Editing Jacques Derrida (section)

==Philosophy==
{{Main|Deconstruction}}
Derrida referred to himself as a historian.<ref name="Afterword88P130" /><ref name="LitHistorian">Derrida (1989) ''This Strange Institution Called Literature'', p. 54: {{blockquote|Contrary to what some people believe or have an interest in making believe, I consider myself very much a historian, very historicist [...] Deconstruction calls for a highly "historian's" attitude (''Of Grammatology'', for example, is a history book through and through).}}</ref> He questioned assumptions of the [[Western philosophical tradition]] and also more broadly [[Western culture]].<ref name="NationObituaries"/> By questioning the dominant discourses, and trying to modify them, he attempted to [[democratize]] the university scene and to politicize it.<ref name="CambridgeInterviewOct92">Derrida (1992) ''Cambridge Review'', pp. 404, 408–13.</ref> Derrida called his challenge to the assumptions of [[Western culture]] "[[deconstruction]]".<ref name="NationObituaries"/> On some occasions, Derrida referred to deconstruction as a radicalization of a certain spirit of [[Marxism]].<ref>Derrida (1976) ''Where a Teaching Body Begins'', English translation 2002, p. 72.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Derrida |first=Jacques |year=1993 |title=Spectres of Marx |page=92 |language=fr}}</ref>

With his detailed readings of works from Plato to Rousseau to Heidegger, Derrida frequently argues that Western philosophy has uncritically allowed metaphorical depth models{{Technical inline|date=July 2019}} to govern its conception of language and consciousness. He sees these often unacknowledged assumptions as part of a "metaphysics of presence" to which philosophy has bound itself. This "logocentrism", Derrida argues, creates "marked" or hierarchized binary oppositions that have an effect on everything from the conception of speech's relation to writing to the understanding of racial difference. Deconstruction is an attempt to expose and undermine such "metaphysics".

Derrida approaches texts as constructed around binary oppositions which all speech has to articulate if it intends to make any sense whatsoever. This approach to text is, in a broad sense, influenced by the [[semiology]] of [[Ferdinand de Saussure]].<ref name="Royle04p62">[[Nicholas Royle Emeritus Professor University of Sussex|Nicholas Royle]] (2004), [https://books.google.com/books?id=nNaSdb9VMTwC ''Jacques Derrida''], pp. 62–63.</ref><ref name="Ferraris97p76">Derrida and Ferraris (1997), p. 76:
{{blockquote|I take great interest in questions of language and rhetoric, and I think they deserve enormous consideration, but there is a point where the authority of final jurisdiction is neither rhetorical nor linguistic, nor even discursive. The notion of trace or of text is introduced to mark the limits of the linguistic turn. This is one more reason why I prefer to speak of 'mark' rather than of language. In the first place, the mark is not anthropological; it is prelinguistic; it is the possibility of language, and it is everywhere there is a relation to another thing or relation to another. For such relations, the mark has no need of language.}}</ref> Saussure, considered to be one of the fathers of [[structuralism]], posited that terms get their meaning in reciprocal determination with other terms inside language.<ref>{{cite book|last=Saussure|first=Ferdinand de|title=Course in General Linguistics|date=1916|orig-date=trans. 1959|publisher=New York Philosophical Library|location=New York|pages=121–22|url=http://faculty.smu.edu/dfoster/cf3324/saussure.htm|access-date=10 December 2011|archive-date=31 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190731010622/http://faculty.smu.edu/dfoster/cf3324/saussure.htm|url-status=dead}}
{{blockquote|In language there are only differences. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language, there are only differences without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system. The idea or phonic substance that a sign contains is of less importance than the other signs that surround it. [...] A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of a certain number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass thought engenders a system of values.}}</ref>

