The Trace of God
Page 41
metaphor: Derrida on translating traditional concepts into metaphorical concepts, 23; in Heidegger, 119; and philosophical thinking, 4, 118; subordination to reason, 116
Metz, Johann Baptist, 173
Milbank, John, 6, 214n19
Miller, J. Hillis, 205
Mind and World (McDowell), 16
Minimal Theologies (de Vries), 19
modernist art, 116
Mohel, 63–64
Monolingualism of the Other (Derrida), 9, 61
monotheism: clears path to the Enlightenment, 115; Derrida’s ethical loyalty to, 125; Derrida’s monotheism of the “event,” 129; Heidegger goes back beyond beginnings of, 114; Heidegger’s notion of the event and, 127; three Abrahamic religions, 100, 102
Montaigne, Michel de, 99
Moses, 53, 56
Moses and Monotheism (Freud), 53
Munier, Roger, 73
Mustafa, Farouk, 108
Mystical Theology (Pseudo-Dionysius), 26
mysticism. See negative theology
Naas, Michael, 151
names: Derrida’s “Faith and Knowledge” on, 16, 24; divine, 17, 19, 21–38, 201; insufficiency of, 31; negative theology on divine transcendence beyond, 203; speaking the unspeakable, 37
negative theology: Birault’s argument distinguished from, 79; in Birault’s texts, 87; deconstruction compared with, 6–7, 8, 170, 251n11; Derrida and, 6–7, 19, 170, 176, 203, 214n16, 248n75; Derrida’s “Différance” invokes, 21; inversion of the trace and, 27; iterability and, 33; khora motif and, 36
neo-paganism, 114, 115, 117, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 239n58
Niemandsrose, Die (Celan), 61
Nietzsche, Friedrich: in antireligious tradition, 5; atheism of, 79; on Being and God, 83–84, 85; Birault’s engagement with, 83–84, 85, 86; critique of the Nymph Echo, 108; on “death of God,” 112; and Derrida on being Jewish, 50, 52; Derrida on Rousseauian nostalgia versus Nietzschean forgetting, 85–86; Derrida seen as French Nietzschean, 83; Derrida’s references to, 83, 104; Dionysiac “yes” of, 228n45; ethic of self-assertion of, 112, 115; Heidegger’s criticism of, 84, 229n59; subject-centered model of, 112
“Nietzsche et le pari de Pascal” (Birault), 85
non-Being, 74–75
normativity, 126, 127, 162, 163
Norton, Anne, 10
nothingness (néant), 74, 75, 77, 78, 79
“Of Being, the Divine, and the Gods in Heidegger” (Birault), 78
Of Grammatology (Derrida): deconstruction of Western metaphysics in, 4; in Derrida’s entry into intellectual limelight, 2; on “époque of the sign” as essentially theological, 5; on Heidegger’s presenting Being as transcendental signified, 81; introduction to, 98; on Nietzsche, 229n59; on paleonymics, 24; on possibility of Divine name, 35–36; on the theological, 24, 25; on total movement of the trace, 24–26, 33, 35, 36, 129; on the ultratranscendental, 160–61, 162, 163, 164, 166
Of Hospitality (Derrida), 202
Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question (Derrida), 120, 127
omnipotence, 171, 173, 174, 175, 180, 181, 188
omniscience, 175, 178
“On Escape” (Levinas), 44
On the Name (Derrida), 72
ontological argument, negative, 167–69
ontology: Levinas on Heidegger’s, 44, 120–21, 123; onto-theology, 14, 19, 23, 29, 30, 31, 34, 50, 73, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 90, 134, 135, 136, 229n48, 229n59, 230n79; priority over theology, 83; transcendental, 236n23
Origin of Geometry (Husserl), 8, 80, 82, 245n39
Other, the: Abraham as other, 134, 136; Absolute, 102, 125, 145–47, 200, 201, 210, 261n; deconstruction as openness to, 207, 208, 258n31; Derrida on, 121–22, 125; ethics of alterity, 253n52; hospitality as openness to incoming stranger, 202–3; Islam seen as Other of democracy, 88, 89–95; the Jew as, 41, 60; Kierkegaard on, 121, 125–28; Levinas on, 45, 120–22, 123, 200–1; as radical stranger, 202; response of responsibility for, 133; tout autre, 10–11, 163, 254n53
Other Heading, The: Reflections on Today’s Europe (Derrida), 135, 241n4
paleonymics, 24
Pascal, Blaise, 6, 30, 85, 86, 172, 219n38, 230n71
Paul, Saint, 154, 157
performatives, 166, 191–93
phenomenology: Derrida on Husserl’s, 228n40; Derrida’s deconstructive criticism of, 119; Derrida’s study of, 73; French interest in Heideggerian, 73, 119; ideality as fundamental to, 23; in language of traditional metaphysics, 23; mysticism attributed to, 12
