The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas - Softcover

Critchley, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0631177868 ISBN 13: 9780631177869

Publisher: Blackwell Pub, 1992

Synopsis

In opposition to the polemics claiming that the work of Jacques Derrida is a species of nihilistic textual free play that suspends all questions of value and is therefore immoral and politically pernicious, this book argues that Derridian deconstruction can and indeed should be understood as an ethical demand, provided that ethics is understood in the particular and radical sense given to it in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas' work, whose full philosophical importance is only now beginning to be recognized, is introduced in this book. Levinas has exerted a powerful and continuous influence on the development of Derrida's thinking, and by following the textual dialogue between Levinas and Derrida, one can see how the question of ethics can be compellingly raised within deconstruction. This book reinterprets some of the central motifs of Derrida's work (the closure of metaphysics, difference, the general text) in the light of Levinas' ethical problematic and shows how the very textual practice of deconstructive reading has overriding ethical implications. The book concludes by moving from ethics to politics and assessing whether Derrida's work offers a persuasive account of the passage from ethical responsibility to political questioning and critique. The book also contains discussions of Heidegger, Husserl, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy.

About this title

About the Author:

Simon Critchley is professor of philosophy at the University of Essex and Directeur de Programme at the College International de Philosophie, Paris.

Review:

The Ethics of Deconstruction has very many unusual merits. The text is both coherent and subtle in terrain where subtlety has often precluded coherence and vice versa...Critchley's familiarity with the work of his chosen thinkers is matched by a rare sensitivity to the complexity of their relationship with the philosophical tradition. "Written in an elegant, concise, andclear and yet - despite its scholarly rigor - pleasant style. Critchley'sattempt to retrace an ethical command within the text, and to avoidreducing deconstruction to mere edification certainly deserves praise andreadi "The hostility directed against deconstruction isusually in the name of ethical and political vales which are feared lost inthe spread of nihilism. Yet here we find a book in which the words'ethics' and 'deconstruction' sit happily together. It is to Si "The Ethics of Deconstruction continues the valuableproject of giving postmodern political, philosophical and literarydiscussion a context in the concrete realm of lived ethical experience.Critchley's knowledge of Derrida, Levinas and their common philoso The Ethics of Deconstruction has very many unusual merits. The text is both coherent and subtle in terrain where subtlety has often precluded coherence and vice versa...Critchley's familiarity with the work of his chosen thinkers is matched by a rare sensitivity to the complexity of their relationship with the philosophical tradition. "Written in an elegant, concise, andclear and yet - despite its scholarly rigor - pleasant style. Critchley'sattempt to retrace an ethical command within the text, and to avoidreducing deconstruction to mere edification certainly deserves praise andreadi "The hostility directed against deconstruction isusually in the name of ethical and political vales which are feared lost inthe spread of nihilism. Yet here we find a book in which the words'ethics' and 'deconstruction' sit happily together. It is to Si "The Ethics of Deconstruction continues the valuableproject of giving postmodern political, philosophical and literarydiscussion a context in the concrete realm of lived ethical experience.Critchley's knowledge of Derrida, Levinas and their common philoso

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackwell Pub
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0631177868
• ISBN 13: 9780631177869
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272