Concept and Politics in Derrida and Deleuze

Critical Horizons

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 157-175

  Patton, Paul ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES   (Australia)

Author keywords

Concept; Constructivism; Deconstruction; Deleuze; Derrida; Deterritorialisation; Forgiveness; Hospitality; Pragmatic

Indexed keywords

EID: 0142138146     PISSN: 14409917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156851603322398251     Document Type: Review

References (55)

1. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? trans., Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell, London & New York, Verso, 1994, p. 5.
2. Ibid., p. 34.
3. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, London, Penguin 1999, p. 27. Rorty's definition of pragmatism in this series of lectures entitled "Hope in Place of Knowledge: A Version of Pragmatism" (ibid., pp. 23-92) does not include all of the themes associated with pragmatism.
4. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, London, Penguin 1999, p. 27. Rorty's definition of pragmatism in this series of lectures entitled "Hope in Place of Knowledge: A Version of Pragmatism" (ibid., pp. 23-92) does not include all of the themes associated with pragmatism.
5. Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy?, p. 108.
6. For further comment on this difference, see Paul Patton, "Redescriptive Philosophy: Deleuze and Guattari's Critical Pragmatism" in Patricia Pisters ed., Micropolitics of Media Culture: Reading the Rhizomes of Deleuze and Guattari, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2001, pp. 29-42.
7. Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy?, p. 82.
8. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 78.
9. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans., Brian Massumi, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1987, pp. 22-25.
10. Jacques Derrida, "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority," in Drucilla Cornell et al., eds., Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, London and New York, Routledge, 1992, pp. 8-9.
11. Paul Patton and Terry Smith, eds., Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction Engaged - The Sydney Seminars, Sydney, Power Publications, 2001, p. 100. Similar sentiments are expressed in "Force of Law" at p. 28 where Derrida affirms that "Nothing seems to me less outdated than the classical emancipatory ideal."
12. Paul Patton and Terry Smith, eds., Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction Engaged - The Sydney Seminars, Sydney, Power Publications, 2001, p. 100. Similar sentiments are expressed in "Force of Law" at p. 28 where Derrida affirms that "Nothing seems to me less outdated than the classical emancipatory ideal."
13. Jacques Derrida, "Psyché: Invention of the Other" in Derek Attridge, ed., Acts of Literature, London and New York, Routledge, 1992, pp. 335-336 and p. 337.
14. Jacques Derrida, "Afterword: Toward an Ethic of Discussion" in Limited Inc., Evanston, II, Northwestern University Press, 1988, p. 119.
15. Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy?, pp. 19-20.
16. Michel Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?" in P. Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, New York, Pantheon, 1984, p. 46.
17. Derrida, "Psyché: Invention of the Other," p. 328.
18. Derrida, "Force of Law," p. 16.
19. Patton and Smith, Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction Engaged - The Sydney Seminars, p. 63.
20. Ibid., p. 64.
21. Jacques Derrida, "On Forgiveness," in On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans., Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes, with a preface by Simon Critchley and Richard Kearney, London and New York, Routledge, 2001, pp. 27-60.
22. Derrida also argues, in accordance with Deleuze and Guattari's account of the nature of concepts and his own logic of iterability, that forgiveness is a complex and open-ended concept. It is uncertain whether it applies first to acts or to persons. It is unclear whether is it only the wronged party who can offer forgiveness or whether it can or must involve a third party which intervenes between victim and perpetrator. See Derrida, "On Forgiveness," pp. 42-49.
23. Derrida, "On Forgiveness," p. 39.
24. Ibid. In practice, it is never a question of pure forgiveness since there is always some kind of 'transaction' or exchange involved. In the case of the Australian reconciliation process, the exchange proposed was that of the legitimacy of a nation-state which aspires to be post-colonial in return for some land and perhaps some special rights on the part of the indigenous inhabitants. "It is always the same concern: to see to it that the nation survives its discords, that the traumatisms give way to the work of mourning, and that the Nation-State not be overcome by paralysis." See Derrida, "On Forgiveness," p. 41.
