Philosopher
Jacques Derrida
1930–2004
Algerian-born French philosopher who founded deconstruction, a way of reading texts and institutions that unsettles the oppositions on which Western thought is built.
A decision that did not go through the ordeal of the undecidable would not be a free decision, it would only be the programmable application or unfolding of a calculable process.
Derrida was born in 1930 in El-Biar, near Algiers, into a Sephardic Jewish family; the Vichy regime’s anti-Jewish laws interrupted his schooling. He moved to Paris in 1949 and entered the École Normale Supérieure at his third attempt, among a remarkable generation that included Deleuze, Foucault and Althusser. He studied Husserl closely and Hegel with Jean Hyppolite, and his 1963 critique of Foucault’s reading of Descartes caused a lasting rift between them.
In 1967 he published three books at once, Voice and Phenomenon, Of Grammatology and Writing and Difference, and “deconstruction” caught on at once. He taught at the École Normale and later at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and for many years in the United States, at Johns Hopkins, Yale and Irvine. His fame reached that of a media star, though his literary style also drew hostility: in 1992 analytic philosophers wrote to The Times opposing Cambridge’s honorary degree for him, which he received all the same. He died in 2004.
Key ideas
- Deconstruction
- Western metaphysics, or “Platonism”, structures existence in hierarchical oppositions, such as essence and appearance, soul and body, voice and writing. Deconstruction first reverses such a hierarchy, then shows that neither side can be separated from the other.
- Différance
- Derrida’s coinage names a relation in which two elements, such as mechanical repetition and irreplaceable singularity, are internal to each other and yet remain different. Even self-consciousness is divided in this way.
- Undecidability and justice
- A decision that simply applied a rule would be a calculation, not a free decision. Deconstruction pursues justice relentlessly because justice can never be achieved by a formula.
- Hospitality and sovereignty
- In his late work on politics and religion, Derrida examined hospitality to the other and argued that democracy and sovereignty are at once inseparable and in contradiction with each other.
- Tradition
- Western
- Region
- French Algeria and France
- Period
- Contemporary
Influences
Influenced by
- G. W. F. Hegel1770–1831
- Edmund Husserl1859–1938criticised
- Martin Heidegger1889–1976criticised
- Michel Foucault1926–1984teacher, criticised
Jacques Derrida1930–2004
Influenced by
- G. W. F. Hegel1770–1831
- Edmund Husserl1859–1938criticised
- Martin Heidegger1889–1976criticised
- Michel Foucault1926–1984teacher, criticised
Jacques Derrida1930–2004
Where these links come from
- Jacques Derrida drew on G. W. F. Hegel. Source: Leonard Lawlor, Jacques Derrida, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Jacques Derrida drew on and argued against Edmund Husserl. Source: Leonard Lawlor, Jacques Derrida, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Jacques Derrida drew on and argued against Martin Heidegger. Source: Leonard Lawlor, Jacques Derrida, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Jacques Derrida studied with and argued against Michel Foucault. Source: Leonard Lawlor, Jacques Derrida, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- Voice and Phenomenon (La Voix et le phénomène), 1967
- Of Grammatology (De la grammatologie), 1967
- Writing and Difference (L'Écriture et la différence), 1967
- Margins of Philosophy, 1972
- Rogues (Voyous), 2003
Sources
- Leonard Lawlor, Jacques Derrida, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy