The Trace of God
Page 40
“Différance” (Derrida), 21, 27
Dionysius the Areopagite, 203
“Divine Names, The” (Dionysius the Areopagite), 203
Dooley, Mark, 248n71, 249n76
double bind, logic of, 158, 159, 164–65
dualism: Augustinian, 12, 153, 154, 161, 167, 173, 174, 180; khora and metaphysical, 203
duck/rabbit, 17
Eckhart, Meister, 5, 7, 19, 26, 170, 201–2
“Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book” (Derrida), 62, 64–65, 81
“Einem, der vor der Tür Stand” (Celan), 64
election: Derrida on, 50–51, 53, 54, 62, 69, 71; Hegel on, 138; Judah Loew ben Bezalel on, 64; Levinas on, 10, 43, 44, 45–47, 50, 52–53, 56, 61, 67, 68, 69, 70; poet and Jew share structure of, 62
“Ellipsis” (Derrida), 65
“Ends of Man, The” (Derrida), 83
eschatology, 110–11, 127, 130, 131, 166, 168, 207
essentialism, 52, 55, 58
eternity, 168, 180, 185–86, 204
ethics: of alterity, 253n52; beyond ethics, 163; of deconstruction, 11, 230n79; of Derrida, 162; ethical agency, 259n43; and faith, 143–44, 146–47; hyper-ethics, 163; Kierkegaard on, 121, 143–44; Nietzsche’s ethic of self-assertion, 112, 115; normativity, 126, 127, 162, 163; Rancière on Derrida’s politics and Levinas’s, 60–61, 68–71; and reason, 102; responding to call of the good, 205; of submission, 190, 253n52; suspension of the ethical, 164; universalism, 144, 162, 163
Être-Juif (Levinas), 39, 40, 41, 42–45, 47
Euben, Roxanne, 96
event, the: of Christ, 149; Derrida’s monotheism of, 129; Heidegger on, 125, 127; of language, 28, 29; messianism of, 146, 147, 148; preventing certain events, 164, 254n57
evil: doing good necessarily involves, 193; problem of, 181, 189; radical, 180–83, 188, 196
existentialism: Christian, 73, 81, 238n36; Derrida and, 81, 238n36; of Kierkegaard, 118, 121; Sartre’s employment against anti-Semitism, 42
faith: blind, 138, 211; deconstructive, 206; Derrida on, 86, 182–83, 203; and ethics, 143–44, 146–47; Hegel on reconciliation of knowledge and, 138, 139; as knowledge without mastery, 46; messianic, 36, 203; pure, 211; and reason, 85, 126; without faith, 202
“Faith and Knowledge” (Derrida): on autoimmunity, 182, 195; on democracy and universalism, 108; on machinal media producing religion, 31; on names, 16, 24; on “no to-come without heritage and possibility of repeating,” 37; on opposition to Islam, 235n83; on religion and violence, 178; and religion without religion, 154; on source of religion, 25; on three aporetic places, 88
fall, the, 75, 76
Fanon, Frantz, 234n52
al Farabi, 93, 105, 232n26
Farías, Victor, 124
Faye, Emmanuel, 124
Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard), 146
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 8
finitude: Birault on, 74, 75, 83; Derrida on, 79–81, 194; Heidegger on, 77–78, 79, 82; in Judaism, 75–76, 227n13; radical, 152
Finkielkraut, Alain, 69
“Force and Signification” (Derrida), 8, 83
“Force of Law, The” (Derrida), 157, 248n71
forgiveness: for saying “God,” 59, 68; and South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, 11; unconditional, 156, 190
Foucault, Michel, 99, 112, 219n38
foundationalism: Habermas on Derrida as post-foundationalist, 115; inverted, 112, 113
Freud, Sigmund, 53, 54
friendship, 101, 104–5, 109, 181
fundamentalism, 11
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 16, 261n
Gasché, Rodolphe, 214n13
gaze, 149
gift: God’s, 204; and possibility of evil, 188; pure, 158–60
Gift of Death, The (Derrida): on Abraham and Isaac, 101, 162; deconstruction in, 162; and Derrida’s earlier writings on religion, 72; on Levinas’s asking forgiveness for saying “God,” 59; Literature in Secret in, 66; Rancière bases his reading of Derrida-Levinas relationship on, 68–69; on religion without religion, 173; on taking responsibility and excluding others, 193
