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There are some good bits here. Precious little about Derrida's position relative to the rest of French thought really (compared to the inevitable stuff about impact on the academy in the USA). Hardly enough on the relationship to Hegel (considering Glas). The discussion of translations ought to be secondary, really (unless we really want to privilege the non-francophone view of D). Charles Matthews 07:28, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'd say it is unfortunate that all works are cited as if their titles are in English in the original. And not a word about Tel Quel. Time to look at the French version, I think. Charles Matthews 14:04, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Plenty to discuss here, then. I'll just note a few points - there are a couple of long obits from newspapers I'm going to read. On book title, I see Jean-Luc Nancy does give all titles in French. On Hegel, I thought that the article in citing aporia would note the connection, but I see the page for that has not much either. On the French context, the 1968 references seem a bit tangled (a short reference to the students, a longer one to international politics that manages to have parentheses within parentheses, and really should be sorted out). The French deconstruction article is brief but interesting.
Charles Matthews 06:10, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In the Discussion of the Derrida article, an article I find very good and neither hagiography nor demonology (graphy versus logy, get it? nyuk nyuk nyuk: we write of saints but let demons speak Pandaemonium), we read the plaint that the article should be in language, ordinary people, can understand.
Language. Ordinary people. Understanding.
The problem is that what is meant by "ordinary" is anti-philosophical. Ordinary people don't turn to philosophy for vernacular concerns, instead they turn to it, in many cases, when they have extraordinary concerns and are indeed rather repelled by the suggestion that they are ordinary.
If I merely report that Derrida believed that systems of thought were undercut by reliance on that which they thought to erase, many Americans (who have a cultural, if buried, memory of psychoanalysis which was very popular in America up until 1980) are , like, details at eleven, and tell me something I don't know. So if I use "ordinary" language, I am reporting dead ideas which don't come to life in the mind of the reader and cause him to say, hey wait a minute, that is nihilism. The report is journalism and not the writing of an encyclopedia unless the writing of an encyclopedia is journalism, that is, the narrative of the Other which by narration keeps it at arm's length.
Things only get interesting when the encyclopedia writer departs from the ordinary and asks if Derrida's views self-apply, and the counterintuitive discovery illuminated in the text is that they do.
I think you can maintain NPOV but not be boring in a philosophical article by winding up the mechanism (or the charm, as in "peace! the charm's wound up" in Macbeth) and setting it to roll across the reader's mind...while adopting a light and almost tongue-in-cheek mode (which literally interpreted undercuts speech as did Demosthenes, who spoke to the sea with pebbles in his mouth according to legend).
Almost anything is preferable to the forced and false neutrality which confuses blind inheritance of "ordinary" language (and its categories) with a NPOV.
It seems to me that Wikipedia is here navigating uncharted waters, similar today to waters to the north of Canada opened up by global warming. Its writers cannot be legislators of an old fashioned POV like Diderot, or the Encyclopedia Britannica, but neither can they claim to speak for the ordinary slob, because such a generalized category is useless today.
In fine, language is a virus from outer space, there are no ordinary people, and understanding is an active verb.
Edward G. Nilges: OK, standard prose, and I do NOT mean to imply that my discussion style should be recommended for Wiki articles: please refer to my contribution to the Theory section on Adorno in which I exercise iron self-control.
But if we do NOT play what you call "games", then we transmit a POV, the standard journalistic account, not of Derrida's thought, but as it registered on a preponderance of minds. The problem is that it is becoming increasingly obvious (in light of the numerous protests sent to the New York Times after his death against a superficial account of his thought) that Derrida in fact misregistered in a way that should be familiar to a student of the history of philosophy.
Spinoza misregistered as a licentious man, Socrates misregistered as a bad influence on youth, Peter Singer is misregistering as a mass murderer. I think Wikipedia can do better as a collective phenomenon.
An encyclopedia is not a dictionary, where a dictionary reports standard usage as a statistical matter. An encyclopedia can transmit knowledge about a philosopher only by running a simulation of the philosopher's thought in the reader's mind.
As to "self-referential games". This is a phrase frequently hurled at Derrida. It hides the grand fallacy, which is to avoid self-reference like the plague. The grand fallacy produced the verificationist criterion of meaning and truth. The grand fallacy stands outside political and social phenomena OF WHICH IT IS NECESSARILY A PART and the grand fallacy is productive of lack of humility.
The way to get to NPOV from POV is indeed self-referential and involves a humorous consciousness of the fact that one writes from a position, me from the Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong in a room half-height, like the office in which John Cusack works in Being John Malcovich.
If we think that an unanalyzed inheritance of standard, received categories is a NPOV then Derrida died in vain.
Edward Nilges: I'm not attacking NPOV. Instead, writing journalistically and attempting "just the facts" in philosophy violates NPOV, because it replaces it by a POV in which the thought of an original philosopher will appear to be false.
Many philosophy survey classes create Fundamentalists, Creationists, and Islamo-Fascists by a dialectical process as the professor reports without passion or interrogation the skeptical views of the western tradition starting with Descartes, and the student, grinding through the financial demands of the American educational system or the classist demands of the French, decides on the basis of the evidence presented to believe ANYTHING but what seems to be claptrap by the time the class reaches Hume, and deep claptrap by the time of Kant.
I think there is a NPOV, but it's confuse with dictionary POV which can be attained in principle by polling people on their usages of words.
Of course, you can't poll cab drivers on Derrida (although they often have good insights: a NYT journalist described Francis Fukuyama's theses to a DC cab driver and the guy said, give me a break).
But this means that to preserve the dictionary approach you have to poll people "in the know" such as journalists and college professors.
But their very engagement with Derrida means that they will have a POV.
You can't get anywhere near a Fair and Balanced view from mere reportage of the views of three sets of people:
(1) People who understand Derrida and "believe" him: note that their belief itself will be interrogative and critical
(2) People who have adopted the pomo mantle and "believe" a misunderstanding of Derrida
(3) People who think he's full of horse puckey.
The only worthwhile sets are (1) and (3) but to describe the critical, interrogative view, you'd have to quote a representative of the view (may as well write this section yourself if you consider yourself type 1).
But this view can't be expressed neutrally and from the outside. It has to be set in motion as did Derrida set it into motion, SELF-REFLEXIVELY. The convergence of intellectual honesty as an ethos with the love of truth and humility doesn't permit "self-reflexive games", it commands them as does Wisdom in the Torah/Bible, "playing in the world".
And the reportage of the more amusing fellows in set (3) is a good way to avoid that "seriousness" which fails to self-apply and is the reverse of Wisdom.
Ed Nilges: no, it is simply unacceptable that people "who have not studied philosophy in any formal setting" should NOT ONLY participate in the discussion (which is perfectly acceptable) BUT ALSO legislate the overall terms of discourse.
The journalistic misrepresentation throughout history of philosophers, which has in many cases in the West and in Islam gotten philosophers killed, results from this view, which is intolerance masquerading as tolerance.
