Rigour Without Method: Adorno, Derrida and the Paradox of Philosophical Critique
“I am happy today [...] to be able to say ‘yes’ to my debt to Adorno, in more than one respect.” — Jacques Derrida, Fichus: Frankfurt address 1. The Problem: Rigorous Thinking Without a Method Theodor W. Adorno and Jacques Derrida each make a claim that seems to place their philosophical projects outside the conventional understanding of method. In Negative Dialectics , Adorno describes dialectics as neither a pure method nor a reality understood in a naïve sense, concluding that “It is not a method” (1973, p. 144). Derrida makes an equally explicit statement in Letter to a Japanese Friend : “Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one” (1991, p. 273). These declarations are particularly intriguing because both thinkers develop highly disciplined forms of philosophical inquiry, characterised by close attention to conceptual distinctions, argumentative structures and the difficulties encountered in what they investigate. The apparent tension raises a ...