Given Time I: Counterfeit Money (Derrida), 244n26
Given Time to Psyché (Derrida), 244n34
Glas (Derrida), 161, 245n38
God: after God, 210, 257n26; ana-theistic, 205, 211, 212; a priori arguments against, 168, 185; Being identified with, 82–87; creation ex nihilo, 75, 188; de-divinizing, 78; Derrida’s understanding of, 7–8; Descartes’s second proof for existence of, 14, 20–21, 27–29, 31, 32; desiring, 169, 201; divine abyss, 204; Divine names, 17, 19, 21–38, 201; as effaced in Derrida’s philosophy, 87; gift of, 204; for Hegel, 78, 137, 138; humanism versus, 6; and the impossible, 170–71, 250n85; incarnate, 91; insists, 175; iterability as beginning with, 21–22; and khora, 203–5, 210–12, 259n46; kingdom of, 175, 178–79, 187–88, 190; negativity in, 80–81, 86; as positive infinite, 75; as principle of goodness, 173, 174, 178–79; self-affirmation of, 80; singularity of, 103; Spinoza’s Deus sive natura, 17; substituting writing for, 28–34; theophany, 115, 128; trace of, 207; as the unconditional, 186; weak, 8, 171, 173–76, 179, 188, 189. See also atheism; “Death of God”; monotheism; theology
God Delusion, The (Dawkins), 178
Gordon, Peter E., 11, 41
Gouhier, Henri, 21
graphematic drift, 25–26, 28, 29, 35–36
Guéroult, Martial, 21
Habermas, Jürgen, 110–31; on Adorno and Derrida, 239n58; on Derrida’s later philosophy, 120–29; early critique of Derrida, 112–19; eulogy of Derrida, 130–31; “How to Answer the Ethical Question,” 111–12, 124–29, 130; at Judéités: Questions pour Jacques Derrida conference, 111, 124; on Kierkegaard’s model of self and other, 126–27; “Last Farewell,” 130–31; on messianism, 129, 131; The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 112–20, 128; on philosophy as rational-communicative practice, 117–18; post-metaphysical thinking as task of, 130, 131; rapprochement with Derrida, 120; The Theory of Communicative Action, 117
Hägglund, Martin: on autoimmunity, 91–92; Caputo responds to, 151–76; Caputo’s readings challenged by, 12. See also Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life
Hammerschlag, Sarah, 10, 40
Hart, Kevin, 213n2, 216n40, 247n60
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: on Abendland, 103, 104; on Abraham, 134, 138–43, 144, 149, 242n9; on Absolute Life, 142; absoluteness of presence of, 146; anti-Judaism of, 137–38; on Christianity, 148–49; God for, 78, 138; Habermas’s left-Hegelianism, 118; on History as place for Spirit, 142; Kierkegaard distinguished from, 147–50; on knowledge and faith as reconciled, 139; on messianism, 147; on reconciliation, 137, 138, 142, 147, 148, 149; on sacrifice, 141, 144, 147; The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate, 136, 241n6; The Spirit of Judaism, 136–38; theology of, 7; on Versöhnung, 110–11
Heidegger, Martin: atheism of early, 77, 78; on authenticity, 44, 47, 51; authoritarianism of, 113, 114, 115, 129; Being and Time, 16, 19, 44, 51, 77, 118; on being-in-the-world, 172; on being-toward-death, 19, 47–48, 54–56, 57, 223n60; Beiträge zur Philosophie: Vom Ereignis, 125; on commitment, 46; on Dasein, 44, 45, 46, 47–48, 163; Derrida and Christian Heideggerianism, 10, 72–87; Derrida contrasts Nietzsche with, 83; and Derrida on being Jewish, 50, 52, 54–56, 57; Derrida on Divine name and later thought on Being of, 35; Derrida on Levinas and, 123; Derrida’s “Abraham, the Other” as engagement with, 40; Derrida’s shift away from, 120; Derrida’s study of, 73, 81, 119; Destruktion of, 116; on Endlichkeit, 77–78, 79, 82, 229n48; on the equiprimordial, 33; on an event, 125, 127; in French intellectual life, 73–79, 119; Gelassenheit used by, 170; on Gottlosigkeit, 78, 257n26; Habermas on subject-centered model of, 112, 118; in Habermas’s critique of Derrida, 112–13, 114, 125, 127–29; Habermas’s interest in, 119; half-secularized religion of, 115; on humanism, 73, 125; on interval where thought arises, 107; Introduction to Metaphysics, 119; inverted foundationalism associated with, 112; Kehre of, 14; Letter on Humanism, 77, 78, 125; Levinas on ontology of as totalizing, 120–21