The final product can and should be READ, of course, by people without formal training in philosophy. But it seems that here we are saying that it can and should be WRITTEN by pure of heart idiot savants who haven't read Plato and fail to realize how and in what way Plato, like Derrida, wasn't completely "serious" about what were thought-experiments, and who hasn't accessed modern scholarship which translates Symposium into "boy's night out" with an illuminating levity.
Ed Nilges: if an ordinary participant in a discussion cannot use the word "unacceptable", then you've just destroyed the very idea of NPOV and discussion.
You cannot scan an ordinary participant's discourse for keywords and purge "strong" words. This completely misses the whole point of open discussion: the discussion has to be open to strong views.
A similar logical error was pointed out by Derrida on "forgiveness". The only way to resolve strong views during a truth and reconciliation process is to take the rather strong meta-view that true forgiveness forgives the unforgiveable.
Furthermore and as you realize ("well"), you cannot avoid yourself the use of the word "acceptable" in a context of equal logical strength.
It is a mistake to believe that neutral language, purged by a merely syntactical process of strong words, is somehow more democratic than "strong" language. "We believe", after all, "these truths to be self-evident".
Finally, you managed to rip "legislate the overall terms of discourse" out of context. I think WE do so, but I think there are better and worse ways of doing so. The better ways generally involve what some people call "deep listening" and what I regard as far more than a superficial evaluation of syntax.
I see this venture self-destructing once it is claimed, syntactically, that a mere reference to Plato indicates "intellectual snobbery". The REAL snobbery today is one in which the ordinary person can't read or mention Plato without worrying, as in some sort of intellectual Gulag, about being denounced as a snob, or bourgeois running dog.
Done. My logon id is now spinoza1111 and I have posted a self-introduction at the Miscellaneous section of the Village Pump.
Carsten Husek: I personally think that the figure of "ordinary man" (or Joe Six-Pack, as one might say) has its abiguities, too. For example, who says the "ordinary" man has any supirior "right" to "legislate" what is legible? The ideas of "ordinary" men are typically based on uncritical acceptance of received wisdom. Thus the ordinary or common does not constitute a privileged POV to judge anything. IMO, that means some difficulties sre to be exspected. And not only that: if Joe Six-Pack can say "ah, that's it" you can be sure that you have fallen prey to oversimplification. -- 134.100.1.177 13:48, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I would expand this later.
Carsten Husek: sorry, but IMO all these things about affairs/controversy are not very helpful. In discussing Derrida, one should stick to his work. Maybe, as a compromise, you could do an extra article on this, see the handling of "the sokal affair" in the article on "deconcrruction".(4.2.05)
The reference to Hugh Mellor seems to me digressive. Looking at Mellor's comments in the Cogito interview, said to provide specific responses to Derrida, these specifically address "Signature, Event, Context" and Limited, Inc. and are not a strong reading of that material: Mellor trivializes Derrida argument by presenting only trivial but more or less indispensable elements as the sum total of what Derrida offers. There does not appear any particular reason to privilege Mellor as a critic of Derrida (there's no doubt that there was opposition to the award amongst the philosophy faculty, but was there any greater merit to their arguments over those of others? Mellor's comments do not indicate that he is any more competent in criticizing Derrida than the signatories of the published letter or Searle.) or use him as an example given that there's not sufficient space to treat arguments by both in this article. One ought to give some account of these issues in the reception of Derrida's work, but this example is not offered as instructive. Buffyg 17:38, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Not used a talk page before so here goes... I removed "with some amusement" from the Cambridge bit, just because, while we can't really know if someone was genuinely amused or not, describing one party as coming out laughing seems to imply that they won the argumnent, thereby taking us further away from that elusive neutral POV.
I was reminded of Francis Wheen's anti-deconstructionist rhetoric in "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" where Derrida is described as "huffily dismissing the prankster-professor [Alan Sokal] as 'pas serieux'." I'm sure we agree that "huffily" wouldn't be appropriate here, and "with some amusement" has a similar effect. Util 01:31, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm removing him from Category:Fascist/Nazi era scholars and writers since the "Fascist/Nazi era" ended when he was not yet 15 years old. -- Angr/ tɔk tə mi 08:39, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The section on the 1990s suggests that derrida's so-called "political turn" would have started with Specters of Marx .... Now I am one of those who believe that there was no real "turn" and that Derrida's work in the 90s and beyond has its roots in older work (certainly his nuclear war essays of the early 80s and even his "ends of man" piece in 1968), and I hesitate to start this discussion because last time I made this claim I was bitterly attacked (even though both Derrida and his best readers agree with my position on this), but I am concerned that for those who do believe in a "political turn" (or "ethical turn" as it was recently called) in the 90s, the correct "turning point" is his influential "Force de Loi" address published in the 1990 Cardozo Law Review from a symposium on "Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice" rather than "Specters of Marx". Shall we change this? I suppose that whole section could be rewritten. csloat ( talk) 19:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Some of the writing here is just: Date, sentence, repeat. Is not good style, and makes a poor read. Yobmod ( talk) 13:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
i don't know if this is feasible, but could someone seperate his bibliogphy in to sections. for exapmle, essay collections, single essays, full works... etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.86.127 ( talk) 13:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
By Geoffrey Bennington, Jacques Derrida Translated by Geoffrey Bennington Published by University of Chicago Press, 1999 ISBN 0226042626, 9780226042626 432 pages
By Christopher Norris Published by Harvard University Press, 1987 ISBN 0674198247, 9780674198241 271 pages
By Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering Kofman, Dick Kirby, Jacques Derrida Published by Manchester University Press, 2005 ISBN 0719070635, 9780719070631 144 pages
By Jürgen Habermas, Giovanna Borradori, Jacques Derrida Published by University of Chicago Press, 2004 ISBN 0226066665, 9780226066660 224 pages
By Rodolphe Gasche Published by Harvard University Press, 1986 ISBN 0674867009, 9780674867000 348 pages
By Rodolphe Gasché Published by Harvard University Press, 1994 ISBN 0674464427, 9780674464421 286 pages
By David Wood Published by Blackwell, 1992 ISBN 0631161023, 9780631161028 297 pages
By Tom Cohen, Tom Cohen, (, ebrary, Inc Published by Cambridge University Press, 2001 ISBN 0511066066, 9780511066061 327 pages
By Jonathan Culler Published by Routledge, 1989 ISBN 041504555X, 9780415045551 307 pages
By John Sturrock Contributor John Sturrock Published by Oxford University Press, 1979 ISBN 0192158392, 9780192158390 190 pages
By Leonard Lawlor Published by Indiana University Press, 2002 ISBN 0253340497, 9780253340498 286 pages
By Simon Critchley Published by Verso, 1999 ISBN 1859842461, 9781859842461 302 pages
By William R. McKenna, Joseph Claude Evans Contributor William R. McKenna, Joseph Claude Evans Published by Springer, 1995 ISBN 0792337301, 9780792337300 214 pages
By Jason Powell Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006 ISBN 0826494498, 9780826494498 250 pages
