Writing and Difference by Jacques Derrida (PDF)

Description

First published in 1967, Writing and Difference, a collection of Jacques Derrida’s essays written between 1959 and 1966, has become a landmark of contemporary French thought. In it we find Derrida at work on his systematic deconstruction of Western metaphysics. The book’s first half, which includes the celebrated essay on Descartes and Foucault, shows the development of Derrida’s method of deconstruction. In these essays, Derrida demonstrates the traditional nature of some purportedly nontraditional currents of modern thought—one of his main targets being the way in which “structuralism” unwittingly repeats metaphysical concepts in its use of linguistic models.The second half of the book contains some of Derrida’s most compelling analyses of why and how metaphysical thinking must exclude writing from its conception of language, finally showing metaphysics to be constituted by this exclusion. These essays on Artaud, Freud, Bataille, Hegel, and Lévi-Strauss have served as introductions to Derrida’s notions of writing and différence—the untranslatable formulation of a nonmetaphysical “concept” that does not exclude writing—for almost a generation of students of literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis.Writing and Difference reveals the unacknowledged program that makes thought itself possible. In analyzing the contradictions inherent in this program, Derrida foes on to develop new ways of thinking, reading, and writing,—new ways based on the most complete and rigorous understanding of the old ways. Scholars and students from all disciplines will find Writing and Difference an excellent introduction to perhaps the most challenging of contemporary French thinkers—challenging because Derrida questions thought as we know it.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐DERRIDA’S DOCTRINE OF THE “LOGOS” DEFINED:I had already conquered Derrida’s “Grammatlogy”; and that is the best reference for the totality of his position. So I only acquired this volume to get a better understanding of his take on “LOGOS”. He does this in a very precise way in the first three essays, pages 1-85. I felt the price of the book was well worth the value of acquiring these three essays. I may read the others at a later date, but right now they do not interest me. My attention was solely on “logos”.Obviously, having an understanding of the “Grammatology” will help the reader; or some prior understanding of Derrida’s position. He is not easy reading. But, having said that; he is fully accessible to any reader with some foundational work already internalized.Basically Derrida gives the reader a triad to consider: We actually pass through a triad of “logos”:A. LOGOS-COGITO: “logismos” (reasoning”) + “huperbole” (madness, in the positive sense of “otherness”)LOGOS = ARCHAIC-REASONB. LOGOS-CLASSICAL: “logismos” + “hubris” (otherness as derangement and excessiveness; in order to establish a hard duality)LOGOS = OMNIPOTENT-DETERMINATE-REASONC. LOGOS-POST-MODERN: “logismos” + “subjective-huperbole”LOGOS = LESSER-DETERMINED-REASONIn addition to this fine exposition, Derrida also addresses the “history-of-tradition”, which is the “book-of-logos”. This he approaches from his Jewish perspective and articulates it within the context of “exile”, wandering in the desert, sands-of-madness, and the glimpse of “traces” that can be found in the desert. The majority of emphasis is on subjectivity; and the “self” is the substance of “LOGOS”. So no post-modern surprise there.But, there is a real genuine moment of discovery in Derrida’s discussion of the Exodus. I found it very unique; but very powerful in its unique approach. The key for Derrida is the breaking of the tablets; the moment of rupture within god himself that allows for differentiation and the human speech-act (and human “writing”). Out of rupture evolves a poetic-autonomy of subjectivity which works toward consecration through “writing”.Personally I must give this manuscript 5 stars, based on the first three essays alone. Derrida is a treasure of discovery. Enjoy your research.A BONUS MONOGRAPH ON LEVINAS: a book in itself; this 75 page monograph deserves the highest recommendation. Derrida, in his humility, says it will just be a brief overview. Instead; it is a precise, distinguished commentary on Levinas. Derrida articulates Levinas “empirical-metaphysics” as an important contribution to properly understanding LOGOS within a post-modern context. And the final 11 pages of this monograph give us a precise logical articulation of the “metaphysic”. This is very significant material to be enclosed in this collection.

⭐I enjoyed this book even though it is a difficult read which requires in-depth understanding of the works that Darrida was reacting to. This book is an interesting one and offers a number of thoughts regarding “post-structuralism” and the limits of structuralism in a number of contexts.The first essay, “Force and Signification” offered a great deal of insight into the problems of using structuralism as a methodology in literary criticism. In this essay, Darrida criticizes the typical structuralist approaches to this field. These criticisms are hard to impeach: structuralism at its best cannot hope to provide more than context for a literary work as it cannot address the agency of a speaker. (I think structuralism can provide some insight into this topic but it cannot be a primary method.)Many of the other essays make little sense unless the reader has already read the works being analysed. However essay 10 (Structure, Sign, and Play) is quite readable and presents an attractive premise to the reader, though a premise I ultimately reject, that structuralism is problematic in the human sciences. Here Darrida focuses quite a bit on the fact that Levy-Strauss found himself defending methodological assertions (such as the binary opposition of nature and culture) whose truth value he denied. I see this criticism as missing an important point: that modules (including the linguistic models we call language) are all fundamentally simplifying devices, and that it is impossible to model something (and hence to think about or communicate a thought about something) without simplifying it in ways which will not always retain perfect consistency. A false assumption may therefore retain methodological use even if it is deemed false. Structuralism in this context works because it mirrors the way human beings model our surroundings and our culture through language. Inconsistencies are a part of language, and these inconsistencies are not necessarily comparable across related cultures unless they can be shown to be structurally comparable. Darrida’s solution to the problem (deconstructionism), while it works much better than structuralist approaches to individual communications and literary criticism offers very little to this area (and in fact to the area of language itself).Perhaps this essay will ring more true to me after a time, the way Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil” did. Howewever at this point, it seems that this work at best introduces a number of cautions rather than condemnations, and looks at limits to tools rather than replacements.

⭐As always with Jacques Derrida…wonderfully written; intriguing and thought-provoking..

⭐Good boos. Useful for my dissertation.

⭐Derrida has an enormously significant profile in criticism.I find him tough reading.Perhaps he urges us to greater circumspection in judgement.The translation is prefaced by the remark that you can only readDerrida in French.

⭐The writing style is laborious: If only there could be a selection of the gold nuggets that are buried in it!

⭐Nice book.. well packaged..delivered quickly…iam really very much happy after getting d book in hand….

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