, 123; Levinas’s Être-Juif as response to, 40, 41; Levinas’s relationship to, 19, 44–45; on limitation and determination of Being, 81; mysticism attributed to, 12; mythopoetic conception of philosophy of, 117, 118, 128; as Nazi, 41, 44; neo-paganism of, 114, 115, 117, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 239n58; on Nietzsche, 84, 229n59; Sartre’s view on Jewish question influenced by, 41; on das Strittige, 77
“Heidegger and the Thought of Finitude” (Birault), 74, 78, 79
hermeneutics: deconstruction distinguished from, 209, 211; radical, 154, 172
Hitchens, Christopher, 178
Hjelmslev, Louis, 161
Holocaust: Derrida and, 39, 199; Levinas’s relation to, 39; as modern, 103; as not central for Derrida and Levinas, 57; as presence of an absence, 103
hope, 206, 210
Horkheimer, Max, 112
“Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility” (Derrida), 202
hospitality: absolute, 205; Derrida absorbs from Levinas’s thought, 122; “hostipitality,” 108–9, 123; and migrants, 11; as openness to incoming stranger, 202–3; and possibility of evil, 181–82, 188; as pure descriptor, 163; shelters enmity, 105; unconditional, 156, 190, 192
“How to Answer the Ethical Question” (Habermas), 111–12, 124–29, 130
“How to Avoid Speaking: Denials” (Derrida), 26, 27, 72
humanism: Derrida’s attitude toward religion contrasted with, 13; on finitude as originary, 76; Heidegger on Nietzsche’s humanistic metaphysics, 84; Heidegger’s thought and, 73, 125; in religious thought, 6; of Sartre, 73; secularization of language of moral responsibility in, 125; structuralist anti-humanists, 81
Huntington, Samuel, 231n4
Husserl, Edmund: Cartesian Meditations, 243n9; Derrida and, 73, 119; history in later writing of, 73; on ideal of pure presence, 7; Logical Investigations, 22; Origin of Geometry, 8, 80, 82, 245n39; philosophy of presence of, 4; on transcendental life, 22–23, 218n19; on Verdopplung, 24
iconoclasm, 8
ideality, 22–23, 218n19
idolatry, 6–7, 91
immortality, 152, 168, 185
Infinite Conversation, The (Blanchot), 27
International Committee of Solidarity with Algerian Intellectuals, 92
Introduction to Metaphysics (Heidegger), 119
Ishmael, 89, 102–4, 107, 108
Islam, 88–109; Abraham-Isaac story in, 102–3; Arab and Jew as difficult to separate, 95, 99, 100; and Aristotle’s Politics, 93; “banlieues d’Islam,” 94; circumcision in, 98, 100; Derrida’s disavowals of, 10, 89, 95, 105–6, 109; as at heart of Derrida’s work, 98; incarnate God rejected by, 91; as religious and political identity, 95; resistance to secularization, 92; seen as Other of democracy, 88, 89–95; shahada, 103, 106; travel in heritage of, 96
iterability, 20–24, 27–29, 33, 37, 153, 155, 218n19, 252n23
Jabès, Edmond: analogy between rabbi and poet in work of, 61; The Book of Questions, 62, 64–65; Derrida’s “Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book,” 62, 64–65; Derrida’s “Ellipsis” on, 65
Jastrow, Joseph, 17
“Jewish Question, The” (Sartre), 41
Judah Loew ben Bezalel, 64, 66, 225n15