By Stuart Barnett Published by Routledge, 1998 ISBN 0415171040, 9780415171045 368 pages
By Diane P. Michelfelder, Richard E. Palmer Contributor Diane P. Michelfelder Published by SUNY Press, 1989 ISBN 0791400085, 9780791400081 352 pages
By Gregory L. Ulmer Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985 Original from the University of California Digitized Feb 11, 2008 ISBN 080183256X, 9780801832567 337 pages
By Harold G. Coward, Toby Foshay, Jacques Derrida Contributor Harold G. Coward Published by SUNY Press, 1992 ISBN 0791409635, 9780791409633 337 pages
By Henry Staten Published by U of Nebraska Press, 1986 ISBN 0803291698, 9780803291690 Deconstruction and Philosophy: The Texts of Jacques Derrida By John Sallis Photographs by John Sallis Contributor John Sallis Published by University of Chicago Press, 1987 ISBN 0226734390, 9780226734392 207 pages
By Simon Critchley Published by Edinburgh University Press, 1999 ISBN 0748612173, 9780748612178 293 pages
By Morag Patrick Published by Ashgate, 1997 ISBN 1859725457, 9781859725450 169 pages
By David Farrell Krell Published by Penn State Press, 2000 ISBN 0271019921, 9780271019925 237 pages
By Christina Howells Published by Polity Press, 1998 ISBN 0745611672, 9780745611679 175 pages
By John D. Caputo Published by Indiana University Press, 1997 ISBN 0253211123, 9780253211125 379 pages
By James K. A. Smith Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005 ISBN 0826462812, 9780826462817 156 pages
By Jack Reynolds, Jonathan Roffe Contributor Jack Reynolds, Jonathan Roffe Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004 ISBN 0826473156, 9780826473158 168 pages
By David C. Wood, Robert Bernasconi Contributor David C. Wood, Robert Bernasconi Published by Northwestern University Press, 1988 ISBN 0810107864, 9780810107861 98 pages
By Jim Powell, Jim Powell Van Howell, Van Howell Published by Orient Longman, 2000 ISBN 8125019162, 9788125019169 185 pages
By Raoul Mortley Published by Taylor & Francis, 1991 ISBN 0415052556, 9780415052559 108 pages
By Madeleine Fagan Published by Edinburgh University Press, 2007 ISBN 074862547X, 9780748625475 246 pages
By Nicholas Royle Published by Routledge, 2003 ISBN 0415229308, 9780415229302 185 pages
By Leonard Lawlor, Zeynep Direk Contributor Leonard Lawlor, Zeynep Direk Published by Routledge, 2002 ISBN 0415235812, 9780415235815 1320 pages
By Joanna Hodge Published by Routledge, 2007 ISBN 0415430917, 9780415430913 256 pages
By Catherine Malabou, Jacques Derrida Published by Stanford University Press, 2004 ISBN 0804740410, 9780804740418 330 pages
By Richard J. Lane Published by Akademiai Kiado, 2003 ISBN 9630579472, 9789630579476 129 pages
By Rainer Schulte, John Biguenet Contributor Rainer Schulte, John Biguenet Published by University of Chicago Press, 1992 ISBN 0226048713, 9780226048710 254 pages
By Helene Cixous, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Peggy Kamuf Translated by Peggy Kamuf Illustrated by Ernest Pignon-Ernest Published by Stanford University Press, 2007 ISBN 0804759073, 9780804759076 160 pages
By Niall Lucy Published by Blackwell Pub., 2004 ISBN 0631218424, 9780631218425 183 pages
By Catherine H. Zuckert Published by University of Chicago Press, 1996 ISBN 0226993310, 9780226993317 351 pages
By Yvonne Sherwood, Kevin Hart Contributor Yvonne Sherwood, Kevin Hart Published by Routledge, 2005 ISBN 0415968887, 9780415968881 424 pages
By John Schad Published by Sussex Academic Press, 2007 ISBN 1845190319, 9781845190316 211 pages
By Allan Megill Published by University of California Press, 1987 ISBN 0520060288, 9780520060289 423 pages
By Ian Maclachlan Contributor Ian Maclachlan Published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004 ISBN 0754608069, 9780754608066 166 pages
By Mark Edmundson Published by Cambridge University Press, 1995 ISBN 0521485320, 9780521485326 243 pages
By Francis J. Ambrosio Published by SUNY Press, 2007 ISBN 0791470059, 9780791470053 240 pages
By Theodore W. Jennings Published by Stanford University Press, 2006 ISBN 0804752680, 9780804752688 219 pages
By Geoffrey H. Hartman Published by JHU Press, 1982 ISBN 0801824532, 9780801824531 216 pages
By Richard Rand, Jacques Derrida Published by Stanford University Press, 2001 ISBN 0804739560, 9780804739566 252 pages
By Michael Naas Published by Stanford University Press, 2003 ISBN 080474422X, 9780804744225 211 pages
By Hugh J. Silverman Contributor Hugh J. Silverman Published by Routledge, 1989 ISBN 0415030943, 9780415030946 258 pages
Semitransgenic ( talk) 16:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
A mention should be made of Jacques Ehrmann who was instrumental in introducing Derrida to Yale U. in 1968. See Texts about Jacques Ehrmann and footnote in Parages on the above Wiki page ... Yumgui ( talk) 00:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe this article requires a lead. Is there anyone monitoring this page who could write it? I would be willing to give it a go, summarising the information that's currently in the article. I would be more confident in that attempt if I knew there was someone who could back me up, correcting anything mistaken, and making sure it was up to a good standard. -- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 14:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Obviously, in this context the word "profound" cannot be inserted without further qualificiation--add as a blockquote ref?-- Artiquities ( talk) 14:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
At the moment, I don't have a strong preference for putting either 'profound' or 'significant' in the lead section. For me any of the two is fine until we have references discussing extensively Derrida's influence and legacy.-- Sum ( talk) 15:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be an edit war here between SummerWithMorons and Mtevfrog. I agree with Mtevfrog that the material SummerWithMorons wants to add is badly written. I'd like to encourage both editors to discuss things here (and SummerWithMorons to not refer to Mtevfrog's reverting him as vandalism). UserVOBO ( talk) 21:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it is probably a mistake in the editing, regarding critiques of Derrida, that led to a reference to the philosopher W.V.O.Quine as a "Republican" (referencing the Republican Party of the U.S.). The footnote leads to an interesting article, but the speculation in that article that Quine must have been a "good Republican" is not enough to make me believe that Quine had any special connection to any political party. Calling Quine "conservative" also seems somewhat confusing. Even the referenced article notes that Quine's epistemology is perhaps far more radical than that of Derrida. If no one either objects, or can explain why Quine should be referred to as a "Republican," I recommend deleting the reference to Quine altogether. I'll try to look on this discussion page in a few weeks, to see if there is some more information, and maybe I will at that time delete the reference that seems inaccurate. 141.156.216.220 ( talk) 02:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Recap of what is required in lead:
From Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section). This is the challenge. -- Artiquities ( talk) 06:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Here yet again another revert by Mtevfrog. This ownership behaviour is bullying new contributors and disrupting the evolution of the article.-- Sum ( talk) 14:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I've restored a quotation regarding the use of Derrida's ideas to the introduction that Mtevfrog deleted on the pretext that "This simply is not the right way to introduce Derrida." It is perfectly valid and appropriate for the lede. Given the accusations of ownership behaviour, it would be appropriate for Mtevfrog to discuss his/her reasons for wanting to delete here prior to removing new material. Neither the blanket removal nor acceptance of new material are useful to the development of the article. DionysosProteus ( talk) 12:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I have restored the quotation once again. Material whose inclusion editors regard as debatable requires, precisely, a debate. Mtevfrog, you do your arguments few favours with this manner of proceeding. Deletion without discussion here is inappropriate behaviour. Kindly desist.