Perhaps Derrida's most quoted and famous assertion,<ref name="Royle04p62"/> which appears in an essay on [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]] in his book ''[[Of Grammatology]]'' (1967),<ref name="Derrida67p158">Derrida (1967) ''Of Grammatology'', Part II: "Introduction to the "Age of Rousseau," section 2 "...That Dangerous Supplement...", title "The Exorbitant. Question of Method", pp. 158–59, 163.</ref> is the statement that "there is no outside-text" ({{lang|fr|il n'y a pas de hors-texte}}).<ref name="Derrida67p158"/> Critics of Derrida have been often accused of having mistranslated the phrase in French to suggest he had written "{{lang|fr|Il n'y a rien en dehors du texte}}" ("There is nothing outside the text") and of having widely disseminated this translation to make it appear that Derrida is suggesting that nothing exists but words.<ref name="Afterword88P136"/><ref name="Reilly05">Reilly, Brian J. (2005) ''Jacques Derrida'', in Kritzman (2005), p. 500.</ref><ref name="Coward90">[[Harold Coward|Coward, Harold G.]] (1990) [https://books.google.com/books?id=JtyqhtCW7jQC ''Derrida and Indian philosophy''], pp. 83, 137.</ref><ref name="Pidgen90">Pidgen, Charles R. (1990) ''On a Defence of Derrida'', in [https://books.google.com/books?id=M71ZAAAAMAAJ ''The Critical review''] (1990), Issues 30–32, pp. 40–41.</ref><ref name=wpost04Sullivan>Sullivan, Patricia (2004), [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21050-2004Oct9.html ''Jacques Derrida Dies; Deconstructionist Philosopher''], in ''[[Washington Post]]'', 10 October 2004, p. C11. Retrieved 2 August 2007.</ref> Derrida once explained that this assertion "which for some has become a sort of slogan, in general so badly understood, of deconstruction ... means nothing else: there is nothing outside context. In this form, which says exactly the same thing, the formula would doubtless have been less shocking."<ref name="Afterword88P136">Derrida (1988) ''Afterword'', p. 136.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Glendinning |first=Simon |title=Jacques Derrida: A Very Short Introduction |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref>

===Early works<!--linked from the 'Life' section-->===
Derrida began his career examining the limits of [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]]. His first lengthy academic manuscript, written as a dissertation for his {{lang|fr|diplôme d'études supérieures}} and submitted in 1954, concerned the work of [[Edmund Husserl]].<ref>The dissertation was eventually published in 1990 with the title "Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl". English translation: ''The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy'' (2003).</ref> Gary Banham has said that the dissertation is "in many respects the most ambitious of Derrida's interpretations with Husserl, not merely in terms of the number of works addressed but also in terms of the extraordinarily focused nature of its investigation."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Banham|first=Gary|date=1 January 2005|title=The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy, by Jacques Derrida|journal=Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology|volume=36|issue=1|pages=99–101|doi=10.1080/00071773.2005.11007469|s2cid=170686297|issn=0007-1773}}</ref> In 1962 he published ''Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction'', which contained his own translation of Husserl's essay. Many elements of Derrida's thought were already present in this work. In the interviews collected in ''[[Positions (book)|Positions]]'' (1972), Derrida said: 
{{blockquote|text=In this essay the problematic of writing was already in place as such, bound to the irreducible structure of 'deferral' in its relationships to consciousness, presence, science, history and the history of science, the disappearance or delay of the origin, etc. ...this essay can be read as the other side (recto or verso, as you wish) of ''Speech and Phenomena''.|source=Derrida, 1967, interview with Henri Ronse<ref name="67RonseP5">J. Derrida (1967), interview with Henri Ronse, p. 5.</ref>}}

Derrida first received major attention outside France with his lecture, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," delivered at [[Johns Hopkins University]] in 1966 (and subsequently included in ''Writing and Difference''). The conference at which this paper was delivered was concerned with [[structuralism]], then at the peak of its influence in France, but only beginning to gain attention in the United States. Derrida differed from other participants by his lack of explicit commitment to structuralism, having already been critical of the movement. He praised the accomplishments of structuralism but also maintained reservations about its internal limitations;<ref>Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," in ''[[Writing and Difference]]'', trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 278.</ref> this has led US academics to label his thought as a form of [[post-structuralism]].<ref name="Bensmaia05">Bensmaïa, Réda, "Poststructuralism", in Kritzman (2005), pp. 92–93.</ref><ref name="Poster88">Poster (1988), pp. 5–6.</ref><ref>
{{blockquote|... the entire history of the concept of structure, before the rupture of which we are speaking, must be thought of as a series of substitutions of centre for centre, as a linked chain of determinations of the centre. Successively, and in a regulated fashion, the centre receives different forms or names. The history of [[metaphysics]], like the history of the West, is the history of these [[metaphor]]s and [[metonymy|metonymies]]. Its matrix ... is the determination of [[Being]] as ''presence'' in all senses of this word. It could be shown that all the names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the centre have always designated an invariable presence – ''[[eidos (philosophy)|eidos]]'', ''[[archē]]'', ''[[Telos (philosophy)|telos]]'', ''[[energeia]]'', ''[[ousia]]'' (essence, existence, substance, subject), ''[[aletheia|alētheia]]'', transcendentality, consciousness, God, man, and so forth.|"Structure, Sign and Play" in ''Writing and Difference'', p. 353.}}</ref>

