''Writing and Difference'' (french: L'écriture et la différence) is a book by the French philosopher
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
. The work, which collects some of the early lectures and essays that established his fame, was published in 1967 alongside ''
Of Grammatology
''Of Grammatology'' (french: links=no, De la grammatologie) is a 1967 book by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The book, originating the idea of deconstruction, proposes that throughout continental philosophy, especially as philosophers en ...
'' and ''
Speech and Phenomena
''Speech and Phenomena: And Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs'', or ''Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl's Phenomenology'', (french: La Voix et le Phénomène) is a book about the Phenomenology (philos ...
''.
Summary
Cogito and the History of Madness
The collection contains the essay ''Cogito and the History of Madness'', a critique of
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...
. It was first given as a lecture on March 4, 1963, at a conference at the ''
Collège philosophique'', which Foucault attended, and caused a rift between the two,
[Powell (2006), pp. 34–5] possibly prompting Foucault to write ''
The Order of Things
''The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences'' (Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines, 1966) by French philosopher Michel Foucault proposes that every historical period has underlying epistemic assumptions ...
'' (1966) and ''
The Archaeology of Knowledge
''The Archaeology of Knowledge'' (''L’archéologie du savoir,'' 1969) by Michel Foucault is a treatise about the methodology and historiography of the systems of thought (''epistemes'') and of knowledge (''discursive formations'') which follo ...
'' (1969).
[Carlo Ginzburg (1976), ''Il formaggio e i vermi'', translated in 1980 as ]
The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller
', trans. Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), xviii.
Violence and Metaphysics
In "Violence and Metaphysics," Derrida comments on the writings of
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to me ...
. He honors Levinas for his ethical philosophy of openness to the
Other
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
. Indeed, he goes along with the idea that to live for the Other is the highest good. But he challenges the idea that only
face-to-face interaction
Face-to-face interaction is social communication carried out without any mediating technology. It is defined as the mutual influence of individuals’ direct physical presence with their body language and verbal language. It is one of the basic ...
can be ethical. Whereas Levinas sees written communication as dead and unresponsive, Derrida argues that writing can be just as valuable a space for ethical encounter. He writes, in characteristic support for writing: "Is it not possible to invert all of Levinas’s statements on this point? By showing, for example, that writing can assist itself, for it has time and freedom, escaping better than speech from empirical urgencies."
[''Writing and Difference'', 102]
The Structuralist Controversy
Included in the collection is his 1966 lecture at
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
, which changed the course of the conference leading it to be renamed ''The Structuralist Controversy'', and caused Derrida to receive his first major attention outside France. The lecture is titled ''
Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences''.
References
{{Jacques Derrida
1967 non-fiction books
Éditions du Seuil books
French non-fiction books
Works by Jacques Derrida
Iran's Book of the Year