With regard to the quotation, it quite clearly was not selected randomly. It supports and develops the previous sentence directly. In what way does the description of the critical engagements with "Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Freud" etc. that his work inspired make it seem that the work had "primarily political implications"? That sounds like a cultural arena, not a political one. In what way is that emphasis misplaced? DionysosProteus ( talk) 10:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the quotation again. It's not really about Derrida, and it's quite unhelpful in explaining either his life or his ideas. I would ask DionysosProteus not to restore it without first showing a consensus in its favour. If necessary, a request for comment could be placed. UserVOBO ( talk) 00:49, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I've done a revamp of the lede. I've included the NTY article as a reference and tried to sum up the main points of his philosophical work. I'll add some details about his life and personality afterwards. I think my additions strike many of the notes that need to be struck. Thoughts? Grunge6910 ( talk) 01:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
1. I agree with those who have said we should remove "post-structuralist" from the opening sentence. Very infrequently on bios of philosophers do we identify them with a particular movement in the opening sentence. Later on we say he is "identified with postmodernism and post-structuralism." That should suffice. I see no compelling reason to call him post-structuralist right off the bat.
2. I strongly dislike the paragraph about the 1980s culture wars. To me this sticks conspicuously out of place. Derrida's connection to the American cultural wars of the 1980s is tangential at best (cite me a place where he ever wrote about them), and his relationship with political conservatism also strikes me as trivial. Again, the paragraph before we note his work has had political implications and has been connected with political movements, and we note his unique approach to philosophy has made him controversial. Why, again, does this not suffice? Why include references to the culture wars and political conservatism when his connection to them is not nearly important enough to bear mentioning in the lede, which is supposed to summarize the principal aspects of his life and work?
Grunge6910 (
talk) 16:31, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
The user Mtevfrog tends to make unnecessarily dismissive and offenisive assertions in his edit summaries on this article--e.g., "clearly you lack knowledge of the subject," ... "Users lacking understanding of his work again undermine article. Pity" ... "This simply is not the right way to introduce Derrida," ... "Undoing poor changes: skewed, poorly written, not an improvement," ... "These changes are inappropriate, out of place, poorly written, do not improve the article, and are not based on any understanding of his work," ... "Removing sentence which does not belong in opening," --
This user never discusses his/her justifications on talk. He/she has already been accussed of ownership behaviour and bullying and there is no change. Any thoughts? -- Artiquities ( talk) 11:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not clear to me from the article in which language Derrida wrote. I presume it was French, but did he ever write in other languages? If you know, please add a line to the article. Thanks! -- Brian Fenton ( talk) 15:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
From Points...interviews:
“ | Q.: One gets the impression that you have, in the course of the last few years, deserted France for the sake of an American career. Is this a choice you are making?
J.D.: No, I am not emigrating! I have no American "career"! Like others, I teach every year, for no more than a few weeks, in the United States. It is true that my work is generously translated, received, or discussed in other countries. But I did not choose this situation. I live, teach, and publish in France. (1987 interview Heidegger, the Philosophers' Hell, p.189) ...Should I remind you, in addition, that I only ever write in French and that I attach great importance to this fact, as to all problems concerning idiom, natural and national language, traditions of thought, their filiations and genealogies? (October 1992 interview for the Cambridge review, p.416) |
” |
You can include it yourself to the place where it's missing.-- Sum ( talk) 09:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
This edit removed a referenced sentence arguing that it is "not really on topic." It's well known that it's a common argument among analytic philosophers to say that Derrida's work is not philosophy.-- Sum ( talk) 16:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
This statement should be checked by some kind of administrator. Derrida is one of the most famous scholars of the modern period, and absurd claims such as this need to be checked. (last sentence before contents...)
Um... this also probably needs checking (funny tho' it is): Derrida was a member of the *Village People*. Although his membership in Class IV, Section 1... [Recognition and Criticism, last sentence] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.200.200.231 ( talk) 18:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Congrats to all who've contributed to this article. I'd like to suggest some evolutions to this para, in regard to phenomenology and structure:
"In that context, in 1959, Derrida asked the question: Must not structure have a genesis, and must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the genesis of something?[29] In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.[30] At the same time, in order that there be movement, or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated—complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This originary complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription, or textuality.[31] It is this thought of originary complexity that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which all of its terms are derived, including "deconstruction"."[32]
Although the thrust seems coherent to me, the use of synchronic and diachronic - Saussurean linguistic tools - seems inappropriate in this context. The speech of 1959 was on Husserl, as was the work of 1962 which Derrida began in 1957/8. As far as I am aware, Saussure only made an appearance in the article versions of de la Grammatologie from 1965. I'd suggest this para be re-worked to accommodate the Husserlian framework in which it is set. Any takers or objections?
Dinogaletti ( talk) 23:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
There is free equivalent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Derrida-by-Pablo-Secca.jpg made and gifted by one Wikipedia editor.-- Vojvodae please be free to write :) 11:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I noticed that down in the references, a chunk of the footnotes (69-78) are somehow off to the right of the rest of the article so that I have to scroll to the right to view them. Maybe this is just my computer. I don't know enough about formatting these pages to fix it myself. Hacksaw45501 ( talk) 20:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Ok, so I've gone through most of the article and removed chunks of peacock wording and unsourced stuff. However there is a huge forking problem with the 'criticism' section - this should be incude where appropriate in Derrida's chronology and works sections (per NPOV). There are also a few that test WP:UNDUE (African bias) in the amount of weight given to them. These sub-sections need to eb reduced-- Cailil talk 19:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
In this discussion (section above, DP) has been argued otherwise, but according to Template:Criticism section, content should be moved from criticism sections and integrated into the article. But no policy/guideline mandates this, it seems to be argued only in some essays.-- Sum ( talk) 20:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
"opening hiw article with:" what??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The REAL Teol ( talk • contribs) 23:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
There are some good bits here. Precious little about Derrida's position relative to the rest of French thought really (compared to the inevitable stuff about impact on the academy in the USA). Hardly enough on the relationship to Hegel (considering Glas). The discussion of translations ought to be secondary, really (unless we really want to privilege the non-francophone view of D). Charles Matthews 07:28, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'd say it is unfortunate that all works are cited as if their titles are in English in the original. And not a word about Tel Quel. Time to look at the French version, I think. Charles Matthews 14:04, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Plenty to discuss here, then. I'll just note a few points - there are a couple of long obits from newspapers I'm going to read. On book title, I see Jean-Luc Nancy does give all titles in French. On Hegel, I thought that the article in citing aporia would note the connection, but I see the page for that has not much either. On the French context, the 1968 references seem a bit tangled (a short reference to the students, a longer one to international politics that manages to have parentheses within parentheses, and really should be sorted out). The French deconstruction article is brief but interesting.