The effect of Derrida's paper was such that by the time the conference proceedings were published in 1970, the title of the collection had become ''The Structuralist Controversy''. The conference was also where he met [[Paul de Man]], who would be a close friend and source of great controversy, as well as where he first met the French psychoanalyst [[Jacques Lacan]], with whose work Derrida had a mixed relationship.

===Phenomenology vs structuralism debate (1959)===
In the early 1960s, Derrida began speaking and writing publicly, addressing the most topical debates at the time. One of these was the new and increasingly fashionable movement of [[structuralism]], which was being widely favoured as the successor to the [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] approach, the latter having been started by Husserl sixty years earlier. Derrida's countercurrent take on the issue, at a prominent international conference, was so influential that it reframed the discussion from a celebration of the triumph of structuralism to a "phenomenology vs structuralism debate".

Phenomenology, as envisioned by Husserl, is a method of philosophical inquiry that rejects the rationalist bias that has dominated Western thought since [[Plato]] in favor of a method of reflective attentiveness that discloses the individual's "lived experience"; for those with a more phenomenological bent, the goal was to understand experience by comprehending and describing its genesis, the process of its emergence from an origin or event.<ref>{{Citation |last=Smith |first=David Woodruff |title=Phenomenology |date=2018 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/phenomenology/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Summer 2018 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=20 June 2021}}</ref> For the structuralists, this was a false problem, and the "depth" of experience could in fact only be an effect of structures which are not themselves experiential.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Poythress |first=Vern S. |date=31 May 2012 |title=Philosophical Roots of Phenomenological and Structuralist Literary Criticism |url=https://frame-poythress.org/philosophical-roots-of-phenomenological-and-structuralist-literary-criticism/ |access-date=20 June 2021 |website=The Works of John Frame & Vern Poythress}}</ref>

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?<ref>Jacques Derrida, "'Genesis' and 'Structure' and Phenomenology," in ''Writing and Difference'' (London: Routledge, 1978), paper originally delivered in 1959 at Cerisy-la-Salle, and originally published in Gandillac, Goldmann & Piaget (eds.), ''Genèse et structure'' (The Hague: Morton, 1964), p. 167:

{{blockquote|All these formulations have been possible thanks to the initial distinction between different irreducible types of genesis and structure: worldly genesis and transcendental genesis, empirical structure, eidetic structure, and transcendental structure. To ask oneself the following historico-semantic question: "What does the notion of genesis ''in general'', on whose basis the Husserlian diffraction could come forth and be understood, mean, and what has it always meant? What does the notion of structure ''in general'', on whose basis Husserl ''operates'' and operates distinctions between empirical, eidetic, and transcendental dimensions mean, and what has it always meant throughout its displacements? And what is the historico-semantic relationship between Genesis and structure ''in general''?" is not only simply to ask a prior linguistic question. It is to ask the question about the unity of the historical ground on whose basis a transcendental reduction is possible and is motivated by itself. It is to ask the question about the unity of the world from which transcendental freedom releases itself, in order to make the origin of this unity appear.}}</ref> In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.<ref>If in 1959 Derrida was addressing this question of genesis and structure to Husserl, that is, to phenomenology, then in "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (also in ''Writing and Difference''; see [[#1967–1972|below]]), he addresses these same questions to Lévi-Strauss and the structuralists. This is clear from the very first line of the paper (p. 278):

{{blockquote|Perhaps something has occurred in the history of the concept of structure that could be called an "event," if this loaded word did not entail a meaning which it is precisely the function of structural—or structuralist—thought to reduce or to suspect.}}

Between these two papers is staked Derrida's philosophical ground, if not indeed his step beyond or outside philosophy.</ref> 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 original 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.<ref name="DerridaScarpetta71">Derrida (1971), Scarpetta interview, quote from pp. 77–8:

