The aporetic humanism of early Derrida

Bibliographic Data

ID11340643
AuthorsMichael Williams (0000-0001-5161-3219, University of Chicago, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume49
Issue7
Pages814-838
Publication date2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy & Social Criticism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-4537 • E-ISSN: 1461-734X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01914537221079678
OpenAlexW4220906511
LanguageEN
References cited18

This article focuses on the French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s thought in the 1960s. Though the discourse of the ‘death of man’ was regnant among French avant-garde intellectuals, this article argues that Derrida himself has to be described as a humanist at this stage in his career, even if a reluctant one. The case is made through close textual analysis of three of Derrida’s early and seminal works: ‘Cogito and the History of Madness’ (1963), ‘Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas’ (1964) and ‘The Ends of Man’ (1968). In these texts, Derrida grapples with issues of the subject and the other. They collectively reveal that the Derrida of the 1960s held fast to the view that philosophical thought could neither dispense with the subject nor escape the horizon of humanism. However, Derrida reconceived the human subject with reference to his core concepts of différance and arche-writing, making for an aporetic humanism that deconstructs the binary of humanism–antihumanism

Art · Cogito ergo sum · Epistemology · Humanism · Literature · Metaphysics · Subject (documents · Theology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Political Theology and Sovereignty

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