Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy

Haddad Samir

Description

A comprehensive analysis of Derrida's work on democracy

Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy provides a theoretically rich and accessible account of Derrida's political philosophy. Demonstrating the key role inheritance plays in Derrida's thinking, Samir Haddad develops a general theory of inheritance and shows how it is essential to democratic action. He transforms Derrida's well-known idea of "democracy to come" into active engagement with democratic traditions. Haddad focuses on issues such as hospitality, justice, normativity, violence, friendship, birth, and the nature of democracy as he reads these deeply political writings.

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Derrida's Legacies

1. The Structure of Aporia

2. Derridean Inheritance

3. Inheriting Democracy to Come

4. Questioning Normativity

5. Politics of Friendship as Democratic Inheritance

6. Inheriting Birth

Conclusion: Inheriting Derrida's Legacies

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique
• Philosophie de la psychologie
• Political
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Politics
• Social
• Derrida

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 27 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253008435
• Langue: English

Extrait

STUDIES IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT
John Sallis, Editor
Consulting Editors
Robert Bernasconi
Rudolph Bernet
John D. Caputo
David Carr
Edward S. Casey
Hubert Dreyfus
Don Ihde
David Farrell Krell
Lenore Langsdorf
Alphonso Lingis
William L. McBride
J. N. Mohanty
Mary Rawlinson
Tom Rockmore
Calvin O. Schrag
†Reiner Schürmann
Charles E. Scott
Thomas Sheehan
Robert Sokolowski
Bruce W. Wilshire
David Wood
DERRIDA AND THE INHERITANCE OF DEMOCRACY
Samir Haddad
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
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© 2013 by Samir Haddad
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haddad, Samir.
Derrida's inheritance of democracy / Samir Haddad.
pages cm. — (Studies in continental thought)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00836-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00841-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00843-5 (ebook) 1. Derrida, Jacques. 2. Democracy—Philosophy. 3. Political science—Philosophy. I. Title.
B2430.D484H325 2013
320.092—dc23
2013002397
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
For my father, in thanks and admiration
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Derrida's Legacies
1  The Structure of Aporia
2  Derridean Inheritance
3  Inheriting Democracy to Come
4  Questioning Normativity
5   Politics of Friendship as Democratic Inheritance
6  Inheriting Birth
Conclusion: Inheriting Derrida's Legacies
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations have been used in the text for frequently cited works by Jacques derrida.
 
