The two essays in this volume are telling examples of Jacques Derrida’s recent work on ethical and political issues. Both deal with pressing contemporary problems. First, Derrida discusses the dilemmas of reconciliation and amnesty in situations where the bloody traumas of history demand forms of forgiveness, such as Apartheid in South Africa, the Vichy Regime in France, or the current situation in Algeria. Second, Derrida addresses the dilemma of refugee and asylum rights, which is a theme also addressed, in a different mode, by Sir Michael Dummett in another volume in this series.
This article represents the first part of a ten-hour address Derrida gave at the thirdCerisy-la-Salle conference devoted to his work, in July 1997. The title of the conference was ''LAnimal autobiographique"; see J:Animal autobiographique: Autour deJacques Derrida, ed. Marie-Louise Mallet (Paris, 1999); Derrida's essay appears on pp. 251-301. Later segments of the address dealt with Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Lacan, and Lévinas, as note 4 explains and as other allusions made by Derrida suggest. The Lacan segment will appear in Zoo Ontologies: The Question of the Animal in Contemporary Theory and Culture, ed. Cary Wolfe (Min neapolis, 2002).
Questioning History ‘How can one be late to the end of history? A question for today.’1 Jacques Derrida’s fame rests largely on his ability to devise eccentric approaches to philosophical and cultural problems, and he might well be thought to have excelled himself with this particular question. Assuming, that is, that one felt ‘the end of history’ made any sense as a concept, given that, as some thinkers would have it, history is the equivalent of humankind’s memory
Metaphor and Continental Philosophy From Kant to Derrida
There has been a phenomenal growth of interest in metaphor as a subject of study in recent decades. While literature and the arts, as far back as Plato, have always recognized metaphor as a source of poetic meaning, this new interest in metaphor is part of a shift in thinking which asserts that the metaphorical creation of meaning holds significance for the way we understand the construction of knowledge and the world. The following works give a good indication of the scope of metaphor
`Michel Foucault is a very brilliant writer ... he has a remark-able angle of vision, a highly disciplined and coherent one, that informs his work to such a high degree as to make the work sui generis original.' Edward W. Said `The Archaeology of Know/edge ... provides an unusually sharp outline of [Foucault's] theoretical stance as well as a focused critique of the history of ideas.' Jean Claude Guedon 'A necessary guide to Foucault's often difficult ideas ... and to his overall historical ambition, which is to define the "soil" out of which contemporary events in a given period grow.' The Times Literary Supplement
One of the characteristics of Foucault’s language is his repeated use of certain key words. Many of these present no difficulty to the translator. Others, however, have no normal equivalent. In such cases, it is generally preferable to use a single unusual word rather than a number of familiar ones. When Foucault speaks of la clinique, he is thinking of both clinical medicine and the teaching hospital. So if one wishes to retain the unity of the concept, one is obliged to use the rather odd-sounding ‘clinic’. Similarly
Major changes have shaken Marxism over recent decades. This collection of essays, by two American authors of international repute, documents what has become the most original formulation of Marxist theory today. Resnick and Wolff ’s work is shaping Marxism’s new directions and new departures as it repositions itself for the twenty first century. Their new non-determinist and class-focused Marxist
