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When Writing Comes Under Pressure: How Derrida’s Of Grammatology Became Necessary

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“And thus we say ‘writing’ for all that gives rise to an inscription in general, whether it is literal or not and even if what it distributes in space is alien to the order of the voice: cinematography, choreography, of course, but also pictorial, musical, sculptural ‘writing.’ One might also speak of athletic writing, and with even greater certainty of military or political writing in view of the techniques that govern those domains today. All this to describe not only the system of notation secondarily connected with these activities but the essence and the content of these activities themselves. It is also in this sense that the contemporary biologist speaks of writing and pro-gram in relation to the most elementary processes of information within the living cell. And, finally, whether it has essential limits or not, the entire field covered by the cybernetic program will be the field of writing”. — Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology 1. A Problem Before There Was a Book Consi...
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Deconstruction for Deconstruction's Sake?

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Deconstruction. AI image “When you say, ‘ Well, reason is not simply what you thought it was, ’ then people stand up and say, ‘ Well, you are an irrationalist. You are simply threatening reason. ’ No. On the contrary, I think that it's in the name of a new rationalism that deconstruction is necessary”. — Jacques Derrida, Interview with Alan Montefiore in 1992. Introduction — The Cat and the Ritual There is a familiar teaching story about a spiritual leader who had a cat. Whenever he began speaking to his followers, the cat would wander around the room and disturb them. So, before each session, he tied the cat to the leg of a table. Years later, after the teacher had died, his successor continued the practice. He bought a cat, tied it to the table before every lecture, and assumed that this was simply part of the teaching. The story is funny because the gesture has survived, but the reason for it has been forgotten. Something similar can happen with deconstruction. A p...
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When a Concept Can No Longer Stay the Same

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Les rapports associatifs “I would describe deconstruction as a modern rationalism which tries to incorporate new disciplines, new forms of rationality”. — Jacques Derrida, Interview with Alan Montefiore in 1992. 1. The Direction of the Accusation What if the accusation reverses the direction of the argument? In a 1992 interview with Alan Montefiore, Derrida is asked whether deconstruction undermines “the rationality of the subject” and the possibility that a subject might consciously commit itself to a rational project. The accusation seems straightforward: deconstruction questions rationality; therefore, it threatens the very possibility of reason. But Derrida’s response points elsewhere. He does not begin by proposing that rationality should be abandoned. Instead, he asks us to consider what happens to our concepts as knowledge changes. Psychoanalysis, physics, biogenetics, and bioethics, among other fields, have introduced problems that inherited conceptual frameworks ...
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