Quentin Skinner and Jacques Derrida on Power and the State

Bibliographic Data

ID7094050
AuthorsMichael Drolet (a Lady Margaret Hall, and Wolfson College , Oxford , UK, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume33
Issue2
Pages234-255
Publication date2007-02-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of European Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2006.11.003
OpenAlexW2068650213
LanguageEN
Citations received3

This article compares and contrasts the work of Quentin Skinner and Jacques Derrida on power and the State. It argues that despite Skinner's explicit repudiation of Derrida's method of philosophising, he has come to advocate an approach to the history of ideas that bears important and striking similarities to Derrida's thought. I attribute this intellectual gravitation toward Derrida as the logical outcome of a shared understanding on the nature of the cosmos and man's place within it - an understanding profoundly indebted to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and the genealogical history of Michel Foucault. As a means to illustrate the narrowing intellectual gulf between Skinner and Derrida, I compare their respective thoughts on the nature of the modern and contemporary State, a State that both intellectuals see as emerging from a dominant western philosophical tradition that, at its core, is marked by the idea of fear. For both Skinner and Derrida this has profound consequences for the possibilities open to individuals and societies for free thought and political action

Epistemology · Michel foucault · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · State (computer science · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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