{{blockquote|If the alterity of the other is ''posed'', that is, ''only'' posed, does it not amount to ''the same'', for example in the form of the "constituted object" or of the "informed product" invested with meaning, etc.? From this point of view, I would even say that the alterity of the other ''inscribes'' in this relationship that which in no case can be "posed." Inscription, as I would define it in this respect, is not a simple position: it is rather that by means of which every position is ''of itself confounded'' ({{lang|fr|[[différance]]}}): inscription, mark, text and not only ''thesis or theme''-inscription of the ''thesis''.}}

</ref><ref>On the phrase "default of origin" as applied to Derrida's work, cf. [[Bernard Stiegler]], "Derrida and Technology: Fidelity at the Limits of Deconstruction and the Prosthesis of Faith," in Tom Cohen (ed.) ''Jacques Derrida and the Humanities'' (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Stiegler understands Derrida's thinking of textuality and inscription in terms of a thinking of originary technicity, and in this context speaks of "the originary default of origin that arche-writing constitutes" (p. 239). See also Stiegler, ''[[Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus]]'' (Stanford: [[Stanford University Press]], 1998).</ref> 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".<ref>It is opposed to the concept of original purity, which destabilises the thought of both "genesis" and "structure", cf. [[Rodolphe Gasché]], ''The Tain of the Mirror'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 146:

{{blockquote|It is an opening that is structural or the structurality of an opening. Yet each of these concepts excludes the other. It is thus as little a structure as it is an opening; it is as little static as it is genetic, as little structural as it is historical. It can be understood neither from a genetic nor from a structuralist and taxonomic point of view, nor from a combination of both points of view.}}

And note that this complexity of the origin is thus not only spatial but temporal, which is why différance is a matter not only of difference, but of delay or deferral. One way in which this question is raised in relation to Husserl is thus the question of the possibility of a phenomenology of history, which Derrida raises in ''Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction'' (1962).</ref>

Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating the forms and varieties of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. He achieved this by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, to determine what aspects of those texts run counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the [[aporia]]s and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways in which this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its structuring and destructuring effects.<ref>Cf. Rodolphe Gasché, "Infrastructures and Systematicity," in [[John Sallis]] (ed.), ''Deconstruction and Philosophy'' (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 3–4:

{{blockquote|One of the more persistent misunderstandings that have thus far forestalled a productive debate with Derrida's philosophical thought is the assumption, shared by many philosophers as well as literary critics, that within that thought just anything is possible. Derrida's philosophy is more often than not construed as a license for arbitrary free play in flagrant disregard of all established rules of argumentation, traditional requirements of thought, and ethical standards binding upon the interpretative community. Undoubtedly, some of the works of Derrida may not have been entirely innocent in this respect and may have contributed, however obliquely, to fostering to some extent that very misconception. But deconstruction which for many has come to designate the content and style of Derrida's thinking, reveals to even a superficial examination, a well-ordered procedure, a step-by-step type of argumentation based on an acute awareness of level-distinctions, a marked thoroughness and regularity... Deconstruction must be understood, we contend, as the attempt to "account," in a certain manner, for a heterogeneous variety or manifold of nonlogical contradictions and discursive equalities of all sorts that continues to haunt and fissure even the ''successful'' development of philosophical arguments and their systematic exposition.}}</ref>

===1967–1972<!--linked from the 'Phenomenology vs structuralism debate (1959)' section-->===
Derrida's interests crossed disciplinary boundaries, and his knowledge of a wide array of diverse material was reflected in the three collections of work published in 1967: ''[[Speech and Phenomena]]'', ''[[Of Grammatology]]'' (initially submitted as a {{lang|fr|[[doctorat de spécialité]]}} thesis under [[Maurice de Gandillac]]),<ref name="Schrift p. 120">Alan D. Schrift (2006) ''Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers'', Blackwell Publishing, p. 120.</ref> and ''[[Writing and Difference]]''.<ref name="67RonseP4">Derrida (1967) interview with Henri Ronse, pp. 4–5:{{blockquote|[''Speech and Phenomena''] is perhaps the essay which I like most. Doubtless, I could have bound it as a long note to one or the other of the other two works. ''Of Grammatology'' refers to it and economizes its development. But in a classical philosophical architecture, ''Speech...'' would come first: in it is posed, at a point which appears juridically decisive for reasons that I cannot explain here, the question of the privilege of the voice and of phonetic writing in their relationship to the entire history of the West, such as this history can be represented by the history of metaphysics and metaphysics in its most modern, critical and vigilant form: Husserl's transcendental phenomenology.}}</ref>