Charles Matthews 06:10, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In the Discussion of the Derrida article, an article I find very good and neither hagiography nor demonology (graphy versus logy, get it? nyuk nyuk nyuk: we write of saints but let demons speak Pandaemonium), we read the plaint that the article should be in language, ordinary people, can understand.
Language. Ordinary people. Understanding.
The problem is that what is meant by "ordinary" is anti-philosophical. Ordinary people don't turn to philosophy for vernacular concerns, instead they turn to it, in many cases, when they have extraordinary concerns and are indeed rather repelled by the suggestion that they are ordinary.
If I merely report that Derrida believed that systems of thought were undercut by reliance on that which they thought to erase, many Americans (who have a cultural, if buried, memory of psychoanalysis which was very popular in America up until 1980) are , like, details at eleven, and tell me something I don't know. So if I use "ordinary" language, I am reporting dead ideas which don't come to life in the mind of the reader and cause him to say, hey wait a minute, that is nihilism. The report is journalism and not the writing of an encyclopedia unless the writing of an encyclopedia is journalism, that is, the narrative of the Other which by narration keeps it at arm's length.
Things only get interesting when the encyclopedia writer departs from the ordinary and asks if Derrida's views self-apply, and the counterintuitive discovery illuminated in the text is that they do.
I think you can maintain NPOV but not be boring in a philosophical article by winding up the mechanism (or the charm, as in "peace! the charm's wound up" in Macbeth) and setting it to roll across the reader's mind...while adopting a light and almost tongue-in-cheek mode (which literally interpreted undercuts speech as did Demosthenes, who spoke to the sea with pebbles in his mouth according to legend).
Almost anything is preferable to the forced and false neutrality which confuses blind inheritance of "ordinary" language (and its categories) with a NPOV.
It seems to me that Wikipedia is here navigating uncharted waters, similar today to waters to the north of Canada opened up by global warming. Its writers cannot be legislators of an old fashioned POV like Diderot, or the Encyclopedia Britannica, but neither can they claim to speak for the ordinary slob, because such a generalized category is useless today.
In fine, language is a virus from outer space, there are no ordinary people, and understanding is an active verb.
Edward G. Nilges: OK, standard prose, and I do NOT mean to imply that my discussion style should be recommended for Wiki articles: please refer to my contribution to the Theory section on Adorno in which I exercise iron self-control.
But if we do NOT play what you call "games", then we transmit a POV, the standard journalistic account, not of Derrida's thought, but as it registered on a preponderance of minds. The problem is that it is becoming increasingly obvious (in light of the numerous protests sent to the New York Times after his death against a superficial account of his thought) that Derrida in fact misregistered in a way that should be familiar to a student of the history of philosophy.
Spinoza misregistered as a licentious man, Socrates misregistered as a bad influence on youth, Peter Singer is misregistering as a mass murderer. I think Wikipedia can do better as a collective phenomenon.
An encyclopedia is not a dictionary, where a dictionary reports standard usage as a statistical matter. An encyclopedia can transmit knowledge about a philosopher only by running a simulation of the philosopher's thought in the reader's mind.
As to "self-referential games". This is a phrase frequently hurled at Derrida. It hides the grand fallacy, which is to avoid self-reference like the plague. The grand fallacy produced the verificationist criterion of meaning and truth. The grand fallacy stands outside political and social phenomena OF WHICH IT IS NECESSARILY A PART and the grand fallacy is productive of lack of humility.
The way to get to NPOV from POV is indeed self-referential and involves a humorous consciousness of the fact that one writes from a position, me from the Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong in a room half-height, like the office in which John Cusack works in Being John Malcovich.
If we think that an unanalyzed inheritance of standard, received categories is a NPOV then Derrida died in vain.
Edward Nilges: I'm not attacking NPOV. Instead, writing journalistically and attempting "just the facts" in philosophy violates NPOV, because it replaces it by a POV in which the thought of an original philosopher will appear to be false.
Many philosophy survey classes create Fundamentalists, Creationists, and Islamo-Fascists by a dialectical process as the professor reports without passion or interrogation the skeptical views of the western tradition starting with Descartes, and the student, grinding through the financial demands of the American educational system or the classist demands of the French, decides on the basis of the evidence presented to believe ANYTHING but what seems to be claptrap by the time the class reaches Hume, and deep claptrap by the time of Kant.
I think there is a NPOV, but it's confuse with dictionary POV which can be attained in principle by polling people on their usages of words.
Of course, you can't poll cab drivers on Derrida (although they often have good insights: a NYT journalist described Francis Fukuyama's theses to a DC cab driver and the guy said, give me a break).
But this means that to preserve the dictionary approach you have to poll people "in the know" such as journalists and college professors.
But their very engagement with Derrida means that they will have a POV.
You can't get anywhere near a Fair and Balanced view from mere reportage of the views of three sets of people:
(1) People who understand Derrida and "believe" him: note that their belief itself will be interrogative and critical
(2) People who have adopted the pomo mantle and "believe" a misunderstanding of Derrida
(3) People who think he's full of horse puckey.
The only worthwhile sets are (1) and (3) but to describe the critical, interrogative view, you'd have to quote a representative of the view (may as well write this section yourself if you consider yourself type 1).
But this view can't be expressed neutrally and from the outside. It has to be set in motion as did Derrida set it into motion, SELF-REFLEXIVELY. The convergence of intellectual honesty as an ethos with the love of truth and humility doesn't permit "self-reflexive games", it commands them as does Wisdom in the Torah/Bible, "playing in the world".
And the reportage of the more amusing fellows in set (3) is a good way to avoid that "seriousness" which fails to self-apply and is the reverse of Wisdom.
Ed Nilges: no, it is simply unacceptable that people "who have not studied philosophy in any formal setting" should NOT ONLY participate in the discussion (which is perfectly acceptable) BUT ALSO legislate the overall terms of discourse.
The journalistic misrepresentation throughout history of philosophers, which has in many cases in the West and in Islam gotten philosophers killed, results from this view, which is intolerance masquerading as tolerance.
