “(Badiou) aimed at” Enter the difference in your act ». In Derrida’s report to other thinkers breaking with tradition: in Deleuze, in a “ Difference sharing “Whose impossible community has only been assumed as” parallelism “(J.-L. Nancy,” Parallel differences (Deleuze & Derrida) ») ; In Levinas, in the chiasm of two crossed debts, a constraining Levinas to assume a radical heterology, Levinas tilting the derudid logos to welcome the alterity of the language of the whole other – themes of the arrival and the messianic (Moses) ; to Marx, whose contribution of P. Macherey shows, as finely as brilliantly, that the thought of ideology already contains the requirement of a certain recognition of spectrality. Deleuze, Levinas, Marx – but also Benjamin, these “ others From Derrida are not rivals, no more accomplices, they rather form a moving constellation of “ friends Who do not allow themselves to be brought together under a common identity – the stellar friendship of Nietzsche.
It is when the accent is put on the aftermath that Derrida is threatened by rivals: by the thinker of the trace that is already Heidegger-F. Dastur insists there after a meticulous presentation of the deride deconstruction of the ontological difference. By these “ classic “Of which D. Kambouchner questions the selection at Derrida, and which he shows – it is true by Descartes – that Derrida does not reduce them to a” Phono-logo-centrism »Ignoring the supplementarity of writing, and about which it forms the hypothesis that through the constitutive irony of their writing, is exerted a critical function which is all the more the future of deconstruction that it constitutes the origin, the very originity of the philosophical tradition. But still, by negative theology of which Jl Marion subtracts preaching from the metaphysics of the presence – and therefore, its deconstruction. Subtraction that applies to the Husserl of Logical researchabout “ syncategorems To which J.-F. Courtine devotes learned analyzes.
But the game of anticipation and delay makes the “ alive Derridian thought. R. Bernet shows that work on the historicity of ideal objects in theIntroduction at the origin of geometry Supposes the credit granted by Derrida to the Husserlian – and traditional – distinction between the contingency of the encroachment and the ideality of meaning. But above all, the work of meaning as a living mobility of Derridian thought is well enlightened by F. Worms: reasons for the arch-trace and the diffrance to those of justice and messianism, the transition does not consist so much in a return to tradition as in vitality-that of “ active constitution of meaning In the game of signs – capable of opening up to the arrival of the other infinite since mortality and finitude. And this life, as Worms notes in a double rapprochement with Nietzsche and Bergson, cannot be thought as presence. Between “ Derida ” And “ philosophical tradition “, The report would be mourning and survival: mourning tradition, surviving tradition – and tradition would survive itself in the mourning of oneself which would have name” deconstruction ».
The philosopher in the pyramid
Reading the acts of the conference, a facetious commentator and somewhat brought to insolence would be tempted, echoing the foreword of Mr. Crépon and F. Worms, to ask: We started to read Derrida ? And what remains, after all this work ? Derrida has often affirmed the impossibility of deconstructing without admiring. He went so far as to claim his “ love »Metaphysics – more precisely, logocentrism ; and in Ousia and Gramméhe reproached Heidegger – to his criticism of “ Vulgar time of metaphysics – a lack of generosity. “” Admiration “,” love “,” generosity », Recognition of these tones, in the work of J. Derrida, is perhaps what is missing at the conference ; The passion seems to be lacking in this respectful, rustling tribute of often felted debates with the work of Derrida-it would be necessary to make two exceptions: for J.-L. Marion (“ The impossible and the gift ”), Whose intervention is centered on his own debates with the thought of Derrida, in particular on the possibility of a phenomenology of the gift – for P. Macherey (« Derrida’s untimely Marx »), Related, in the light of an exchange with Derrida, an interpretation of the indeconstructible based on a rapprochement with the Cartesian subject. But maybe it had to be, for “ to start To read J. Derrida – at least, as part of the French University – to start a work of mourning with regard to what the vitality of the Derridian writing could have stormy. There is perhaps, who knows, one of the conditions for J. Derrida’s survival-or the condition of one of his survivors as author, appropriate by the institutions of higher education and research, of French philosophical tradition.