phil prof and dice enthusiast working on inheritance in social and environmental philosophy with help from Derrida and Gramsci
Apr 22, 2022 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
I have been seeing more snark than usual for Derrida on here recently so here is a thread for non-Derrida people to try to explain what he is up to and what there might be that is helpful in the work he did. I hope this isn’t too long.
Is his writing difficult? I suppose so, in the sense that it uses a technical vocabulary specific to his work and the tradition he is working from. These are, most basically: phenomenology, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and Western philosophical history
Jul 6, 2021 • 25 tweets • 4 min read
This thread is about how Derrida’s Spectres of Marx is actually about Marx. Or, more specifically, that SoM provides a reading of and response to Marx and makes an argument about reading Marx. (1/24)
A thread like this is necessary because I think it is pretty common today (and it was standard in the 90s) to think that JD is doing maybe interesting stuff with Hamlet and Marx as occasions, but it isn’t *really* a book about Marx. (2/24)
Jul 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If Derrida had one consistent target throughout his writings, it was the notion that anything could be guaranteed, once and for all, against failure. This is what he means by impossibility as a condition for possibility. Practice is risky. Reception isn't fixed in advance. (1/4)
So, in Rogues, say, democratic practice led to either the election of anti-democratic political leaders or the anti-democratic cancellation of elections. The possibility of democracy is conditioned by its impossibility. Or the possibility of its impossibility, if you prefer (2/4)