Judaism: Arab and Jew as difficult to separate, 95, 99, 100; assimilation, 42–43, 57, 58; Athens versus Jerusalem, 110, 133, 134; authenticity for Jews, 41, 51, 55, 57; central themes of, 138; circumcision, 61, 62, 63–64, 67, 98–100, 102; deconstruction associated with Jewishness, 9–10, 60; Derrida as “last of the Jews,” 9, 19, 56, 71, 199; Derrida on being Jewish, 48–58; Derrida’s identification with, 2, 8–10, 12, 39, 238n36; exemplarism, 50, 51, 52–55, 57, 223n68; as faith and ethnicity, 95; figure of the Jew in Derrida’s political model, 61; finitude in, 75–76, 227n13; Habermas on Derrida’s religious inheritance, 130, 240n59; Hegel’s The Spirit of Judaism, 136–38; incarnate God rejected by, 91; the Jew as the Other, 41, 60; Judéités: Questions pour Jacques Derrida conference, 111, 124, 241n5; Kabbalah, 26, 36; Levinas on being-Jewish, 42–48, 70; Marranos, 55–58, 70–71, 95–96, 97, 98; May 1968 demonstrators as all German Jews, 69, 71; and modernity, 40, 42, 43; ontology of being Jewish, 39–58; philosophical thought reappropriates Hebraism, 135–36; poets and Jews compared, 61–62; rabbis, 61, 62–65, 71; Shema, 102, 103, 234n61; travel as central to experience of, 96; Wandering Jew, 96. See also Abraham; election; Holocaust
Judaken, Jonathan, 41
Judéités: Questions pour Jacques Derrida (conference), 111, 124, 241n5
justice: calls for laws, 159; in economy of violence, 193, 194; and the good, 188; passion for, 194, 195–96; as unconditional, 192; as undeconstructible, 157–58
Kabbalah, 26, 36
Kafka, Franz, 40–41, 68, 80
“Kafka, a Jewish Writer” (Sartre), 40–41, 221n9, 221n10
Kant, Immanuel: on antinomies of reason, 169; on enlightened age versus age of enlightenment, 131; on ideals, 157; Meillassoux’s correlationism on, 151; on radical evil, 180–81; Religionbuch, 246n42; Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, 36, 181; on space and time, 161; on the sublime, 136; on thinking versus knowledge, 159; on transcendental illusion, 160
Kearney, Richard, 8, 10–11, 178–79
Keller, Catherine, 216n40
Kepel, Gilles, 94
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 89, 231n7
khora, 106–8; belongs to the desert, 98, 108; deconstruction and, 18; God and, 203–5, 210–12, 259n46; messianic faith without messianism and, 36; qara’a compared with, 106, 107; radical atheism of, 210
“Khora” (Derrida), 257n14
Kierkegaard, Søren: on Abraham, 66, 100, 134, 143–47, 149, 162, 260n56; on Christianity, 148–49; on decision, 34; and Derrida, 5, 129; either/or, 205; on ethics, 121, 143–44; existentialism of, 118, 121; Fear and Trembling, 146; God for, 78, 228n34; Hegel distinguished from, 147–50; humor of, 174; Levinas’s critique of, 246n42; on messianism, 147; on the Other, 121, 125–28; on sacrifice, 143–44, 147; and suspension of the ethical, 164
Kleinberg, Ethan, 10
Klemm, David, 214n19
laïklik, 92
language: event of, 28, 29; failure to secure stable meaning, 6; idea of stable reality independent of, 5; metaphysics and, 19, 23; as never fully ours, 9; Nietzsche on, 83; performatives, 166, 191–93; poet’s relation to, 61; proper names and system of, 16; Saussure’s langue–parole distinction, 25. See also logocentrism; metaphor; names; speech; writing
langue–parole distinction, 25
Laruelle, François, 172, 246n42, 249n79
“Last Farewell” (Habermas), 130–31
Lavalle, Louis, 73
Learning to Live Finally (Derrida), 37
Le Senne, René, 73
Letter on Humanism (Heidegger), 77, 78, 125