On several occasions, Derrida has acknowledged his debt to [[Edmund Husserl|Husserl]] and [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]], and stated that without them he would not have said a single word.<ref name="67RonseP8">Derrida (1967) interview with Henri Ronse, p. 8.</ref><ref name="LetterJap">On the influence of Heidegger, Derrida claims in his "Letter to a Japanese Friend" (''Derrida and différance'', eds. [[Robert Bernasconi]] and [[David Wood (philosopher)|David Wood]]) that the word "déconstruction" was his attempt both to translate and re-appropriate for his own ends the Heideggerian terms ''Destruktion'' and ''Abbau'', via a word from the French language, the varied senses of which seemed consistent with his requirements. This relationship with the Heideggerian term was chosen over the Nietzschean term "demolition," as Derrida shared Heidegger's interest in renovating philosophy.</ref> Among the questions asked in these essays are "What is 'meaning', what are its historical relationships to what is purportedly identified under the rubric 'voice' as a value of presence, presence of the object, presence of meaning to consciousness, self-presence in so called living speech and in self-consciousness?"<ref name="67RonseP4"/> In another essay in ''Writing and Difference'' entitled "Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas", the roots of another major theme in Derrida's thought emerge: the Other as opposed to the Same<ref>Derrida, J. Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas, ''Writing and Difference''. Chicago: University of Chicago. 97–192.</ref> "Deconstructive analysis deprives the present of its prestige and exposes it to something ''tout autre'', "wholly other", beyond what is foreseeable from the present, beyond the horizon of the "same"."<ref name="Caputo97P42">Caputo (1997), p. 42.</ref> Other than Rousseau, Husserl, Heidegger and [[Emmanuel Levinas|Levinas]], these three books discussed, and/or relied upon, the works of many philosophers and authors, including linguist [[Ferdinand de Saussure|Saussure]],<ref>''Linguistics and Grammatology'' in ''Of Grammatology'', pp. 27–73.</ref> [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]],<ref name="FromRestricted">"From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve" in ''Writing and Difference''.</ref> [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]],<ref name="Cogitothe">"Cogito and the History of Madness" in ''Writing and Difference''.</ref> [[Georges Bataille|Bataille]],<ref name="FromRestricted" /> [[René Descartes|Descartes]],<ref name="Cogitothe" /> anthropologist [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]],<ref>''The Violence of the Letter: From Lévi-Strauss to Rousseau'' in ''Of Grammatology'', pp. 101–140.</ref><ref>"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" in ''Writing and Difference''</ref> paleontologist [[André Leroi-Gourhan|Leroi-Gourhan]],<ref>''Of Grammatology'', pp. 83–86.</ref> psychoanalyst [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]],<ref>"Freud and the Scene of Writing" in ''Writing and Difference''.</ref> and writers such as [[Edmond Jabès|Jabès]]<ref>"Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book" and "Ellipsis" in ''Writing and Difference'', pp. 64–78 and 295–300.</ref> and [[Antonin Artaud|Artaud]].<ref>"La Parole soufflée" and "The Theater of Cruelty and the Closure of Representation" in ''Writing and Difference''.</ref>