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, The (Habermas), 112–20, 128
Philosophie de l’Esprit collection, 73
philosophy: Athens versus Jerusalem, 110, 133, 134; classical, 7, 46, 80, 228n45; Derrida grafts poetry onto, 171–72; Derrida on speech as privileged over writing in Western, 4; figure of Abraham’s relation to philosophical thought, 132–36; first, 23, 52, 112–13; Habermas on post-metaphysical thinking, 130, 131; Habermas’s seeing it as rational-communicative practice, 117–18; Hebraism reappropriated by philosophical thought, 135–36; Heidegger’s mythopoetic conception of, 117, 118, 128; Levinas reevaluates Western philosophical tradition, 45; literature distinguished from, 116–18; metaphor and philosophical thinking, 4, 118; poetry distinguished from, 63; as praxis, 110; as questions rather than answers, 130; and religion cohabit in Derrida’s writings, 15; religion opposed to, 12, 110; as theory, 110. See also existentialism; ontology; phenomenology
Philosophy and the Turn to Religion (de Vries), 8, 19, 215n30, 216n48, 237n32
Plato: on demiurge, 75; al Farabi and, 93; on a Good that is otherwise than Being, 121; on khora, 36; Levinas versus philosophical tradition of, 49; on non-Being, 74; Sophist, 74; Timaeus, 36, 203
poetry: Jews and poets compared, 61–62; philosophy distinguished from, 63; and politics, 69; resists translation, 63
Politics (Aristotle), 93, 105
Politics of Friendship, The (Derrida), 101, 103, 104, 105
Portrait of Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint (Cixous), 100
“Portrait of the Anti-Semite, The” (Sartre), 40
post-structuralism, 74
Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, The (Caputo), 9, 165–66, 169, 170, 172–73, 174, 248n71, 248n75, 249n83, 254n53
Le Prénom de Dieu (Cixous), 177
presence: absolute, 25, 146, 152; difference without, 215n33; Hegel’s absoluteness of, 146; Holocaust as presence of an absence, 103; Husserl on ideal of pure, 7; as immemorial, 33; messianism of, 147–48; pure, 4, 7, 152; simple discourse of absence and, 30; speech associated with, 4; trace and, 26, 27
presentism, 43–44, 47, 48
promises, 189, 192
prophecy, 207–8
Pseudo-Dionysius, 19, 26
qara’a, 106, 107
rabbis, 61, 62–65, 71
radical atheism, 155–69; attributed to Derrida, 29, 34, 82, 179–80, 184–85, 187, 196–97; versus Augustinian eschatology, 168; autoimmunity associated with, 153; as critique of traditional critiques of religion, 197; deconstruction associated with, 152–53, 155; Derrida on desire for God and, 201; on desirability of God and eternity, 185–86; on desire, 187, 197; of khora, 210; radical theology conflated with, 171, 249n82; seen as way to save deconstruction, 12; stable and transparent concepts required by, 169; as weaker than traditional atheism, 168–69
Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life (Hägglund): aim of, 179; Caputo on, 151, 153, 155, 162–67, 173, 174, 176, 180, 245n39, 249n82; on promise and threat, 189
Radical Hermeneutics (Caputo), 172
Ramadan, Tariq, 106
Rancière, Jacques: on aesthetical dimension of politics, 69; on “as if” and political identity, 61, 69; on Levinas’s ethics and Derrida’s politics, 60–61, 68–71; on May 1968 demonstrators as all German Jews, 69, 71; “Should Politics Come? Ethics and Politics in Derrida,” 60
reason: Adorno and critical, 116; Derrida’s Rogues on, 107–8; ethics and, 102; faith and, 85, 126; Habermas on criticizing particularistic traditions in la
nguage of public, 130; Kant on antinomies of, 169; Nietzsche on “death of God” and, 112; universality of, 138
Reflections on the Jewish Question (Sartre), 39–42, 51, 57
“Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism” (Levinas), 44
