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Ideas of Jacques Derrida, by Text

[French, 1930 - 2005, Born in Algeria.]

1967 Implications
p.5 p.5 Deconstructing philosophy gives the history of concepts, and the repressions behind them
p.7 p.7 The movement of 'différance' is the root of all the oppositional concepts in our language
1967 Of Grammatology
p.23 Derrida focuses on ambiguity, but talks of 'dissemination', not traditional multiple meanings
1968 Semiology and Grammatology
p.26 p.26 Everything that is experienced in consciousness is meaning
1971 Positions
p.40 p.40 I try to analyse certain verbal concepts which block and confuse the dialectical process
p.76 p.76 Deconstruction is not neutral; it intervenes
1980 later work
p.82 A community must consist of singular persons, with nothing in common [Glendinning]
p.89 Can there be democratic friendship without us all becoming identical? [Glendinning]
p.191 Derrida came to believe in the undeconstructability of justice, which cannot be relativised [Critchley]
1982 Différance
p.63 'Différance' is the interwoven history of each sign [Glendinning]
1990 works
p.11 Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [May]
p.16 We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry)
p.23 Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science
p.29 Meanings depend on differences and contrasts
p.48 Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Zimmermann,J]
p.55 Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing
p.55 For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language
p.56 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Glendinning]
p.56 Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name
p.59 Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Engel]
p.60 Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language
p.65 Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also
p.68 Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts
p.70 Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Glendinning]
p.72 Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word
p.73 The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Glendinning]
p.76 The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences
p.79 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important)
p.82 True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing
p.93 Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness
p.96 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description
p.126 The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good
p.137 Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available
p.137 Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Zimmermann,J]
p.146 Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic
p.167 Philosophy is just a linguistic display
p.180 Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning
p.184 Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language