The Ethics of Deconstruction Derrida and Levinas

by Critchley, Simon

• ISBN13: 9780748689316
• ISBN10: 0748689311
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-04-30
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

The Ethics of Deconstruction, Simon Critchley's first book, was originally published to great acclaim in 1992. The first book to argue for the ethical turn in Derrida's work, it powerfully shows how deconstruction has persuasive ethical consequences that are vital to our thinking through of questions of politics and democracy.

Moving away from using deconstruction to find the contradictions inherent in any text, Critchley concerns himself with the philosophical context the ethical impetus Derrida's ethics to be understood in relation to his engagement with the work of Levinas, and lays out the details of their philosophical confrontation.

New for this edition: A new preface where Critchley reveals the origins, motivations, and reception of The Ethics of Deconstruction, plus three new appendices, which reflect upon and deppend the book's argument.

Author Biography

Simon Critchley is Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He also teaches at Tilburg University and the European Graduate School.

His many books include Very Little... Almost Nothing, Infinitely Demanding, The Book of Dead Philosophers, The Faith of the Faithless, and, most recently with Tom McCarthy, The Mattering of Matter: Documents from the Archive of the International Necronautical Society. A new work on Hamlet called Stay, Illusion! was published in 2013 by Pantheon Books, co-authored with Jamieson Webster.

Simon is the series moderator of 'The Stone', a philosophy column in The New York Times, to which he is a frequent contributor.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Preface to Third Edition

Prefatory Note and Acknowledgements

1. The Ethics of Deconstruction: The Argument

2. The Problem of Closure in Derrida

3. Clotural Readings 1: 'Bois' - Derrida's Final Word on Levinas

4. Clotural Readings II: Wholly Otherwise: Levinas's Reading of Derrida

5. A Question of Politics: The Future of Deconstruction

Appendix 1: The Ethics of Deconstruction: An Attempt at Self-Criticism

Appendix 2: Habermas and Derrida Get Married

Appendix 3: Emmanuel Levinas

Appendix 4: Derrida. The Reader

Appendix 5: Leaving the Climate of Heidegger's Thinking

Appendix 6: Five Problems in Levinas's View of Politics and the Sketch of a Solution to Them

Index