This collection of three books published in 1967 elaborated Derrida's theoretical framework. Derrida attempts to approach the very heart of the [[Western intellectual tradition]], characterizing this tradition as "a search for a transcendental being that serves as the origin or guarantor of meaning". The attempt to "ground the meaning relations constitutive of the world in an instance that itself lies outside all relationality" was referred to by Heidegger as [[logocentrism]], and Derrida argues that the philosophical enterprise is ''essentially'' logocentric,<ref name="Lamont87">{{Cite journal| jstor=2780292| title=How to Become a Dominant French Philosopher: The Case of Jacques Derrida| journal=American Journal of Sociology| volume=93| issue=3| pages=584–622| last1=Lamont| first1=Michele| date=November 1987| doi=10.1086/228790| s2cid=145090666| url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3428546/lamont_derrida.pdf?sequence=4}}</ref> and that this is a [[paradigm]] inherited from Judaism and [[Hellenistic philosophy|Hellenism]].<ref name="Borody98"/> He in turn describes logocentrism as [[Androcracy|phallocratic]], [[patriarchal]] and [[masculine|masculinist]].<ref name="Borody98"/><ref>[[Hélène Cixous]], [[Catherine Clément]] [1975] ''La jeune née''.</ref> Derrida contributed to "the understanding of certain deeply hidden philosophical presuppositions and prejudices in [[Western culture]]",<ref name="Borody98">[http://www.nipissingu.ca/faculty/wayneb/ Wayne A. Borody] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111102140336/http://www.nipissingu.ca/faculty/wayneb/ |date=2 November 2011 }} (1998), pp. 3, 5, [http://kenstange.com/nebula/feat013/feat013.html "Figuring the Phallogocentric Argument with Respect to the Classical Greek Philosophical Tradition"]. [http://kenstange.com/nebula/ ''Nebula: A Netzine of the Arts and Science''], Vol. 13 (pp. 1–27).</ref> arguing that the whole philosophical tradition rests on arbitrary dichotomous categories (such as [[sacred/profane]], [[sign (semiotics)|signifier/signified]], [[Mind–body problem|mind/body]]), and that any text contains implicit hierarchies, "by which an order is imposed on reality and by which a subtle repression is exercised, as these hierarchies exclude, subordinate, and hide the various potential meanings."<ref name="Lamont87" /> Derrida refers to his procedure for uncovering and unsettling these dichotomies as [[deconstruction]] of Western culture.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Reynolds |first=Jack |title=Jacques Derrida (1930—2004) |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/derrida/ |access-date=20 June 2021}}</ref>

In 1968, he published his influential essay "[[Plato's Pharmacy]]" in the French journal ''[[Tel Quel]]''.<ref name="Spurgin97">Spurgin, Tim (1997) [http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60a/handouts/pharmacy.html Reader's Guide to Derrida's "Plato's Pharmacy"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110224024836/http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/pharmacy.html |date=24 February 2011}}</ref><ref name="Graff93">Graff (1993).</ref> This essay was later collected in ''Dissemination'', one of three books published by Derrida in 1972, along with the essay collection ''Margins of Philosophy'' and the collection of interviews entitled ''[[Positions (book)|Positions]]''.

===1973–1980===
Starting in 1972, Derrida produced on average more than one book per year. Derrida continued to produce important works, such as ''[[Glas (book)|Glas]]'' (1974) and ''[[The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond]]'' (1980).

Derrida received increasing attention in the United States after 1972, where he was a regular visiting professor and lecturer at several major American universities. In the 1980s, during the [[American 1980s culture wars|American culture wars]], [[conservatives]] started a dispute over Derrida's influence and legacy upon American intellectuals,<ref name="NationObituaries"/> and claimed that he influenced American literary critics and theorists more than academic philosophers.<ref name="Lamont87" /><ref name="Hansson">{{cite journal|author=Sven Ove Hansson |department=Editorial |journal=Theoria |volume=72 |at=Part 1 |date=2006 |url=http://www.infra.kth.se/phil/theoria/editorial721.htm |title=Philosophical Schools |access-date=24 February 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060718054747/http://www.infra.kth.se/phil/theoria/editorial721.htm |archive-date=18 July 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Jones-Katz |first1=Gregory |title=Deconstruction: An American Tale |url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/gregory-jones-katz-deconstruction-america/ |work=Boston Review |date=30 September 2016}}</ref>

===''Of Spirit'' (1987)===
On 14 March 1987, Derrida presented at the CIPH conference entitled "Heidegger: Open Questions", a lecture which was published in October 1987 as ''Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question''. It follows the shifting role of ''[[Geist]]'' (spirit) through Heidegger's work, noting that, in 1927, "spirit" was one of the philosophical terms that Heidegger set his sights on dismantling.<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', pp. vii-1.</ref> With his Nazi political engagement in 1933, however, Heidegger came out as a champion of the "German Spirit", and only withdrew from an exalting interpretation of the term in 1953. Derrida asks, "What of this meantime?"<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', p. 1</ref> His book connects in a number of respects with his long engagement of Heidegger (such as "The Ends of Man" in ''Margins of Philosophy'', his Paris seminar on philosophical nationality and nationalism in the mid-1980s, and the essays published in English as ''Geschlecht'' and ''Geschlecht II'').<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', pp. 7, 11, 117–118.</ref> He considers "four guiding threads" of Heideggerian philosophy that form "the knot of this ''Geflecht'' [braid]": "the question of the question", "the essence of technology", "the discourse of animality", and "epochality" or "the hidden teleology or the narrative order."<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', pp. 8–12.</ref>