religion: atheism as interwoven in religious tradition, 5–6; Derrida as infinitely close to and at infinite remove from, 13; Derrida draws on resources from several, 2; Derrida on idea of the unscathed and, 180, 182, 184; Derrida on two sources of, 171; Derrida’s stance of belonging without belonging to a tradition, 14; diversity of Derrida’s texts treating, 11; and the idea of the unscathed, 180, 182, 184; idolatry, 6–7, 91; indeterminacy of Derrida’s relation to, 2; and literature, 65–68; meaning of “and” in “Derrida and Religion,” 14–20; Nietzschean antireligious tradition, 5; as outliving itself, 18–19; philosophy and, 12, 15, 110; provocation of Derrida’s engagement with, 1; return of anti-religion, 151–77; “turn to religion” attributed to Derrida, 3, 11, 14, 72, 120, 123, 124, 153, 162, 179, 237n32; two ways of thinking about Derrida and, 169–70; unprotected, 12, 152–55, 171; violence associated with, 178, 179, 196; without religion, 6, 86, 153, 154, 170, 171, 172, 173, 176, 179, 202, 205, 206, 250n90, 257n25. See also Christianity; faith; God; Islam; Judaism; messianism; secularization; theology
Religion and Violence (de Vries), 19
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (Kant), 36, 181
responsibility: deconstruction as theory of, 163; deconstruction insists on one from which one cannot be absolved, 198; for a determinate other under threat, 191–93; secularization of language of moral, 125; unlimited, 49
resurrection, 174, 176, 206, 210, 211
Ricoeur, Paul, 2, 79, 261n
Rogues (Voyous) (Derrida): on the conditional and the unconditional, 255n65; and Derrida’s “Taking a Stand for Algeria,” 92; on messianic faith without messianism, 36; on reason, 107; “Rogue That I Am” chapter, 94; on secularization, 34–35; shared characteristics with Derrida’s more philosophic works, 89; on sovereignty, 232n16; as written in the shadow of death, 88–89
Römer, Thomas, 241n1
Rousseauian nostalgia, 85–86
Rovan, Joseph, 73
sacrifice: Hegel on, 141, 144, 147; Kierkegaard on, 143–44, 147; place of, 147–48
salutations, 108–9
Sarkozy, Nicolas, 97
Sartre, Jean-Paul: atheism of, 73, 79, 81; Being and Nothingness, 41; Christian Heideggerians oppose, 73, 79, 81; on commitment, 46; Derrida influenced by, 10; Derrida’s “Abraham, the Other” as engagement with, 40; on Heidegger’s thought, 73; on human freedom without God, 77; humanism of, 73; “The Jewish Question,” 41; “Kafka, a Jewish Writer,” 40–41, 221n9, 221n10; Levinas distinguishes his ontology of being Jewish from that of, 48; “The Portrait of the Anti-Semite,” 40; Reflections on the Jewish Question, 39–42, 51, 57
“Sauf le Nom” (Derrida), 201–2
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 25, 214n8
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 173, 249n82
Schibboleth (Derrida), 62–65, 66, 67, 199
Schmitt, Carl, 90, 91, 92, 101, 104, 105
Scott, Joan Wallach, 234n58
scripture, 28
Searle, John, 20
secularization: ambiguity of, 90, 91, 108; deconstruction versus, 35; democracy associated with, 90, 92, 93, 231n9; Heidegger’s half-secularized religion, 115; Islam’s resistance to, 92; of language of moral responsibility, 125; as marked by the theological, 34–35; Nietzsche on “death of God” and, 112; political concepts as secularized theology, 90, 91; post-secular world, 11
shahada, 103, 106
Shakespeare, Steven, 214n19
Shema, 102, 103, 234n61
Sherwood, Yvonne, 213n2, 216n40
“Should Politics Come? Ethics and Politics in Derrida” (Rancière), 60
“Signature Event Context” (Derrida), 20, 21, 28
Silesius, Angelus, 19, 26, 203, 204, 206, 210
Silverstein, Paul, 96–97
skepticism, 30, 87
Socrates, 110
Sophist (Plato), 74
sovereignty, 90–91, 92, 232n16
Specters of Marx (Derrida), 11, 194, 203, 253n27
speech: divine, 80; God as, 82; as privileged over writing, 4
speech act theory, 20
Speech and Phenomena (Derrida), 22–24, 218n19
Spinoza, Benedict, 17, 26
Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate, The (Hegel), 136, 241n6
Spirit of Judaism, The (Hegel), 136–38
Spivak, Gayatri, 98
Strauss, Leo, 91
structuralism: Derrida associated with, 2; Derrida’s criticism of, 86; Johns Hopkins conference of 1966 on, 3; Saussure in, 214n8; structuralist anti-humanists, 81
“Structure, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences” (Derrida), 7, 83, 85–86
supplement: and alterity, 122; dangerous, 153; in Derrida’s critique of “authentic” work of art, 116; and determining movement, 25; and location of transcendental condition of possibility, 18; as non-synonymous substitution for différance, 6; secularism taken as supplement to democracy, 231n9; and transcendental signifiers, 33