The final product can and should be READ, of course, by people without formal training in philosophy. But it seems that here we are saying that it can and should be WRITTEN by pure of heart idiot savants who haven't read Plato and fail to realize how and in what way Plato, like Derrida, wasn't completely "serious" about what were thought-experiments, and who hasn't accessed modern scholarship which translates Symposium into "boy's night out" with an illuminating levity.
Ed Nilges: if an ordinary participant in a discussion cannot use the word "unacceptable", then you've just destroyed the very idea of NPOV and discussion.
You cannot scan an ordinary participant's discourse for keywords and purge "strong" words. This completely misses the whole point of open discussion: the discussion has to be open to strong views.
A similar logical error was pointed out by Derrida on "forgiveness". The only way to resolve strong views during a truth and reconciliation process is to take the rather strong meta-view that true forgiveness forgives the unforgiveable.
Furthermore and as you realize ("well"), you cannot avoid yourself the use of the word "acceptable" in a context of equal logical strength.
It is a mistake to believe that neutral language, purged by a merely syntactical process of strong words, is somehow more democratic than "strong" language. "We believe", after all, "these truths to be self-evident".
Finally, you managed to rip "legislate the overall terms of discourse" out of context. I think WE do so, but I think there are better and worse ways of doing so. The better ways generally involve what some people call "deep listening" and what I regard as far more than a superficial evaluation of syntax.
I see this venture self-destructing once it is claimed, syntactically, that a mere reference to Plato indicates "intellectual snobbery". The REAL snobbery today is one in which the ordinary person can't read or mention Plato without worrying, as in some sort of intellectual Gulag, about being denounced as a snob, or bourgeois running dog.
Done. My logon id is now spinoza1111 and I have posted a self-introduction at the Miscellaneous section of the Village Pump.
Carsten Husek: I personally think that the figure of "ordinary man" (or Joe Six-Pack, as one might say) has its abiguities, too. For example, who says the "ordinary" man has any supirior "right" to "legislate" what is legible? The ideas of "ordinary" men are typically based on uncritical acceptance of received wisdom. Thus the ordinary or common does not constitute a privileged POV to judge anything. IMO, that means some difficulties sre to be exspected. And not only that: if Joe Six-Pack can say "ah, that's it" you can be sure that you have fallen prey to oversimplification. -- 134.100.1.177 13:48, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I would expand this later.
Carsten Husek: sorry, but IMO all these things about affairs/controversy are not very helpful. In discussing Derrida, one should stick to his work. Maybe, as a compromise, you could do an extra article on this, see the handling of "the sokal affair" in the article on "deconcrruction".(4.2.05)
The reference to Hugh Mellor seems to me digressive. Looking at Mellor's comments in the Cogito interview, said to provide specific responses to Derrida, these specifically address "Signature, Event, Context" and Limited, Inc. and are not a strong reading of that material: Mellor trivializes Derrida argument by presenting only trivial but more or less indispensable elements as the sum total of what Derrida offers. There does not appear any particular reason to privilege Mellor as a critic of Derrida (there's no doubt that there was opposition to the award amongst the philosophy faculty, but was there any greater merit to their arguments over those of others? Mellor's comments do not indicate that he is any more competent in criticizing Derrida than the signatories of the published letter or Searle.) or use him as an example given that there's not sufficient space to treat arguments by both in this article. One ought to give some account of these issues in the reception of Derrida's work, but this example is not offered as instructive. Buffyg 17:38, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Not used a talk page before so here goes... I removed "with some amusement" from the Cambridge bit, just because, while we can't really know if someone was genuinely amused or not, describing one party as coming out laughing seems to imply that they won the argumnent, thereby taking us further away from that elusive neutral POV.
I was reminded of Francis Wheen's anti-deconstructionist rhetoric in "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" where Derrida is described as "huffily dismissing the prankster-professor [Alan Sokal] as 'pas serieux'." I'm sure we agree that "huffily" wouldn't be appropriate here, and "with some amusement" has a similar effect. Util 01:31, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm removing him from Category:Fascist/Nazi era scholars and writers since the "Fascist/Nazi era" ended when he was not yet 15 years old. -- Angr/ tɔk tə mi 08:39, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The section on the 1990s suggests that derrida's so-called "political turn" would have started with Specters of Marx .... Now I am one of those who believe that there was no real "turn" and that Derrida's work in the 90s and beyond has its roots in older work (certainly his nuclear war essays of the early 80s and even his "ends of man" piece in 1968), and I hesitate to start this discussion because last time I made this claim I was bitterly attacked (even though both Derrida and his best readers agree with my position on this), but I am concerned that for those who do believe in a "political turn" (or "ethical turn" as it was recently called) in the 90s, the correct "turning point" is his influential "Force de Loi" address published in the 1990 Cardozo Law Review from a symposium on "Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice" rather than "Specters of Marx". Shall we change this? I suppose that whole section could be rewritten. csloat ( talk) 19:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Some of the writing here is just: Date, sentence, repeat. Is not good style, and makes a poor read. Yobmod ( talk) 13:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
i don't know if this is feasible, but could someone seperate his bibliogphy in to sections. for exapmle, essay collections, single essays, full works... etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.86.127 ( talk) 13:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
By Geoffrey Bennington, Jacques Derrida Translated by Geoffrey Bennington Published by University of Chicago Press, 1999 ISBN 0226042626, 9780226042626 432 pages
By Christopher Norris Published by Harvard University Press, 1987 ISBN 0674198247, 9780674198241 271 pages
By Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering Kofman, Dick Kirby, Jacques Derrida Published by Manchester University Press, 2005 ISBN 0719070635, 9780719070631 144 pages
By Jürgen Habermas, Giovanna Borradori, Jacques Derrida Published by University of Chicago Press, 2004 ISBN 0226066665, 9780226066660 224 pages
By Rodolphe Gasche Published by Harvard University Press, 1986 ISBN 0674867009, 9780674867000 348 pages
By Rodolphe Gasché Published by Harvard University Press, 1994 ISBN 0674464427, 9780674464421 286 pages
By David Wood Published by Blackwell, 1992 ISBN 0631161023, 9780631161028 297 pages
By Tom Cohen, Tom Cohen, (, ebrary, Inc Published by Cambridge University Press, 2001 ISBN 0511066066, 9780511066061 327 pages
By Jonathan Culler Published by Routledge, 1989 ISBN 041504555X, 9780415045551 307 pages
By John Sturrock Contributor John Sturrock Published by Oxford University Press, 1979 ISBN 0192158392, 9780192158390 190 pages
By Leonard Lawlor Published by Indiana University Press, 2002 ISBN 0253340497, 9780253340498 286 pages
By Simon Critchley Published by Verso, 1999 ISBN 1859842461, 9781859842461 302 pages
By William R. McKenna, Joseph Claude Evans Contributor William R. McKenna, Joseph Claude Evans Published by Springer, 1995 ISBN 0792337301, 9780792337300 214 pages
By Jason Powell Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006 ISBN 0826494498, 9780826494498 250 pages