''Of Spirit'' contributes to the long [[Heidegger and Nazism|debate on Heidegger's Nazism]] and appeared at the same time as the French publication of a book by a previously unknown Chilean writer, [[Victor Farías]], who charged that Heidegger's philosophy amounted to a wholehearted endorsement of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA) faction. Derrida responded to Farías in an interview, "Heidegger, the Philosopher's Hell" and a subsequent article, "Comment donner raison? How to Concede, with Reasons?" He called Farías a weak reader of Heidegger's thought, adding that much of the evidence Farías and his supporters touted as new had long been known within the philosophical community.<ref>Powell (2006), p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sbhlgspwVwMC&pg=PA167 167].</ref>

===1990s: political and ethical themes===
Some have argued that Derrida's work took a political and ethical "turn" in the 1990s. Texts cited as evidence of such a turn include ''[[Force of Law]]'' (1990), as well as ''[[Specters of Marx]]'' (1994) and ''Politics of Friendship'' (1994). Some refer to ''The Gift of Death'' as evidence that he began more directly applying deconstruction to the relationship between ethics and religion. In this work, Derrida interprets passages from the Bible, particularly on [[Abraham]] and the [[Binding of Isaac|Sacrifice of Isaac]],<ref>Jack Reynolds, Jonathan Roffe (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=D7jq50nVzGAC ''Understanding Derrida''], p. 49.</ref><ref>''Gift of Death'', pp. 57–72.</ref> and from [[Søren Kierkegaard]]'s ''[[Fear and Trembling]]''.

However, scholars such as [[Leonard Lawlor]], [[Robert Magliola]], and [[Nicole Anderson (philosopher)|Nicole Anderson]]<ref>Nicole Anderson, ''Derrida: Ethics Under Erasure'', Publishing Plc, London, 2013</ref> have argued that the "turn" has been exaggerated.<ref>Leonard Lawlor, ''Derrida and Hume: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology'', Indiana University Press, 2002, p. 211; Robert Magliola, [https://global.oup.com/academic/search?q=Robert+Magliola&cc=us&lang=en ''On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture''], Scholars Press of American Academy of Religion, 1997; Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 157–165; Nicole Anderson, ''Derrida: Ethics Under Erasure'', Bloomsbury, 2012, p. 24.</ref>{{Additional citation needed|date=May 2020}} Some, including Derrida himself, have argued that much of the philosophical work done in his "political turn" can be dated to earlier essays.<ref name="Martha C. Nussbaum 1990: 29, 227">{{cite book|last1=Nussbaum|first1=Martha C. |url=https://archive.org/details/lovesknowledge00mart/page/29|title=Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0195074857|edition=1st|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lovesknowledge00mart/page/29 29]|chapter=Form and Content, Philosophy and Literature|chapter-url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/loves-knowledge-9780195074857}}{{blockquote|[He] chose to address the American Philosophical Association on the topic of Aristotle's theory of friendship ("Journal of Philosophy" 85 (1988), 632–44); Barbara Johnson's "A World of Difference" (Baltimore, 1987) argues that Deconstruction can make valuable ethical and social contributions; and in general there seems to be a return to the ethical and practical...}}</ref>

Derrida develops an ethicist view respecting to hospitality, exploring the idea that two types of hospitalities exist, conditional and unconditional. Though this contributed to the works of many scholars, Derrida was seriously criticized for this.<ref>Rorty, R. (1995). Habermas, Derrida, and the functions of philosophy. Revue internationale de philosophie, 49(194 (4), 437–459.</ref><ref>Rorty, R. (1989). "Is Derrida a transcendental philosopher?". ''The Yale Journal of Criticism'', 2(2), 207.</ref><ref>McCumber, J. (2000). Philosophy and Freedom: Derrida, Rorty, Habermas, Foucault. Indiana University Press.</ref>