survival: autoimmunity of, 184, 196, 197; commitment to, 194; Derrida on living on, 152, 174; desire for, 185; eternity and indifference to fate of, 186; mere, 168; spectral, 195
Taylor, Mark, 6, 169–70, 205, 214n15, 215n30
“Temptation of Temptation, The” (Levinas), 45–46, 49, 52
theology: classical, 82, 169, 171, 180; confessional, 154, 155, 165; as dependent on general ontology, 82; Derrida on “époque of the sign” as essentially theological, 5; Derrida on the theological, 24–26; in Derrida’s early writings, 72; Derrida’s writing insists on deep significance of, 22; as determined moment in total movement of the trace, 5; différance blocks every relationship to, 5, 129; Habermas on Derrida and, 114; infinitist, 7; Islam and, 90; mystical, 19, 27, 171, 176, 203; ontology’s priority over, 83; onto-theology, 14, 19, 23, 29, 30, 31, 34, 50, 73, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 90, 134, 135, 136, 229n48, 229n59, 230n79; political concepts as secularized, 90, 91; post-metaphysical, 178; postmodern, 151, 214n15; radical, 154, 155, 171, 176, 249n82; strong, 165, 166, 171, 175, 176; weak, 8, 171, 173–76, 179, 188, 189. See also negative theology
theophany, 115, 128
theory: philosophy as, 110; travel and practice of, 96
Theory of Communicative Action, The (Habermas), 117
Timaeus (Plato), 36, 203
torsos, 155, 156, 163
Totality and Infinity (Levinas), 16, 26, 199, 200, 223n60
“To the Other” (Levinas), 65
trace: and existence or non-existence of writing, 30; of God, 207; and iterability, 153; Levinas on, 27; and location of transcendental condition of possibility, 18; as non-synonymous substitution for différance, 6; play of traces, 155; space-time of the, 160, 183–84, 252n25; and the theological as ultimate foundation, 5; total movement of the, 24–26, 33, 35, 36, 129; of the trace, 27, 230n79; de Vries on God and, 215n30
Truth and Method (Gadamer), 16
Tsvétaeva, Marina, 61
Two Sources of Religion and Morality, The (Bergson), 31
ultratranscendental, the, 18, 35, 160–61, 162, 163, 164, 167
unconditional, the, 156–57; relation to the conditional as autoimmune relation, 186, 255n65; responsibility and unconditional exposure to risk, 191–93; structure of an event as, 184; unconditional hospitality, 156, 190, 192; unconditional yes, 49, 202
undeconstructible, the, 15, 157–58, 244n24
violence: economy of, 193; of exclusion, 193, 195; religion associated with, 178, 179, 196
“Violence and Metaphysics” (Derrida): on Being and God, 82; on Levinas, 7, 27, 120–21, 199; on negative theology, 7; on ontology’s priority over theology, 83; signature “Reb Rida” precedes, 65; on trace of the other, 27
Voice and Phenomenon (Derrida), 2, 7, 118
de Vries, Hent: 8, 10, 171, 215n30, 216n48, 237n32
Wahl, Jean, 2, 119
Watkin, Christopher, 152
Weakness of God, The: A Theology of the Event (Caputo), 157, 173–76, 188, 248n71
Weber, Samuel, 14
will-to-power, 83, 84, 86, 229n59
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 17, 28, 128, 172
writing: existence or non-existence of, 30; as outside authority of ontological discourse, 30; scripture, 28; as “sign of a sign,” 4; speech privileged over, 4; substituting for God, 28–34
Writing and Difference (Derrida): “Cogito and the History of Madness,” 219n38; in Derrida’s entry into intellectual limelight, 2; on Divine Names, 26; “Ellipsis,” 65; “God contradicts Himself already,” 8, 29. See also “Violence and Metaphysics”
Zagury-Orly, Raphael, 11
Žižek, Slavoj, 60, 70, 156, 170, 244n24
Perspectives in Continental Philosophy
John D. Caputo, series editor
John D. Caputo, ed., Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida.
Michael Strawser, Both/And: Reading Kierkegaard—From Irony to Edification.
Michael D. Barber, Ethical Hermeneutics: Rationality in Enrique Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation.
James H. Olthuis, ed., Knowing Other-wise: Philosophy at the Threshold of Spirituality.
James Swindal, Reflection Revisited: Jürgen Habermas’s Discursive Theory of Truth.
Richard Kearney, Poetics of Imagining: Modern and Postmodern. Second edition.
Thomas W. Busch, Circulating Being: From Embodiment to Incorporation—Essays on Late Existentialism.