25. Ibid. In practice, it is never a question of pure forgiveness since there is always some kind of 'transaction' or exchange involved. In the case of the Australian reconciliation process, the exchange proposed was that of the legitimacy of a nation-state which aspires to be post-colonial in return for some land and perhaps some special rights on the part of the indigenous inhabitants. "It is always the same concern: to see to it that the nation survives its discords, that the traumatisms give way to the work of mourning, and that the Nation-State not be overcome by paralysis." See Derrida, "On Forgiveness," p. 41.
26. Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, trans., Rachel Bowlby, Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 2000, p. 25.
27. Derrida, "Force of Law" p. 15.
28. Derrida, "On Forgiveness," p. 45.
29. Ibid., p. 26.
30. Ibid., p. 53.
31. Jacques Derrida, "On Cosmopolitanism" in On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans., Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes, with a preface by Simon Critchley and Richard Kearney, London and New York, Routledge, 2001, pp. 22-3. See also Derrida, Of Hospitality, pp. 147-148.
32. Jacques Derrida, "On Cosmopolitanism" in On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans., Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes, with a preface by Simon Critchley and Richard Kearney, London and New York, Routledge, 2001, pp. 22-3. See also Derrida, Of Hospitality, pp. 147-148.
33. Derrida, "On Forgiveness," p. 54.
34. Derrida, "Force of Law," p. 27.
35. Jacques Derrida, 'Politics and Friendship: An Interview with Jacques Derrida' in E. Ann Kaplan and Michael Sprinker, eds., The Althusserian Legacy, London, Verso, 1989, p. 216.
36. Derrida, "Force of Law," p. 27.
37. Richard Rorty, "Universality and Truth" in Robert Brandom, ed., Rorty and His Critics, Oxford, Blackwell, 2000, p. 4.
38. Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy?, p. 110.
39. Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, trans. P. Kamuf, London and N.Y., Routledge, 1994, pp. 64-65. A concept of the pure event does appear in Derrida's early work: for example, he explains the 'enigmatic originality' of every signature by reference to 'the pure reproducibility of the pure event.' See Derrida, "Signature Event Context" in Limited Inc., Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press, 1988, p. 20. In effect, all of the deconstructive a-conceptual concepts might be supposed to refer to pure events, or to variations upon the one pure event of sense or meaning as given by the structure of iteration: writing, the trace, différance, dissemination, metaphoricity and so on.
40. Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, trans. P. Kamuf, London and N.Y., Routledge, 1994, pp. 64-65. A concept of the pure event does appear in Derrida's early work: for example, he explains the 'enigmatic originality' of every signature by reference to 'the pure reproducibility of the pure event.' See Derrida, "Signature Event Context" in Limited Inc., Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press, 1988, p. 20. In effect, all of the deconstructive a-conceptual concepts might be supposed to refer to pure events, or to variations upon the one pure event of sense or meaning as given by the structure of iteration: writing, the trace, différance, dissemination, metaphoricity and so on.
41. Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy?, p. 156.
42. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, London, Athlone 1994, p. 208.
43. Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, trans., Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, ed., C.V. Boundas, New York, Columbia University Press, 1990, p. 1.
44. Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, p. 8. For further discussion of Deleuze's twofold concept of time and its relation to Derrida's concept of time, see Tamsin Lorraine, "Living a Time Out of Joint" in Paul Patton and John Protevi, eds., Between Deleuze and Derrida, London, Continuum, 2003, pp. 30-45.
45. Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, p. 8. For further discussion of Deleuze's twofold concept of time and its relation to Derrida's concept of time, see Tamsin Lorraine, "Living a Time Out of Joint" in Paul Patton and John Protevi, eds., Between Deleuze and Derrida, London, Continuum, 2003, pp. 30-45.
46. Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy?, p. 177 translation modified.
47. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 277.
48. Ibid., p. 280.
49. Ibid., p. 508.
50. Ibid., p. 509.
51. Ibid., p. 56.
52. Ibid., p. 143.
53. Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy?, p. 90.
54. Ibid., p. 159.
55. Ibid., pp. 32-33.