Levinas, Emmanuel: on Abraham, 133; on à Dieu/adieu, 19; “Anti-Semitism and Existentialism,” 41, 221n11; on asking forgiveness to speak of God, 59, 68; on atheism, 200–1; background of, 39; on being Jewish, 42–48, 70; at Colloque des Intellectuels Juifs de langue Française, 59; death of, 49, 120; in debate on Derrida and religion, 11; De l’existence à l’existant, 222n38, 223n60; Derrida absorbs themes from thought of, 122; and Derrida on Jewishness, 10, 49, 52, 54–56, 57–58, 61; Derrida’s “Abraham, the Other” as engagement with, 40; Derrida’s Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 49, 120, 122–23, 199, 238n41; Derrida’s citation of, 59–60; Derrida’s Literature in Secret and, 66–67; in Derrida’s “Violence and Metaphysics,” 7, 27, 120–21, 199; empiricism of, 122; ethical commitment to visage d’autrui as trace of God, 206–7; ethics of submission and, 253n52; Être-Juif, 39, 40, 41, 42–45, 47; in first generation of post-Holocaust world, 39; geographical and cultural gulf between Derrida and, 39–40; on giving up the kingdom to get the kingdom, 210; Habermas on his influence on Derrida, 239n58; in Habermas’s earlier assessment of Derrida, 114; in Habermas’s later assessment of Derrida, 123–29; Heidegger and, 19, 44–45, 123; on Heidegger’s ontology as totalizing, 120–21, 123; on Hitlerian anti-Semitism, 47; on the Infinite, 26, 121; on irrecusability, 16
4; on Jewish election, 10, 43, 44, 45–47, 50, 52–53, 56, 61, 67, 68, 69, 70; Judaism becomes central to philosophy of, 45–46; Kierkegaard critiqued by, 246n42; on literature, 65–66; on messianism, 199, 200–1; on modern world as essentially Christian, 43; “On Escape,” 44; on the Other, 45, 120–22, 123, 200–1; prison notebooks of, 44–45, 46, 221n38; as prisoner of war, 44, 48, 221n35, 245n42; question of tout autre, 245n42; Rancière misreads Derrida’s relation to, 60–61; “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism,” 44; “The Temptation of Temptation,” 45–46, 49, 52; Totality and Infinity, 16, 26, 199, 200, 223n60; “To the Other,” 65; on trace, 27; Western philosophical tradition reevaluated by, 45
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 7, 86, 246n43
Limited Inc (Derrida): on graphematic drift, 25–26; on the iterum, 14, 20–24, 27–29, 252n23; on substituting writing for God, 28–34
literature: Derrida on literary transformation of religious figure, 66–68, 69; Levinas on, 65–66; philosophy distinguished from, 116–18; and religion, 65–68. See also poetry
Literature in Secret (Derrida), 59, 66–67, 68
Logical Investigations (Husserl), 22
logocentrism: Habermas on critique of, 118; of Hägglund’s Radical Atheism, 176; negative theology associated with, 7; Western metaphysics associated with, 4
Luke 9:60, 249n83
Magliola, Robert, 214n19
maieutics, 110
Malabou, Catherine, 156
Mallarmé, Stéphane, 161
Marcuse, Herbert, 205
Margins of Philosophy (Derrida), 20, 21, 118, 217n9
Marion, Jean-Luc, 20, 154, 171, 248n70
Marranos, 55–58, 70–71, 95–96, 97, 98
martyrdom, 103, 234n61
Marx, Karl, 4, 28
McDowell, John, 16
Meditations (Descartes), 14, 20–21, 27–29, 31, 32
Meillassoux, Quentin, 151, 161, 172
Memoirs of the Blind (Derrida), 203
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 172
messianism: Abrahamic, 199, 209; ana-theist disposition involves, 205; Celan’s messianic speech, 66; deconstruction’s messianic effects, 207–8; Derrida absorbs from Levinas’s thought, 122, 123; and Derrida on being Jewish, 52; Derrida and messianic atheism, 199–212; Derrida’s conception of, 129, 130–31, 194, 196, 201, 202; of the event, 146, 147, 148; Habermas on, 129, 131; Hegel on, 147; Kierkegaard on, 147; Levinas on atheism and, 200–1; in Levinas’s account of being Jewish, 48; martyrdom associated with, 103; messianic faith, 36, 203; messianic peace, 186, 195–96, 206; messianic time, 165–66; “messianic without messianism,” 11, 36, 101, 127, 131, 195, 206; moving from messianicity to, 208–9; no to-come without messianic memory, 37; of presence, 147–48; radical messianicity, 202; weak, 206; without religion, 194, 206