Reading Derrida and Ricoeur: Improbable Encounters between Deconstruction and Hermeneutics (Inst for Eur & Med Archeology) - Softcover

Pirovolakis, Eftichis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1438429509 ISBN 13: 9781438429502

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2011

Synopsis

Offers a constructive new approach to the debate between hermeneutics and deconstruction.

Written in the aftermath of the deaths of the French philosophers Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005), this book is an important and innovative study of the contentious relation between deconstruction and hermeneutics. Offering close readings of Derrida's and Ricoeur's writings on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, structuralist linguistics, and Levinasian ethics, Eftichis Pirovolakis introduces the motif of 'improbable encounters,' and explicates why the two thinkers may be said to be simultaneously close to each other and separated by an unbridgeable abyss. Pirovolakis complicates any facile distinction between these movements, which are two of the most influential streams of continental thought, and questions a certain pathos with respect to the distance separating them. Pirovolakis also translates Derrida's brief tribute to Ricoeur: "The Word: Giving, Naming, Calling," which appears here in English for the first time. The book is essential reading for anyone immersed in continental philosophy or literary theory.

About this title

About the Author

Eftichis Pirovolakis teaches literature and philosophy at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

From the Back Cover

Written in the aftermath of the deaths of the French philosophers Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005), this book is an important and innovative study of the contentious relation between deconstruction and hermeneutics. Offering close readings of Derrida's and Ricoeur's writings on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, structuralist linguistics, and Levinasian ethics, Eftichis Pirovolakis introduces the motif of "improbable encounters," and explicates why the two thinkers may be said to be simultaneously close to each other and separated by an unbridgeable abyss. Pirovolakis complicates any facile distinction between these movements, which are two of the most influential streams of continental thought, and questions a certain pathos with respect to the distance separating them. Pirovolakis also translates Derrida's brief tribute to Ricoeur: "The Word: Giving, Naming, Calling," which appears here in English for the first time. The book is essential reading for anyone immersed in continental philosophy or literary theory.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1438429509
• ISBN 13: 9781438429502
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 238