By Stuart Barnett Published by Routledge, 1998 ISBN 0415171040, 9780415171045 368 pages
By Diane P. Michelfelder, Richard E. Palmer Contributor Diane P. Michelfelder Published by SUNY Press, 1989 ISBN 0791400085, 9780791400081 352 pages
By Gregory L. Ulmer Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985 Original from the University of California Digitized Feb 11, 2008 ISBN 080183256X, 9780801832567 337 pages
By Harold G. Coward, Toby Foshay, Jacques Derrida Contributor Harold G. Coward Published by SUNY Press, 1992 ISBN 0791409635, 9780791409633 337 pages
By Henry Staten Published by U of Nebraska Press, 1986 ISBN 0803291698, 9780803291690 Deconstruction and Philosophy: The Texts of Jacques Derrida By John Sallis Photographs by John Sallis Contributor John Sallis Published by University of Chicago Press, 1987 ISBN 0226734390, 9780226734392 207 pages
By Simon Critchley Published by Edinburgh University Press, 1999 ISBN 0748612173, 9780748612178 293 pages
By Morag Patrick Published by Ashgate, 1997 ISBN 1859725457, 9781859725450 169 pages
By David Farrell Krell Published by Penn State Press, 2000 ISBN 0271019921, 9780271019925 237 pages
By Christina Howells Published by Polity Press, 1998 ISBN 0745611672, 9780745611679 175 pages
By John D. Caputo Published by Indiana University Press, 1997 ISBN 0253211123, 9780253211125 379 pages
By James K. A. Smith Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005 ISBN 0826462812, 9780826462817 156 pages
By Jack Reynolds, Jonathan Roffe Contributor Jack Reynolds, Jonathan Roffe Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004 ISBN 0826473156, 9780826473158 168 pages
By David C. Wood, Robert Bernasconi Contributor David C. Wood, Robert Bernasconi Published by Northwestern University Press, 1988 ISBN 0810107864, 9780810107861 98 pages
By Jim Powell, Jim Powell Van Howell, Van Howell Published by Orient Longman, 2000 ISBN 8125019162, 9788125019169 185 pages
By Raoul Mortley Published by Taylor & Francis, 1991 ISBN 0415052556, 9780415052559 108 pages
By Madeleine Fagan Published by Edinburgh University Press, 2007 ISBN 074862547X, 9780748625475 246 pages
By Nicholas Royle Published by Routledge, 2003 ISBN 0415229308, 9780415229302 185 pages
By Leonard Lawlor, Zeynep Direk Contributor Leonard Lawlor, Zeynep Direk Published by Routledge, 2002 ISBN 0415235812, 9780415235815 1320 pages
By Joanna Hodge Published by Routledge, 2007 ISBN 0415430917, 9780415430913 256 pages
By Catherine Malabou, Jacques Derrida Published by Stanford University Press, 2004 ISBN 0804740410, 9780804740418 330 pages
By Richard J. Lane Published by Akademiai Kiado, 2003 ISBN 9630579472, 9789630579476 129 pages
By Rainer Schulte, John Biguenet Contributor Rainer Schulte, John Biguenet Published by University of Chicago Press, 1992 ISBN 0226048713, 9780226048710 254 pages
By Helene Cixous, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Peggy Kamuf Translated by Peggy Kamuf Illustrated by Ernest Pignon-Ernest Published by Stanford University Press, 2007 ISBN 0804759073, 9780804759076 160 pages
By Niall Lucy Published by Blackwell Pub., 2004 ISBN 0631218424, 9780631218425 183 pages
By Catherine H. Zuckert Published by University of Chicago Press, 1996 ISBN 0226993310, 9780226993317 351 pages
By Yvonne Sherwood, Kevin Hart Contributor Yvonne Sherwood, Kevin Hart Published by Routledge, 2005 ISBN 0415968887, 9780415968881 424 pages
By John Schad Published by Sussex Academic Press, 2007 ISBN 1845190319, 9781845190316 211 pages
By Allan Megill Published by University of California Press, 1987 ISBN 0520060288, 9780520060289 423 pages
By Ian Maclachlan Contributor Ian Maclachlan Published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004 ISBN 0754608069, 9780754608066 166 pages
By Mark Edmundson Published by Cambridge University Press, 1995 ISBN 0521485320, 9780521485326 243 pages
By Francis J. Ambrosio Published by SUNY Press, 2007 ISBN 0791470059, 9780791470053 240 pages
By Theodore W. Jennings Published by Stanford University Press, 2006 ISBN 0804752680, 9780804752688 219 pages
By Geoffrey H. Hartman Published by JHU Press, 1982 ISBN 0801824532, 9780801824531 216 pages
By Richard Rand, Jacques Derrida Published by Stanford University Press, 2001 ISBN 0804739560, 9780804739566 252 pages
By Michael Naas Published by Stanford University Press, 2003 ISBN 080474422X, 9780804744225 211 pages
By Hugh J. Silverman Contributor Hugh J. Silverman Published by Routledge, 1989 ISBN 0415030943, 9780415030946 258 pages
Semitransgenic ( talk) 16:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
A mention should be made of Jacques Ehrmann who was instrumental in introducing Derrida to Yale U. in 1968. See Texts about Jacques Ehrmann and footnote in Parages on the above Wiki page ... Yumgui ( talk) 00:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe this article requires a lead. Is there anyone monitoring this page who could write it? I would be willing to give it a go, summarising the information that's currently in the article. I would be more confident in that attempt if I knew there was someone who could back me up, correcting anything mistaken, and making sure it was up to a good standard. -- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 14:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Obviously, in this context the word "profound" cannot be inserted without further qualificiation--add as a blockquote ref?-- Artiquities ( talk) 14:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
At the moment, I don't have a strong preference for putting either 'profound' or 'significant' in the lead section. For me any of the two is fine until we have references discussing extensively Derrida's influence and legacy.-- Sum ( talk) 15:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be an edit war here between SummerWithMorons and Mtevfrog. I agree with Mtevfrog that the material SummerWithMorons wants to add is badly written. I'd like to encourage both editors to discuss things here (and SummerWithMorons to not refer to Mtevfrog's reverting him as vandalism). UserVOBO ( talk) 21:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it is probably a mistake in the editing, regarding critiques of Derrida, that led to a reference to the philosopher W.V.O.Quine as a "Republican" (referencing the Republican Party of the U.S.). The footnote leads to an interesting article, but the speculation in that article that Quine must have been a "good Republican" is not enough to make me believe that Quine had any special connection to any political party. Calling Quine "conservative" also seems somewhat confusing. Even the referenced article notes that Quine's epistemology is perhaps far more radical than that of Derrida. If no one either objects, or can explain why Quine should be referred to as a "Republican," I recommend deleting the reference to Quine altogether. I'll try to look on this discussion page in a few weeks, to see if there is some more information, and maybe I will at that time delete the reference that seems inaccurate. 141.156.216.220 ( talk) 02:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Recap of what is required in lead:
From Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section). This is the challenge. -- Artiquities ( talk) 06:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Here yet again another revert by Mtevfrog. This ownership behaviour is bullying new contributors and disrupting the evolution of the article.-- Sum ( talk) 14:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I've restored a quotation regarding the use of Derrida's ideas to the introduction that Mtevfrog deleted on the pretext that "This simply is not the right way to introduce Derrida." It is perfectly valid and appropriate for the lede. Given the accusations of ownership behaviour, it would be appropriate for Mtevfrog to discuss his/her reasons for wanting to delete here prior to removing new material. Neither the blanket removal nor acceptance of new material are useful to the development of the article. DionysosProteus ( talk) 12:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I have restored the quotation once again. Material whose inclusion editors regard as debatable requires, precisely, a debate. Mtevfrog, you do your arguments few favours with this manner of proceeding. Deletion without discussion here is inappropriate behaviour. Kindly desist.