A/AP
Aporias: Dying—Awaiting (One Another at) the “Limits of Truth.” Translated by Thomas Dutoit. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Published in French as Apories (Paris: Galilée, 1996).
AV
“Avances.” Preface to Le tombeau de dieu artisan—sur Platon , by Serge Margel, 9–43. Paris: Minuit, 1995.
FK/FS
“Faith and Knowledge: The Two Souces of ‘Religion’ at the Limits of Reason Alone.” Translated by Samuel Weber. In Acts of Religion , edited by Gil Anidjar, 42–101. New York: Routledge, 2002. Originally published as “Foi et savoir,” in Foi et savoir, suivi de Le siècle et le pardon (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000), 9–100.
FOL/FDL
“Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority.’” Translated by Mary Quaintance. In Acts of Religion , edited by Gil Anidjar, 230–98. New York: Routledge, 2002. Originally published as Force de loi (Paris: Galilée, 1994).
FW/DQ
For What Tomorrow…A Dialogue. Coauthored with Elisabeth Roudinesco. Translated by Jeff Fort. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Originally published as De quoi demain…Dialogue (Paris: Fayard/Galilée, 2001).
NW/LV
“The Night Watch (over ‘the book of himself’).” Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. In Derrida and Joyce: Texts and Contexts , edited by Andrew J. Mitchell and Sam Slote, 87–108. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013. Originally published as “La veilleuse (‘ .. au livre de lui-même’).” Preface to James Joyce ou l'écriture matricide , by Jacques Trilling (Belfort: Circé, 2001), 7–32.
OH/DH
Of Hospitality. Coauthored with Anne Dufourmantelle. Translated by Rachel Bowlby. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Originally published as De l'hospitalité (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1997).
PF/PA
Politics of Friendship. Translated by George Collins. London: Verso, 1997. Originally published as Politiques de l'amitié (Paris: Galilée, 1994).
R/V
Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. Originally published as Voyous: Deux essais sur la raison (Paris: Galilée, 2003).
SOM/SDM
Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. New York: Routledge, 1994. Originally published as Spectres de Marx: L'état de la dette, le travail du deuil et la Nouvelle Internationale (Paris: Galilée, 1993).
Throughout the text all references to works by Derrida that are available in both English and French refer first to the English pagination, then to the French. Unless stated otherwise, translations of works that are available only in French are mine.
Acknowledgments
T HIS BOOK WAS written over a number of years, and I have many people to thank for the inspiration, conversations, and help that were essential to its production.
First, thanks to David Michael Kleinberg-Levin, who, from the very beginning, provided excellent guidance and support, giving extensive feedback on everything he read. I owe an enormous amount to Penelope Deutscher, an inspiring philosopher whose influence on me is hard to measure. I'm very lucky to have first encountered European philosophy in Penny's lecture hall, and to have received her help ever since, not in the least across the whole process of the writing of this book. I am also grateful to Bonnie Honig and Sam Weber for their expertise and advice during the project's early stages. Their input was key in shaping the core argument.
I am privileged to have had Martin Hägglund as a friend and interlocutor over the past decade. I thank him for countless hours of conversation and argument, as well as for his feedback on the manuscript as a whole. Geoffrey Bennington and Johanna Oksala also read a draft of the manuscript, and their suggestions for improvement were invaluable. I thank Michael Naas for his generosity and insight the many times we talked—his clarity and knowledge never failed to illuminate the more difficult ideas that I sought to understand. And thanks also to Ann Murphy and Jeffrey Flynn, exemplary colleagues and friends with whom I've discussed so much that is in these pages.
I've benefited from a strong community of scholars who helped me work through the ideas in this book at various stages in discussion and correspondence. Thanks to Joshua Andresen, Pleshette DeArmitt, Matthias Fritsch, Allan Hazlett, Leonard Lawlor, Paul Patton, Gayle Salamon, Alan Schrift, Daniel Smith, Jill Stauffer, Nicholas Tampio, and Patrick Weil for their time and input.
At Fordham University I owe much to two of my senior colleagues, John Drummond and Merold Westphal, for their support in the early stages of my career. I also received valuable financial support from Fordham in the form of a Faculty Research Grant in 2009, a Summer Faculty Research Grant in 2011, and a Faculty Fellowship in 2011, which aided in the writing of this book.
At Indiana University Press, Dee Mortensen, Sarah Jacobi, and Tim Roberts were an excellent editorial team, providing expert knowledge and advice that went a long way to improving the book. I also thank Paolo Pecchi for the permission to use his wonderful painting for the cover.
Finally, I thank my parents for all they have done to support me across a lifetime of learning. And thank you to Luisa, my light, for everything.
Earlier versions of some of the arguments in this book appeared in the following publications: “Derrida and Democracy at Risk,” Contretemps 4 (2004): 29–44; “Inheriting Democracy to Come,” Theory & Event 8, no. 1 (2005); “Reading Derrida Reading Derrida: Deconstruction as Self-Inheritance,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies , 14, no. 4 (2006): 505–20; “A Genealogy of Violence, from Light to the Autoimmune,” Diacritics 38, no. 1–2 (2008): 121–42; “Language Remains,” CR: The New Centennial Review 9, no. 1 (2009): 127–46; “Jacques derrida,” in History of Continental Philosophy , vol. 6: Poststructuralism and Critical Theory's Second Generation , edited by Alan D. Schrift (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 111–32; and “Citizenship and the Ambivalence of Birth,” Derrida Today 4, no. 2 (2011): 173–93. In all cases the arguments have been modified.
Introduction
Derrida's Legacies
U PON J ACQUES D ERRIDA'S death in October 2004, obituaries appeared, memorials were held, conferences were convened, and at least twenty-eight academic journals in disciplines across the humanities published special issues dedicated to his memory. Surveying the published record, one is struck by two dominant themes. The first is that of Derrida's legacy. This theme is not surprising, since raising the question of legacy is a common reaction to a public figure's death. But it was amplified in Derrida's case, no doubt owing first to the fact that his work as a whole is characterized by a constant engagement with the legacies of others. “Deconstruction,” the word he used consistently across decades of publishing to describe what he was doing (despite the occasional lamentation of its more popular associations), names an approach to inheriting from the work of others. As Derrida once claimed, “This is one of the possible definitions of deconstruction—as inheritance.” 1 Further, throughout his work Derrida also explicitly reflects on inheritance and related phenomena. From his early texts arguing for an essential relation between writing and death, to his final interview in which he considers what will happen to his work after his own death, one finds discussions of the themes of legacy and inheritance, and of what