Derrida's take on Philosophy and Politics
How does Derrida see the relationship between philosophy and politics?
As I understand him, Derrida's project is the deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence in order to open the space for the Other. In this sense, deconstruction is justice. But deconstruction is impossible, hence justice is impossible. First, deconstruction is impossible because it is never-ending; it is infinite. Second, it is impossible because it makes no claims to objective truth and meaning, and hence is indeterminate. Third, it is impossible since it moves outside binary oppositions, and so takes to places, to 'the Other', 'the gathering', we have not hitherto known. Thus, for Derrida, philosophy is politics and politics is philosophy. And just because it is impossible does not in any way detract from the imperative to heed the 'call of the Other'. In this sense, deconstruction is endless, transformative critique to bring about change. (These aren't my views; I'm simply trying to put into simpler language what I think Derrida might be getting at.)
These three questions ('the political', 'philosophical', 'Marx') are indissociable. If there were a 'thesis' in Spectres of Marx[i], or a hypothesis, it would, today, presuppose this indissociability. The three themes of this thesis are, today, one.[i]Ghostly Demarcations
Deconstruction has never had any sense or interest, in my view at least, except as a radicalization which is to say also in the tradition of a certain Marxism, in the spirit of a certain Marxism.Spectres of Marx
As I understand him, Derrida's project is the deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence in order to open the space for the Other. In this sense, deconstruction is justice. But deconstruction is impossible, hence justice is impossible. First, deconstruction is impossible because it is never-ending; it is infinite. Second, it is impossible because it makes no claims to objective truth and meaning, and hence is indeterminate. Third, it is impossible since it moves outside binary oppositions, and so takes to places, to 'the Other', 'the gathering', we have not hitherto known. Thus, for Derrida, philosophy is politics and politics is philosophy. And just because it is impossible does not in any way detract from the imperative to heed the 'call of the Other'. In this sense, deconstruction is endless, transformative critique to bring about change. (These aren't my views; I'm simply trying to put into simpler language what I think Derrida might be getting at.)
Comments (3)
Quoting philosophy
Yes future cannot be predicted, but in constructing something we can predict its future. For example I put brick on a brick and so on and the future of it will be a wall. Now what happens to that wall in different time and date that is a different stories. But we shouldn't be mixing the unknown future with the known one.
A very limited, that is Eurocentric, perspective!
I would not agree that philosophy is politics, although it could be said that any philosophy has political entailments or implications,. I think it is better to say that any philosophy is ethics.
I may be nitpicking, but Derrida never said that deconstruction was indeterminate.
"I do not believe I have ever spoken of "indeterminacy," whether in regard to "meaning" or anything else. Undecidability is something else again. While referring to what I have said above and elsewhere, I want to recall that undecidability is always a determinate oscillation between possibilities (for example,
of meaning, but also of acts). These possibilities are themselves highly determined
in strictly defined situations (for example, discursive-syntactical or rhetorical-but also political, ethical, etc. ). They are pragmatically determined. The analyses that I have devoted to undecidability concern just these determinations and these definitions, not at all some vague "indeterminacy. " I say "undecidability" rather than "indeterminacy" because I am interested more in relations of force, in differences of force, in everything that allows, precisely, determinations in given situations to be stabilized."(Limited, Inc)
Quoting philosophy
It would be better to say that deconstruction moves WITHIN binary oppositions to destabilize them by exposing alterity already operating inside each side of a binary.