Derrida's contemporary readings of [[Emmanuel Levinas]], [[Walter Benjamin]], [[Carl Schmitt]], [[Jan Patočka]], on themes such as law, justice, responsibility, and friendship, had a significant impact on fields beyond philosophy. Derrida and Deconstruction influenced aesthetics, literary criticism, architecture, [[film theory]], [[anthropology]], sociology, [[historiography]], law, [[psychoanalysis]], theology, [[feminism]], gay and lesbian studies and political theory. [[Jean-Luc Nancy]], [[Richard Rorty]], [[Geoffrey Hartman]], [[Harold Bloom]], [[Rosalind Krauss]], [[Hélène Cixous]], [[Julia Kristeva]], [[Duncan Kennedy (legal philosopher)|Duncan Kennedy]], [[Gary Peller]], [[Drucilla Cornell]], [[Alan Hunt (professor)|Alan Hunt]], [[Hayden White]], [[Mario Kopić]], and [[Alun Munslow]] are some of the authors who have been influenced by deconstruction.

Derrida delivered a eulogy at Levinas' funeral, later published as ''Adieu à Emmanuel Lévinas'', an appreciation and exploration of Levinas's moral philosophy. Derrida used [[Bracha L. Ettinger]]'s interpretation of Lévinas' notion of femininity and transformed his own earlier reading of this subject respectively.<ref>B. L. Ettinger in conversation with Emmanuel Lévinas, "Que dirait Eurydice?" / "What would Eurydice Say?" (1991–93). Reprinted to coincide with Kabinet exhibition at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Paris: BLE Atelier, 1997. This is a reprint of ''Le féminin est cette différence inouïe'' (Livre d'artiste, 1994, and it includes the text of ''Time is the Breath of the Spirit'', MOMA, Oxford, 1993). Reprinted in ''Athena: Philosophical Studies''. Vol. 2, 2006.</ref> {{irrelevant citation|date=January 2025|reason= the cited conversation does not reference Derrida's use; need a ref to support Derrida's use of Ettinger's interpretation.}}

Derrida continued to produce readings of literature, writing extensively on [[Maurice Blanchot]], [[Paul Celan]], and others.

In 1991 he published ''The Other Heading'', in which he discussed the concept of [[Identity (social science)|identity]] (as in [[cultural identity]], [[European identity]], and [[national identity]]), in the name of which in Europe have been unleashed "the worst violences," "the crimes of xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, religious or nationalist fanaticism."<ref>''The Other Heading'', pp. 5–6.</ref>

At the 1997 [[Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle|Cerisy Conference]], Derrida delivered a ten-hour address on the subject of "the autobiographical animal" entitled [[The Animal That Therefore I Am (More To Follow)]]. Engaging with questions surrounding the ontology of nonhuman animals, the ethics of animal slaughter and the difference between humans and other animals, the address has been seen as initiating a late "animal turn" in Derrida's philosophy, although Derrida himself has said that his interest in animals is present in his earliest writings.<ref>Derrida (2008), 15.</ref>

===''The Work of Mourning'' (1981–2001)===
Beginning with "The Deaths of Roland Barthes" in 1981, Derrida produced a series of texts on mourning and memory occasioned by the loss of his friends and colleagues, many of them new engagements with their work. ''Memoires for Paul de Man'', a book-length lecture series presented first at Yale and then at Irvine as Derrida's Wellek Lecture, followed in 1986, with a revision in 1989 that included "Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War". Ultimately, fourteen essays were collected into ''The Work of Mourning'' (2001), which was expanded in the 2003 French edition, ''Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde'' (literally, "Unique each time, the end of the world"), to include essays dedicated to [[Gérard Granel]] and Maurice Blanchot.

===2002 film===
In October 2002, at the theatrical opening of the film ''[[Derrida (film)|Derrida]]'', he said that, in many ways, he felt more and more close to [[Guy Debord]]'s work, and that this closeness appears in Derrida's texts. Derrida mentioned, in particular, "everything I say about the media, technology, the spectacle, and the 'criticism of the show', so to speak, and the markets – the becoming-a-spectacle of everything, and the exploitation of the spectacle."<ref name="Derrida02Q&A">Derrida (2002) Q&A session at Film Forum.</ref> Among the places in which Derrida mentions the ''[[Spectacle (critical theory)|Spectacle]]'', is a 1997 interview about the notion of the intellectual.<ref name="Derrida 97 Intellectuels p39">{{cite book |last=Derrida |orig-year=1997 |chapter=Intellectuals. Attempt at Definition by Themselves |year=2005 |pages=39–40 |publisher=Stanford University Press |title=Paper Machine |isbn=978-0804746205}}</ref>