With regard to the quotation, it quite clearly was not selected randomly. It supports and develops the previous sentence directly. In what way does the description of the critical engagements with "Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Freud" etc. that his work inspired make it seem that the work had "primarily political implications"? That sounds like a cultural arena, not a political one. In what way is that emphasis misplaced? DionysosProteus ( talk) 10:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the quotation again. It's not really about Derrida, and it's quite unhelpful in explaining either his life or his ideas. I would ask DionysosProteus not to restore it without first showing a consensus in its favour. If necessary, a request for comment could be placed. UserVOBO ( talk) 00:49, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I've done a revamp of the lede. I've included the NTY article as a reference and tried to sum up the main points of his philosophical work. I'll add some details about his life and personality afterwards. I think my additions strike many of the notes that need to be struck. Thoughts? Grunge6910 ( talk) 01:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
1. I agree with those who have said we should remove "post-structuralist" from the opening sentence. Very infrequently on bios of philosophers do we identify them with a particular movement in the opening sentence. Later on we say he is "identified with postmodernism and post-structuralism." That should suffice. I see no compelling reason to call him post-structuralist right off the bat.
2. I strongly dislike the paragraph about the 1980s culture wars. To me this sticks conspicuously out of place. Derrida's connection to the American cultural wars of the 1980s is tangential at best (cite me a place where he ever wrote about them), and his relationship with political conservatism also strikes me as trivial. Again, the paragraph before we note his work has had political implications and has been connected with political movements, and we note his unique approach to philosophy has made him controversial. Why, again, does this not suffice? Why include references to the culture wars and political conservatism when his connection to them is not nearly important enough to bear mentioning in the lede, which is supposed to summarize the principal aspects of his life and work?
Grunge6910 (
talk) 16:31, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
The user Mtevfrog tends to make unnecessarily dismissive and offenisive assertions in his edit summaries on this article--e.g., "clearly you lack knowledge of the subject," ... "Users lacking understanding of his work again undermine article. Pity" ... "This simply is not the right way to introduce Derrida," ... "Undoing poor changes: skewed, poorly written, not an improvement," ... "These changes are inappropriate, out of place, poorly written, do not improve the article, and are not based on any understanding of his work," ... "Removing sentence which does not belong in opening," --
This user never discusses his/her justifications on talk. He/she has already been accussed of ownership behaviour and bullying and there is no change. Any thoughts? -- Artiquities ( talk) 11:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not clear to me from the article in which language Derrida wrote. I presume it was French, but did he ever write in other languages? If you know, please add a line to the article. Thanks! -- Brian Fenton ( talk) 15:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
From Points...interviews:
“ | Q.: One gets the impression that you have, in the course of the last few years, deserted France for the sake of an American career. Is this a choice you are making?
J.D.: No, I am not emigrating! I have no American "career"! Like others, I teach every year, for no more than a few weeks, in the United States. It is true that my work is generously translated, received, or discussed in other countries. But I did not choose this situation. I live, teach, and publish in France. (1987 interview Heidegger, the Philosophers' Hell, p.189) ...Should I remind you, in addition, that I only ever write in French and that I attach great importance to this fact, as to all problems concerning idiom, natural and national language, traditions of thought, their filiations and genealogies? (October 1992 interview for the Cambridge review, p.416) |
” |
You can include it yourself to the place where it's missing.-- Sum ( talk) 09:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
This edit removed a referenced sentence arguing that it is "not really on topic." It's well known that it's a common argument among analytic philosophers to say that Derrida's work is not philosophy.-- Sum ( talk) 16:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
This statement should be checked by some kind of administrator. Derrida is one of the most famous scholars of the modern period, and absurd claims such as this need to be checked. (last sentence before contents...)
Um... this also probably needs checking (funny tho' it is): Derrida was a member of the *Village People*. Although his membership in Class IV, Section 1... [Recognition and Criticism, last sentence] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.200.200.231 ( talk) 18:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Congrats to all who've contributed to this article. I'd like to suggest some evolutions to this para, in regard to phenomenology and structure:
"In that context, in 1959, Derrida asked the question: Must not structure have a genesis, and must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the genesis of something?[29] In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.[30] At the same time, in order that there be movement, or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated—complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This originary complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription, or textuality.[31] It is this thought of originary complexity that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which all of its terms are derived, including "deconstruction"."[32]
Although the thrust seems coherent to me, the use of synchronic and diachronic - Saussurean linguistic tools - seems inappropriate in this context. The speech of 1959 was on Husserl, as was the work of 1962 which Derrida began in 1957/8. As far as I am aware, Saussure only made an appearance in the article versions of de la Grammatologie from 1965. I'd suggest this para be re-worked to accommodate the Husserlian framework in which it is set. Any takers or objections?
Dinogaletti ( talk) 23:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
There is free equivalent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Derrida-by-Pablo-Secca.jpg made and gifted by one Wikipedia editor.-- Vojvodae please be free to write :) 11:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I noticed that down in the references, a chunk of the footnotes (69-78) are somehow off to the right of the rest of the article so that I have to scroll to the right to view them. Maybe this is just my computer. I don't know enough about formatting these pages to fix it myself. Hacksaw45501 ( talk) 20:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Ok, so I've gone through most of the article and removed chunks of peacock wording and unsourced stuff. However there is a huge forking problem with the 'criticism' section - this should be incude where appropriate in Derrida's chronology and works sections (per NPOV). There are also a few that test WP:UNDUE (African bias) in the amount of weight given to them. These sub-sections need to eb reduced-- Cailil talk 19:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
In this discussion (section above, DP) has been argued otherwise, but according to Template:Criticism section, content should be moved from criticism sections and integrated into the article. But no policy/guideline mandates this, it seems to be argued only in some essays.-- Sum ( talk) 20:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
"opening hiw article with:" what??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The REAL Teol ( talk • contribs) 23:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)